Swords & Steam Short Stories

by S. T. Joshi

  Before Lady Ethel left, Tyrrell found time and opportunity to ask her a very serious question, and her answer to it was:

  “You clever goose! You might have asked that long ago. Yes, I’ll marry you the day after you’ve blown up the first French submarine ship.”

  Chapter IV

  In the Solent

  For once at least the British-Admiralty had shown an open mind. Sir Wilfred Tyrrell’s official position, and Lord Kirlew’s immense influence, may have had something to do with the stimulating of the official intellect, but, at any rate, within a month after the demonstration in the laboratory, a committee of experts had examined and wonderingly approved of the water-ray apparatus, and H.M. destroyer Scorcher had been placed at Tyrrell’s disposal for a series of practical experiments.

  Everything was, of course, kept absolutely secret, and the crew of the Scorcher were individually sworn to silence as to anything which they might see or hear during the experimental cruise. Moreover they were all picked men of proved devotion and integrity. Every one of them would have laid down his life at a moment’s notice for the honour of the Navy, and so there was little fear of the momentous secret leaking out.

  Meanwhile international events had been following each other with ominous rapidity, and those who were behind the scenes on both sides of the Channel knew that war was now merely a matter of weeks, perhaps only of days.

  The Scorcher was lying in the South Dock, at Chatham, guarded by dock police who allowed no one to go within fifty yards of her without a permit direct from headquarters. She was fitted with four water-ray instalments, one ahead, one astern, and one amidships to port and starboard, and, in addition to her usual armament of torpedo-tubes and twelve and three-pounder quick-firers, she carried four torpedoes of the Brennan type which could be dropped into the water without making the slightest splash and steered along the path of the water-ray, towards any object which the ray had discovered.

  The day before she made her trial trip Captain Flaubert had an important interview with the Minister of Marine. He had perfected his system of magnetic feelers, and Le Vengeur was lying in Cherbourg ready to go forth on her mission of destruction. Twenty other similar craft were being fitted with all speed at Cherbourg, Brest, and Toulon. Le Vengeur had answered every test demanded of her, and, at the French Marine, the days of the British Navy were already regarded as numbered.

  “In a week you may do it, mon Capitaine,” said the Minister, rising from his seat and holding out both his hands. “It must be war by then, or at least a few days later. Prove that you can do as you say, and France will know how to thank and reward you. Victory today will be to those who strike first, and it shall be yours to deliver the first blow at the common enemy.”

  At midnight a week after this conversation a terrible occurrence took place in the Solent. Her Majesty’s first-class cruiser Phyllis was lying at anchor about two miles off Cowes Harbour, and the Scorcher was lying with steam up some quarter of a mile inside her. She was, in fact, ready to begin her first experimental voyage at 1 a.m. She had her full equipment on board just as though she were going to fight a fleet of submarines, for it had been decided to test, not only the working of the water-ray, but also the possibility of steering the diving torpedoes by directing them on to a sunken wreck which was lying in twenty fathoms off Portland Bill. The Fates, however, had decided that they were to be tried on much more interesting game than the barnacle-covered hull of a tramp steamer.

  At fifteen minutes past twelve precisely, when Tyrrell and Lieutenant-Commander Farquar were taking a very limited promenade on the narrow, rubber-covered decks of the Scorcher, they felt the boat heave jerkily under their feet. The water was perfectly calm at the time.

  “Good Heavens, what’s that?” exclaimed Tyrrell, as they both stopped and stared out over the water. As it happened they were both facing towards the Phyllis, and they were just in time to see her rise on the top of a mountain of foaming water, break in two, and disappear.

  “A mine or a submarine!” said Commander Farquar between his teeth; “Anyhow – war. Get your apparatus ready, Mr. Tyrrell. That’s one of the French submarines we’ve been hearing so much about. If you can find him we mustn’t let him out of here.”

  Inside twenty seconds the Scorcher had slipped her cable, her searchlight had flashed a quick succession of signals to Portsmouth and Southampton, her boilers were palpitating under a full head of steam, and her wonderful little engines were ready at a minute’s notice to develop their ten thousand horse power and send her flying over the water at thirty-five knots an hour.

