CHAPTER XIV. BATTLE OFF BEACHY HEAD.

The sun at last broke forth brilliantly, betokoning another blazing day.

Having regard to the fact that both the Channel Fleet and the reserve had been sent on futile errands by our enemy's secret agent, and the superior forces against which the British had all along had to fight, they had most assuredly shown what tact and courage could effect.

Opposite the Belle Tout lighthouse a disaster occurred to the Narcissus. During the fight one of her engines had been injured, and this being now strained to its utmost limit had suddenly broken down altogether, with the result that the vessel gradually slackened speed, and the Sfax and Alger bore down quickly upon her, pouring into her a heavy fire from their 5-tonners. The reply was a weak one from her quick-firing guns, her heavy arms having nearly all been disabled.

Onward steamed the Galatea and Hannibal, keeping up a running fire with the four vessels pursuing them, while the two cruisers engaging the Narcissus continued their strenuous endeavours to silence her guns. The British sailors, however, still undaunted, quickly showed their opponents that all the arms workable would be brought into play by directing a most vigorous fire upon their pursuers, blowing away one of the funnels of the Alger, and disabling one of her large bow guns.

Just then, however, while the Narcissus was discharging a broadside, a torpedo boat crept under her stern and sent forth its submerged projectile. For a moment there was a hush of expectation, then a dull explosion sounded as the cruiser, apparently rent in twain, plunged stern foremost into the sea, and with her ensign still flying gradually disappeared without a soul on board being able to save himself.

Meanwhile the Galatea and Hannibal, with their torpedo boats, were sustaining serious injuries from the heavy bow fire, and there seemed every possibility that they too would share the same terrible fate as the Narcissus, when suddenly one of the officers of the Galatea discovered three vessels approaching. The "demand" was immediately hoisted, and responded to by both vessels running up private signals. With an expression of satisfaction he directed the attention of the captain to the fact, for the flags of the first-named vessel showed her to be the British turret-ship Monarch, and those of the second the great barbette-ship Rodney, while a moment later it was discerned that the third vessel was the Gorgon.

Even as they looked, other masts appeared upon the horizon, and then they knew relief was at hand. Both vessels ran up signals, while the men, encouraged by the knowledge that some powerful British ironclads were bearing down to their aid in indented line ahead, worked with increased vigour to keep the enemy at bay.

It was a fierce, sanguinary fight. Fire vomited from all the vessels' battered works, and the scuppers ran with blood. The French vessels, having apparently also noticed the relief approaching, did not seem inclined to fight, but were nevertheless compelled, and not for a single instant did the firing from the attacked vessels cease. Their guns showed constant bursts of flame.

Soon, however, the Rodney drew within range. A puff of white smoke from her barbette, and the Cécille received a taste of her quick-firing guns, the shots from which struck her amidships, killing a large number of her men, and tearing up her deck. This was followed by deafening discharges from the four 25-ton guns of the Monarch, while the Gorgon and a number of other vessels as they approached all took part in the conflict, the engagement quickly becoming general. With great precision the British directed their fire, and the French vessels soon prepared to beat a retreat, when, without warning, a frightful explosion occurred on board the Hirondelle, and wreckage mingled with human limbs shot into the air amid a great sheet of flame.

The magazine had exploded! The scene on board the doomed vessel, even as witnessed from the British ships, was awful. Terrified men left their guns, and, rushing hither and thither, sought means of escape. But the boats had already been smashed by shots from the British cruisers, and all knew that death was inevitable.

The burning ship slowly foundered beneath them, and as they rushed about in despair they fell back into the roaring flames. A British torpedo boat rescued about a dozen; but presently, with a heavy list, the warship suddenly swung round, and, bow first, disappeared into the green sunlit sea, leaving only a few poor wretches, who, after struggling vainly on the surface for a few moments, also went down to the unknown.

The carnage was frightful. Hundreds of men were being launched into eternity, while upon the horizon both east and west dozens of ships of both invaders and defenders were rapidly approaching, and all would, ere long, try conclusions.

