The signal masts of the sunk battleships showed where their shattered hulls were lying, and as theBritainled the way in between them, Lord Beresford rubbed his hands across his eyes, and said to his Commodore, who was standing on what was left of the navigating bridge:
"Poor fellows, it was hardly fair fighting. We might have had something very like those infernal craft if we'd had men of decent brains at the War Office. Same old story—anything new must be wrong in Pall Mall. Still we've got something of our own back this morning. I hope we shall be able to use some of the docks; if I'm not afraid our lame ducks will have to crawl round to Devonport as best they can. The man in command of those airships must have been a perfect devil to destroy adefenceless town in this fashion. The worst of it is that if they can do this sort of thing here they can do it just as easily to London or Liverpool, or Manchester or any other city. I hope there won't be any more bad news when we get ashore."
All the ships able to take their place in the fighting-line were left outside. The French prisoners were disembarked and their places taken by drafts from the British warships, who at once set about making such repairs as were possible at sea. Admiral Beresford boarded theIthuriel, which, until the next fight, he proposed to use as a despatch-boat, and ran up the harbour.
He found every jetty, including the North and South Railway piers, mere masses of smoking ruins: but the Ordnance Dépôt on Priddy's Hard had somehow escaped, probably through the ignorance of the assailants. He landed at Sheer Jetty opposite Coaling Point, and before he was half-way up the steps a short, rather stout man, in the undress uniform of a General of Division, ran down and caught him by the hand. After him came a taller, slimmer man with eyes like gimlets and a skin wrinkled and tanned like Russian leather.
The first of the two men was General Sir John French, Commander-in-Chief at Aldershot, and the second was General Sir Ian Hamilton, Commander of the Southern Military District.
"Bravo, Beresford!" said General French, quietly. "Scooped the lot, didn't you?"
"All that aren't at the bottom of the Channel. Good-morning, Hamilton. I've heard that you're in a pretty bad way with your forts here," replied the Admiral. "By the way, how are the docks? I've got a few lame ducks that want looking after badly."
"We've just been having a look round," replied GeneralHamilton. "The town's in an awful state, as you can see. The Naval and Military barracks, and the Naval School are wrecked, and we haven't been able to save very much from the yards, but I don't think the docks are hurt much. The sweeps went more for the buildings. We can find room for half a dozen, I think, comfortably."
"That's just about what I want," said the Admiral. "We've lost theHindustanandNew Zealand. TheCanadaandNewfoundlandare pretty badly mauled, and I've got half a dozen Frenchmen that would be all the better for a look over. TheBritain,Edward VII.,DominionandCommonwealthare quite seaworthy, although, as you see, they've had it pretty hot in their topworks. The cruiser squadron is practically untouched. We've got theVerite,JusticeandDemocratie, but theVeritehas got her propellers and rudders smashed. By the way, that ship of Erskine's, theIthuriel, has turned out a perfect demon. She smashed up the first attack, sank nine destroyers and two cruisers, one of them was that big chap theDupleix, before we came on the scene. During the action she wiped out I don't know how many destroyers and torpedo boats, sank theJeanne d'Arcand saved my ship from being rammed by crippling theVeritejust in the nick of time. If we only had a squadron of those boats and made Erskine Commodore, we'd wipe the fleets of Europe out in a month. Now that's my news. What's yours?"
"Bad enough," replied General French. "A powerful combined fleet of Germans and French, helped by some of these infernal things that seem as much at home in the air as they are in the water, are making a combined attack on Dover, and we seem to be getting decidedly the worst of it. Dover Castle is in flames, and nearly all the forts are in a bad way; so are the harbour fortifications. The Russians and Dutch are approaching London with a string of transports behind them, and four airships above them. Their objectives are supposed to be Tilburyand Woolwich on one hand, and Chatham on the other. By the way, weren't there any transports behind this French Fleet that you've settled up with?"
He had scarcely uttered the last word when a helio began to twinkle from the hill above Foreland.
"That's bad news," said the Admiral, "but wait now, there's something else. It's a good job the sun's come out, though it doesn't look very healthy."
The message that the helio twinkled out was as follows:
"Thirty large vessels, apparently transports, approaching from direction of Cherbourg and Brest about ten miles south-east by south."
"Thirty large vessels, apparently transports, approaching from direction of Cherbourg and Brest about ten miles south-east by south."
"Very good," said the Admiral, rubbing his hands. "Of course they think we're beaten. I've got five French cruisers that they'll recognise. I'll get crews aboard them at once and convoy those transports in, and the Commanders will be about the most disgusted men in Europe when they get here."
Acting on the principle that all is fair in love and war, Admiral Beresford and the two Generals laid as pretty a trap for the French transports as the wit of man ever devised. Ten minutes' conversation among them sufficed to arrange matters. Then the Admiral, taking a list of the serviceable docks with him, went back on board theIthurieland ran out to the Fleet. He handed over the work of taking care of the lame ducks to Commodore Courtney of theBritain; then from the damaged British ships he made up the crews of the French cruisers, theJules Ferry,Leon Gambetta,Victor Hugo,AubeandMarseillaise. He took command of the squadron on board theVictor Hugo, and to the amazement of officers and men alike, he ordered the Tricolor to be hoisted. At the same time, the White Ensign fluttered down from all the British ships that were not being taken into the dockyard and was replaced by the Tricolor. A few minutes afterward the French flag rose over FortMonckton and upon a pole mast which had been put up amidst the ruins of Southsea Castle.
The French prisoners of course saw the ruse and knew that its very daring and impudence would command success. Some of them wrung their hands and danced in fury, others wept, and others cursed to the full capability of the French language, but there was no help for it. What was left of Portsmouth was already occupied by twenty thousand men of all arms from the Southern Division. The prisoners were disarmed and their ships were in the hands of the enemy to do what they pleased with, and so in helpless rage they watched the squadron of cruisers steam out to meet the transports, flying the French flag and manned by British crews. It meant either the most appalling carnage, or the capture of the First French Expeditionary Force consisting of fifty thousand men, ten thousand horses, and two hundred guns.
