CHAPTER XVI

The Return from Zeebrugge

The destroyer's work that night was not yet accomplished. While the rescued crew of M.-L. 4452 were hospitably entertained and provided with hot food and drink and dry clothing, she resumed her patrol off the Belgian coast. With others the destroyer was on the look-out for possible survivors, amongst them the crew of the cutter for which Farnborough was searching when entering Zeebrugge Harbour. It appeared that the M.-L. that had rescued the crew of one of the block-ships had the cutter in tow. In the latter were five or six men who for some inexplicable reason were not transferred to the M.-L.'s deck. They might have thought that remaining on the boat was safer than crowding on the M.-L.'s already congested deck. At all events the men stopped where they were, the cutter was taken in tow and the dash out of the harbour begun.

Then difficulties arose. The M.-L. was steering badly; the cutter was sheering violently. It was a question whether the towing-craft could weather the Mole-head. The parting of the towing-hawser settled the problem. How it parted no one on the M.-L. knew. It might have been shot through, or slipped by one of the men in the cutter; but, before the skipper of the M.-L. realized that it had parted, the cutter was lost astern in the darkness.

Two hours after the rescue of the crew of M.-L. 4452 the cutter was sighted and picked up fifteen miles from land. Her undaunted crew had almost miraculously made their way out of the shell-swept harbour and were resolutely straining at their oars determined, if not picked up by a vessel, to make the shores of England.

Zeebrugge had been effectually "bottled up". No longer could skulking U-boats descend the Bruges Canal and put to sea on their errand of ruthless and unlawful destruction. A flotilla of Hun torpedo-boats, too, was rendered useless by the closing of the port.

It was the most brilliant naval episode of the war. Accomplished under adverse conditions the loss of life, though deplorably heavy, was less than that of a land battle. The results were greater; directly, they practically sealed the fate of the U-boat campaign; indirectly, they made their moral effect fall not only on the Western Front but all over the vast area affected by the stupendous Battle of Nations. People, who, owing no doubt to the over-secretive policy of the Admiralty, were asking: "What is the British Navy doing?" were silenced. Zeebrugge provided an indisputable answer.

It was hardly to be expected that the old _Vindictive_ and the little _Iris_ and _Daffodil_ would return from the storming of the Mole, and arrangements had been made to take off their crews by means of the motor-launches, should the ships be sunk alongside the strongly fortified wall.

But they did. Battered, her upperworks riddled like sieves, her decks resembling shambles with their load of dead and wounded, the _Vindictive_, with her White Ensign streaming proudly in the breeze, returned to Dover. One night's work had placed her on the same pedestal as Nelson's Victory. Proposals were submitted that she should be preserved as a national relic, and when the question was raised in the House of Commons the enigmatical reply was made: "The future of the _Vindictive_ is a matter now under consideration".

Successfully the sealing of Zeebrugge was accomplished; but the simultaneous operations against Ostend, though brilliant in their conception and heroic in their attempt, failed to achieve the desired result.

A sudden change in the direction of the wind, local mists, a dark night, and the alteration in the position of the important Stroom Bank buoy all contributed to the glorious failure of a gallant attempt. Under a heavy fire, the _Brilliant_, making for the supposed position of Ostend piers, grounded. The _Sirius_, following slowly in her wake, immediately reversed engines, but, as the ship was already badly damaged by gun-fire and in a sinking she refused to answer to her helm. Before she could gather sternway she collided with the _Brilliant's_ port quarter. In the end, both vessels being hard and fast ashore, they were blown up, nearly a mile and a half to the eastward of where they ought to have been had observations been possible.

Here again, in the work of rescuing the crews of the stranded block-ships, the M.-L.'s played a successful and daring part. M.-L. 532, in attempting to run alongside, was badly damaged in collision. M.-L. 276 repeatedly went alongside the _Brilliant_, and in exceptionally difficult circumstances rescued most of the crew.

M.-L. 283, ranging up alongside the _Sirius_, took off practically all her crew; then, notwithstanding the fact that her deck was crowded with men, she took off sixteen of the _Brilliant's_ crew who had taken to a whaler, which had been sunk by gun-fire.