Before half an hour had passed, a fierce battle, as sanguinary as any in the world's history, had commenced. The cruisers, acting as satellites to the battleships forming the two opposing fighting lines, had quickly commenced a series of fierce skirmishes and duels, all the most destructive engines of modern warfare being brought into play.

The division of our Channel Fleet that had at last returned consisted of the powerful battleship Royal Sovereign, flying the Admiral's flag; the barbette-ships Anson, Howe, Camperdown, and Benbow; the turret-ships Thunderer and Conqueror; the cruisers Mersey, Terpsichore, Melampus, Tribune, Latona, Immortalité, and Barham; with the torpedo gunboats Spanker and Speedwell, and nineteen torpedo boats.

The forces of the invaders were more than double that of the British, for, in addition to the vessels already enumerated, the reinforcements consisted of the French battleships Amiral Baudin, Formidable, Amiral Duperré, Brennus, Tréhouart, Jemappes, Terrible, Requin, Indomptable, Caïman, Courbet, Dévastation, Redoubtable, and Furieux, together with nine cruisers, and thirty-eight torpilleurs de haute mer.

From the very commencement the fighting was at close quarters, and the storm of shot and shell caused death on every hand. With such an overwhelming force at his disposal, Admiral Maigret, the French commander, had been enabled to take up a position which boded ill for the defenders, nevertheless the British Admiral on board the Royal Sovereign was determined to exert every effort to repulse the enemy.

In the thick of the fight the great flagship steamed along, her compartments closed, her stokeholds screwed down, her four 67-ton guns hurling great shots from her barbettes, and her smaller arms pouring out a continuous deadly fire upon the French ship Indomptable on the one side, and the great Russian armoured cruiser Nicolai I. on the other. Upon the latter the British vessel's shells played with a terribly devastating effect, bringing down the large forward mast and the machine guns in her fighting tops, and then, while the crew worked to get the wreckage clear, the Maxim, Nordenfelt, and Hotchkiss guns of the Royal Sovereign suddenly rattled out, sweeping with their metal hail her opponent's deck, and mowing down those who were cutting adrift the fallen rigging. A moment later a shell struck one of the pair of guns in the Nicolai's turret, rendering it useless, and then the captain of the Royal Sovereign, who had been standing in the conning-tower calmly awaiting his chance, touched three electric knobs in rapid succession. The engines throbbed, the great ship moved along at increasing speed through dense clouds of stifling smoke, and as she did so the captain shouted an order which had the effect of suddenly turning the vessel, and while her great barbette guns roared, the ram of the British vessel crashed into the broadside of the Tsar's ship with a terrific impact which caused her to shiver from stem to stern.

Nicolai I. Royal Sovereign. BATTLE OFF BEACHY HEAD: H.M.S. "ROYAL SOVEREIGN" RAMMING THE "NICOLAI I." Nicolai I.       Royal Sovereign.
BATTLE OFF BEACHY HEAD: H.M.S. "ROYAL SOVEREIGN" RAMMING THE "NICOLAI I."

Then, as the big guns in her rear barbette thundered out upon the Indomptable, whose engines had broken down, she drew gradually back from the terrible breach her ram had made under the water-line of her opponent, and the latter at once commenced to sink. The force of the impact had been so great that the Russian's hull was absolutely broken in two, and as the iron stretched and rent like paper, she heaved slowly over, "turning turtle," and carrying down with her over three hundred officers and men.

The British captain now turned his attention to the French ship, which had been joined in the attack by the Brennus, the fire from whose 58-ton guns at close quarters played great havoc with the British flagship's superstructure. A second later, however, the captain of the Royal Sovereign caught the Indomptable in an unguarded moment, and, springing towards one of the electric knobs before him, pressed it. This had the effect of ejecting a torpedo from one of the bow tubes, and so well directed was it that a few seconds later there was a deafening report, as part of the stern portion of the French ship was blown away, raising great columns of spray.

