CHAPTER XXXI

THE NAVAL BATTLE OFF PLYMOUTH

Thus the chronicler: “The Spanish Invasion being brought to a crisis, after the most assiduous application of three whole years to fit out that fleet vainly named by the Pope the great, noble and invincible Armada and Terror of Europe.... King Philip gave orders for its sailing on the 19th of May 1588. It consisted of 134 sail of tall towering ships, besides gallies, galliasses and galleons.” The fleet carried 8766 mariners, 21,855 soldiers, and 2088 galley slaves; together, 32,709 men, irrespective of Spanish Dons and their attendants, priests, surgeons, and servitors of all sorts.

First, and before all things, it was to be understood that the motives of his Spanish Majesty were truly religious--” to serve God, and to return unto his Church a great many contrite souls ... oppressed by heretics, enemies to our Holy Catholic Faith.”

Britain, as usual, was unready; but a fleet was got together in only 50 days. The City of London being desired to furnish 5000 men and 15 ships, provided 10,000 men and 30 ships, and at this great crisis in our national life there was “such a zealous love and duty throughout the nation towards the Queen as is inexpressible.” Britons were Britons in the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth; “an uncommon joy and alacrity appeared in the face of every one. They were pleased with the thought of contributing, every man in his way, towards the defence of their country, their liberties, and their Queen.”

The English fleet consisted of 80 ships manned by 9000 sailors, and not all those were available when the Armada was sighted off the Lizard, disposed in a crescent seven miles long from horn to horn; but when the Spanish admiral got back to Spain in late September he had but 60 sail out of his 134. Thus, with the loss of only one small ship and about a hundred men, England remained the mistress of the seas. Shame, loss, and dishonour had befallen her treacherous enemy. _Venit, Vidit, Fugit!_

And now, three hundred and twenty-two years after the winds and the waves had come to the aid of England, another fleet of vastly different character had been sighted from the Lizard--insignificant, relatively, in point of numbers, but immeasurably more powerful in type and armament. And once again a British fleet came out from Plymouth, to watch and, if need were, to fight the foreigner.

After the first and unexpected appearance of the German battleships and cruisers off Plymouth--made known to London by the special _Epoch_ on Christmas Day--certain mysterious manœuvres followed. But when eager observations were taken early on the morning of Bank Holiday, not one German ship remained in view. Phantom-like the fleet had come, phantom-like it had vanished in the dark and stormy night.

Meanwhile, to the intense relief of Plymouth, another British Squadron hove in sight. Signals and messages were rapidly exchanged, and certain cruisers and destroyers were at once detached for scouting work--their duty being “to track the Germans, shadow them cautiously, and send back news by wireless telegraphy of their latest movements.” The scouts, in turn, were lost to view. Their orders were to cruise along an east and west line some fifty miles from land, to meet twice a day, exchange reports, and then return in opposite directions to the limits of their beat.

At sunset the battleships and cruisers remaining at Plymouth went to general quarters, and the crews were kept at their guns during the night. Every officer and bluejacket felt the tension of the hour. None knew what test of courage, skill, endurance the night or the morning might exact from them. The honour of the Flag, the responsibility of upholding great traditions, the safety of their country might suddenly be entrusted to their keeping. The scene might well inspire English hearts. For all remembered that hither came in those far-off days the mighty fleets of Spain in the period of her power; and, again, it was out yonder in the misty sea that once upon a time the Dutch admiral, Van Tromp, flaunted his flag--jacks and pennants flying--in the face of the fiery Blake, who accepted the defiance and at once attacked and beat the Dutchman’s ships. The older navies of the kings and queens of England had known how to exact the salutation of the Flag. And Cromwell, too, had known. For in a treaty of his time it was provided “that the ships of the United Provinces, as well those fitted out for war as others, which should meet in the British seas any of the ships of war of England, should strike their flag and lower their topsail in such manner as had been any time practised before under any former Governments.” Sir Cloudesley Shovel and Sir George Rooke--they, too, had exacted homage to the Flag when Queen Anne was on the throne; and no foreign navy had ventured to withhold the first salutation in the long reign of Queen Victoria.

To the navy of King Edward VII., in this supreme moment, was committed the maintenance of our marine supremacy.

Yet experienced officers were well aware that, with all the foresight and sagacity that could be brought to bear, the fortune of war at sea depended very much on what men still called chance. “Right or left,” said Nelson, “it is all a matter of guess, and the world attributes wisdom to him who guesses right.” Nelson himself had to hunt for the French fleet many a time and oft; the American fleet had no news of the Spanish ships for something like a fortnight in the fight for Cuba; and in the war between Russia and Japan, the fleet of the former was “a dark horse” to Admiral Togo for considerable periods. The game of wits at sea, for which the other term is naval strategy, depends on distances, the elements, the unforeseen. Specific programmes are impossible, and the best-laid plans of admirals “gang oft agley.” Thus it came about that in this critical juncture the British scouts failed to get in touch with the potential enemy,--a failure almost attended with dire results for England.

