Chapter XXI The Raiders
Whether Seligmann’s wireless messages had anything to do with the matter or not can only be conjectured. But it is true that at earliest dawn on that same misty, November morning the fishermen of the Haddisport herring fleet, at work with their drift nets south of the Dogger Bank, were surprised by the sudden appearance in their midst of a squadron of eight grey-hulled Dreadnoughts and cruisers, bearing due westward at breakneck speed.
Looming out of the mist, they tore onward through the nets, regardless of the damage they caused. They showed no lights, even from their cabin portholes; they flew no flags.
One of the skippers, watching them, was so sure that they were British battleships that he waved his morning teapot at them in greeting; but some of the Englishmen shook their heads in doubt. There were peculiarities in the structure of the ships which were not familiar.
They passed so close to the Mignonette that Sam Quester, perched on the roof of the cuddy scuttle, saw the faces of the officers on bridge and quarterdeck, and was able afterwards to assert that he was almost sure one of the officers on the leading Dreadnought was Max Hilliger’s father.
By the time they had passed out of sight into the mist the fishermen had come to the correct conclusion that the squadron was a part of the German High Sea Fleet. But what was their purpose? Where were they going at such a headlong rate? And where in the meantime was the British Fleet?
Twenty miles farther to the westward the Germans were again seen, flying the White Ensign, this time by a patrol of English mine-sweepers, which immediately sent out a wireless message of warning. The enemy flagship tried to jam the message. Nevertheless it was picked up by His Majesty’s torpedo gunboat Kingfisher, lying at anchor in Buremouth Roads. The Kingfisher sent the warning onward, to be repeated and repeated north and south about the sea.
How did it happen that the Germans knew so well that on this particular morning they were in no danger of being intercepted by British cruisers? Had this been the secret of Fritz Seligmann’s activity that night?
The wireless message from the Kingfisher reached the naval bases of Buremouth and Haddisport. Off Buremouth two destroyers were at anchor. They at once got up steam and pushed out in the wake of the gunboat. At Haddisport there was a submarine—the H29. She was ordered to follow. But where was her commander, Lieutenant Ingoldsby?
By the merest chance, Mark Redisham heard the question asked. He had come to the naval base to report the arrest of Fritz Seligmann, using Seligmann’s car, which he had left at the pier-head. Constable Challis had told him that Lieutenant Ingoldsby had gone with Mrs. Daplin-Gennery to Floxley Hall, outside Buremouth.
Mark gave the information to Mr. Bilverstone, who telephoned to Green Croft and got a prompt answer. Mrs. Daplin-Gennery had just returned; but had left her nephew at the bedside of his wounded friend.
“All right, sir,” said Mark, “I’ll go and fetch him.”
It was a journey of nineteen miles there and back, but Seligmann’s car was a powerful one, well supplied with petrol, and Mark Redisham was an expert and cautious driver. He posted off to Floxley Hall at top speed.
Meanwhile, the enemy Dreadnoughts and cruisers were still being watched from the decks of the patrolling trawlers. They were racing towards the English coast, their tall funnels belching black clouds of smoke, their officers and men all at their fighting quarters, their heavy guns loaded, their torpedo-tubes charged.
“They look as if they was skelterin’ away from an enemy,” observed one of the English skippers. “But hold hard! They’ll go slap into our mine-field, sure’s a gun, the course they’re makin’. Taren’t possible they can hit the open lane.”
A field of defensive contact mines had been laid for the protection of the coast, with secret gaps or passages which were supposed to be known only to naval men and responsible pilots. It was clear, however, that the Germans were well aware, not only of the exact locality of the mined area, but also of the open lanes through which they might pass in safety, for without slackening speed the ships rushed through in an unbroken procession, never swerving until they came within sight of the Alderwick lightship.
Here they separated into two divisions, the one steering direct for Buremouth, the other for Haddisport.
The Kingfisher, steaming out to inquire into the truth of the wireless message she had received, made her presence known by flashing her searchlight through the gloom of the early morning mist. The enemy flagship, bearing west-by-south, instead of answering the signal, opened fire upon the British gunboat, at the same time showing the German flag in place of the White Ensign.
