CHAPTER XV
THE STRIFE OF GIANTS
As it happened, it was a fine, cold wintry day that dawned as the twogreat fleets drew towards each other. As Denis Castellan said, "It was aperfect jewel of a day for a holy fight," and so it was. The Frenchfleet was advancing at twelve knots. Admiral Beresford made his fifteen,and led the line in the _Britain_. Erskine had been ordered to go to therear of the French line and sink any destroyer or torpedo boat that hecould get hold of, but to let the battleships and cruisers alone, unlesshe saw a British warship hard pressed, in which case he was to ram andsink the enemy if he could.
One division of cruisers, consisting of the fastest and most powerfularmoured vessels, was to make a half-circle two miles in the rear of theFrench Fleet. The ships selected for this service were the _Duke ofEdinburgh_, _Warwick_, _Edward III._, _Cromwell_ and _King Alfred_.Outside them, two miles again to the rear, the _Leviathan_, _Good Hope_,_Powerful_ and _Terrible_, the fastest ships in the Fleet, were to taketheir station to keep off stragglers.
For the benefit of the non-nautical reader, it will be as well toexplain here the two principal formations in which modern fleets go intoaction. As a matter of fact, they are identical with the tacticsemployed by the French and Spanish on the one side and Nelson on theother during the Napoleonic wars. Before Nelson's time, it was thecustom for two hostile fleets to engage each other in column of lineabreast, which means that both fleets formed a double line whichapproached each other within gunshot, and then opened fire.
At Trafalgar, Nelson altered these tactics completely, with results thateverybody knows. The allied French and Spanish fleets came up in acrescent, just in the same formation as Admiral Durenne was advancing onPortsmouth. Nelson took his ships into action in column of line ahead,in other words, in single file, the head of the column aiming for thecentre of the enemy's battle line.
The main advantage of this was, first, that it upset the enemy'scombination, and, secondly, that each ship could engage two, since shecould work both broadsides at once, whereas the enemy could only workone broadside against one ship. These were the tactics which, withcertain modifications made necessary by the increased mobility on bothsides, Lord Beresford adopted.
With one exception, no foreigner had ever seen the new class of Britishflagship, and that exception, as we know, was safely locked up on boardthe _Ithuriel_, and his reports were even now being carefully consideredby the Naval Council.
There are no braver men on land and sea than the officers and crews ofthe French Navy, but when the giant bulk of the _Britain_ loomed up outof the westward in the growing light, gradually gathering way with herstately train of nineteen-knot battleships behind her, and swept down infront of the French line, many a heart stood still for the moment, andmany a man asked himself what the possibilities of such a Colossus ofthe ocean might be.
They had not long to wait. As the British battleships came on from theleft with ever-increasing speed, the whole French line burst into atornado of thunder and flame, but not a shot was fired from the Englishlines. Shells hurtled and screamed through the air, topworks weresmashed into scrap-iron, funnels riddled, and military mastsdemolished; but until the _Britain_ reached the centre of the Frenchline not a British gun spoke.
Then the giant swung suddenly to starboard, and headed for the spacebetween the _Patrie_ and the _Republique_. The _Canada_, _Newfoundland_,_New Zealand_ and _Hindustan_ put on speed, passed under her stern, andheaded in between the _Suffren_, _Liberte_, _Verite_ and _Patrie_, whilethe _Edward VII._, _Dominion_ and _Commonwealth_ turned between the_Justice_, _Democratie_, the _Aube_ and _Marseillaise_.
Within a thousand yards the British battleships opened fire. The firstgun from the _Britain_ was a signal which turned them all into so manyfloating volcanoes. The _Britain_ herself ran between the _Patrie_ andthe _Republique_, vomiting storms of shell, first ahead, then on thebroadside and then astern. Her topworks were of course crumpled out ofall shape--that was expected, for the range was now only about fivehundred yards--but the incessant storm of thousand-pound shells from thefourteen-inch guns, followed by an unceasing hail of three hundred andfifty pound projectiles from the 9.2 quick-firers, reduced the twoFrench battleships to little better than wrecks. The _Britain_ steamedthrough and turned, and again the awful hurricane burst out from hersides and bow and stern. She swung round again, but now only a fewdropping shots greeted her from the crippled Frenchmen.
"I don't think those chaps have much more fight left in them," said theAdmiral to the Captain as they passed through the line for the thirdtime. "We'll just give them one more dose, and then see how the otherfellows are getting on."
