Rounding up the Raider Part 33

Denbigh, gripping the bridge rail, felt himself borne backwards by the furious rush of air. Temporarily blinded by the vividness of the flash, he was dimly aware of a series of crashes above and below him.

The stanchion rails snapped off short. In vain the sub strove to regain his balance; he subsided heavily against the side of the chart-room, stunned by the terrific thunder-clap that followed the explosion.

Intense darkness succeeded the vivid brightness of the prolonged flash.

The searchlights of the _Crustacean_ had failed.

Slowly Denbigh sat up. He became aware that debris was littering the partly wrecked bridge. In vain he tried to pierce the darkness and discern the whereabouts of his companions. A hot, pungent smoke drifted past, causing him to splutter almost to suffocation.

Someone tripped across his legs. It was Stirling emerging from the conning-tower. He recognized the sub's very forcible language.

"Hold on," cautioned Denbigh, "or you'll be overboard. The bridge has gone to blazes."

As he spoke the _Crustacean_ shuddered. Her bows rose slightly. With her hull still quivering under the pulsations of her engines she had run aground on a mud-bank on the port-hand side of the river.

Treading warily Stirling groped till he found the engine-room telegraph. Guessing the position of the lever he ordered "Stop". In the pitch-dark engine-room, for every electric lamp in the ship had been shattered, the artificers, facing death amidst the whirring machinery, succeeded in carrying out his orders.

Through the darkness came muttered exclamations and partly stifled groans. Down-stream the _Paradox's_ siren, for want of better means of communication, was wailing in long and short blasts.

"I have brought up to starboard," was the message. "You may feel your way past me."

"There's no may about it," thought Stirling grimly; then, leaning on the twisted bridge rails, he shouted in stentorian tones: "The hands will fall in on the port side of superstructure facing outboard.

Bugler!"

"Sir!" replied a boyish voice through the impenetrable gloom--a voice without a tremor save of excitement.

"Sound the 'Still'."

A silence brooded over the stricken monitor. Even the wounded forbore to groan. Then someone appeared from the superstructure bearing a couple of "battle lanterns". Lights, too, began to glimmer through the hatchways, while with admirable promptness the electrical staff set to work to renew the carbons of the searchlights and to test the circuits of the internal lighting system.

Already the wounded were being carried below by their messmates. Four scorched and maimed forms lay motionless on the low fo'c'sle. There was no need to bestow medical attention upon them.

By this time Denbigh was aware that besides Stirling and himself only three persons remained on the bridge. Neither of them was O'Hara. Nor could he find the mate of the _Myra_, who on the first alarm had hurried with the others to the bridge.

The sub made his way to the ladder. Two steps did he descend, then his foot encountered nothingness. The rest of the ladder had been swept out of existence.

Grasping the still intact handrail Denbigh lowered himself to the superstructure. Almost the first man he met was Armstrong, who was mopping his cheek with a blood-stained handkerchief.

"It's nothing," replied the mate in answer to Denbigh's enquiry.

"Didn't discover until I went below."

"Seen anything of O'Hara?" asked the sub anxiously.

"Yes, I've just carried him below, and I was on my way back to look for you."

"Thanks," said Denbigh briefly. "And what's happened to O'Hara?"

"Only shaken, I believe. He was blown off the bridge with the signal locker for company. They both fetched up against a splinter screen.

O'Hara swears it isn't much, but I have my doubts."

The two officers made their way across heaps of debris to the diminutive ward-room. Here lying on a cushion on the floor was O'Hara.

He turned to smile as Denbigh entered but the attempt was a dismal failure. His face was drawn and grey in spite of his tanned complexion.

"My leg feels a bit queer," he said in answer to his chum's enquiry.

"No, don't bother about the doctor. He's got quite enough to do. I say, old man, von Riesser's giving us a run for our money, isn't he?"

O'Hara's sentiments were almost identical with those of the rest of the ship's company. Not a word was said concerning the treachery of the kapitan of the _Pelikan_, whose method of handing over his ship was far from being in accordance with the terms of the capitulation. The fact that von Riesser had outwitted them certainly gave them food for reflection, but the unanimous conclusion was that the fun was by no means over.

The falling tide left the _Crustacean_ hard and fast aground on the slimy mud. With daylight the actual state of affairs could be discerned.

