A Crime And A Mistake

: The World Peril Of 1910

When the destruction of the forts and the sinking of the battleships at

Portsmouth had been accomplished, John Castellan made about the greatest

mistake in his life, a mistake which had very serious consequences for

those to whom he had sold himself and his terrible invention.



He and his brother Denis formed a very curious contrast, which is

nevertheless not uncommon in Irish families. The British army and navy
br /> can boast no finer soldiers or sailors, and the Empire no more devoted

servants than those who claim Ireland as the land of their birth, and

Denis Castellan was one of these. As the reader may have guessed

already, he and Erskine had only been on the Cormorant because it was

the policy of the Naval Council to keep two of the ablest men in the

service out of sight for a while. Denis, who had a remarkable gift of

tongues, was really one of the most skilful naval attaches in service,

and what he didn't know about the naval affairs of Europe was hardly

worth learning. Erskine had been recognised by the Naval Council which,

under Sir John Fisher, had raised the British Navy to a pitch of

efficiency that was the envy of every nation in the world, except Japan,

as an engineer and inventor of quite extraordinary ability, and while

the Ithuriel was building, they had given him the command of the

Cormorant, chiefly because there was hardly anything to do, and

therefore he had ample leisure to do his thinking.



On the other hand John Castellan was an unhappily brilliant example of

that type of Keltic intellect which is incapable of believing the

world-wide truism that the day of small states is passed. He had two

articles of political faith. One was an unshakable belief in the

possibility of Irish independence, and the other, which naturally

followed from the first, was implacable hatred of the Saxon oppressor

whose power and wealth had saved Ireland from invasion for centuries. He

was utterly unable to grasp the Imperial idea, while his brother was as

enthusiastic an Imperialist as ever sailed the seas.



Had it not been for this blind hatred, the disaster which had befallen

the Reserve Fleet would have been repeated at sea on a much vaster

scale; but he allowed his passions to overcome his judgment, and so

saved the Channel Fleet. There lay beneath him defenceless the greatest

naval port of England, with its docks and dockyards, its barracks and

arsenals, its garrisons of soldiers and sailors, and its crowds of

workmen. The temptation was too strong for him, and he yielded to it.



When the Prince George had gone down he rose into the air, and ran

over the Isle of Wight, signalling to the See Adler. The signals were

answered, and the two airships met about two miles south-west of the

Needles, and Castellan informed Captain Frenkel of his intention to

destroy Portsmouth and Gosport. The German demurred strongly. He had no

personal hatred to satisfy, and he suggested that it would be much

better to go out to sea and discover the whereabouts of the Channel

Fleet; but Castellan was Commander-in-Chief of the Aerial Squadrons of

the Allies, and so his word was law, and within the next two hours one

of the greatest crimes in the history of civilised warfare was

committed.



The two airships circled slowly over Gosport and Portsmouth, dropping

their torpedoes wherever a worthy mark presented itself. The first one

discharged from the Flying Fish fell on the deck of the old Victory.

The deck burst up, as though all the powder she had carried at

Trafalgar had exploded beneath it, and the next moment she broke out in

inextinguishable flames. The old Resolution met the same fate from the

See Adler, and then the pitiless hail of destruction fell on the docks

and jetties. In a few minutes the harbour was ringed with flame.

Portsmouth Station, built almost entirely of wood, blazed up like

matchwood; then came the turn of the dockyards at Portsea, which were

soon ablaze from end to end.



Then the two airships spread their wings like destroying angels over

Portsmouth town. Half a dozen torpedoes wrecked the Town Hall and set

the ruins on fire. This was the work of the See Adler. The Flying

Fish devoted her attention to the naval and military barracks, the

Naval College and the Gunnery School on Whale Island. As soon as these

were reduced to burning ruins, the two airships scattered their

torpedoes indiscriminately over churches, shops and houses, and in the

streets crowded by terrified mobs of soldiers, sailors and civilians.



The effect of the torpedoes in the streets was too appalling for

description. Everyone within ten or a dozen yards of the focus of the

explosion was literally blown to atoms, and for fifty yards round every

living creature dropped dead, killed either by the force of the

concussion or the poisonous gases which were liberated by the explosion.

Hundreds fell thus without the mark of a wound, and when some of their

bodies were examined afterwards, it was found that their hearts were

split open as cleanly as though they had been divided with a razor, just

as are the hearts of fishes which have been killed with dynamite.



John Castellan and his lieutenant, M'Carthy, for the time being gloried

in the work of destruction. Captain Frenkel was a soldier and a

gentleman, and he saw nothing in it save wanton killing of defenceless

people and a wicked waste of ammunition; but the terrible War Lord of

Germany had given Castellan supreme command, and to disobey meant

degradation, and possibly death, and so the See Adler perforce took

her share in the tragedy.