The daringly original stratagem was made all the easier of achievement by the fact that the Commanders of the French transports, counting upon the assistance of the airships and the enormous strength of the naval force which had been launched against Portsmouth, had taken victory for granted, and when the first line came in sight of land, and officers and men saw the smoke-cloud that was still hanging over what twenty-four hours before had been the greatest of British strongholds, cheer after cheer went up. Portsmouth was destroyed and therefore the French Fleet must have been victorious. All that they had to do, therefore, was to steam in and take possession of what was left. At last, after all these centuries, the invasion of England had been accomplished, and Waterloo and Trafalgar avenged!
Happily, in the turmoil of the fight and the suddenness in which the remains of the French Fleet had been forced to surrender, the captain of theVictor Hugohad forgotten to sink his Code Book. The result was that when the cruiser squadron steamed out in two divisions to meet the transports, the French private signal, "Complete victory—welcome," was flying from the signalyard of theVictor Hugo. Again a mighty cheer thundered out from the deck of every transport. The cruisers saluted the transports with seventeen guns, and then the two divisions swung out to right and left, and took their stations on either flank of the transports.
And so, all unsuspecting, they steamed into Spithead, and when they saw the British ships lying at anchor, flying the Tricolor and the same flag waving over Fort Monckton and Southsea Castle, as well as from half a dozen other flagstaffs about the dockyards, there could be no doubt as to the magnitude and completeness of the victory which the French Fleet had gained, and moreover, were not those masts showing above the waters of Spithead, the masts of sunken British battleships.
Field-Marshal Purdin de Trevillion, Commander of the Expeditionary Force, accompanied by his staff, was on board the Messageries linerAustralien, and led the column of transports. In perfect confidence he led the way in between the Spithead Forts, which also flew the Tricolor and saluted him as he went past. As the other vessels of the great flotilla followed in close order, Fort Monckton and the rest of the warships saluted; and then as the last transport entered the narrow waters, a very strange thing happened. The cruisers that had dropped behind spread themselves out in a long line behind the forts; the British ships slipped their moorings and steamed out from Stokes Bay and made a line across to Ryde. Destroyers and torpedo boats suddenly dotted the water with their black shapes, appearing as though from nowhere; then came down every Tricolor on fort and ship, and the White Ensign ran up in its place, and the same moment, the menacing guns swung round and there was the French flotilla, unarmed and crowded with men, caught like a flock of sheep between two packs of wolves.
Every transport stopped as if by common instinct. The French Marshal turned white to the lips. Hishands went up in a gesture of despair, and he gasped to his second-in-command, who was standing beside him:
"Mon Dieu! Nous sommes trahis! Ces sacrés perfides Anglais! We are helpless, like rats in a trap. With us it is finished, we can neither fight nor escape."
While he was speaking, the huge bulk of theBritainsteamed slowly towards theAustralien, flying the signal "Do you surrender?" Within five hundred yards, the huge guns in her forward barbette swung round and the muzzles sank until the long chases pointed at theAustralien'swaterline. The Field-Marshal knew full well that it only needed the touch of a finger on a button to smash theAustralieninto fragments, and he knew too that the first shot from the flagship would be the signal for the whole Fleet to open fire, and that would mean massacre unspeakable. He was as brave a man as ever wore a uniform, but he knew that on the next words he should speak the lives of fifty thousand men depended. He took one more look round the ring of steel which enclosed him on every side, and then with livid lips and grinding teeth gave the order for the flag to be hauled down. The next moment he unbuckled his sword and hurled it into the sea; then with a deep groan he dropped fainting to the deck.
It would be useless to attempt to describe the fury and mortification with which the officers and men of the French Force saw the flags one by one flutter down from end to end of the long line of transports, but it was plain even to the rawest conscript that there was no choice save between surrender and massacre. They cursed and stamped about the decks or sat down and cried, according to temperament, and that, under the circumstances, was about all they could do.
Meanwhile, a steam pinnace came puffing out from the harbour, and in a few minutes General French was standing on the promenade deck of theAustralien. The Field Marshal had already been carried below. Agrey-haired officer in the uniform of a general came forward with his sword in his hand and said in excellent English, but with a shake in his voice:
"You are General French, I presume? Our Commander, Field-Marshal Purdin de Trevillion had such an access of anger when he found how we had been duped that he flung his sword into the sea. He then fainted, and is still unconscious. You will, therefore, perhaps accept my sword instead of his."
General French touched the hilt with his hand, and said:
"Keep it. General Devignes, and I hope your officers will do the same. I will accept your parole for all of them. You are the Field-Marshal's Chief-of-Staff, I believe, and therefore, of course, your word is his. I am very sorry to hear of his illness."
"You have my word," replied General Devignes, "for myself and those of my officers who may be willing to give their parole, but for those who prefer to remain prisoners I cannot, of course, answer."
"Of course not," replied General French, with a rather provoking genial smile. "Now I will trouble you to take your ships into the harbour. I will put a guard on each as she passes; meanwhile, your men will pile arms and get ready to disembark. We cannot offer you much of a welcome, I'm afraid, for those airships of yours have almost reduced Portsmouth to ruins, to say nothing of sending ten of our battleships and cruisers to the bottom. I can assure you, General, that the losses are not all on your side."
"No, General," replied the Frenchman, "but for the present, at least, the victory is on yours."
Then transport after transport filed into the harbour, and General Hamilton and his staff took charge of the disembarkation. Six of the British lame ducks had been got safely into dock, and every available man was slaving away in deadly earnest to repair the damage done in those terrible two hours. Repairs were also beingcarried out as rapidly as possible on the cruisers and battleships lying in Spithead, and as shipload after shipload of the disarmed French soldiers were landed, they were set to work, first at clearing up the dockyards and getting them into something like working order, and then clearing up the ruins of the three towns.
The news of Admiral Beresford's magnificent coup had already reached London, and the reply had come back terse and to the point:
"Excellently well done. Congratulate Admiral Beresford and all concerned. We are hard pressed at Dover, and London is threatened. SendIthurielto Dover as soon as possible, and let her come on here when she has given any possible help. Land and sea defence of south and south-east at discretion of yourself, Domville and Beresford.Connaught."
"Excellently well done. Congratulate Admiral Beresford and all concerned. We are hard pressed at Dover, and London is threatened. SendIthurielto Dover as soon as possible, and let her come on here when she has given any possible help. Land and sea defence of south and south-east at discretion of yourself, Domville and Beresford.