  Meanwhile, too, four fan-shaped rays of intense white light pierced the dark waters of the Solent as a lightning flash pierces the blackness of night, and four torpedoes were swinging from the davits a foot above the water.

  There was a tinkle in the engine-room, and she swung round towards the eddying area of water in which the Phyllis went down. Other craft, mostly torpedo boats and steam pinnaces from warships, were also hurrying towards the fatal spot. The head-ray from the Scorcher shot down to the bottom of the Solent, wavered hither and thither for a few moments, and then remained fixed. Those who looked down it saw a sight which no human words could describe.

  The splendid warship which a couple of minutes before had been riding at anchor, perfectly equipped, ready to go anywhere and do anything, was lying on the weed-covered sand and rock, broken up into two huge fragments of twisted scrap-iron. Even some of her guns had been hurled out of their positions and flung yards away from her. Other light wreckage was strewn in all directions, and the mangled remains of what had so lately been British officers and sailors were floating about in the mid-depths of the still eddying waters.

  “We can’t do any good here, Mr. Tyrrell,” said Commander Farquar. “That’s the work of a submarine, and we’ve got to find him. He must have come in by Spithead. He’d never have dared the other way, and he’ll probably go out as he came in. Keep your rays going and let’s see if we can find him.”

  There was another tinkle in the engine-room. The Scorcher swung round to the eastward and began working in a zigzag course at quarter speed towards Spithead.

  Captain Flaubert, however, had decided to do the unexpected and, thirty minutes after the destruction of the Phyllis, Le Vengeur was feeling her way back into the Channel past the Needles. She was steering, of course, by chart and compass, about twenty feet below the water. Her maximum speed was eight knots, but Captain Flaubert, in view of possible collisions with rocks or inequalities on the sea- floor, was content to creep along at two.

  He had done his work. He had proved the possibility of stealing unseen and unsuspected into the most jealously guarded strip of water in the world, destroying a warship at anchor, and then, as he thought, going away unseen. After doing all that it would be a pity to meet with any accident. War would not be formally declared for three days at least, and he wanted to get back to Cherbourg and tell the Minister of Marine all about it.

  The Scorcher zigzagged her way in and out between the forts, her four rays lighting up the water for a couple of hundred yards in every direction, for nearly an hour, but nothing was discovered.

  “I believe he’s tried the other way after all,” said Commander Farquar after they had taken a wide, comprehensive sweep between Foreland and Southsea. “There’s one thing quite certain, if he has got out this way into the Channel we might just as well look for a needle in a haystack. I think we’d better go back and look for him the other way.”

  The man at the wheel put the helm hard over, the bell tinkled full speed ahead in the engine-room. The throbbing screws flung columns of foam out from under the stern, and the little black craft swept round in a splendid curve, and went flying down the Solent towards Hurst Point at the speed of an express train. Off Ryde she slowed down to quarter speed, and the four rays began searching the sea bottom again in every direction.

  Le
Vengeur was just creeping out towards the Needles, feeling her way cautiously with the sounding indicator thirty feet below the surface, when Captain Flaubert, who was standing with his Navigating Lieutenant in the glass domed conning-tower, lit by one little electric bulb, experienced the most extraordinary sensation of his life. A shaft of light shot down through the water. It was as clean cut as a knife and bright as burnished silver. It wavered about hither and thither for a few moments, darting through the water like a lightning flash through thunderclouds, and then suddenly it dropped on to the conning-lower of Le Vengeur and illuminated it with an almost intolerable radiance. The Captain looked at his Lieutenant’s face. It was almost snow white in the unearthly light Instinctively he knew that his own was the same.

  “Tonnere de Dieu!” he whispered, with lips that trembled in spite of all his self-control, “what is this, Lieutenant? Is it possible that these accursed English have learnt to see under water? Or, worse still, suppose they have a submarine which can see?”

  “In that case,” replied the Lieutenant, also in a whisper, “though Le Vengeur has done her work, I fear she will not finish her trial trip. Look,” he went on, pointing out towards the port side, “what is that?”