In a couple of hours Portsmouth, Gosport and Portsea had ceased to be

towns. They were only areas of flaming ruins; but at last the ammunition

gave out, and Castellan was compelled to signal the See Adler to shape

her course for Bracklesham Bay in order to replenish the magazines. They

reached the bay, and descended at the spot where the Leger ought to

have been at anchor. She was not there, for the sufficient reason that

the Ithuriel's ram had sent her to the bottom of the Channel.



For half an hour the Flying Fish and the See Adler hunted over the

narrow waters, but neither was the Leger nor any other craft to be

seen between the Selsey coast and the Isle of Wight. When they came

together again in Bracklesham Bay, John Castellan's rage against the

hated Saxon had very considerably cooled. Evidently something serious

had happened, and something that he knew nothing about, and now that the

excitement of destruction had died away, he remembered more than one

thing which he ought to have thought of before.



The two rushes of the torpedo boats, supported by the swift cruisers,

had not taken place. Not a hostile vessel had entered either Spithead or

the Solent, and the British cruisers, which he had been ordered to

spare, had got away untouched. It was perfectly evident that some

disaster had befallen the expedition, and that the Leger had been

involved in it. In spite of the terrible destruction that the Flying

Fish, the See Adler and the Banshee had wrought on sea and land, it

was plain that the first part of the invader's programme had been

brought to nothing by some unknown agency.



He was, of course, aware of the general plan of attack. He had destroyed

the battleships of the Fleet Reserve. While he was doing that the

destroyers should have been busy among the cruisers, and then the main

force, under Admiral Durenne, would follow, and take possession of

Southampton, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. A detachment of cruisers

and destroyers was then to be despatched to Littlehampton, and land a

sufficient force to seize and hold the railway at Ford and Arundel, so

that the coast line of the L.B.S.C.R., as well as the main line to

Horsham and London, should be at the command of the invaders.



Littlehampton was also particularly valuable on account of its tidal

river and harbour, which would give shelter and protection to a couple

of hundred torpedo boats and destroyers, and its wharves from which

transports could easily coal. It is hardly worth while to add that it

had been left entirely undefended. It had been proposed to mount a

couple of 9.2 guns on the old fort on the west side of the river mouth,

with half a dozen twelve-pound quick-firers at the Coast-Guard station

on the east side to repel torpedo attack, but the War Office had laughed

at the idea of an enemy getting within gunshot of the inviolate English

shore, and so one of the most vulnerable points on the south coast had

been left undefended.



What would Castellan have given now for the torpedoes which the two

ships had wasted in the wanton destruction of Portsmouth, and the murder

of its helpless citizens. The main French Fleet by this time could not

be very far off. Behind it, somewhere, was the British Channel Fleet,

the most powerful sea force that had ever ridden the subject waves, and

here he was without a torpedo on either of his ships, and no supplies

nearer than Kiel. The Leger had carried two thousand torpedoes and

five hundred cylinders of the gases which supplied the motive power. She

was gone, and for all offensive purposes the Flying Fish and See

Adler were as harmless as a couple of balloons.



When it was too late, John Castellan remembered in the bitterness of his

soul that the torpedoes which had destroyed Portsmouth would have been

sufficient to have wrecked the Channel Fleet, and now there was nothing

for it but to leave Admiral Durenne to fight his own battle against the

most powerful fleet in the world, and to use what was left of the motive

power to get back to Kiel, and replenish their magazines.



Horrible as had been the fate which had fallen on the great arsenal of

southern England, it had not been sacrificed in vain, and very sick at

heart was John Castellan when he gave the order for the two vessels,

which a few hours ago had been such terrible engines of destruction, to

rise into the air and wing their harmless flight towards Kiel.



When the Flying Fish and the See Adler took the air, and shipped

their course eastward, the position of the opposing fleets was somewhat

as follows: The cruisers of the A Squadron, Amphitrite, Andromeda,

Europa, Niobe, Blenheim and Blake, with fifteen first-class

torpedo boats and ten destroyers, had got out to sea from Spithead

unharmed. All these cruisers were good for twenty knots, the torpedo

boats for twenty-five, and the destroyers for thirty. The Sutlej,

Ariadne, Argonaut and Diadem had got clear away from the Solent,

with ten first-class torpedo boats and five destroyers. They met about

four miles south-east of St Catherine's Point. Commodore Hoskins of the

Diadem was the senior officer in command, and so he signalled for

Captain Pennell, of the Andromeda, to come on board, and talk matters

over with him, but before the conversation was half-way through, a black

shape, with four funnels crowned with smoke and flame, came tearing up

from the westward, made the private signal, and ran alongside the

Diadem.



