CHAPTER XXII
DISASTER
About eight o'clock, as the half-wrecked victors and vanquished wereslowly struggling into the half-ruined harbour, five winged shapesbecame visible against the grey sky over Calais, rapidly growing insize, and a few minutes later two more appeared, approaching from thenorth-east. They, alas, were the heralds of a fate against which all thegallantry and skill of Britain's best sailors and soldiers would fightin vain.
The two from the north-east were, of course, the _Flying Fish_ and the_See Adler_; the others were those which had been ordered to load up atthe Calais depot, and complete that victory of the Allied Fleets whichthe science and devotion of British sailors had turned into utterdefeat.
John Castellan, standing in the conning-tower of the _Flying Fish_,looking down over sea and land through his prismatic binoculars,suddenly ground his teeth hard together, and sent a hearty Irish cursehissing between them. He had a complete plan of the operations in hispossession, and knew perfectly what to expect--but what was this?
Dover and its fortifications were in ruins, as they ought to have beenby this time; but the British Flag still floated over them! The harbourwas almost filled with mutilated warships, and others were slowlysteaming towards the two entrances; but every one of these was flyingthe White Ensign of England! There was not a French or German flag to beseen--and there, all along the coast, which should have been in thepossession of the Allies by now, lay the ragged line of helpless hulkswhich would never take the sea again.
What had happened? Where were the splendid fleets which were to havebattered the English defence into impotence? Where was the Reserve,which was to have convoyed the transports across the narrow waters?Where were the transports themselves and the half million men, horsesand artillery which to-day they were to land upon the stricken shores ofKent?
With that marvellous intuition which is so often allied with the Kelticgenius, he saw in a flash all, or something like all, that had reallyhappened as a consequence of the loss of the depot ship at Spithead, andthe venting of his own mad hatred of the Saxon on the three defencelesstowns. The Channel Fleet had come, after all, in time, and defeatedAdmiral Durenne's fleet; the Reserve cruisers had escaped, andPortsmouth had been re-taken!
Would that have happened if he had used the scores of shells which hehad wasted in mere murder and destruction against the ships of theChannel Fleet? It would not, and no one knew it better than he did.
Still, even now there was time to retrieve that ghastly mistake whichhad cost the Allies a good deal more than even he had guessed at. He wasAdmiral of the Aerial Squadrons, and, save under orders fromheadquarters, free to act as he thought fit against the enemy. If hispassion had lost victory he could do nothing less than avenge defeat.
He ran up his telescopic mast and swerved to the southward to meet thesquadron from Calais, flying his admiral's flag, and under it thesignal:
"I wish to speak to you."
The _Flying Fish_ and the _See Adler_ quickened up, and the othersslowed down until they met about two thousand feet above the sea.Castellan ran the _Flying Fish_ alongside the Commodore of the otherSquadron, and in ten minutes he had learned what the other had to tell,and arranged a plan of operations.
Within the next five minutes three of the seven craft had dropped tothe water and disappeared beneath it. The other four, led by the _FlyingFish_, winged their way towards Dover.
The aerial section of the squadron made straight for the harbour. Thesubmarine section made south-westward to cut off the half dozen "lameducks" which were still struggling towards it. With these, unhappily,was the _Scotland_, the huge flagship of the North Sea Squadron, whichstill full of fight, was towing the battleship _Commonwealth_, whoserudder and propellers had been disabled by a torpedo from a Frenchsubmarine.
She was, of course, the first victim selected. Two _Flying Fishes_dived, one under her bows and one under her stern, and each dischargedtwo torpedoes.
No fabric made by human hands could have withstood the shock of the fourexplosions which burst out simultaneously. The sore-stricken leviathanstopped, shuddered and reeled, smitten to death. For a few moments shefloundered and wallowed in the vast masses of foaming water that rose upround her--and when they sank she took a mighty sideward reel andfollowed them.
The rest met their inevitable fate in quick succession, and went downwith their ensigns and pennants flying--to death, but not to defeat ordisgrace.
The ten British submarines which were left from the fight had alreadyput out to try conclusions with the _Flying Fishes_; but a porpoisemight as well have tried to hunt down a northern diver. As soon as each_Flying Fish_ had finished its work of destruction it spread its wingsand leapt into the air--and woe betide the submarine whose periscopeshowed for a moment above the water, for in that moment a torpedo fellon or close to it, and that submarine dived for the last time.
Meanwhile the horrors of the past afternoon and evening were beingrepeated in the crowded harbour, and on shore, until a frightfulcatastrophe befell the remains of the British Fleet.
John Castellan, with two other craft, was examining the forts from aheight of four thousand feet, and dropping a few torpedoes into anywhich did not appear to be completely wrecked. The captain of anotherwas amusing himself by dispersing, in more senses than one, thehelpless, terror-stricken crowds on the cliffs whence they had latelycheered the last of Britain's naval victories, and the rest werecircling over the harbour at a height of three thousand feet, letting gotorpedoes whenever a fair mark presented itself.
