In the Track of the Troops Part 26

Next moment I saw a puff of smoke burst from the side of the Russian ironclad, and a shot leaped towards us. Its size was such that we could trace it from the muzzle of the gun. Describing, as I thought (for strange is the power of thought), a rather high trajectory, it pa.s.sed over us and plunged into the sea with a swish that sent hundreds of tons of water like an inverted cascade into the air. A gush of indignation filled my breast. That the warship of a nation with which we were at peace should fire at us without provocation was more than I could endure.

"Are you going to stand _that_, captain?" I asked, with an uncontrollable gush of indignation at the Russian's audacity.

The captain gave one sardonic laugh, and a shrug of his shoulders, but vouchsafed no reply.

Hearing one of the officers give some order about Whitehead torpedoes, I ran to the room where these monsters were kept. I was just in time to see one lifted on to a species of carriage and wheeled to the side of the ship. Here a powerful air-pump was set to work, and the torpedo's lungs were filled almost to the bursting point. Its deadly head-- brought from the magazine--was at the same time attached to its body.

Another instant and a port was thrown open in the _Thunderer's_ side, through which the Whitehead was launched. It went with a sluggish plunge into the sea. While it was in the act of pa.s.sing out a trigger was touched which set the pneumatic engines agoing. The screw-propelling tail twirled, and the monster, descending ten feet below the surface, sped on its mission. I rushed on deck. The air-bubbles showed me that the engine of destruction had been aimed at the Russian frigate. In a few seconds it had closed with it. I could see that there was terrible consternation on board. Next moment a fountain of foam shot from the deep and partially obscured the frigate.

I saw men leaping overboard and spars falling for a few moments, then the frigate lurched heavily to port and went head foremost to the bottom.

I stood gazing in a species of horrified abstraction, from which I was recalled by some of our men running to the side of the vessel. They were about to lower the steam-launch. It was to be sent out as a torpedo-boat, and young Firebrand, whom I now observed for the first time, took command.

Just then a torpedo-boat was seen to quit the side of the Russian. We were ready for her. Our largest Gatling gun had been hoisted to that platform on our mast which is styled the "top."

When within range this weapon commenced firing. It was absolutely horrible. One man turned a handle at the breech, another kept supplying the self-acting cartridge-box. As the handle was turned the cartridges dropped into their places and exploded. Six or nine tubes, I forget which, were thus made to rain bullets without intermission. They fell on the screen of the advancing torpedo-boat like hail, but quite harmlessly. Then I heard a voice within the fore-turret give a command which sounded like "Extreme depression." It was quickly followed by "Fire!" and the _Thunderer_ quivered from keel to truck under the mighty explosion. The great 38-ton gun had been splendidly served, for the monster ball hit the boat amidships and crushed the bow under water, at the same instant the stern leaped into the air, and she went down with a dive like a Greenland whale.

Hearty cheers burst from the men in the "top." These were echoed with a m.u.f.fled sound from the men shut up in the armoured hull below--for it must be remembered that not a soul had been visible all this time on the _Thunderer_ except the men in the "top" and those who had been sent to lower the steam-launch.

Apparently rendered savage by this event, the Russians let fly a volley from their four great-guns, but without serious result. They had been admirably pointed, however, for the two outer shots. .h.i.t our turrets, deeply indented them, and glanced off, while the inner shots went slap through the flying structure as if it had been made of pasteboard, leaving clean-cut holes, which, of course, only made the place more airy.

Night had now fallen. The danger of attack by torpedo-boats having been recognised, both ironclads had let down their crinolines. But the captain of the _Thunderer_ had resolved on a--a--what shall I call it?-- a "dodge," which would probably deceive the enemy. He had an electric light on board. Every one knows nowadays that this is an intense light, which, being thrown on a given point, illuminates it with a glare equal, almost, to that of day. After dark the captain shot this light from his mast-head straight at the enemy, and in the full glare of it our steam-launch or torpedo-boat was sent out!

I was amazed beyond measure. Forgetting myself for a moment, I exclaimed, "Captain, you are mad!"

As might have been expected, the captain made no reply.

The steam-launch carried two torpedoes, each containing 100 pounds of powder.

"Be careful to sheer off quickly after exploding," said the captain to Firebrand quietly.