Connaught."
By some miracle, the Keppel's Head, perhaps the most famous naval hostelry in the south of England, had escaped the shells from the airships, and so General French had made it his headquarters for the time being. Sir Compton Domville had received a rather serious injury from a splinter in the left arm during the destruction of the Naval Barracks, but he had had his wounds dressed and insisted, against the advice of the doctors, in driving down to the Hard and talking matters over with General French. They were discussing the disposition of the French prisoners and the huge amount of war material which had been captured, when the telegram was delivered. They had scarcely read it when there was a knock at the door and an orderly entered, and said:
"Captain Erskine, of theIthuriel, would be pleased to see the General when he's at liberty."
"The very man!" said General French. "This is the young gentleman," he continued, turning to Admiral Domville, "who practically saved us from twotorpedo attacks, won the Fleet action for us, and saved Beresford from being rammed at the moment of victory."
The door opened again, and Erskine came in. He saluted and said:
"General, if I may suggest it, I shall not be much more use here, and my lieutenant, Denis Castellan, has just had a telegram from his aunt and sister, who are in London, saying that things are pretty bad there. I fancy I might be of some use if you would let me go, sir."
"Let you go!" laughed the General. "Why, my dear sir, you've got to go. Here's a telegram that I've just had from His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, saying that Dover and London are in a bad way, and telling me to send you round at once. When can you start?"
"Well, sir," replied Erskine, after a moment's thought, "we're not injured in any way, but it will take a couple of hours, I'm afraid, to replenish our motive power, and fill up with shell, and added to that, I should like to have a good overhaul of the machinery."
"Just listen to that, now!" exclaimed Admiral Beresford, who had entered the room while he was speaking. "Here's a man who has done nearly as much single-handed as the rest of us put together and fought through as stiff a Fleet action as the hungriest fire-eater in the navy wants to see, and tells you he isn't injured, while half of us are knocked to scrap-iron. I wish we had fiftyIthuriels, there'd be very little landing on English shores."
"I don't think you have very much to complain of in the French landing at Portsmouth, Beresford," laughed Sir Compton Domville. "I don't want to flatter you, but it was an absolute stroke of genius. We shall have to set those fellows to work on the forts and yards, and get some guns into position again. It isn't exactly what they came for but they'll come in veryuseful. But that can wait. Here's the wire from the Commander-in-Chief. Captain Erskine, you are to get round to Dover and London as soon as possible, and, I presume, do all the damage you can on the way. General French is going to London as soon as a special can be got ready for him."
"May I ask a great favour, sir?" said Erskine.
"Anything, after what you've done," replied Sir Compton. "What is it?"
General French and Lord Beresford nodded in agreement, and Erskine continued, addressing Lord Beresford: "That Mr Lennard, whom your lordship met on board theIthuriel, has given me the formula of a new high explosive. Absurdly simple, but simply terrific in its effect. I made up half a dozen shells with it and tried them. I gave theDupleixthree rounds. They seem to reduce steel to dust, and, as far as we could see every man on the decks dropped as if he had been struck by lightning. From what we have done with them I think they will be of enormous value. Now Mr Lennard is very anxious to get to London and the north of England, and if General French could find him a place in his special—"
"My dear sir," interrupted the General, "I shall be only too delighted to know your maker of thunderbolts. Is he here now?"
"Yes, sir, he's in the smoking-room with Lieutenant Castellan. And that reminds me, if I am to go to London, I hope you will allow me to hand over the German spy that we caught here as soon as convenient."
"Bring them both in," said General French. "Sir Compton and General Hamilton will court-martial your spy this morning, and, I hope, shoot him this evening."
Within an hour, Lennard, who had something more serious now to think about than even war, was flying away Londonwards in General French's special, with a letter of introduction from Denis Castellan to his aunt andsister, and an hour after the special had started, theIthurielhad cleared the narrow waters and was tearing up the Channel at fifty miles an hour, to see what havoc she could work on the assailants of London and Dover.
When Lennard entered the little drawing-room in the house in Westbourne Terrace, where Norah Castellan and her aunt were staying, he had decided to do something which, without his knowing it, probably made a very considerable difference in his own fortunes and those of two or three other people.
During his brief but exciting experiences on board theIthuriel, he had formed a real friendship for both Erskine and Castellan, and he had come to the conclusion that Denis's sister and aunt would be very much safer in the remote seclusion of Whernside than in a city which might within the next few days share the fate of Portsmouth and Gosport. He was instantly confirmed in this resolution when Mrs O'Connor and her niece came into the room. Never had he seen a more perfect specimen of the Irishwoman, who is a lady by Nature's own patent of nobility, than Mrs O'Connor, and, with of course one exception, never had he seen such a beautiful girl as Norah Castellan.
He was friends with them in half an hour, and inside an hour he had accepted their invitation to dine and sleep at the house and help them to get ready for their unexpected journey to the North the next morning.
He went back to the Grand and got his portmanteau and Gladstone bag and returned to Westbourne Terrace in time for afternoon tea. Meanwhile, he had bought the early copies of all the evening papers and read up the condition of things in London, which, in the light of his experiences at Portsmouth, did not appear to himto be in any way promising. He gave Norah and her aunt a full, true and particular account of the assault on Portsmouth, the doings of theIthuriel, the great Fleet action, and the brilliantruse de guerrewhich Admiral Beresford had used to capture the First French Army Corps that had landed in England—and landed as prisoners.
The news in the afternoon papers, coupled with what he already knew of the tactics of the enemy, impressed Lennard so gravely that he succeeded in persuading Mrs O'Connor and Norah to leave London by the midnight sleeping-car train from St Pancras for Whernside, since no one knew at what time during the night John Castellan or his lieutenants might not order an indiscriminate bombardment of London from the air. He was also very anxious, for reasons of his own, to get back to his work at the observatory and make his preparations for the carrying out of an undertaking compared with which the war, terrible as it was and would be, could only be considered as the squabblings of children or lunatics.