A quarter of a mile up-stream lay the remains of the much-sought-for raider. Only a few bent and buckled ribs and plates showing just above the water's edge marked the spot whence the devastating explosion had emanated. One of her funnels, looking like a distended concertina, had been hurled ash.o.r.e and had lodged against a clump of palm trees. The mud-flats and the adjoining banks were littered with fragments of metal twisted into weird and fantastic shapes.

Down-stream lay the _Paradox_, now swinging to the young flood. The bore was not now in evidence, since it was the period of neap-tides, and the alteration in the direction of the tidal stream was scarcely perceptible.

The _Paradox_ had come off comparatively lightly. To all outward appearances she was intact, with the exception of her wireless gear, the wreckage of which was already being cleared away. Beyond a certain amount of breakage of gla.s.s and half a dozen of her crew sustaining slight wounds, the damage done was not in proportion to the danger to which she had been exposed.

The _Crustacean_ had suffered severely. Her fire-control platform and wireless gear had been swept out of existence. There were four deep gashes in her funnel, which was only kept in position by the chain guys. One half of the bridge had vanished; the remaining portion resembled a sc.r.a.p-iron heap.

Her boats had been badly shattered save one, and that exception was the sea-boat, which was on her way back to the monitor when the explosion took place and escaped injury. Every bit of steel work exposed to the destroyed ship was pitted and blistered, while a heavy ma.s.s of plating from the _Pelikan_ had embedded itself in the monitor's quarterdeck.

Below the water-line she was undamaged. On taking soundings in her well no abnormal quant.i.ty of water was found. With the a.s.sistance of the _Paradox_ it would be a comparatively easy matter to release her from her mud berth at high water.

But other work was imminent. Every minute Kapitan von Riesser and the remainder of the _Pelikan's_ crew were increasing the distance between them and their foes. Without delay steps had to be taken to bring the treacherous Germans to bay.

CHAPTER XXIV

The Landing-Party

No one could accuse Captain Holloway of tardiness. He had the reputation of being an alert and promising officer, and on this occasion he excelled himself. Within an hour after sunrise the landing-party from the flotilla was on its way to tackle the remnants of the _Pelikan's_ crew; for almost as soon as the raider had been swept out of existence the British senior officer was drawing up his orders that the unexpected turn of events had necessitated.

Towed by the two steamboats of the _Simplicita_, four cutters from the _Paradox_, _Eureka_, and the seaplane parent ship set off up the river.

Into the boats were packed one hundred and twenty officers and men drawn from each vessel of the little squadron. Each boat carried a quick-firer in the bows and a Maxim, in addition to stores sufficient to last a week or ten days.

The expedition was under the orders of Lieutenant-commander Bourne, while amongst the officers was Sub-lieutenant Frank Denbigh, with Armstrong in charge of stores. Much to his disgust Pat O'Hara found himself "turned down" by the Princ.i.p.al Medical Officer; the former's a.s.surances that his ankle would improve with a little exercise being brushed aside by the latter, who knew perfectly well that days would elapse before the Irishman could set foot upon the _Crustacean's_ deck, let alone the crowded stern-sheets of an armed cutter.

Before the boats were out of sight of the still stranded _Crustacean_ two sea-planes ascended and flew swiftly inland. Without their aid the landing-party would be literally groping for their foes, since it was not known whether von Riesser and his men had taken to their boats or had set out through the mangroves towards the gra.s.s-grown hinterland.

Denbigh having more knowledge of the Mohoro River than any of the other officers--and his knowledge was limited to a stretch of less than ten miles--was navigating officer in charge of the leading steamboat.

While the other officers were sweeping the mudflat fringed banks with their gla.s.ses Denbigh directed his attention towards the turgid channel.

Presently a line of bobbing objects caught his vision. Ordering the leading stoker to ease down the engines he signalled by means of hand-flags to the steamboat astern to likewise reduce speed.

The objects that had attracted his attention were the barrels forming the boom across the river almost abreast of the wrecked torpedo-station. The _Pelikan_, he knew, had been moored above the obstruction. She had drifted down past them before she took fire and blew up. Unless the boom had been temporarily removed and afterwards replaced he could not understand how the raider could have descended with the ebb-tide without sweeping the line of barrels away.

"What's wrong?" enquired Bourne.