The situation was awful, and the loss of life everywhere enormous. Dense, blinding smoke, and the choking fumes of mélinite, obscured the sun, and in the darkness thus caused the flames from the guns shed a lurid light upon decks strewn with dead and dying. The cruisers and scouts by which our battleships were surrounded cut off many of the French torpedo boats, but a large number got right in among the fleet, and some terrible disasters were thus caused. Once inside the circle of British cruisers, all fire directed at the boats was as dangerous to our own ships as to the enemy's boats.

The superiority of the French torpedo boats was, alas! keenly felt by the British, for in the course of the first hour five of our cruisers—the Terpsichore, Galatea, Melampus, Tribune, Mersey, the turret-ship Conqueror, and the battleships Hannibal and Rodney, had been blown up. As compared with these losses, those of the enemy were at this stage by no means small. The French had lost two cruisers and four torpedo boats, and the Russians one battleship, three cruisers, and six torpedo boats.

The British, with all these fearful odds against them, still continued a galling fire. The Camperdown, Anson, and Benbow, steaming together in line, belched a storm of shell from their barbettes, which caused wholesale destruction among the crowd of ships engaging them. Yet the withering fire of the enemy was telling terribly upon the comparatively small force of the defenders. Upon all three battleships the casualties were frightful, and on board each one or more of the heavy guns had been disabled. Suddenly a shot, penetrating a weak point in the armour of the Anson, entered her engine-room, disabling a portion of her machinery, while a moment later a shell from the Amiral Duperré fell close to her broadside torpedo discharge, and a fragment of the shell coming into contact with the striker of a torpedo, just as it was about to leave its tube, caused a terrific and disastrous explosion between the decks. The effect was horrifying. The torpedo contained over 70 lb. of gun-cotton, therefore the devastating nature of the explosion may be readily imagined. Over a hundred men were blown to atoms, and the whole six of the broadside guns were more or less disabled.

A second later, however, a shell from the Benbow struck the Amiral Duperré, carrying away the greater portion of her conning-tower, and killing her captain instantly, while almost at the same moment a torpedo from one of the British boats struck her bows with a frightful detonation, blowing an enormous hole in them. The catastrophe was complete. The crew of the doomed ship, panic-stricken, left their guns and commenced to launch the only two boats that remained uninjured; but ere this could be accomplished, the Tréhouart, which suddenly went astern, apparently to avoid a torpedo, crashed into her, with the result that she heeled right over and quickly disappeared.

The Camperdown, fighting fiercely with the Requin, the Terrible, and the Courbet, was suffering terrible damage from bow to stern; nevertheless her guns kept up an incessant torrent of shot, until suddenly, just after one of her shells had struck right under the turret of the Terrible, there was a deafening report, the air was filled with dense smoke, and the French ship, with her engines disabled, commenced to fill and sink.

A portion of the shell had penetrated to her magazine, and she had blown up, nearly half her crew being killed by the terrific force of the explosion. Many of the remaining men, however, scrambled on board the Caïman, which by some means had come into slight collision with her; but scarcely had the last terrified man left the sinking vessel, when the Camperdown's powerful ram entered the Caïman's bows, breaking her hull, and she also foundered, carrying down with her not only her own crew, but also the survivors of the Terrible.

This success was witnessed with satisfaction by the British Admiral, who nevertheless saw how seriously weakened was his force, and how critical was the position of his few remaining ships. Yet he remained quite cool, for the heavy guns of the steel monster in whose conning-tower he stood continued thundering forth their projectiles, and the White Ensign still loomed defiantly through the dense black smoke, fluttering in the freshening breeze that was now springing up.

Although a number of the enemy's vessels had been sunk, he knew the issue must be fatal to his force, for they were now surrounded by a number of ships so vastly superior to them in armament and speed, that to die fighting was their only course.