His task was not one of aggression or conquest, but of salvation, and the enemy he was going to fight was an invader not of states or countries, but of a whole world, and unless the assault of this invader from the outer wilderness of Space were repelled, the result would not be merely the destruction of ships and fortresses, or the killing of a few hundreds or thousands of men on the battlefield; it would mean nothing less than a holocaust which would involve the whole human race, and the simultaneous annihilation of all that the genius of man had so laboriously accumulated during the slow, uncounted ages of his progress from the brute to the man.
They left the train at Settle at six o'clock the next morning, and were at once taken charge of by the station-master, who had had his instructions by telephone from the Parmenter mansion on the slopes of Great Whernside. He conducted them at once to the Midland Hotel, wherethey found a suite of apartments, luxuriously furnished, with fires blazing in the grates, and everything looking very cosy under the soft glow of the shaded electric lights. Baths were ready and breakfast would be on the table at seven. At eight, Mr Parmenter, who practically owned this suite of rooms, would drive over with Miss Parmenter in a couple of motor-cars and take the party to the house.
"Sure, then," said Mrs O'Connor, when the arrangements had been explained to her, "it must be very comfortable to have all the money to buy just what you want, and make everything as easy as all this, and it's yourself, Mr Lennard, we have to thank for making us the guests of a millionaire, when neither Norah nor myself have so much as seen one. Is he a very great man, this Mr Parmenter? It seems to me to be something like going to dine with a duke."
"My dear Mrs O'Connor," laughed Lennard, "I can assure you that you will find this master of millions one of Nature's own gentlemen. Although he can make men rich or poor by a stroke of his pen, and, with a few others like him, wield such power as was never in the hands of kings, you wouldn't know him from a plain English country gentleman if it wasn't for his American accent, and there's not very much of that."
"And his daughter, Miss Auriole, what's she like?" said Norah. "A beauty, of course."
Lennard flushed somewhat suspiciously, and a keen glance of Norah's Irish eyes read the meaning of that flush in an instant.
"Miss Parmenter is considered to be very beautiful," he replied, "and I must confess that I share the general opinion."
"I thought so," said Norah, with a little nod that had a great deal of meaning in it. "Now, I suppose we'd better go and change, or we'll be late for breakfast. I certainly don't want the beautiful Miss Parmenter to see me in this state for the first time."
"My dear Miss Castellan, I can assure you that you have not the faintest reason to fear any comparison that might be made," laughed Lennard as he left the room and went to have his tub.
Punctually at eight a double "Toot-toot" sounded from the street in front of the main entrance to the hotel. Norah ran to the window and saw two splendidly-appointed Napier cars—although, of course, she didn't know a Napier from a Darracq. Something in female shape with peaked cap and goggles, gauntleted and covered from head to foot in a heavy fur coat, got out of the first car, and another shape, rather shorter but almost similarly clad, got out of the second. Five minutes later there was a knock at the door of the breakfast-room. It opened, and Norah saw what the cap and the goggles and the great fur coat had hidden. During the next few seconds, two of the most beautiful girls in the two hemispheres looked at each other, as only girls and women can look. Then Auriole put out both her hands and said, quite simply:
"You are Norah Castellan. I hope we shall be good friends. If we're not, I'm afraid it will be my fault."
Norah took her hands and said:
"I think it would more likely be mine, after what Mr Lennard has been telling us of yourself and your father."
At this moment Lennard saved the situation as far as he was concerned by making the other introductions, and Mrs O'Connor took the hand which wielded the terrible power of millions and experienced a curious sort of surprise at finding that it was just like other hands, and that the owner of it was bending over hers with one of those gestures of simple courtesy which are the infallible mark of the American gentleman. In a few minutes they were all as much at home together as though they had known each other for weeks. Then came the preparation of Norah and her aunt for the motor ride, and then the ride itself.
The sun had risen clearly, and there was a decided nipof frost in the keen Northern air. The roads were hard and clean, and the twenty-five-mile run over them, winding through the valleys and climbing the ridges with the heather-clad, rock-crowned hills on all sides, now sliding down a slope or shooting along a level, or taking a rise in what seemed a flying leap, was by far the most wonderful experience that Norah and her aunt had ever had.
Auriole drove the first car, and had Norah sitting beside her on the front seat. Her aunt and the mechanician were sitting in the tonneau behind. Mr Parmenter drove the second car with Lennard beside him. His tonneau was filled with luggage.
At the end of the eighteenth mile the cars, going at a quite illegal speed, jumped a ridge between two heather-clad moors, which in South Africa would have been called a nek, and dived down along a white road leading into a broad forest track, sunlit now, but bordered on either side by the twilight of towering pines and firs through which the sunlight filtered only in little flakes, which lay upon the last year's leaves and cones, somewhat as an electric light might have fallen on a monkish manuscript of the thirteenth century.
Then came two more miles on hard, well-kept roads, so perfectly graded that the upward slope was hardly perceptible.
"We're on our own ground now and I guess I'll let her out," said Miss Auriole. "Don't be frightened, Norah. These things look big and strong, but it's quite wonderful what they'll do when there's a bit of human sense running them. See that your goggles are right and twist your veil in a bit tighter, I'm going to give you a new sensation."
She waved her hand to her father in the car behind and put on the fourth speed lever, and said: "Hold tight now."
Norah nodded, for she could hardly breathe as it was. Then the pines and firs on either side of the broad drivemelted into a green-grey blur. The road under them was like a rapidly unwinding ribbon. The hilltops which showed above the trees rose up now to the right hand and now to the left, as the car swung round the curves. Every now and then Norah looked at the girl beside her, controlling the distance-devouring monster with one hand on a little wheel, her left foot on a pedal and her right hand ready to work the levers if necessary.
The two miles of the drive from the gates to the front door of Whernside House, a long, low-lying two-storeyed, granite-built house, which was about as good a combination of outward solidity and indoor comfort as you could find in the British Islands, was covered in two and a half minutes, and the car pulled up, as Norah thought, almost at full speed and stopped dead in front of the steps leading up from the broad road to the steps leading up to the terrace which ran along the whole southward front of Whernside House.
"I reckon, Miss Castellan—"
"If you say Miss Castellan, I shall get back to Settle by the first conveyance that I can hire."