Once more the monster swept in between the doomed ships; once more herterrible artillery roared. Two torpedo boats, five hundred yards ahead,were rushing towards her. A grey shape rose out of the water, flingingup clouds of spray and foam, and in a moment they were ground down intothe water and sunk. The hastily-fired torpedoes diverged and struck thetwo French battleships instead of the _Britain_. Two mountains of foamrose up under their sterns, their bows went down and rose again, andwith a sternward lurch they slid down into the depths.
The _Britain_ swung round to port, and poured a broadside into the_Liberte_, which had just crippled the _Hindustan_, and sunk her with atorpedo. The _New Zealand_ was evidently in difficulties between the_Liberte_ and the _Verite_. Her upper works were a mass of ruins, butshe was still blazing away merrily with her primary battery. The Admiralslowed down to ten knots, and got between the two French battleships;then her big guns began to vomit destruction again, and in five minutesthe two French battleships, caught in the triangular fire and terriblymauled, hauled their flags down, and so Lord Beresford's scheme wasaccomplished. The _Dominion_ and _Edward VII._ had got between theirships at the expense of a severe handling, and were giving a very goodaccount of them, and the _Canada_ had sunk the _Suffren_ with a luckyshell which exploded in her forward torpedo room and blew her side out.
It was broad daylight by this time, and it was perfectly plain, both tofriend and foe, that the French centre could no longer be counted uponas a fighting force. One of the circumstances which came home hardestafterwards to the survivors of the French force was the fact that, asfar as they knew, not a single British battleship or cruiser had beenstruck by a French destroyer or torpedo boat. The reason for this wasthe very simple fact that Erskine had taken these craft under hischarge, and, while the big ships had been thundering away at each other,he had devoted himself to the congenial sport of smashing up the smallerfry. He sent the _Ithuriel_ flying hither and thither at full speed,tearing them into scrap-iron and sending them to the bottom, as if theyhad been so many penny steamers. He could have sent the battleships tothe bottom with equal ease, but orders were orders, and he respectedthem until his chance came.
The _Verite_ was now the least injured of the French battleships. Tolook at she was merely a floating mass of ruins, but her engines wereintact, and her primary battery as good as ever. Her captain, like thehero that he was, determined to risk his ship and everything in her inthe hope of destroying the monster which had wrought such frightfulhavoc along the line. She carried two twelve-inch guns ahead, a 6.4 oneach side of the barbette, and four pairs of 6.4 guns behind these, andthe fire of all of them was concentrated ahead.
As the _Britain_ came round for the third time every one of the guns waslaid upon her. He called to the engine-room for the utmost speed hecould have, and at nineteen knots he bore down upon the leviathan. Thehuge guns on the _Britain_ swung round, and a tempest of shells sweptthe _Verite_ from end to end. Her armour was gashed and torn as thoughit had been cardboard instead of six-and eleven-inch steel; but stillshe held on her course. At five hundred yards her guns spoke, and thesplinters began to fly on board the _Britain_. The Captain of the_Verite_ signalled for the last ounce of steam he could have--he wasgoing to appeal to the last resort in naval warfare--the ram. If hecould once get that steel spur of his into the _Britain's_ hull und
erher armour, she would go down as certainly as though she had been afirst-class cruiser.
When the approaching vessels were a little more than five hundred yardsapart, the _Ithuriel_, who had settled up with all the destroyers andtorpedo boats she could find, rose to the north of the now broken Frenchline. Erskine took in the situation at a glance. He snatched thereceiver from the hooks, shouted into it:
"Sink--full speed--ram!"
The _Ithuriel_ dived and sprang forward, and when the ram of the_Verite_ was within a hundred yards of the side of the _Britain_ his ownram smashed through her stern, cracked both the propeller shafts, andtore away her rudder as if it had been a piece of paper. She stoppedand yawed, broadside on to the _Britain_. The chases of the great gunsswung round in ominous threatening silence, but before they could befired the Tricolor fluttered down from the flagstaff, and the _Verite_,helpless for all fighting purposes, had surrendered.
It was now the turn of the big armoured cruisers. They were practicallyuntouched, for the heaviest of the fighting had fallen on thebattleships. A green rocket went up from the deck of the _Britain_, andwas followed in about ten seconds by a blue one. The inner line ofcruisers made a quarter turn to port, and began hammering into thecrippled battleships and cruisers indiscriminately, while the_Leviathan_, _Good Hope_, _Powerful_ and _Terrible_ took stationsbetween the Isle of Wight and the Sussex coast.