  A dimly-shining, silvery body about five feet long, pointed at both ends, and driven by a rapidly whirling screw had plunged down the broad pathway of light and stopped about ten feet from Le Vengeur. Like a living thing it slowly headed this way and that, ever drawing nearer and nearer, inch by inch, and then began the most ghastly experience for the Captain and his Lieutenant that two human beings had ever endured.

  They were both brave men well worthy the traditions of their country and their profession; but they were imprisoned in a fabric of steel thirty feet below the surface of the midnight sea, and this horrible thing was coming nearer and nearer. To rise to the surface meant not only capture but ignominious death to every man on board, for war was not declared yet, and the captain and crew of Le Vengeur were pirates and outlaws beyond the pale of civilisation. To remain where they were meant a death of unspeakable terror, a fate from which there was no possible escape.

  “It is a torpedo,” said the Lieutenant, muttering the words with white trembling lips, “a Brennan, too, for you see they can steer it. It has only to touch us and –”

  A shrug of the shoulders more expressive than words said the rest.

  “Yes,” replied Captain Flaubert, “that is so, but how did we not know of it? These English must have learnt some wisdom lately. We will rise a little and see if we can get away from it.”

  He touched a couple of buttons on a signal board as he said this. Le Vengeur rose fifteen feet, her engines quickened, and she headed for the open sea at her best speed. She passed out of the field of the ray for a moment or two. Then three converging rays found her and flooded her with light. Another silvery shape descended, this time to the starboard side. Her engines were put to their utmost capacity. The other shape on the port side rose into view, and ran alongside the conning-tower at exactly equal speed.

  Then Le Vengeur sank another thirty feet, doubled on her course, and headed back towards Spithead. The ray followed her, found her again, and presently there were the two ghostly attendants, one on each side, as before. She turned in zigzags and curves, wheeled round in circles, and made straight runs hither and thither, but it was no use. The four rays encircled her wherever she went, and the two torpedoes were ever alongside.

  Presently another feature of this extraordinary chase began to develop itself. The torpedoes, with a horrible likeness to living things, began to shepherd Le Vengeur into a certain course. If she turned to starboard then the silvery shape on that side made a rush at her. If she did the same to port the other one ran up to within a yard or so of her and stopped as though it would say: “Another yard, and I’ll blow you into scrap-iron.”

  The Lieutenant was a brave man, but he fainted after ten minutes of this. Captain Flaubert was a stronger spirit, and he stood to his work with one hand on the steering wheel and the fingers of the other on the signal-board. He knew that he was caught, and that he could expect nothing but hanging as a common criminal. He had failed the moment after success, and failure meant death. The Minister of Marine had given him very clearly to understand that France would not be responsible for the failure of Le Vengeur.

  The line of his fate lay clear before him. The lives of his Lieutenant and five picked men who had dared everything for him might be saved. He had already grasped the meaning of the evolutions of the two torpedoes. He was being, as it were, steered into a harbour, probably into Portsmouth, where in time he would be compelled to rise to the surface and surrender. The alternative was being blown into eternity in little pieces, and, like the brave man that he was, he decided to accept the former alternative, and save his comrades by taking the blame on himself.

  He touched two more of the buttons on the signal-board. The engines of Le Vengeur stopped, and presently Tyrrell and Commander Farquar saw from the deck of the Scorcher a long, shining, hale-backed object rise above the surface of the water.

  At the forward end of it there was a little conning-tower covered by a dome of glass. The moment that it came in sight the Scorcher stopped, and then moved gently towards Le Vengeur. As she did so the glass dome slid back, and the head and shoulders of a man in the French naval uniform came into sight. His face looked like the face of a corpse as the rays of the searchlight flashed upon it. His hair, which an hour ago had been black, was iron-grey now, and his black eyes stared straight at the searchlight as though they were looking into eternity.

  Then across the water there came the sound of a shrill, high-pitched voice which said in perfectly correct English:

  “Gentlemen, I have succeeded and I have failed. I destroyed your cruiser yonder, I would have destroyed the whole British Navy if I could have done so, because I hate you and everything English. Le Vengeur surrenders to superior force for the sake of those on board her, but remember that I alone have planned and done this thing. The others have only done what I paid them to do, and France knows nothing of it. You will spare them, for they are innocent. For me it is finished.”