"Now, that's just nice of you, Norah. What I was going to say, if I hadn't made that mistake, was, that this would be about the first time that you had covered two miles along a road at fifty miles an hour, and that's what you've just done. Pretty quick, isn't it? Oh, there's Lord Westerham on the terrace! Come for lunch, I suppose. He's a very great man here, you know. Lord-Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, fought through the Boer War, got made a Colonel by some miracle when he was only about twenty-eight, went to Lhassa, and now he's something like Commander-in-Chief of the Yeomanry and Volunteers round here—and without anything of that sort, he's just about the best sort of man you want to meet. Come along, I'll introduce you."
The two cars stopped at the steps leading up to the terrace, a man in khaki, with a stretch of a dozen ribbonsacross the left side of his tunic, came bareheaded down the steps and opened the side door of Auriole's motor-car. Auriole pushed her goggles up and held out her gauntleted hand, and said:
"What! Lord Westerham! Well now, this is nice of you. Come to lunch, of course. And how's the recruiting going on?"
Then without waiting for a reply, she went on: "Norah, dear, this is Lord Westerham, Lord-Lieutenant of this part of the County of York, Colonel commanding the West Riding Yeomanry and lots of other things that I don't understand."
Norah pushed her goggles up and tilted her hat back. Auriole saw a flash of recognition pass like lightning between their eyes. She noticed that Norah's cheeks were a little bit brighter than even the speed of the car could account for. She saw, too, that there was a flush under the tan of Lord Westerham's face, and to her these were signs of great comfort.
"I don't know how this particular miracle has been arranged," said Lord Westerham, as he gave his hand to Norah and took her out of the car, "but a re-introduction is, if you will allow me to say so, Miss Parmenter, rather superfluous. I have known Miss Castellan for quite two years, at least, I had the pleasure of meeting her in Connemara, and we have fished and shot and sailed together until we became almost friends."
Auriole's eyes, observant at all times, had been working hard during the last two or three minutes, and in those few minutes she had learned a great deal. Arthur Lennard, who also had his eyes wide open, had learnt in his own slow, masculine way about as much, and perhaps a little more. He and Lord Westerham had been school-fellows and college chums and good friends for years, but of late a shadow had come between them, and it's hardly necessary to say that it was the shadow of a woman. He knew perfectly well by this time that Lord Westerham was, in the opinionof Mr Parmenter, the husband-designate, one might say, of Auriole. Young as he was, he already had a distinguished record as a soldier and an administrator, but he was also heir to one of the oldest Marquisates in England with a very probable reversion to a dukedom.
This was what he had been thinking of that night in the observatory when he told Auriole of the fate that was approaching the world. No one knew better than he how brilliant a figure she would make in Society as the Marchioness of Westerham, granted always that the Anglo-Saxon would do now as he had ever done, fling the invader back upon his own shores or into the sea which he had crossed: but that swift flash of recognition seen as his car came up behind Auriole's, and the slight but most significant change which had come over the features of both of them as he handed her out of the car, had instantly banished the shadow and made him a happier man than he had been for a good many months past.
Still he was one of those hard-headed, practical men who rightly consider that the very worst enemy either to friendship between man and man, or love between man and woman, is an unexplained misunderstanding, and so in that moment he decided to "have it out" with his lordship on the first possible opportunity.
The morning was spent in a general overhaul of the observatory and the laboratory in which Lennard had discovered and perfected the explosive which had been used with such deadly effect in the guns of theIthuriel. Lunch was an entirely delightful meal, and when it was over Auriole took Mrs O'Connor and Norah up to her own particular domain in the house to indulge in that choicest of feminine luxuries, a good long talk. Mr Parmenter excused himself and disappeared into his study to get ready for the evening mail, and so Lord Westerham and Lennard were left to their own devices for a couple of hours or so. This was just what Lennard wanted, and so he proposed a stroll and a smoke in the Park.
They lit their cigars and walked for a few minutes along a pine-shaded path. His lordship had an intuitive idea that his companion had something to say to him—albeit he was very far from imagining what that something was to be—and so he thought he had better let him begin. When they were out of sight or hearing of anyone, Lennard slowed down his pace a little and said somewhat abruptly:
"Westerham, I am going to ask you a question which you will probably think a rather impertinent one, and, moreover, whether you choose to answer it or not, I hope you will not for the present ask me why I ask it. Now there are a good many 'asks' in that, but as the matter is somewhat important to both of us, I wantedto put the thing plainly, even at the expense of a little tautology."
Lord Westerham, in addition to being a gentleman and a soldier, was also one of the most frankly open-minded men that another honest man could wish to have anything to do with, and so, after a long pull at his cigar, he looked round and said:
"My dear Lennard, we were school-fellows once, and we managed to worry through Cambridge together—you with a great deal more kudos than I did—and we have been very good friends since, so there can't be any question of impertinence between us, although there might be some unpleasantness for one or both of us. But, anyhow, whatever it is, out with it. Honestly, I don't think you could offend me if you tried."
"That's just what I thought you would say," replied Lennard. "And I think you are about the only man I should like to ask such a question; but after what you've just said I'll put it just as shortly as it can be made."
"And the question is?" asked Lord Westerham, blowing a long stream of blue smoke up through the still air towards the tops of the pine trees.
There was a little pause, during which Lennard bit off about half an inch of the end of his cigar, spat it out, and took two or three more puffs from what was left. Then he said, in a dry, almost harsh tone:
"The question is quite a short one, Westerham, and you can answer it by a simple yes or no. It's just this: Do you intend to make Miss Parmenter Marchioness of Westerham or not? Other things of course being equal, as we used to say at school."
Somewhat to Lennard's astonishment, Lord Westerham's cigar shot from his lips like a torpedo from a tube, and after it came an explosion of laughter, which fully accounted for its sudden ejectment. His lordship leant up against a convenient pine and laughed till he was almost speechless.
"What the devil's the matter with you, Westerham?" said Lennard, with a note of anger in his voice. "You'll excuse my saying so, but it seems hardly a question for a sort of explosion like that. I have been asking you a question which, as you might have seen, concerns me rather closely."