The Germans having given our scouts the slip (whether by luck or skill was never known) crept back in the dark hours towards Plymouth. Then, suddenly, their whole flotilla of destroyers, with lights out, and steaming at full speed, made a desperate attempt to force an entrance to the harbour. The rush was admirably planned. Anticipating partial detection, and by means of clever feints, the torpedo craft sought to attract the search-lights of the defence works to one particular destroyer, hoping that the main division might thus be enabled to make a successful dash, under the shadow of the shore, to the eastern and western channels of the breakwater. But the manœuvre failed. In the very nick of time the flashlights exposed the real and formidable nature of the onslaught. The roar of the battery guns burst forth upon the night, continuing with unabated fury until all but one of the flotilla--which ran headlong upon the breakwater--were sunk or driven off, damaged and defeated. The projected supplementary action of the German battleships, now looming into view, thus became hopeless, if not impossible.

A mighty cheer went up from all the British ships when this was realised. It was their turn now to take the warpath, and the Admiral,--Sir Lambert Meade,--saw that they took it instantly. In the hearts of all, if not upon their lips, was the spirit of the stirring English war-song:

“Who fears to die? Who fears to die? Is there any here who fears to die

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Shout for England! Ho! for England! George for England! Merry England! England for aye!”

Daylight was near at hand, and when it came, grey and mournful, over the sullen sea, the tactics of the British admiral left the enemy in doubt. An elaborate feint made with certain British battleships and armoured cruisers led the Germans to suppose the intention was to drive them back into the Atlantic; and ere they realised their error, the greater number of the British ships steamed diagonally outside the enemy, enclosing them within an imaginary line drawn from the Eddystone to Lizard Point. The light cruisers were told off to harass the German auxiliaries, and seeing the probable effect of this manœuvre, the enemy opened fire, wasting powder and shell long before they were within effective range. The British guns, however, remained silent until the distance between the fleets was only four miles or less. Then the British admiral gave the signal, and straightway four battleships and eight armoured cruisers hurled shell after shell against the nearest of the German ships. The detached section of the fleet that had steamed westward along the coast, attacked with equal fury the other wing of the invaders’ line. The Germans at first replied with spirit. In every battle the winning cock must lose some feathers, and sorrow and mourning were on their way to many an English home.

Presently there were signs of disaster and disablement among the enemy’s ships. Caught between two fires, and deprived of the aid of their destroyers, the position produced a demoralising effect upon their men. The German plan of campaign had miscarried, and the crews and gunners were at first disconcerted and then thrown into panic by the concentrated and mathematical precision with which the British guns riddled the leading ships of their column. Here and there, in both fleets, the bursting shells produced wholesale slaughter and mutilation. The worst disasters to the enemy’s ships, however, were caused by the repeated shocks of the terrific projectiles, which displaced the steel plates of their armour. Thus the rivets sprang, and water crept in at a hundred holes. Two of the finest German battleships, through the gaining weight of water, had their centre of gravity gradually shifted. They foundered, and all hands were lost--officers and men going bravely, calmly, to their doom.

The battleship _Wilhelm II._ became unmanageable and left the line, and, at the same time it was seen that desperate attempts were being made to give protection to one in particular of the auxiliaries--a liner of great speed, that presently broke away and headed for the open sea, hotly pursued by two light cruisers and one destroyer from the British line.

Both remaining sections of the defending force now closed in upon the Germans, their great guns doing more and deadlier work as the range was lessened. One of the German battleships was now on fire, and the great clouds of smoke that rose for a time so hid the ships that firing was suspended. When the smoke cleared the British admiral gave another signal, and then the deadly wasps of naval warfare--the torpedo flotilla--swarmed in upon the enemy to complete the havoc and destruction commenced by the great guns of our battleships.

England, sovereign of the seas, had won another victory. Her flag was still supreme!

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The scattered units of the German fleet had not only to seek safety from their pursuers, but also, as the short day closed in, to battle with a formidable gale. For the _Schiller_ and other ships that had steamed westward, the position was one of appalling jeopardy. They had to reckon with the terrors of a wild and rocky shore.

Less than three hundred miles from London, the westerly extremity of England, grey and granitic, frowns on the roaring seas that beat in vain upon its rocky bastions. Here the channels mingle with the mighty ocean, and stupendous billows, tumbling shoreward, break on the cliffs with a terrific roar that sometimes daunts the hardened miner at work in the galleries that stretch beneath the ocean-bed. A little more than a mile from the cliffs the Longship’s Lighthouse throws its rays upon the spume of the tremendous waves, and away to the west lies the granite group of the Scilly Isles.

The wind and the rain are twin rulers of these islands; and the yeasty currents have swept many a gallant ship upon their jagged reefs. The “Bishop” and his “Clerks” are always on the watch to shrive the souls of shipwrecked mariners. It was here on the Gilstone Rock (near the small islet of Roseviar) that Sir Cloudesley Shovel, returning from the siege of Toulon, met with his tragic end. Driven off his course by storms, his ship, the _Association_, was forced upon the rock, and in a few minutes fell to pieces. In that night of dreadful memory, the _Phœnix_, the _Romney_, and the _Firebrand_ met a like fate. The _St George_ only narrowly escaped. Upwards of 2000 lives were lost in that dread night, and since that far-off time many another ship has gone to pieces in those hungry jaws.

It was around these ragged westerly islands that the storm raged with especial fury on the night that followed the scattering of the German fleet.