  As the Scorcher’s men looked down the rays of the searchlight they saw something glitter in his hand close to his head – a yellow flash shone in the midst of the white, there was a short flat bang, and the body of Captain Leon Flaubert dropped out of sight beside the still unconscious lieutenant.

  Le Vengeur was taken into Portsmouth. Her crew were tried for piracy and murder, and sentenced to death. The facts of the chase and capture of Le Vengeur were laid before the French Government, which saw the advisability of paying an indemnity of ten million dollars as soon as Le Vengeur, fitted with Wilfred Tyrrell’s water-ray apparatus, made her trial trip down Channel and blew up half-a-dozen sunken wrecks with perfect case and safety to herself.

  A few weeks later, in recognition of his immense services, the Admiralty placed the third-class cruiser Venus at the disposal of Mr. Wilfred and Lady Ethel Tyrrell for their honeymoon trip down the Mediterranean.

  The declaration of war of which the Minister had spoken to Captain Flaubert, remained a diplomatic secret, and the unfortunate incident which had resulted in the blowing up of a British cruiser in time of peace, was publicly admitted by the French Government to be an act of unauthorised piracy, the perpetrators of which had already paid the penalty of their crime. The reason for this was not very far to seek. As soon as Wilfred Tyrrell came back from his wedding trip Le Vengeur was dry-docked and taken literally to pieces and examined in every detail. Thus everything that the French engineers knew about submarine navigation was revealed.

  A committee of the best engineers in the United Kingdom made a thorough inspection with a view to possible improvements, and the result was the building of a British submarine flotilla of thirty enlarged Vengeurs. And as a couple of these would be quite sufficient for the effective blockade of a
port, the long-planned invasion of England was once more consigned to the limbo of things which may only be dreamt of.

  The Man Without a Country

  Edward Everett Hale

  I (footnote 1) suppose that very few casual readers of the New York Herald of August 13, 1863, observed (footnote 2), in an obscure corner, among the ‘Deaths,’ the announcement, –

  “NOLAN. Died, on board U.S. Corvette ‘Levant,’ (footnote 3) Lat. 2° 11’ S.,

  Long. 131° W., on the 11th of May, PHILIP NOLAN.”

  I happened to observe it, because I was stranded at the old Mission House in Mackinaw, waiting for a Lake Superior steamer which did not choose to come, and I was devouring to the very stubble all the current literature I could get hold of, even down to the deaths and marriages in the Herald. My memory for names and people is good, and the reader will see, as he goes on, that I had reason enough to remember Philip Nolan. There are hundreds of readers who would have paused at that announcement, if the officer of the Levant who reported it had chosen to make it thus: “Died, May 11, A Man Without a Country.” For it was as ‘The Man without a Country’ that poor Philip Nolan had generally been known by the officers who had him in charge during some fifty years, as, indeed, by all the men who sailed under them. I dare say there is many a man who has taken wine with him once a fortnight, in a three years’ cruise, who never knew that his name was ‘Nolan,’ or whether the poor wretch had any name at all.

  There can now be no possible harm in telling this poor creature’s story. Reason enough there has been till now, ever since Madison’s (footnote 4) administration went out in 1817, for very strict secrecy, the secrecy of honor itself, among the gentlemen of the navy who have had Nolan in successive charge. And certainly it speaks well for the esprit de corps of the profession, and the personal honor of its members, that to the press this man’s story has been wholly unknown, – and, I think, to the country at large also. I have reason to think, from some investigations I made in the Naval Archives when I was attached to the Bureau of Construction, that every official report relating to him was burned when Ross burned the public buildings at Washington. One of the Tuckers, or possibly one of the Watsons, had Nolan in charge at the end of the war; and when, on returning from his cruise, he reported at Washington to one of the Crowninshields, – who was in the Navy Department when he came home, – he found that the Department ignored the whole business. Whether they really knew nothing about it, or whether it was a ‘Non mi ricordo,’ determined on as a piece of policy, I do not know. But this I do know, that since 1817, and possibly before, no naval officer has mentioned Nolan in his report of a cruise.