Though the cockpits were full, true British indomitable courage was showing itself everywhere on board our ships. Officers by words of encouragement incited their men to splendid heroic deeds, and guns' crews, with dark determined faces, seeing only death ahead, resolved to fight and struggle to the last for the honour of the Union Jack, which should never be surmounted by the Tricolor.

A moment later, the captain, standing with the Admiral, who had just entered the conning-tower of the Royal Sovereign, suddenly uttered a cry of dismay, and with transfixed, horrified gaze pointed with his finger to the sea.

Breathlessly the Admiral looked in the direction indicated.

Though one of the bravest men in the Navy, and on his breast he wore the Victoria Cross, his eyes fell upon a sight that appalled him.

It was a critical moment.

A small French vessel, the unarmoured cruiser Faucon, had crept up unnoticed. The attention of the British officers had been, until that moment, concentrated upon the three powerful battleships, the Requin, the Dévastation, and the Jemappes, which kept up their hot fire upon the flagship, causing terrible destruction. Now, however, the British Admiral saw himself surrounded by the enemy, and the sight which caused his heart to beat quickly was a distinct line of bubbles upon the water, advancing with terrific speed, showing that a torpedo had been ejected from the Faucon directly at his ship!

In the conning-tower all knew their danger, but not a man spoke. Both the Admiral and the captain at the same instant saw the death-dealing projectile advancing, and both retained their coolness and presence of mind. The captain, shouting an order, sprang back and touched one of the electric signals, which was instantly responded to.

It was the work of a second. The great engines roared and throbbed, and the huge vessel, propelled backwards by its 13,000 horse-power, swung steadily round just as the torpedo glanced off her bow obliquely. The crew of the Royal Sovereign had never been nearer death than at that instant. Had the ironclad not halted in her course, the striker of the torpedo would have come square upon her bows, and one of the finest vessels of the British Navy would have probably gone to the bottom.

The Faucon was not given an opportunity to make a second attempt. The captain of the Anson had witnessed how narrowly the British flagship had escaped, and immediately turned his great guns upon the little vessel, with the result that her quick-firing guns were quickly rendered useless, her hull was torn up like paper, and she slowly sank without offering resistance.

Shots came from the frowning barbettes of the Camperdown, Benbow, and the turrets of the Monarch rapidly, the damage and loss of life suffered by the enemy now being enormous. The three French battleships engaging the Royal Sovereign at close quarters received terrible punishment. One of the 75-ton guns of the Requin had been rendered useless, her deck had been torn up, and her bulwarks had been carried away, together with her funnel and forward mast. The rear barbette gun of the Jemappes had been thrown off its mounting, and a shell striking the port side battery, had burst against the forward bulkhead, and wrought horrible destruction among the guns' crews.

The three powerful French vessels pouring their fire upon the British flagship, and finding themselves being raked by the heavy fire of their adversary, signalled the Tonnerre and Furieux to assist them. Both vessels drew nearer, and soon afterwards commenced pounding at the Royal Sovereign.

The Anson, however, noticed the dangerous position of the British flagship, and, having manoeuvred adroitly, succeeded in getting under way, and with her great forward guns thundering, she crashed her ram into the Furieux, and sank her, while almost at the same moment a torpedo, discharged from one of the British boats, struck the Tonnerre right amidships, dealing her a blow from which she could never recover. Five minutes later, the Gangut, fighting desperately at close quarters with the Camperdown, had part of her armoured casemate blown away, and the British battleship followed up this success by directing a torpedo at her in such a manner that, although she drew back quickly to avoid it, she nevertheless received it right under her stern. Some ammunition on board that vessel also exploded, and the effect was frightful, for fragments of wood, iron, and human bodies were precipitated in all directions.

The loss of life, although heavy on the British side, was nevertheless far greater on board the enemy's ships. The continuity and precision of the British fire wrought awful destruction. Between the decks of many of the French and Russian ships the carnage was frightful. Among wrecked guns and mountings lay headless and armless bodies; human limbs shattered by shells were strewn in all directions upon decks slippery with blood. The shrieks of the dying were drowned by the roar and crash of the guns, the deafening explosion of shells, and the rending of iron and steel as the projectiles pierced armourplates, destroying everything with which they came in contact.

