WILLIAM LE QUEUX: 15 Dystopian Novels & Espionage Thrillers (Illustrated Edition). William Le Queux
was seen that the French attack had been frustrated, and as dawn spread the fighting increased, and the lines became broken. The ponderous guns of the battleships thundered, and ere long the whole of the great naval force was engaged in this final struggle for England's freedom. The three powerful French battleships, Jauréguiberry, Jemappes, and Dévastation, and the submarine torpedo boat Gustave Zédé, fiercely attacked the Brandenburg and the König Wilhelm; while the Camperdown, Anson, Dreadnought, and Warspite fought desperately with half a dozen of the enemy's battleships, all of which suffered considerably. Our torpedo boats, darting swiftly hither and thither, performed much effective service, and many smart manœuvres were carried out by astute officers in command of those wasps of the sea. In one instance a torpedo boat, which had designs upon a Russian ironclad, obtained cover by sending in front of her a gunboat which emitted an immense quantity of dense smoke. This of course obscured from view the torpedo boat under the gunboat's stern, and those on board the Tsar's battleship pounded away at the gunboat, unconscious of the presence of the dangerous little craft. Just as the gunboat got level with the battleship, however, the torpedo boat emerged from the cloud of smoke, and, darting along, ejected its Whitehead with such precision that five minutes later the Russian leviathan sank beneath the dark green waters. Almost at the same moment, the new German dynamite cruiser destroyed a French cruiser, and a fierce and sanguinary encounter took place between the Immortalité and the Tréhouart. The former's pair of 22-tonners, in combination with her ten 6-inch guns, wrought awful havoc on board the French vessel; nevertheless, from the turret of her opponent there came a deadly fire which spread death and destruction through the ship. Suddenly the Frenchman swung round, and with her quick-firing guns shedding a deadly storm of projectiles, came full upon the British vessel. The impact and the angle at which she was struck was not, however, sufficient to ram her, consequently the two vessels became entangled, and amid the rain of bullets the Frenchmen made a desperate attempt to board our ship. A few who managed to spring upon the Immortalité's deck were cut down instantly, but a couple of hundred fully armed men were preparing to make a rush to overpower our bluejackets. On board the British cruiser, however, the enemy's intentions had been divined, and certain precautions taken. The Fusiliers Marins, armed with Lebels and cutlasses, suddenly made a desperate, headlong rush upon the British cruiser's deck, but just as fifty of them gained their goal, a great hose attached to one of the boilers was brought into play, and scalding water poured upon the enemy. This, in addition to some hand charges at that moment thrown, proved successful in repelling the attack; but just as the survivors retreated in disorder there was a dull explosion, and then it was evident, from the confusion on board the French ship, that she had been torpedoed by a German boat, and was sinking.
Humanely, our vessel, the Immortalité rescued the whole of her opponent's men ere she sank; but it was found that in the engagement her captain and half her crew had been killed. On every hand the fight continued with unabated fierceness; every gun was worked to its utmost capacity, and amid the smoke and din every vessel was swept from stem to stern. As morning wore on, the enemy met with one or two successes. Our two new cruisers Terrible and Powerful had been sunk by French torpedoes; the Hood had been rammed by the Amiral Baudin, and gone to the bottom with nearly every soul on board; while the German despatch boat Wacht had been captured, and seven of our torpedo boats had been destroyed. During the progress of the fight, the vessels came gradually nearer Dungeness, and at eleven o'clock they were still firing at each other, with appalling results on either side. At such close quarters did this great battle occur, that the loss of life was awful, and throughout the ships the destruction was widespread and frightful. About noon the enemy experienced two reverses. The French battleship Formidable blew up with a terrific report, filling the air with débris, her magazine having exploded; while just at that moment the Courbet, whose 48-tonners had caused serious damage to the Warspite, was suddenly rammed and sunk by the Empress of India.
This, the decisive battle, was the most vigorously contested naval fight during the whole of the hostilities. The scene was terrible. The steel leviathans of the sea were being rent asunder and pulverised by the terribly destructive modern arms, and amid the roar and crashing of the guns, shells were bursting everywhere, carrying away funnels, fighting tops, and superstructures, and wrecking the crowded spaces between the decks. Turrets and barbettes were torn away, guns dismounted by the enormous shells from heavy guns; steel armour was torn up and thrown aside like paper, and many shots entering broadsides, passed clean through and out at the other side. Whitehead torpedoes, carrying heavy charges of gun-cotton, exploded now and then under the enemy's ships; while both British and French torpedo boat "destroyers," running at the speed of an ordinary train, were sinking or capturing where they could.
Through the dull, gloomy afternoon the battle continued. Time after time our ships met with serious reverses, for the Anson was sunk by the Russian flagship Alexander II., assisted by two French cruisers, and this catastrophe was followed almost immediately by the torpedoing of the new British cruiser Doris, and the capture of the new German dynamite cruiser Trier.
By this time, however, the vessels had approached within three miles of Dungeness, and the Camperdown, Empress of India, Royal Sovereign, Inflexible, and Warspite, lying near one another, fought nine of the enemy's vessels, inflicting upon them terrible punishment. Shots from the 67-tonners of the Empress of India, Royal Sovereign, and Camperdown, combined with those from the 22-tonners of the Warspite, swept the enemy's vessels with devastating effect, and during the three-quarters of an hour that the fight between these vessels lasted, the scene of destruction was appalling. Suddenly, with a brilliant flash and deafening detonation, the Russian flagship Alexander II., one of the vessels now engaging the five British ships, blew up and sank, and ere the enemy could recover from the surprise this disaster caused them, the Camperdown rammed the Amiral Baudin, while the Warspite sank the French cruiser Cécille, the submarine boat Gustave Zédé, and afterwards captured the torpedo gunboat Bombe.
This rapid series of terrible disasters apparently demoralised the enemy. They fought recklessly, and amid the din and confusion two Russian vessels collided, and were so seriously damaged that both settled down, their crews being rescued by British torpedo boats. Immediately afterwards, however, a frightful explosion rent the air with a deafening sound that dwarfed into insignificance the roar of the heavy guns, and the French battleship Jauréguiberry was completely broken into fragments, scarcely any of her hull remaining. The enemy were amazed. A few moments later another explosion occurred, even louder than the first. For a second the French battleship Dévastation, which had been engaging the Royal Sovereign, was obscured by a brilliant flash, then, as fragments of steel and human limbs were precipitated on every side, it was seen that that vessel also had been completely blown out of the water!
The enemy stood appalled. The defenders themselves were at first dumfounded. A few moments later, however, it became known throughout the British ships that the battery at Dungeness, two miles and a half distant, were rendering assistance with the new pneumatic gun, the secret of which the Government had guarded so long and so well. Five years before, this frightfully deadly weapon had been tested, and proved so successful that the one gun made was broken up and the plans preserved with the utmost secrecy in a safe at the War Office. Now, however, several of the weapons had been constructed, and one of them had been placed in the battery at Dungeness. The British vessels drew off to watch the awful effect of the fire from these marvellous and terribly destructive engines of modern warfare. The enemy would not surrender, so time after time the deafening explosions sounded, and time after time the hostile ships were shattered into fragments.
Each shot fired by this new pneumatic gun contained 900 lbs. of dynamite, which could strike effectively at four miles! The result of such a charge exploding on a ship was appalling; the force was terrific, and could not be withstood by the strongest vessel ever constructed. Indeed, the great armoured vessels were