Confronted by so formidable an antagonist, the little Kingfisher, with her smaller four-inch guns, could not attempt to engage. She fired seven shots, which all dropped short, while shells were falling all round her. One struck her foremast and smashed her aerials, another exploded under her bridge, fatally injuring a seaman at her steering-wheel and cutting the compass in half.
The two destroyers raced up to her help, making as much smoke as possible to hide her. All three, hopelessly outranged, could only steam about in a zig-zag course at their fullest speed and at length take refuge in the mist.
The battleships did not follow in pursuit. It was not their intention to enter into a sea fight, if one could be avoided. Theirs was the sinister purpose of bombarding defenceless towns and spreading “frightfulness” amongst unoffending civilians.
While one division of the squadron branched off to pour their devastating shells into the houses of Buremouth, the other steamed abreast of Alderwick Shoal, and from the security of the deep water sent salvo after salvo into the buildings of Haddisport.
From the bridge of the flagship Heinrich Hilliger bent his binoculars upon his own house to seek for a signal which he failed to discover, or, rather, which was never displayed, his faithful secretary being at the time securely confined within the narrow walls of a prisoner’s cell in Haddisport police-station.
Not finding the expected signal, Herr Hilliger transferred his attention to the business in hand, indicating the particular houses and buildings at which he desired the gunlayers to take especial aim: first, Green Croft, associated in his mind with the mischievous submarine commander, Lieutenant Ingoldsby, whose torpedoes had robbed the Kaiser’s High Sea Fleet of at least two important ships; and then in turn the lighthouse, the parish church, the town hall, the chief hotels, the harbour, and finally the naval base, with its wireless station and battery of guns.
Mark Redisham and Lieutenant Ingoldsby, tearing in their motor-car along the deserted highroad, had heard the booming of heavy guns out at sea. The alarming sounds drew nearer and nearer, from two directions.
“They’re bombarding Buremouth as well as Haddisport, sir,” Mark declared, leaning forward to increase his speed.
“Faster! faster!” cried Ingoldsby. “Give her all she can do. Let her rip. But keep your head—keep cool—keep a sharp look-out!”
Mark had no need to be urged or cautioned. He had perfect control of the machine; he knew every turn and curve, every dip and rise of the road. The telegraph poles flashed by as if they had been park railings set side by side, and there was no traffic to interfere with his onward, headlong pace.
As they left Alderwick village behind, and dashed along the open highway across the moorland, the first shell from the German battleships shrieked over their heads; a second crashed into one of the houses on the esplanade; another laid the lighthouse in ruins.
In the town shells were falling thick and fast, exploding with deafening noise. In the market-place a big hotel was on fire, and the car was checked by a crowd of excited people; but Mark made his way through, sounding his hooter, and arrived without hurt at the harbour, where the submarine was waiting ready for her commander to jump aboard.
The bombardment lasted some thirty minutes. The ships, dimly visible through the mist and smoke, steamed southward abreast of the town, firing their eleven-inch shells from starboard. Then they returned and repeated the manoeuvre, firing from their port sides and ending where they had begun. It was not safe for them to continue any longer, since every moment added to the danger of their retreat being cut off by a squadron of British Dreadnoughts racing towards them in response to urgent wireless messages.
Favoured by the fog, they took to flight, the battleships leading in order to give the smaller cruisers in the rear the opportunity of dropping some hundreds of explosive mines in their wake.
Already submarine H29, with Lieutenant Ingoldsby at his post in the conning-tower, had entered into pursuit, making for the gap in the British mine-field through which alone the enemy ships could pass. But he had not counted on their hasty retreat or calculated the speed of their flight.
As they crossed in advance of him, not seeing his periscope, he fired his two bow torpedoes, and missed. He got astern of them and fired two more. But just as the missiles left their tubes there was an ominous crash and a fierce explosion.
The submarine had run up against one of the Germans’ floating mines, which broke her like an egg, and the H29 and all who were in her sank to their last resting-place at the bottom of the North Sea.