Lord Westerham sobered down at once, although his voice was still somewhat tremulous with suppressed laughter when he said:
"My dear chap, I'm very sorry. It was beastly rude of me to laugh, but I'm quite sure you'll forgive me when you know the facts or, at least,thefact, and that is as follows, as they say in the newspapers. When I tell you that your sweetheart drove my sweetheart up to the house to-day from Settle—"
"What, Norah Castellan!" exclaimed Lennard. "I didn't even know that you had met her before."
"Haven't I!" replied Lord Westerham. "Look here, it was this way."
And then he began a story of a fishing and shooting trip to Connemara, where he had rented certain salmon streams and shooting moors from a squire of the county, named Lismore, who was very much in love with Norah Castellan, and how he had fished and shot and yachted with her and the brother who had sold his diabolical inventions to the enemies of England, until he had come to love the sister as much as he hated the brother. And when he had done, Lennard told him of the swimming race in Clifden Bay, and many other things to which Lord Westerham listened with an interest which grew more and more intense as every minute passed; until when Lennard stopped, he crossed the road and held out his hand and said:
"I've got the very place to suit you. A cannel-coal mine near Bolton in Lancashire with a perpendicular shaft, twelve hundred feet deep. The very place to do your work. It's yours from to-day, and if the thing comes off, Papa Parmenter shall give a couple ofhundred thousand dowry instead of buying the mine. I don't think he'll kick at that. Now, let's go back and have a whisky-and-soda. I've got to be off recruiting to-morrow."
"I wish I could join the Yeomanry and come with you, if you would have me," laughed Lennard, whose spirits had been rising rapidly during the last half-hour or so, "only I reckon, as Mr Parmenter would put it, that I shall have all my work cut out getting ready to give our celestial invader a warm reception. To begin with, it won't exactly be child's play building a cannon twelve hundred feet long."
"I wonder what they'd think of a proposition like that at the War Office?" laughed Lord Westerham in reply. "Several permanent officials would certainly faint on the spot."
A sharp frost set in during the night, and the sky was brilliantly clear. After dinner, when the ladies had left the table, Lennard said to Mr Parmenter:
"I am going to renew my acquaintance with our celestial visitor to-night. I shall want a couple of hours to run over my calculations and verify the position of the comet up to date; and then, say at eleven o'clock, I should like you and Lord Westerham to come up to the observatory and have a somewhat serious talk."
The owner of the great reflector looked up quickly over his wine-glass and said:
"Look here, Mr Lennard, I guess this poor old country of yours has about enough serious matters on hand just now without worrying about comets. What's the trouble now?"
"My dear sir," replied Lennard, gravely, "this is a matter which not only England, but every other country in the world, will have to trouble about before very long."
"Say, that sounds pretty serious," said Mr Parmenter. "What's the worry with this old comet of yours, anyhow?"
Lord Westerham smiled, and Lennard could not help smiling too as he replied:
"It is too long a story to tell now, sir, and what is more, I cannot tell it until I have reverified my observations and figures, and, besides, the ladies will be expecting us. I shall be quite ready for you by eleven. By the way, I haven't told you yet that those shells were a perfect success, from our point of view, at least. It seems rather curious how that all came about, I must say. Here's Denis Castellan, the brother of the traitor, a British naval officer, and like his sister an acquaintance of Westerham's. I discover the explosive, tell you about it, you tell Westerham, and send me off to try it on theIthuriel, and here I come back from London with Miss Castellan and her aunt."
"Quite an excellent arrangement of things on the part of the Fates," remarked Lord Westerham, with a meaning which Mr Parmenter did not understand.
"Why, yes," said their host, "quite like a piece out of a story, isn't it? And so that explosive got its work in all right, Mr Lennard?"
"As far as we could see," replied Lennard. "It tore steel armour into shreds as if it had been cardboard, and didn't leave a living thing anywhere within several yards of the focus of the explosion. Erskine and Castellan are filling up with it, and I expect we shall hear something about it from London before long. I am glad to say that Lord Beresford told me that after what he had seen of our fire, Government and private gun factories were going to work night and day turning out pneumatic guns to use it. The effect of it on land if a battery once gets within reach of large masses of men will be something frightful."
"Sounds pretty useful," said Lord Westerham, who was one of those soldiers who rightly believe that the most merciless methods of waging war are in the end most merciful.
By nine o'clock Lennard was in the equatorial chamberof the observatory, taking his first observations since he had left for Portsmouth the week before. The ghostly shape pictured on the great reflector was bigger and brighter now, although, to his great comfort, none of the scientific papers had made any mention of its discovery by other observers. When he had noted its exact position, he went to his desk and plunged into a maze of calculations.
Precisely at eleven there was a tap at the door and Mr Parmenter and Lord Westerham came in. Lord Westerham, as the guest, had the first look at the approaching World Peril; then Mr Parmenter took a long squint into the eye-piece and then they sat down, and Lennard told Mr Parmenter, in the cold, precise language of science, the story which he had already told to Auriole and Lord Westerham.
The millionaire, who had listened with an attention that even he had never given to any subject before, smoked in silence for a few moments after Lennard had finished, and then he said quietly:
"Well, I reckon that's about the biggest order that two or three human beings have ever been called upon to fill. One thing's certain. It'd make these fighting fellows feel pretty foolish if they could be got to believe it, which they couldn't. No disrespect to you, Lord Westerham, because I take it you do believe it."
"Certainly I do," he replied. "Lennard was never known to make a mistake in figures, and I am perfectly certain that he would not make any in working out such a terrific problem as this. I think I may also say that I have equal confidence in his plan for saving humanity from the terrible fate which threatens it."
"That's good hearing," said Mr Parmenter, drily. "Personally, I don't quite feel that I've finished up with this old world yet, and if it's a question of dollars—as far as I'm concerned, as I've got a few millions hanging around loose, I might as well use them to help to save the human race from being burnt to death as to runcorners and trusts, which won't be much use anyhow if we can't stop this comet, or whatever it is. Now, Mr Lennard, what's your plan for the scientific salvation of the world?"
"There is nothing new about the idea," replied Lennard, "except its application to the present circumstances. Of course you have read Jules Verne'sJourney to the Moon? Well, my plan is simply to do the same thing on a much bigger scale, only instead of firing men and dogs and chickens out of my cannon, I am going to fire something like a ton and a half of explosives.