The _Ithuriel_ rose to her three-foot freeboard, and put in some verypretty practice with her pneumatic guns on the topworks of the cruisers.The six-funnelled _Jeanne d'Arc_ got tired of this, and made a rush ather at her full speed of twenty-three knots, with the result that the_Ithuriel_ disappeared, and three minutes afterwards there came a shockunder the great cruiser's stern which sent a shudder through her wholefabric. The engines whirled furiously until they stopped, and a coupleof minutes later her captain recognised that she could neither steam norsteer. Meanwhile, the tide was setting strongly in towards Spithead, andthe disabled ships were drifting with it, either to capture ordestruction.
The French centre had now, to all intents and purposes, ceased to exist.Four out of six battleships were sunk, and one had surrendered, and the_Jeanne d'Arc_ had gone down.
On the British side the _Hindustan_ had been sunk, and the _Dominion_,_Commonwealth_ and _Newfoundland_ very badly mauled, so badly indeedthat it was a matter of dry-dock as quickly as possible for them. Allthe other battleships, including even the _Britain_ herself, werelittle better than wrecks to look at, so terrible had been thefirestorms through which they had passed.
But for the presence of the _Ithuriel_, the British loss would of coursehave been much greater. It is not too much to say that her achievementsspread terror and panic among the French torpedo flotilla. Underordinary circumstances they would have taken advantage of the confusionof the battleship action to attack the line of armoured cruisers behind,but between the two lines there was the ever-present destroying angel,as they came to call her, with her silent deadly guns, her unparalleledspeed, and her terrible ram. No sooner did a destroyer or torpedo boatattempt to make for a cruiser, than a shell came hissing along thewater, and blew the middle out of her, or the ram crashed through hersides, and sent her in two pieces to the bottom.
The result was that when the last French cruiser had hauled down herflag, Admiral Beresford found himself in command of a fleet which wasstill in being. Of the French battleships the _Justice_ and the_Democratie_ were still serviceable, and of the cruisers, the _JulesFerry_, _Leon Gambetta_, _Victor Hugo_, _Aube_ and _Marseillaise_ werestill in excellent fighting trim, although of course they were in noposition to continue the struggle against the now overwhelming force ofBritish battleships and armoured cruisers. This was what AdmiralBeresford had fought for: to break the centre and put as manybattleships as possible out of action. His orders had been to spare thecruisers as much as possible, because, he said, with a somewhat grimlaugh, they might be useful later on.
The idea of their escaping to sea through the double line of Britishcruisers, to say nothing of the _Ithuriel_, with her speed of over fiftymiles an hour, and her ability to ram them in detail before they werehalfway across the Channel, was entirely out of the question. To haveattempted such a thing would have been simply a form of collectivesuicide, so the flags were hauled down, and all that was left of thefleet surrendered.
Another circumstance which had placed the French fleet at a tremendousdisadvantage was the absence of the three _Flying Fishes_, which were tohave co-operated with the invading fleet, but of course neither AdmiralDurenne, who had gone down with his ship, nor any other of his officersknew that the _Banshee_ had been blown up in mid-air, or that the_Ithuriel_ had destroyed the depot ship, and so forced Castellan, afterhis mad waste of ammunition in the destruction of Portsmouth, to winghis way to Kiel, with the _See Adler_, in order to replenish hismagazines. Had those two amphibious craft been present at the battle,the issue might have been something very different.
The whole fight had only taken a couple of hours from the firing of thefirst shot to the hauling down of the last flag. Admiral Beresford madedirect for Portsmouth to get his lame ducks into dock if possible, andto discover the amount of damage done. As they steamed in through theSpithead Forts, flags went up all along the northern shore of the Isleof Wight, and the guns on the Spithead Forts and Fort Monckton, whichthe _Banshee_ had been commissioned to destroy, roared out a salute ofwelcome.
The signal masts of the sunk battleships showed where their shatteredhulls were lying, and as the _Britain_ led the way in between them, LordBeresford rubbed his hands across his eyes, and said to his Commodore,who was standing on what was left of the navigating bridge:
"Poor fellows, it was hardly fair fighting. We might have had somethingvery like those infernal craft if we'd had men of decent brains at theWar Office. Same old story--anything new must be wrong in Pall Mall.Still we've got something of our own back this morning. I hope we shallbe able to use some of the docks; if I'm not afraid our lame ducks willhave to crawl round to Devonport as best they can. The man in command ofthose airships must have been a perfect devil to destroy a defencelesstown in this fashion. The worst of it is that if they can do this sortof thing here they can do it just as easily to London or Liverpool, orManchester or any other city. I hope there won't be any more bad newswhen we get ashore."
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