Part 15 (1/2)

Sefton shook his head.

”Don't know,” he replied. ”Pills has him in hand. In any case he's got it pretty badly. Well, how goes it?”

”Can't get more'n five knots out of the engines,” replied the engineer-lieutenant. ”Port engine-room reduced to sc.r.a.p. There was three feet of water in the stokeholds, but it's subsiding, thank goodness! Deuce of a mess when the lights went out. Stumbled over a man and banged my head. It feels like a blister on the tyre of a car--liable to burst at any moment, don't you know. The fellow strafed me for treading on him. Asked him what the deuce he was lying there for, since he had wind enough to kick up a row. What do you think he was up to?”

”Can't say,” replied Sefton.

”Plugging a shot-hole with his bare back. Had his shoulder wedged against the gash. He'd been like that for twenty minutes--and he'd lost three fingers of the right hand.”

”You'll have to make a special report,” remarked the sub.

”A special report of every man of my department you mean!” exclaimed Boxspanner enthusiastically. ”By Jove! If you could have seen them----”

The arrival of the doctor cut short the engineer-lieutenant's eulogies.

”Just up for a breather,” gasped Stirling. ”Thought I'd let you know how things are going in my line. A bit stiff our butcher's bill. The skipper's pretty rough. Took a wicked-looking chunk of high-explosive sh.e.l.l out of his forehead. I've had the deuce of a job to stop the flow of arterial blood from a gash in his leg. He'll pull through. He's as hard as nails.”

”That's good,” said Sefton and Boxspanner in one breath.

”Talking of nails,” continued Stirling, ”I've just had a rum case--Thompson, the leading signalman. Took fifty pieces of metal from his hide. The poor wretch couldn't sit down, although the wounds were light. Those strafed Huns had crammed one of their shrapnel-sh.e.l.ls with gramophone needles. Fact! I'm not joking! I suppose they haven't the heart for any more music, so they made us a present of the needles. How much longer to daybreak?”

”About a quarter to three, Greenwich time,” replied Sefton. ”I haven't a watch.”

He did not think it necessary to explain that his wristlet watch had been ripped from its strap by a flying fragment of sh.e.l.l. He was becoming painfully aware of the circ.u.mstance, for every movement of his wrist gave him a sharp pain.

Boxspanner crossed over to the temporary binnacle--one removed from the wreckage of one of the boats--for the destroyer's standard compa.s.s had gone the way of the majority of the deck-fittings, while the gyro-compa.s.s, placed in the safest part of the vessel, had been dismounted by the bursting of a sh.e.l.l.

”It's only a quarter past eleven,” he announced dolorously, as he consulted his watch by the feeble light of the binnacle.

”Rot!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the doctor. ”It was midnight when we went into action.”

The engineer-lieutenant made a second examination. The gla.s.s of the watch had been completely broken; not even a fragment remained. The hands had gone, while across the dial were two cracks in such positions that they had misled Boxspanner into the belief that they were the hands. Yet, on holding the timepiece to his ear and listening intently--for like the rest of the _Calder's_ complement he was temporarily deafened from the result of the violent gun-fire--he found that the watch was still going.

”It's getting light already,” observed Stirling, pointing to a pale-reddish hue in the north-eastern sky. ”Well, I must away. More patching and mending demand my modest attention.”

Slowly the dawn broke, a crimson glow betwixt the dark, scudding ma.s.ses of clouds betokening a continuance of the hard blow, and plenty of it.

With the rising sea the task of the _Calder's_ crew increased tenfold.

Anxiously the horizon was swept in the hope of a friendly vessel being sighted, but the sky-line was unbroken. The tide of battle, if the action were still being maintained, had rolled away beyond sight and hearing of the little band of heroes who so worthily maintained the prestige of the White Ensign.

CHAPTER XIV--Out of the Fight

With the pumps ejecting copious streams of water the damaged _Calder_ held gamely on her way, daylight adding to the horrors of the aftermath of battle. The hull echoed to the clanging of the artificers' hammers and the dull thud of the caulkers' mallets as the undaunted and tireless men proceeded with the work of stopping leaks. On deck steps were being taken to clear away the debris, and to set up a pair of temporary funnels of sufficient height to carry the smoke clear of the side. The sole remaining gun was overhauled and again made fit for action in case of necessity. Although not anxious to fall in with a U boat or a stray Zeppelin, the _Calder's_ crew were determined to take every precaution to keep the tattered ensign still flying from the temporary staff set up aft.

For another hour the destroyer crawled on her long journey towards the cliff-bound sh.o.r.es of Britain. Then Sefton issued an order which was repeated aft and down below. The engines were stopped, the remnants of the crew mustered aft, and the battle-scarred pieces of bunting lowered to half-mast.

The _Calder's_ crew were about to pay their last homage to those of their comrades who had gallantly laid down their lives for king and country.

Fifteen hammock-enshrouded forms lay motionless at the after end of the deck. Bare-headed their messmates stood in silence as Sefton, with a peculiar catch in his usually firm voice, read the prayer appointed for the burial of those at sea. Then into the foam-flecked waves, the bodies of those conquerors even in death were consigned, to find an undisturbed resting-place fathoms deep on the bed of the North Sea.