"The danger is in the contact of the nucleus of the comet with the earth's atmosphere. If that can be prevented there is no further cause for alarm; so, to put the matter quite shortly, my projectile will have an initial velocity of ten miles a second, and therefore a range that is practically infinite, for that velocity will carry it beyond the sphere of the earth's attraction.
"Hence, if the gun is properly trained and fired at precisely the right moment, and if the fuse does its work, the projectile will pass into the nucleus of the comet, and, before the heat has time to melt the shell, the charge will explode and the nucleus—the only dangerous part—will either be blown to fragments or dissipated in gas. Therefore, instead of what I might be allowed to call a premature Day of Judgment, we shall simply have a magnificent display of celestial fireworks, which will probably amount to nothing more than an unparalleled shower of shooting stars, as they are popularly called.
"The details of the experiment will be practically the same as those Jules Verne described—I mean as regards the making and firing of the cannon—only, as we haven't time to get a big enough hole dug, I should strongly advise the acceptance of Lord Westerham's very opportune offer."
"That's so," said Mr Parmenter, quietly, "but I've got a sort of fancy for running this business myself. My reflector discovered this comet, thanks, of course, tothe good use you made of it, and it seems to me that I'm in a way responsible for making it harmless if that can be done, and so I'm not disposed to take that convenient colliery as a gift from anyone, no, not even you, Lord Westerham. You see, my lord, all that I can do here is just finding the dollars, and to a man in your position, doing his best to get as many men and horses and guns together for the defence of his country, money is money. Will you take a quarter of a million pounds for that colliery?"
"No, I won't, Mr Parmenter," laughed Lord Westerham. "In the first place, the colliery isn't worth a tenth of that, and this country can very well afford to pay for her own defence. Besides, you must remember that you will have to pay for the work: I mean casing the pit-shaft, smelting the metal and building the shell, to say nothing of the thousand and one other expenses of which Lennard can tell you more than I. For one thing, I expect you will have a hundred thousand or so to pay in damage to surrounding property after that cannon has gone off. In other words, if you do save the world you'll probably have to pay pretty stiffly for doing it. They're excellent business people in Lancashire, you know."
"I don't quite see the logic of that, Lord Westerham," replied Mr Parmenter a little testily. "If we can put this business through, the dollars couldn't be much better used, and if we can't they won't be much use to me or anyone else. It's worth doing, anyhow, if it's only to show what new-world enterprise helped with old-world brains can do in bringing off a really big thing, and that's why I want to buy that colliery."
"Well, Mr Parmenter," laughed Lord Westerham again, "we won't quarrel over that. I'm not a business man, but I believe it's generally recognised that the essence of all business is compromise. I'll meet you half way. For the present you shall take the pit for nothing and pay all expense connected with making acannon of it. If that cannon does its work you shall pay me two hundred thousand pounds for the use of it—and I'll take your I.O.U. for the amount now. Will that suit you?"
"That's business," said Mr Parmenter, getting up and going to Lennard's desk. "There you are, my lord," he continued, as he came back with a half sheet of notepaper in his hand, "and I only hope I shall have to pay that money."
TheIthurielhad orders to call at Folkestone and Dover in order to report the actual state of affairs there to the Commander-in-Chief by telegraph if Erskine could get ashore or by flash-signal if he could not, and incidentally to do as much damage as he could without undue risk to his craft if he considered that circumstances demanded it.
He arrived off Folkestone just before dusk, and, as he expected, found that there were half a dozen large transports, carrying probably eight thousand men and a proportionate number of horses and quick-firing guns, convoyed by four cruisers and ten destroyers, lying off the harbour. There were evidently no airships with the force, as, if there had been, they would certainly have been hovering over the town and shelling Shorncliffe Barracks and the forts from the air. A brisk artillery duel was proceeding between the land batteries and the squadron, and the handsome town was already in flames in several places.
Erskine, of course, recognised at once that this attack was simultaneous with that on Dover; the object of the enemy being obviously the capture of the shore line of railway between the two great Channel ports, which would provide the base of a very elongated triangle, the sides of which would be roughly formed by the roads and railways running to the westward and southward through Ashford and Maidstone, and to the northward and eastward through Canterbury, Faversham and Sittingbourne,and meeting at Rochester and Chatham, where the land forces of the invaders would, if all went well, co-operate with the sea forces in a combined attack on London, which would, of course, be preceded by a bombardment of fortified positions from the air.
Knowing what he did of the disastrous results of the battle of Portsmouth, he came to the conclusion that it was his duty to upset this plan of attack at all hazards, so he called Castellan up into the conning-tower and asked his advice on the situation.
"I see just what you mean, Erskine," replied the Lieutenant, when he had taken a good look at the map of Kent, "and it's my opinion that you'll do more to help London from here and Dover just now than you will from the Thames. Those French cruisers are big ones, though I don't quite recognise which they are, and they carry twice or three times the metal that those miserable forts do—which comes of trusting everything to the Fleet, as though these were the days of wooden walls and sails instead of steam battleships, fast cruisers and destroyers, to say nothing of submarines and airships. These Frenchies here don't know anything about the hammering they've got at Portsmouth and the capture of the transports, so they'll be expecting that force to be moving on London by the Brighton and South Coast line instead of re-building our forts and dockyards; so you go in and sink and smash everything in sight. That's just my best advice to you."
"It seems pretty rough on those chaps on the transports, doesn't it?" said Erskine, with a note of regret in his voice. "We sha'n't be able to pick up any of them. It will be pretty like murder."
"And what's that?" exclaimed Castellan, pointing to the fires in the town. "Don't ye call shelling a defenceless watering-place and burning unarmed people to death in their own homes murder? What if ye had your sister, or your mother, or your sweetheart there? How would ye feel about murder then?"
Denis Castellan spoke feelingly, for his captain possessed not only a mother, but also a very charming sister in connection with whom he cherished certain not altogether ill-founded hopes which might perchance be realised now that war had come and promotion was fairly sure for those who "got through all right."
Erskine nodded and said between his teeth:
"Yes, you're right, old man. Such mercy as they give—such shall they have. Get below and take charge. We'd better go for the cruisers first and sink them. That'll stop the shelling of the town anyhow. Then we'll tackle the destroyers, and after that, if the transports don't surrender—well, the Lord have mercy on them when those shells of Lennard's get among them, for they'll want it."
