Kirkwood grasped the lever of the bomb-dropping gear and hung on till the order to let rip. But Barcroft gave no indication for the work of destruction.
"Sailing craft," he said to himself. "I could see their topsail yards. They are not what we want. Evidently we are over the commercial part of the harbour, if this is Cuxhaven. I'll buzz round and see if we have any luck."
Round and round in erratic curves, ascending and descending, the seaplane sped, yet without sighting any more shipping. Twice she came within sight of the ground, descending to within fifty feet in order to do so, but only an expanse of tilled fields rewarded the pilot's efforts. Then, climbing to a safe altitude he again volplaned in the hope of being guided by the sound of the bombardment. Again his endeavours met with no success. All was quiet, beyond the discordant clanging of a distant bell. The raiders had come and gone. Whether the fog had cut short their operations, or whether the air had been sufficiently clear to enable them to locate their objective, he knew not. The fact remained that Billy and the A.P. were lost in the fog and unable to carry out their allotted part of the strafing affair. They might be ten, twenty, or even thirty miles over German territory, so vague had been their course. Unless they speedily made tracks for the rendezvous they stood a good chance of running short of petrol should the fog extend sufficiently seaward to prevent them sighting the waiting seaplane carriers.
"What's the move, old man?" shouted the A. P,
"Off back," was the reply. "Nothin' doin' this trip."
"Hard lines," rejoined Kirkwood. "It's getting worse, if anything."
Which was a fact, for the frozen particles of moisture were increasing in size, and, driven into the airmen's faces by the rush of the seaplane through the air, were lacerating their skin until their features were hidden by congealed blood. Goggles being worse than useless, the two officers were compelled to close their eyelids to within a fraction of an inch and suffer acute torments from the biting air.
Very cautiously Barcroft planed down until the altitude gauge indicated a hundred feet, Seeing and hearing nothing he descended still further, restarting the engine as a matter of precaution.
Presently a rift in the wall of vapour enabled both pilot and observer to discern a flat, greyish expanse of sand through which several small channels wound sinuously.
"Good!" muttered Billy. "Now we know, more or less. We're over the sandbanks off the mouth of the Elbe unless it's the Weser. Anyway, nor' west is the course until we get away from this fog."
Ten minutes later the bank of vapour showed signs of diminishing in density; then, with a suddenness that left the two airmen blinking in the watery sunshine, the seaplane dashed into the clear daylight.
The sight that met their eyes was particularly cheerful. Ahead, at a distance of about four miles, lay the island fortress of Heligoland. But for one reason Barcroft would have made unhesitatingly for this strongly fortified rock of sandstone, drop his cargo of explosives and trust to luck to get clear. There was a more tempting inducement, for almost directly underneath the British seaplane was a large German warship.
CHAPTER XXXVII
"THE GREAT STRAFE"
THE sight was an unfamiliar one. Many a' time had Barcroft seen a British battleship from above, but never before one of the firstclass units of the Kaiser's navy. This one was a two-masted, three-funnelled vessel, the peculiar shape of the "smoke stacks" proclaiming her to be one of the "Deutschland" Class—built thirteen years previously, and carrying as her principal armament four 11-inch guns. She was not under her own steam. Tugs were lashed alongside, a third towing ahead. She had a decided list to starboard and appeared to be slightly down by the head.
"She's been hammered a bit," thought Billy. "We'll do our level best to shake her up a lot more. Pity she's not one of the 'Hindenburg' type, but half a loaf is better than no bread, so here goes."
As a matter of fact the battleship had been knocked about a week previously, owing to having bumped against one of the drifting German mines. Brought with difficulty into the outer roadstead, she was being repaired as secretly as possible in order to return to Kiel for completion of refit. The disaster having been concealed, at least officially, from the German populace, it had been considered necessary to keep the injured vessel off Heligoland rather than take her through the Imperial Canal in her nondescript state.
The British naval air raid upon Cuxhaven had completely upset this arrangement. News of the impending attack had been wirelessed, as Barcroft had surmised, from the U-boat that had been driven off by the seaplanes' escort, and, not knowing what the raiders' objective actually was, the Germans had hastily sent the crippled battleship from the roadstead in the hope that she might lie safely in the Kiel Canal before the aerial bombardment took place.
All three tugs were blowing off steam vigorously. The hiss of the escaping vapour had prevented the Huns from hearing the noisy British seaplane's approach, and now at an altitude of five thousand feet Barcroft had the huge target at his mercy. It was, however, necessary to descend considerably. There must be no risk of missing the slowly-moving battleship.
Descending in short right-handed spirals the pilot brought his craft within five hundred feet of his enemy. A bugle-blast, followed by the appearance of swarms of sailors as they rushed to man the light quick-firers, announced that the impending danger had been sighted. At all events, it was not to be a one-sided engagement, for almost simultaneously two anti-aircraft guns, mounted on the battleship's for'ard turret, came into action.
Both shells passed so close to the seaplane that the pilot distinctly felt the "windage" of the projectiles, The frail aircraft reeled in the blast of the displaced air, but fortunately the time-fuses of the shells were not set accurately. The missiles burst over eight hundred feet above their target.
Deftly Kirkwood released a couple of bombs. Both found their objective, one striking the fo'c'sle between the steam capstan and the for'ard turret, the other slightly in the wake of the bridge and chart-house, completely wrecking both. In a few seconds the whole of the fore-part of the battleship was hidden by a dense cloud of smoke.
"Not so dusty," thought Billy as he manoeuvred to enable the observer to drop another couple of "plums." As he did so a shell burst almost underneath the seaplane, ripping a dozen holes in the wings and severing a strut like a match-stick.
Out of the enveloping mushroom-shaped cloud of white smoke the seaplane staggered. For the moment Billy fancied that she was out of control and on the point of making a fatal nose-spin.
"Let's hope, then, that she'll drop fairly on top of that strafed hooker," was the thought that flashed across his mind.
But no; grandly the gallant little seaplane recovered herself. A touch of the pilot's feet upon the rudder-bar showed that she was capable of being steered, while apparently the controls were still in order.
Billy gave a quick glance over his shoulder. To his relief he found Kirkwood cool and imperturbable at his post, awaiting the opportune moment to release another pair of powerful bombs.
One burst aft, utterly knocking out the crew of the anti-aircraft gun that had so nearly strafed their attackers; the other, missing the warship's deck, landed fairly and squarely upon the tug lashed to the starboard side.
The little vessel, totally ripped up amidships, sank amid the roar of escaping steam, but still secured by fore and aft "springs"—wire hawsers stout enough to withstand the strain—she acted as a tremendous drag upon the huge bulk of the battleship.