Of course the fight, if fight it could be called, was hopeless from thefirst; but your British sailor is not the man to take even a hopelessfight lying down, and so certain gallant but desperate spirits on boardthe _England_, which was lying under what was left of the AdmiraltyPier, got permission to dismount six 3-pounders and remount them as abattery for high-angle fire. The intention, of course, was, as theoriginator of the idea put it: "To bring down a few of those flyingdevils before they could go inland and do more damage there."
The intention was as good as it was unselfish, for the ingenious officerin charge of the battery knew as well as his admiral that the fleet wasdoomed to destruction in detail--but the first volley that battery firedwas the last.
A few of the shells must have hit a French _Flying Fish_, which wascircling above the centre of the harbour, and disabled the wings andpropellors on one side, for she lurched and wobbled for an instant likea bird with a broken wing. Then she swooped downwards in a spiralcourse, falling ever faster and faster, till she struck the deck of the_Britain_.
What happened the next instant no one ever knew. Those who survived saidthat they heard a crashing roar like the firing of a thousand cannontogether; a blinding sheet of flame overspread the harbour; the waterrose into mountains of foam, ships rocked and crashed against eachother--and then came darkness and oblivion.
When human eyes next looked on Dover Harbour there was not a ship in itafloat.
Dover, the great stronghold of the south-east, was now as defenceless asa fishing village, and there was nothing to prevent a constant stream oftransports filled with men and materials of war being poured into it, orany other port along the eastern Kentish coast. Then would come seizureof railway stations and rolling stock, rapid landing of men and horsesand guns, and the beginning of the great advance.
On the whole, John Castellan was well satisfied with his work. Heregretted the loss of his consort; but she had not been wasted. Theremains of the British fleets had gone with her to destruction.
Certainly what had been done had brought nearer the time when he, thereal organiser of victory, the man who had made the conquest of Englandpossible, would be able to claim his double reward--the independence ofIreland, and the girl whom he intended to make the uncrowned Queen ofErin.
It was a splendid and, to him, a delicious dream as well; but betweenhim and its fulfilment, what a chaos of bloodshed, ruin and human miserylay! And yet he felt not a tremor of
compunction or of pity for thethousands of brave men who would be flung dead and mangled and torturedinto the bloody mire of battle, for the countless homes that would beleft desolate, or for the widows and the fatherless whose agony wouldcry to Heaven for justice on him.
No; these things were of no account in his eyes. Ireland must be free,and the girl he had come to love so swiftly, and with such consumingpassion, must be his. Nothing else mattered. Was he not Lord of the Air,and should the desire of his heart be denied him?
Thus mused John Castellan in the conning-tower of the _Flying Fish_, ashe circled slowly above the ruins of Dover, while the man who hadbeaten him in the swimming-race was sitting in the observatory onfar-off Whernside, verifying his night's observations and calculatingfor the hundredth time the moment of the coming of an Invader, comparedwith which all the armed legions of Europe were of no more importancethan a swarm of flies.
When he had satisfied himself that Dover was quite defenceless he sentone of the French _Flying Fishes_ across to Calais with a letter to theDistrict Commander, describing briefly what had taken place, and tellinghim that it would be now quite safe for the transports to cross theStraits and land the troops at Portsmouth, Newhaven, Folkestone, Doverand Ramsgate.
He would station one of his airships over each of these places toprevent any resistance from land or sea, and would himself make ageneral reconnaissance of the military dispositions of the defenders. Headvised that the three _Flying Fishes_, which had been reserved for thedefence of the Kiel Canal, should be telegraphed for as convoys, asthere was now no danger of attack, and that the depot of torpedoes andmotive power for his ships should be transferred from Calais to Dover.
As soon as he had despatched this letter, Castellan ordered two of hisremaining ships to cruise northward to Ramsgate, keeping mainly alongthe track of the railway, one on each side of it, and to wreck the firsttrain they saw approaching Dover, Deal, Sandwich and Ramsgate from thenorth. The other two he ordered to take the Western Coast line as far asPortsmouth, and do the same with trains coming east.
Then he swung the _Flying Fish_ inland, and took a run over Canterbury,Ashford, Maidstone, Tonbridge, Guildford and Winchester, to Southamptonand Portsmouth, returning by Chichester, Horsham and Tunbridge Wells.
It was only a tour of observation for the purpose of discovering themain military dispositions of the defenders--who were now concentratingas rapidly as possible upon Folkestone and Dover--but he found time tostop and drop a torpedo or two into each town or fort that he passedover--just leaving cards, as he said to M'Carthy--as a promise offavours to come.
He also wrecked half a dozen long trains, apparently carrying troops,and incidentally caused a very considerable loss of good lives and muchconfusion, to say nothing of the moral effect which this new andterrible form of attack produced upon the nerves of Mr Thomas Atkins.
When he got back to Dover he found a letter waiting for him from theGeneral informing him that the transports would sail at once, and thathis requests would be complied with.
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