"And divil a bit better do they deserve. What have we done to them that they should all jump on us at once like this?" growled Denis as the platform sank with him. "There isn't one, no, nor two of them that dare tackle the old sea-dog alone."
Which remark was Irish but perfectly true.
By this time it was dusk enough for theIthurielto approach the unsuspecting cruisers unseen, as nothing but her conning-tower was soon visible, even at five hundred yards, and this would vanish when she sank to make her final rush.
The cruisers were theCharner,Chanzy,BruixandLatouche-Treville, all of about five thousand tons, and carrying two 7.6 in., six 5.5 in. and six 9 pounders in addition to their small quick-firers. They were steaming in an oval course of about two miles long in line ahead, delivering their bow, stern and broadside fire as they circled. The effect of the shells along the strip of coast was terrible, and by the time theIthurielcame on the scene of action Sandgate, Shorncliffe and Folkestone were ablaze. The destroyers were of course shepherding the transports until the cruisers had silenced the shore batteries and prepared the way for the landing.
TheLatouche-Trevillewas leading the French line when Erskine gave the order to sink and ram. Her captain never so much as suspected the presence of a British warship until his vessel reeled under the shock of the ram, trembled from stem to stern, and began to settle quickly by the head. Before she had time to sink theIthurielhad shaken herself free, swung round in half a curve, and ripped the port quarter of theChanzyopen ten feet below the water line. Then she charged theBruixamidships and nearly cut her in half, and as theCharnersteamed up to the rescue of her stricken consorts her screws dragged her back from the sinking ship and her stern ram crashed into the Frenchman's starboard side under the foremast, and in about a quarter of an hour from the delivery of the mysterious attack the four French cruisers were either sunk or sinking.
It would be almost impossible to describe the effect which was produced by this sudden and utterly unexpected calamity, not only upon the astounded invaders, but upon the defenders, who, having received the welcome tidings of the tremendous disaster which had befallen the French Expedition at Portsmouth, were expecting aid in a very different form. Like their assailants, they had seen nothing, heard nothing, until the French cruisers suddenly ceased fire, rolled over and disappeared.
But a few minutes after theCharnerhad gone down, all anxiety on the part of the defenders was, for the time being, removed. TheIthurielrose to the surface; her searchlight projector turned inshore, and she flashed in the Private Code:
"Suppose you have the news from Portsmouth. I am now going to smash destroyers and sink transports if they don't surrender. Don't shoot: might hurt me. Get ready for prisoners.Erskine,Ithuriel."
"Suppose you have the news from Portsmouth. I am now going to smash destroyers and sink transports if they don't surrender. Don't shoot: might hurt me. Get ready for prisoners.
Erskine,Ithuriel."
It was perhaps the most singular message that had ever been sent from a sea force to a land force, but it was aswell understood as it was welcome, and soon the answering signals flashed back:
"Well done,Ithuriel. Heard news. Go ahead!"
"Well done,Ithuriel. Heard news. Go ahead!"
Then came the turn of the destroyers. TheIthurielrose out of the water till her forward ram showed its point six feet above the waves. Erskine ordered full speed, and within another twenty-five minutes the tragedy of Spithead had been repeated on a smaller scale. The destroying monster rushed round the transports, hunting thetorpilleurs de haute merdown one after the other as a greyhound might run rabbits down, smashed them up and sank them almost before their officers and crew had time to learn what had happened to them—and then with his searchlight Erskine signalled to the transports in the International Code, which is universally understood at sea:
"Transports steam quarter speed into harbour and surrender. If a shot is fired shall sink you as others."
"Transports steam quarter speed into harbour and surrender. If a shot is fired shall sink you as others."
Five of the six flags came down with a run and all save one of the transports made slowly for the harbour. Their commanders were wise enough to know that a demon of the deep which could sink cruisers before they could fire a shot and smash destroyers as if they were pleasure boats could make very short work of liners and cargo steamers, so they bowed to the inevitable and accepted with what grace they could defeat and capture instead of what an hour or so ago looked like certain victory. But the captain of the sixth, the one that was farthest out to sea, made a dash for liberty—or Dover.
Erskine took down the receiver and said quietly:
"Centre forward gun. Train: fire!"
"Centre forward gun. Train: fire!"
The next moment a brilliant blaze of flame leapt up between the transport's funnels. They crumpled up likescorched parchment. Her whole super-structure seemed to take fire at once and she stopped.
Again flashed the signal:
"Surrender or I'll ram."
"Surrender or I'll ram."
The Tricolor fluttered slowly down through the damp, still evening air from the transport's main truck, and almost at the same moment a fussy little steam pinnace—which had been keeping itself snugly out of harm's way since the first French cruiser had gone down—puffed busily out of the harbour, and the proudest midshipman in the British Navy—for the time being, at least—ran from transport to transport, crowded with furious and despairing Frenchmen, and told them, individually and collectively, the course to steer if they wanted to get safely into Folkestone harbour and be properly taken care of.
Then out of the growing darkness to the westward long gleams of silver light flashed up from the dull grey water and wandered about the under-surface of the gathering clouds, coming nearer and growing brighter every minute, jumping about the firmament as though the men behind the projectors were either mad or drunk; but the signals spelt out to those who understood them the cheering words:
"All right. We'll look after these fellows. Commander-in-Chief's orders: Concentrate on Chilham, Canterbury and Dover."
"All right. We'll look after these fellows. Commander-in-Chief's orders: Concentrate on Chilham, Canterbury and Dover."
"That's all right," said Erskine to himself, as he read the signals. "Beresford's got them comfortably settled already, and he's sending someone to help here. Well, I think we've done our share and we'd better get along to Dover and London."
He flashed the signal: "Good-bye and good luck!" to the shore, and shaped his course for Dover.
So far, in spite of the terrible losses that had been sustained by the Reserve Fleet and the Channel Fleet,the odds of battle were still a long way in favour of Britain, in spite of the enormous forces ranged against her. At least so thought both Erskine and Castellan until they got within about three miles of Dover harbour, and Castellan, looking on sea and land and sky, exclaimed:
"Great Heaven help us! This looks like the other place let loose!"