Firebrand replied, "Yes, sir," respectfully, but I heard him distinctly add, in a low tone, to himself, "I'll run slap into her and blow her to atoms as well as myself. _Somebody_ must fail in every action. It's a forlorn hope at sea, that's all.--Full steam!" he added aloud to the engineer.

As the boat rushed away in the blaze of the electric light, the captain's _ruse_ suddenly dawned on my mind. The Russian at once saw the boat, and, with naturally nervous haste, knowing the terrible nature of such boats, made preparations to thwart her. Close in the wake of the boat the _Thunderer_ followed with the intent to run the Russian down with her ram, which is a tremendous iron beak projecting, below water, from her bow. The "dodge" was to dazzle the enemy with the electric light, and, while her attention was concentrated on the torpedo-boat, to "ram" her!

"Steady!" said Firebrand, in a deep voice.

Something else was replied by somebody in a deeper voice.

The boat ploughed on its way like a furious hornet.

"Fire!" shouted the Russians.

Instantly, from turret, bulwark, and mast-head leaped livid flames of fire, and the sea was torn up by bullets, while fearful spouts were here and there raised by shots from the heavy guns. Everything was concentrated on the torpedo-boat. It was obvious that the dazzling light at the mast-head of the _Thunderer_ had blinded her adversary as to her own movements.

"Let drive!"

I heard the order of the Russian captain as distinctly as if I had been on board his own ship, and was somewhat surprised at its being given in slang English.

The result was a rain of musketry, which rattled on the iron armour of the launch's protecting screen as the sticks rattle on a kettle-drum.

"Ready!" said Firebrand, with suppressed intensity.

As the boat drew near the Russian small shot was tearing up the sea like a wintry storm. The order having been given, the torpedo-spars were lowered, so that each torpedo sank ten feet under water.

"Fire!" yelled Firebrand.

Electricity was applied, both torpedoes exploded, and the launch sheered off gallantly in cataracts of foam.

At the same moment the Russians observed us not ten yards distant, coming stem on at full speed. Her turret guns were concentrated and fired; so were ours. The crash was indescribably hideous, yet it was as nothing compared with that which followed a few seconds later. Our ram, entering the Russian fairly amidships, cut her almost in two. We backed out instantly, intending to repeat the operation. Well was it for us that we did so. We had just backed a few hundred yards astern, and given the order to go ahead full steam, when the Russian's magazine exploded. Our charge had somehow fired it. Instantly there was a crashing roar as if heaven and earth had met in chaotic conflict. The air was darkened with bursting clouds of blackest smoke, in the midst of which beams, guns, pistons, boilers, armour-plates, human limbs and heads were seen hurling about like the debris of a wrecked universe.

Much of this came down upon our iron deck. The clatter was appalling.

It was a supreme moment! I was standing on the flying structure beside one of the officers. "Glorious!" he muttered, while a pleasant smile played upon his lips. Just then I chanced to look up, and saw one of the Russian fore-turret 85-ton guns falling towards me. It knocked me off the flying structure, and I fell with an agonising yell on the deck below.

"Hallo!" exclaimed a familiar voice, as a man stooped to raise me.

I looked up. It was my hospital-a.s.sistant. I had fallen out of bed!

"You seem to have had a night of it, sir--cheering and shouting to such an extent that I thought of awaking you once or twice, but refrained because of your strict orders to the contrary. Not hurt, I hope?"

"So, then," I said, with a sigh of intense relief, as I proceeded to dress, "the whole affair has been--A DREAM!"

"Ah!" thought I, on pa.s.sing through the hospital for the last time before quitting it, and gazing sadly on the ghastly rows of sick and wounded, "well were it for this unfortunate world if war and all its horrors were but the phantasmagoria of a similar dream."

CHAPTER TWENTY.

TREATS OF WAR AND SOME OF ITS "GLORIOUS" RESULTS.

In process of time I reached the front, and chanced to arrive on the field of action at a somewhat critical moment.

Many skirmishes, and some of the more important actions of the war, had been fought by that time--as I already knew too well from the hosts of wounded men who had pa.s.sed through my hands at Sistova; and now it was my fate to witness another phase of the dreadful "game."

