In the Track of the Troops, R. M. Ballantyne [best pdf ebook reader TXT] 📗

before reaching the enemy, and it was while they were in the midst of their voyage that I chanced to meet them, clinging to my hen-coop. They came so straight at me that I was on the point of being run down by the leading boat, when I gave a sharp “halloo!”

It was replied to by one that indicated surprise, and was decidedly English in tone. Next moment the launch scraped violently against my raft, and I saw a hand extended. Grasping it, I was drawn quickly into the boat. Another hand instantly covered my mouth, and I was thrust down into the bottom of the boat with considerable violence. Being allowed to raise myself a little, the chink of a dark lantern was opened, and the light streamed full upon me. It at the same time lighted up several faces, the inquiring eyes of which gazed at me intently. A stern voice demanded who I was.

Just then a gleam of light fell on a countenance which gazed at me with open-mouthed and open-eyed amazement. It was that of Nicholas Naranovitsch! I was just going to answer, when the sight of him struck me dumb.

Nicholas touched the officer who had questioned me on the shoulder, and whispered in his ear. He at once closed the lantern, leaving us all in total darkness, while Nicholas caught me by the arm, and, making me sit down on a box of some kind beside him, gave vent to his surprise in hurried, broken whispers.

A short time sufficed to explain how it was that I came to be there. Then he began to tell me about his being sent on a secret expedition, and his having obtained leave to join in this midnight attack by torpedo-boats, when a low stern order to be silent compelled him to stop.

From that moment he and I remained perfectly quiet and observant.

After an hour’s steaming the Russian launches came to the immediate neighbourhood of the enemy’s flotilla, and the engines were slowed.

Each boat was armed with two torpedoes attached to the end of two long spars, which moved on pivots, and could also be dipped so that the torpedoes should be sunk ten feet under water at any moment. These torpedoes—each being about twenty inches long, by about fifteen in diameter—had a double action. They could be fired by “contact,” or, in the event of that failing, by electricity. The latter mode could be accomplished by an electric battery in a little box in the stern of each boat, with which a long cable, a quarter of an inch thick, of fine wires twisted together, connected each torpedo.

All this, of course, I learned afterwards. At the time, sitting in almost total darkness, I knew nothing more than that we were bound on a torpedo expedition. I could scarcely persuade myself that it was not a dream, but my numbed frame and drenched garments were too real to be doubted, and then I fancied it must be a special judgment to punish me for the part I had taken in the improvement of these terrible implements of war.

Despite the slowing of the engines, and the dead silence that prevailed, the boats were observed by the Turkish sentinels as we approached.

“Who goes there?” was demanded in the Turkish language.

The launch in which I sat was the first to approach, but the officer in command took no notice and made no reply.

Again the sentinel challenged—perhaps doubting whether in the darkness his eyes had not deceived him as well as his ears. Still no answer was given.

The darkness was not now quite so intense, and it was evident that longer concealment was impossible; when, therefore, the challenge was given a third time, our Russian commander replied, and I thought I observed a grim smile on his countenance as he said in Turkish, “Friends!”

The sentinel, however, seeing that we continued to advance, expressed his disbelief in our friendship by firing at us.

Then there began an uproar the like of which I had never before conceived. Being very near the Turkish monitor at the time, we distinctly heard the clattering of feet, the shout and rush of sailors, and the hurried commands to prepare for action. There was no lack of promptitude or energy on board the vessel. There was some lack of care or discipline, however, for I heard the order for the bow gun to be fired given three times, and heard the click of the answering hammer three times in little more than as many seconds, betokening a determined miss-fire. But if the bow gun had gone off, and sent one of us to the bottom, there would still have been three boats left to seal the vessel’s fate.

At the fourth order a globe of flame leaped from the iron side of the monitor and a heavy shot went harmlessly over our heads. Shouts and lights in the other vessels showed that the entire flotilla was aroused.

