Chapter IV The Menace of the Mines
Hardly had Mark Redisham spoken the challenging words, when he realised that even if Max Hilliger should choose to yield to him the coveted chance of safety, he could not accept it. How could he afterwards forgive himself if he saved his own life at the cost of another’s—even though that other were an enemy of his country?
The instinct of self-preservation was strong within him. He knew that by a turn of the hand he could take possession of the spar which would keep him afloat; he knew, too, that Hilliger was the better swimmer. But he did not hesitate.
“Take it,” he said, pushing the spar from him.
He waited to see Hilliger seize and rest his arms over the support. Then he turned over on his side and struck out, swimming more easily among the waves than he had expected to do in his clothes and heavy boots. He could breathe more freely now, for the stifling fumes from the exploded mine no longer caught at his throat.
Uncertain of his best direction, striving only to keep his head above water, he glanced from side to side. In a ragged cloud of brown smoke and escaping steam he could dimly see the stricken cruiser, now about half a mile away.
She was perilously low in the bows, her afterpart tilted up, the blades of her propellers showing. Yet she did not seem to be sinking deeper. He supposed that her water-tight bulkheads had been promptly closed, that she still might keep afloat for hours.
Turning to see if Max Hilliger were following him, he caught sight of the destroyers rushing to the rescue, in spite of the danger from mines. He had not known that they were so close in the wake of the Atreus. Rodney had told him that they were going off on another job. He wondered if they would be able to save the ship by towing her into shoal water.
The shrill blast of a bugle reached him from the cruiser. As the smoke lifted for a moment he saw a throng of men on her decks, throwing things overboard—booms, hammocks, baulks of timber, crates, wooden gratings—anything that might help in saving life. Her boats appeared to have been smashed by the explosion. Everything beyond the bridge was wrecked—a funnel had fallen, the fire-control platform was down. He could see a gap in the forward turret, from which the great guns had been dislodged.
He thought of the stokers and engineers. None of the crew who had been in the forepart of the vessel when she struck the mine could have had any chance of life. Even as he swam, he passed many gruesome signs of the terrible destruction. He turned abruptly at sight of an uplifted hand and a young seaman’s blood-stained face, which appeared immediately in front of him. He stretched out and caught at the man’s wrist.
“Can I help you, mate?” he panted.
“No use, sonny,” the seaman answered feebly. “Never you mind me. I’ve lost a leg, and I reckon my starboard side’s stove in.”
Mark held on, trying to get his free arm round the man’s body. But he was drawn under, struggling, losing his grip.
When again he rose exhausted to the surface, and began once more to swim for his life, he was himself seized by the shoulder and pushed from behind. He made a spurt to free himself, and his right hand came down upon something solid, at which he grabbed with desperate fingers. It was one of the gratings that had been thrown overboard.
“Hold on to it!”
He heard the words confusedly through the buzzing of the sea water in his ears. He did not recognise the voice as that of his brother. Before he could turn to speak, his rescuer was swimming off again to the help of other possible survivors.
Mark reached over and managed to get a shin against the edge of the grating, pulling himself up until he rested bodily across the support. Thus raised above the surface, clinging with hands and knees, he could look round in search of swimmers who might share his refuge.
A little distance away he saw, and now recognised, his brother Rodney, swimming back to him with a hand under the chin of a wounded midshipman. The boy was brought alongside and lifted to the grating; but Mark Redisham saw that he was already beyond all need of human help.
Rodney clambered upon the raft, and saw what Mark had seen.
“He was one of my pals at Dartmouth,” he said. “Look around and see if there are any others.”
“Max Hilliger is somewhere about,” Mark answered; “but I see no sign of him.”
“I expect he will be picked up,” returned Rodney. “See! There’s one of the destroyers putting out her boats.”
The leading destroyer had meanwhile come close up to the Atreus, and was sending out a hawser, with the intention of getting her in tow by the stern. It was soon obvious, however, that this attempt to save the vessel was useless. She was settling down, the waves washing over her bows, her stern tilted high.
It was clearly time to abandon the ship. The order to do so was given; the men were falling in on her steeply sloping quarter-deck. Boats from the destroyers were pulled alongside, and without hurry or confusion men, officers, and captain left her to her fate.
A boat from the destroyer Levity picked up Rodney and Mark Redisham. Still in their wet clothes, they gave help in attending to the wounded. All of the survivors who were not hurt had been in the afterpart of the ship when she struck the mine. Those who had been below in the stokeholds and seamen’s quarters were killed to the number of a hundred and forty men, apart from some thirty of the German prisoners taken from the Minna von Barnhelm.
Nor was this the end of the disaster. The destroyer’s boats had barely drawn off from the sinking cruiser when she struck a second mine. It exploded the fore magazine. Two of the rescue boats were smashed; wreckage, falling from a great height, struck others, and one of the cruiser’s shells, bursting on the deck of the Levity, killed three men.
When this happened, Mark was giving first-aid to a wounded signal-boy who had been carried below into the temporary cockpit. The shell exploded with a deafening crash just above his head. It seemed as if the stout deck plates were burst asunder. He betrayed no alarm, but went on with his work of attending to the signal-boy, until the surgeon came with his instruments and bandages.
Mark returned on deck, wondering what had happened, and was in time to watch the shattered Atreus taking her final plunge—the third ship which he had seen sent to the bottom of the North Sea on that memorable day!
Captain Damant stood near him, also watching.
“I should not have regretted it so much if she had been sunk in fair fight,” the captain was saying to one of the officers. “This wholesale mine-laying, however, is something unexampled, and contrary to all international law. It is clear, too, that the enemy must have begun the work days before the declaration of war.”
Mark saluted him.
“You wished to see me, sir,” he reminded him.
“Yes,” the captain nodded; “I wanted to know if the Minna von Barnhelm was the only suspicious-looking craft you saw this morning. But it is now obvious that she was not alone. I don’t suppose,” he added, “that you quite realise how important it was that you should give such prompt information.”
“We didn’t save the Atreus, sir,” Mark regretted.
“That is true,” acknowledged Captain Damant, “because, as a matter of fact, we altered our course, and ran into another mine-field. The important thing is that our wireless message was picked up by a squadron of our Dreadnoughts off the Dogger Bank. They were steaming towards the danger. What do you suppose would have been the result if they, as well as we, had run foul of those German mines? It is thanks to you that the Navy has been saved an even greater disaster than the loss of the Atreus. You may be sure I will see that your good services are recognised.”