Everywhere as I traversed the land there was evidence of fierce combats and of wanton destruction of property; burning villages, fields of produce trodden in the earth, etcetera. Still further on I encountered long trains of wagons bearing supplies and ammunition to the front. As we advanced these were met by bullock-trains bearing wounded men to the rear. The weather had been bad. The road was almost knee-deep in mud and so cut up by traffic that pools occurred here and there, into which wagons and horses and bullocks stumbled and were got out with the greatest difficulty. The furious lashing of exhausted and struggling cattle was mingled with the curses and cries of brutal drivers, and the heartrending groans of wounded soldiers, who, lying, in many cases with undressed wounds, on the hard, springless, and jolting vehicles, suffered excruciating agony. Many of these, unable to endure their sufferings, died, and thus the living and the dead were in some cases jolted slowly along together. The road on each side was lined with dead animals and men--the latter lying in a state of apparent _rest_, which called forth envious looks from the dying.

But a still sadder spectacle met my eye when, from another road which joined this one, there came a stream of peasantry, old men, women, and children, on foot and in country carts of all kinds, flying from the raging warriors who desolated their villages, and seeking, they knew not where--anywhere--for refuge. Too often they sought in vain. Many of these people had been wounded--even the women and little ones--with bullet, sword, and spear. Some carried a few of their most cherished household articles along with them. Others were only too glad to have got away with life. Here an old man, who looked as if he had been a soldier long before the warriors of to-day were born was gently compelled by a terror-stricken young woman with a wounded neck to lay his trembling old head on her shoulder as they sat on a little straw in the bottom of a native cart. He had reached that venerable period of life when men can barely totter to their doors to enjoy the sunshine, and when beholders regard them with irresistible feelings of tenderness and reverence. War had taught the old man how to stand erect once more--though it was but a spasmodic effort--and his poor fingers were clasped round the hilt of an old cavalry sabre, from which female hands had failed to unclasp them. There, in another cart, lay an old woman, who had been bed-ridden and utterly helpless for many a year, but war had wrought miracles for her. It had taught her once again to use her shrunken limbs, to tumble out of the bed to which she had been so long accustomed, and where she had been so lovingly nursed, and to crawl in a paroxysm of terror to the door, afraid lest she should be forgotten by her children, and left to the tender mercies of Cossack or Bashi-Bazouk.

Needless fear, of course, for these children were only busy outside with a few absolute necessaries, and would sooner have left their own dead and mangled bodies behind than have forgotten "granny"! Elsewhere I saw a young woman, p.r.o.ne on her back in another cart, with the pallor of death on her handsome face, and a tiny little head pressed tenderly to her swelling breast. It was easy to understand that war had taught this young mother to cut short the period of quiet repose which is deemed needful for woman in her circ.u.mstances. Still another cart I must mention, for it contained a singular group. A young man, with a powerfully-made frame, which must once have been robust, but was now terribly reduced by the wasting fires of a deadly fever, was held forcibly down by a middle-aged man, whose resemblance to him revealed his fatherhood. Two women helped the man, yet all three were barely able to restrain the youth, who, in the fury of his delirium, gnashed with his teeth, and struggled like a maniac. I knew nothing about them, but it was not difficult to read the history of one who had reached a critical period in a fell disease, who had, perchance, fallen into a long-desired and much-needed slumber that might have turned the scale in his favour, when the hope of parents and the chances of life were scattered suddenly by the ruthless trump of war. War had taught him how to throw off the sweet lethargy that had been stealing over him, and to start once again on that weary road where he had been grappling in imagination with the brain-created fiends who had persecuted him so long, but who in reality were gentle spirits compared with the human devils by whom he and his kindred were surrounded.

On this journey, too, I met many brethren of the medical profession, who, urged by the double motive of acquiring surgical skill and alleviating human woe, were pressing in the same direction. Some had been fortunate enough, like myself, to obtain horses, others, despising difficulties, were pushing forward through the mud on foot. I need scarcely add that some of us turned aside from time to time, as opportunity offered, to succour the unfortunates around us.

At last I reached the front, went to headquarters, presented my credentials, and was permitted to attach myself to one of the regiments.

At once I made inquiries as to the whereabouts of Nicholas Naranovitsch, and was so fortunate as to find him. He was in the act of mounting his horse as I reached his quarters.

It is impossible to describe the look of surprise and delight with which he greeted me.

"My dear fellow!" said he, turning at once to his girths and stirrups after the first hearty squeeze, "what breeze of good fortune has blown you here? Any news from home?"

"Yes, all well, and a message--by the way, I had almost forgot it,"

fumbling in my pocket, "for you."