I observed that the launch next to ours drew off and we advanced alone, while the other two remained well behind, ready to support. A sharp fusillade had now been opened on us, and we heard the bullets pattering on our iron screen like unearthly hail, but in spite of this the launch darted like a wasp under the monitor’s bow. The torpedoes were arranged so as to be detached from their spars at any moment and affixed by long light chains to any part of an attacked ship. Round a rope hanging from the bow of the vessel one of these chains was flung, and the torpedo was dropped from the end of the spar, while the launch shot away, paying out the electric cable as she went. But this latter was not required. The torpedo swung round by the current and hit the ship with sufficient violence. It exploded, and the column of water that instantly burst from under the monitor half filled and nearly swamped us as we sped away. The noise was so great that it nearly drowned for an instant the shouts, cries, and firing of the Turks. The whole flotilla now began in alarm to fire at random on their unseen foes, and sometimes into each other.

Meanwhile the launches, like vicious mosquitoes, kept dodging about, struck often, though harmlessly, by small shot, but missed by the large guns.

Our commander now perceived that the monitor he had hit was sinking, though slowly, at the bows. He shouted, therefore, to the second launch to go at her. She did so at once; slipped in, under the fire and smoke that belched from her side, and fixed another torpedo to her stern in the same manner as the former. The officer in charge perceived, however, that the current would not drive it against the ship. He therefore shot away for a hundred yards,—the extent of his electric cable,—and then fired the charge. A terrible explosion took place. Parts of the ship were blown into the air, and a huge plank came down on the Russian launch, like an avenging thunderbolt, pierced the iron screen, which had so effectually resisted the bullets, and passed between two sailors without injuring either. It did no further damage, however, and when the crew turned to look at their enemy, they saw the great ironclad in the act of sinking. In a few minutes nothing of her was left above water except her masts. The crew were drowned, with the exception of a few who escaped by swimming.

By this time it was daybreak, and our danger, within near range of the other monitors, of course became very great. Just then an incident occurred which might have proved fatal to us. Our screw fouled, and the boat became unmanageable. Observing this, a Turkish launch from one of the monitors bore down upon us. One of our sailors, who chanced to be a good diver, jumped over the side and cleared the screw. Meanwhile the men opened so heavy fire on the enemy’s launch that she veered off, and a few minutes later we were steaming down the Danube towards the place from which the boats had set forth on their deadly mission.

“That was gloriously done, wasn’t it?” said Nicholas to me with enthusiasm, after the first blaze of excitement began to abate;—“one of the enemy’s biggest ironclads sent to the bottom, with all her crew, at the trifling expense of two or three hundred pounds’ weight of powder, and not a man injured on our side!”

I looked earnestly in my friend’s handsome face for a few seconds.

“Yes,” said I, slowly; “many thousands of pounds’ worth of human property destroyed, months of human labour and ingenuity wasted, and hundreds of young lives sacrificed, to say nothing of relatives bereaved and souls sent into eternity before their time—truly, if that is glory, it has been gloriously done!”

“Bah! Jeff,” returned Nicholas, with a smile; “you’re not fit to live in this world, you should have had a special one created for yourself. But come, let me hear how you came to be voyaging à la Boyton on the Danube.”

We at once began a rapid fire of question and reply. Among other things, Nicholas informed me that the two boats which had accomplished this daring feat were commanded by Lieutenants Dubasoff and Thestakoff, one with a crew of fourteen, the other of nine, men.

“The world is changing, Nicholas,” said I, as we landed. “That the wooden walls of Old England have passed away has long been acknowledged by every one, but it seems to me now that her iron walls are doomed to extinction, and that ere long the world’s war-navies will consist of nothing but torpedo-boats, and her wars will become simply tournaments therewith.”

“It may be so,” said Nicholas gaily, as he led the way to his quarters. “It may be that extremes shall meet at last, and we shall be reduced by sheer necessity to universal peace.”

“That would be glorious indeed,” said I, “though it would have the uncomfortable effect of leaving you without employment.”

“Well, in the meantime,” he rejoined, “as you are without employment just now, you must consider yourself my prisoner, for of course you cannot remain among us without passport, profession, purpose, or business of any kind. To be shot for a spy is your legitimate due just now. But we shall want surgeons soon, and newspaper correspondence is not a bad business in these times; come, I’ll see what can be done for you.”