The news that her commander brought was this--Admiral Lord Beresford had

succeeded in eluding the notice of the French Channel Fleet, and was on

his way up the south-west with the intention of getting behind Admiral

Durenne's fleet, and crushing it between his own force to seaward and

the batteries and Reserve Fleet on the landward side. The Commander of

the destroyer was, of course, quite ignorant of the disaster which had

befallen the battleships of the Reserve Fleet and Portsmouth, and when

the captain of the cruiser told him the tidings, though he received the

news with the almost fatalistic sang froid of the British naval

officer, turned a shade or two paler under the bronze of his skin.



"That is terrible news, sir," he said, "and it will probably alter the

Admiral's plans considerably. I must be off as soon as possible, and let

him know: meanwhile, of course, you will use your own judgment."



"Yes," replied the Commodore, "but I think you had better take one of

our destroyers, say the Greyhound, back with you. She's got her

bunkers full, and she can manage thirty-two knots in a sea like this."



At this moment the sentry knocked at the door of the Commodore's room.



"Come in," said Commodore Hoskins. The door opened, a sentry came in and

saluted, and said:



"The Ithuriel's alongside, sir, and Captain Erskine will be glad to

speak to you."



"Ah!" exclaimed the Commodore, "the very thing. I wonder what that young

devil has been up to. Send him in at once, sentry."



The sentry retired, and presently Erskine entered the room, saluted, and

said:



"I've come to report, sir, I have sunk everything that tried to get in

through Spithead. First division of three destroyers, the old Leger,

the Dupleix cruiser, six destroyers of the second division, and three

cruisers, the Alger, Suchet and Davout. They're all at the

bottom."



The Commodore stared for a moment or two at the man who so quietly

described the terrific destruction that he had wrought with a single

ship, and then he said:



"Well, Erskine, we expected a good deal from that infernal craft of

yours, but this is rather more than we could have hoped for. You've done

splendidly. Now, what's your best speed?"



"Forty-five knots, sir."



"Good Lord!" exclaimed the Commander of the Greyhound. "You don't say

so."



"Oh, yes," said Erskine with a smile. "You ought to have seen us walk

over those destroyers. I hit them at full speed, and they crumpled up

like paper boats."



By this time the Commodore had sat down, and was writing his report as

fast as he could get his pencil over the paper. It was a short, terse,

but quite comprehensive account of the happenings of the last three

hours, and a clear statement of the strength and position of the torpedo

and cruiser squadron under his command. When he had finished, he put the

paper into an envelope, and said to the Commander of the Greyhound:



"I am afraid you are no good here, Hawkins. I shall have to give the

message to Captain Erskine, he'll be there and back before you're there.

Just give him the bearings of the Fleet and he'll be off at once. There

you are, Erskine, give that to the Admiral, and bring me instructions

back as soon as you can. You've just time for a whisky-and-soda, and

then you must be off."



Erskine took the letter, and they drank their whisky-and-soda. Then they

went on deck. The Ithuriel was lying outside the Greyhound, half

submerged--that is to say, with three feet of freeboard showing.

Commander Hawkins looked at her with envious eyes. It is an article of

faith with all good commanders of destroyers that their own craft is the

fastest and most efficient of her class. At a pinch he could get

thirty-two knots out of the Greyhound, and here was this quiet,

determined-looking young man, who had created a vessel of his own, and

had reached the rank of captain by sheer genius over the heads of men

ten years older than himself, talking calmly of forty-five knots, and of

the sinking of destroyers and cruisers, as though it was a mere matter

of cracking egg-shells. Wherefore there was wrath in his soul when he

went on board and gave the order to cast loose. Erskine went with him.

They shook hands on the deck of the Greyhound, and Erskine went aboard

of the Ithuriel, saying:



"Well, Hawkins, I expect I shall meet you coming back."



"I'm damned if I believe in your forty-five knots," replied Captain

Hawkins, shortly.



"Cast off, and come with me then," laughed Erskine, "you soon will."



Inside three minutes the two craft were clear of the Diadem. Erskine

gave the Greyhound right of way until they had cleared the squadron.

The sea was smooth, and there was scarcely any wind, for it had been a

wonderfully fine November. The Greyhound got on her thirty-two knots

as soon as there was no danger of hitting anything.



"That chap thinks he can race us," said Erskine to Lennard, as he got

into the conning-tower, "and I'm just going to make him the maddest man

in the British navy. He's doing thirty-two--we're doing twenty-five. Now

that we're clear I'll wake him up." He took down the receiver and said:



"Pump her out, Castellan, and give her full speed as soon as you can."



The Ithuriel rose in the water, and began to shudder from stem to

stern with the vibrations of the engines, as they gradually worked up to

their highest capacity. Commander Hawkins saw something coming up

astern, half hidden by a cloud of spray and foam. It went past him as

though he had been standing still instead of steaming at thirty-two

knots. A few moments more and it was lost in the darkness.



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