Part 8 (1/2)

”It's Christmas eve at home,” murmured the young lad after he had said his prayers and tumbled into his narrow berth on the great s.h.i.+p. ”I suppose they're tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the Christmas tree now and hanging up the stockings. I wish I were there.”

He was very young to serve his country, but not too young according to the standards of mankind to be a mids.h.i.+pman on the great steel monster keeping the leaden deep. It was the first time he had ever been away from home on Christmas day, too. The youngsters had all laughed and joked about it in the steerage mess. They had promised themselves some kind of a celebration in the morning, but in his own cot with no one to see, a few tears which he fondly deemed unmanly would come. He had the midnight watch and he knew that he must get some sleep, but it was a long time before he closed his eyes and drifted off to dream of home and his mother.

Athwart that dream came a sudden, frightful, heart-stilling roar of destruction; a hideous crash followed, a terrible rending, breaking, smas.h.i.+ng, concatenation of noises, succeeded by frightful detonations, as through the gaping hole torn in the great battles.h.i.+p by the deadly torpedo, the water rushed upon the heated boilers, the explosion of which in turn ignited the magazines. By that deadly underwater thrust of the enemy the battles.h.i.+p was reduced in a few moments to a disjointed, disorganized, sinking ma.s.s of shapeless, formless, splintered steel.

As the explosions ceased, from every point rose shrieks and groans and cries of men in the death-agony hurled into eternity and torn like the steel. And then the boy heard the surviving officers coolly, resolutely calling the men to their stations.

He had been thrown from his berth by the violence of the explosion. His face was cut and bleeding where he had struck a near-by stanchion. His left arm hung useless. He had lain dazed on the deck for a few moments until he heard the orders of his lieutenant. He was one of the signal mids.h.i.+pmen stationed on the signal bridge. Whatever happened that was the place to which to go; he still had a duty to perform.

Picking himself up as best he could, he hurried to report to the lieutenant. With such means as were available signals were made. Calls for help? Oh, never! Warnings that the enemy's submarines were in the near vicinity and that other s.h.i.+ps should keep away.

The captain was on the half wrecked bridge above. The boy noticed how quiet he was, yet his voice rang over the tumult.

”Steady, men, steady. Keep your stations. Stand by. Be ready.”

The old quartermaster whose business it was to tell the hours saluted the captain.

”Eight bells, sir,” he said, ”midnight. Christmas day,” he added.

”Strike them,” said the captain.

And, as clear as ever, the four couplets rang out over the chaos and the disaster.

”Christmas day,” the boy murmured.

”She's going, men,” said the captain, as the cadences died away. ”Save yourselves. Abandon the s.h.i.+p.”

”Christmas morning,” said the boy. ”I wonder what they're doing at home.”

”Overboard with you, youngster,” said the signal lieutenant; ”I wish I had a life-preserver for you, but--”