The noon had passed, and as the day wore on other catastrophes occurred involving further loss of life. One of these was the accidental ramming of the Sfax by the French battleship Redoubtable, which managed, however, to save the greater portion of the crew, although her engines broke down.

During the afternoon the fire from the British ships seemed to increase rather than diminish, notwithstanding each vessel flying the White Ensign fought more than one of the enemy's ships, and in doing so constantly received shots that spread death and destruction between the decks. Still, amid the blinding smoke, the din of battle, and the constant roaring of the guns, British bluejackets with smoke-begrimed faces worked enthusiastically for the defence of Old England. Many heroic deeds were performed that memorable afternoon, and many a gallant hero was sent to an untimely grave.

On board the Royal Sovereign the destruction was frightful. By four o'clock many of the guns had been disabled, half the crew had perished, and the decks ran with the life-blood of Britain's gallant defenders. The captain had been struck upon the forehead by a flying fragment of shell, causing a fearful wound; yet, with his head enveloped in a hastily improvised bandage, he stuck to his post. He was engaging the Redoubtable and getting the worst of it, when suddenly, having manœuvred once or twice, he turned to his lieutenant, saying, "Lay guns, ahead full speed, and prepare to ram." The officer addressed transmitted the order, and a few moments later, as her guns thundered forth, the bows of the Royal Sovereign entered the broadside of the French ship with a loud crash, ripping her almost in half.

Backing again quickly as the Redoubtable sank, she suddenly received a shock which made her reel and shiver. A shell from the Russian flagship had struck under her stern barbette, but, failing to penetrate the armour, glanced off into the sea.

Fiercer and more fierce became the fight. A well-directed shot from one of the 67-ton guns on the Anson's rear barbette struck the conning-tower of the Magenta, blowing it away, killing the captain and those who were directing the vessel.

The sun was sinking, but the battle still raged with unabated fury. Each side struggled desperately for the mastery. The British, fighting nobly against what had all along been overwhelming odds, had succeeded in sinking some of the enemy's finest ships, and inflicting terrible loss upon the crews of the others; yet the British Admiral, on viewing the situation, was compelled to admit that he was outnumbered, and that a continuance of the struggle would inevitably result in the loss of other of his ships. There still remained three of the enemy's vessels to each one of the British. His ships were all more or less crippled, therefore a successful stand against the still overwhelming force would be sheer madness. He was not the sort of man to show the white feather; nevertheless a retreat upon Portsmouth had now become a matter of policy, and the Royal Sovereign a few minutes later ran up signals intimating to the other vessels her intention.

As the British Squadron moved away down Channel the hoarse exultant shouts of the enemy filled the air. But the fighting became even more desperate, and for over an hour there was a most exciting chase. The running fire did little harm to the retreating ships, but their stern guns played terrible havoc with the French and Russian torpedo boats, which were picked off one after another with remarkable rapidity.

Off Littlehampton one of the Russian ships ran up signals, and immediately the enemy's ships slackened. Apparently they had no desire to follow further west, for after a few parting shots they turned and stood away up Channel again, while the surviving ships of the British Squadron steamed onward in the blood-red track of the dying day.

At their head was the Royal Sovereign, battered, and bearing marks of the deadly strife; but bright against the clear, calm evening sky, the British flag, half of which had been shot away, still fluttered out in the cool breeze of sunset.

The British Lion had shown his teeth. Alas, that our Navy should have been so weak! Several of the ships had had their engines severely damaged or broken, but our margin of additional strength was so small that we had no vessels wherewith to replace those compelled to return to port.

The struggle in this, the first naval battle in the defence of our Empire, had been desperate, and the loss of life appalling.

The First Act of the most sanguinary drama of modern nations had closed.

What would be its dénouement?