After the rescuing M.-L.'s had left, it was reported that an officer and some men belonging to the _Sirius_ were missing. That vessel was hard and fast aground, and subjected to a furious fire from the German batteries. It seemed impossible that anyone could remain alive on board the shattered hulk. But, since there was a very slight possibility, there was no hesitation on the part of the skipper of Coastal Motor-Boat No. 10. Under a heavy and accurate fire from 4.1-inch and machine-guns the C.M.-B. made a thorough search for the missing officer and men, but found no sign of life. Subsequently they were picked up thirteen miles out at sea, whither they had pulled in an open boat after the sinking of their ship.

It was no fault on the part of Commander Godsal that had caused the failure of the operations. Most men would have been content to rest on their laurels, but not so Godsal. Directly he reported to the Vice-Admiral at Dover he volunteered to make another attempt upon Ostend. His offer was accepted, and, while the nation was clamouring for the _Vindictive_ to be exhibited as a show-ship, her hold was already being filled with cement in order to use her as a block-ship to complete the task that the _Sirius_ and _Brilliant_ had failed to achieve.

It was about a week after the return of the _Vindictive_ to Dover that Alec Seton and Guy Branscombe were making their way along the esplanade in the direction of the Lord Warden Hotel, when they were hailed by Flight-lieutenant Smith.

"Gorgeous news, you fellows!" exclaimed the R.A.F. pilot, who had made a rapid recovery from the effect of his immersion in the icy waters of Zeebrugge Harbour. "I'm told off for the coming Ostend stunt. Got my orders from the Squadron Commander this afternoon."

"Some fellows get all the luck," grunted Branscombe. "'Spose we must congratulate you; but for Heaven's sake don't rub it in! We're properly hipped. Nobody up-topsides loves us. We're kind of social pariahs amongst the lucky dogs of the Dover Patrol. In short, we're fed up absolutely."

"I agree," added Seton disconsolately.

"What's upset your respective apple-carts?" asked Smith.

"Every mortal thing," replied Seton. "We both volunteered for work with the _Vindictive_, and all we got was thanks and fourteen days' leave. There's been a most unholy scramble to take part in the stunt--fellows tumbling over each other, like a west-end bargain sale. One fellow puts forward his claim on the grounds that he was on the _Sirius_, another the _Brilliant_, a third because he got into Zeebrugge and got out again. The 'Vindictives' naturally want to see the thing through, and they won't budge--so there you are. Branscombe's M.-L. is _non est_, and they haven't given him a new one. I'm pushed out of the destroyer flotilla 'cause I've been chipped about a bit. The medical board tell me that I want rest--and it's rest that's driving, me silly. No chance of getting a lift in your 'bus?"

The pilot shook his head.

"Sorry--nothin' doin'," he replied. "Much as I appreciate what you've done for me in the past, you have asked me the impossible. I couldn't smuggle you in a 'plane, you know. Well, I must away. I'm just off to the Air Station."

"By Jove, Seton!" exclaimed Branscombe, as the pair continued their way; "that fellow Smith has given us the straight tip."

"What do you mean?" asked Alec.

"Said he couldn't smuggle us."

"Well, what of it?"

"Where's your imagination, old son?" continued Branscombe. "What's to prevent us doing the stowaway stunt on board the _Vindictive_?"

Alec fairly gasped.

"Fine old hole we'd be in if we were found out," he objected.

"We mustn't be found out--at least until after the stunt is over," replied Branscombe; "then it doesn't matter so much. Either we won't be alive to bear the wigging, or else we'll be tails up. In that case I don't very much care what happens if we've had our whack of the fun."

"'Prejudicial to discipline and good conduct'," quoted Seton.

"So are a good many things," argued Branscombe. "In the Service there are two ways of getting a job done: the official and the non-official. It's only when you make a mess of things that you are hauled over the coals. Nothing happened to those fellows who refused to leave the _Intrepid_ before she went into action. We'd both be able to do a bit with a quick-firer or a machine-gun."

"It's not a bad scheme," admitted Alec. "How do you propose to go about it?"

"You leave it to me," declared Branscombe "and I'm open to wager a month's pay that when the _Vindictive_ sails for Ostend, you and I will be on board."

"Good enough!" exclaimed Alec.