Adventure, December 1914 — page 95: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Lancing of the Whale had—a score of rifles took up the refrain, turning the storm into Hell’s chorus. An- dry—waiting for the pitch and roll to lift him—hit what he aimed at; the others hit sea, sky and wind; but the noise and the surprise were the real missiles that night, and the holes were made in the Russian sailors’ courage. Up came the anchors of the landward ships—in the very nick of time to let them fall away before Dick’s bow. Beam-on, then, to a rip-roaring hurricane, with no impetus to help them steer, they crashed back on the ships behind. “Rip-pip-pi-pi-pippipl” went Andry’s awiul gun between every pitch and roll. The other guns thundered, belched, and spattered, making vivid flashes through the murk and striking terror into the help- . less transports. The sea rosé every mo- ment and the wind licked round the ends of the island so that the anchorage was little better than the open water. Ship after ship got its anchor up, to swing, reel, roll and crash into the ship behind; and into the whole mess Andry pumped his whistling lead until the Caspian fleet was mad—stark raving frantic! Sauve qui peut! became the order of the night! Hard chased by five little ships, not one of which was big enough to take on more than one of theirs, and not one of which, including Dick’s, was shooting bet- ter than a blind man, the Russians fled and scattered. A dozen sank where they were, rammed by their friends in the haste to get away. Six steamed ahead and ran ashore, their commanders preferring that to the risk of a fight in the open with the devil or whoever else it was who had burst on them out of a racing sky. One transport, badly overloaded, took a big wave on her broad- side and turned turtle; two others crashed into each other and both disabled drifted ashore some fifteen miles to the northward, where the storm smashed both ships into pieces. Just as the Spanish Armada was defeated by the weather and not men, and only the courage of a faithful few played second to the weather, this steel armada of Russia’s, for the conquering of Persia, was swept and washed into unrecognition by a Caspian southeaster. Dick took no credit to him- self. He thought of Usbeg Ali’s saying that ‘“‘Allah loves a brave man,” but he thought too of how bravery, daring and 93 sheer foolishness are not by any means all one. He pursued the Russians until they were scattered allapart. Their search- lights showed his five boats to be Russian, and they could not guess after that who was friend and who foe. They suspected a mutiny of their own men, and fled from anything in sight until the storm took hold of them and tossed them ashore or rolled them over between steep, howling seas. And then, in that condition, Dick drew off and left them. It needed all his seamanship to lead his little string of ships back to the shelter of the island from which he had chased the Russians. Over and again he thanked his stars that had made a sailor of him while he studied soldiering, and had taught him seamanship in the storm-swept Kyles of Bute. Over and over again he looked be- hind him and looked away again for fear of seeing one of his own ships swamped. In the end he steamed straight ahead, with his eyes on the island anchorage, and thanked Providence when he dropped anchor at last and looked once more, to see four little ships in a string behind him still. (aS down a little—not enough for com- fort but enough for safety’s sake. He ordered the anchors up at once and steamed away before the crews of the stranded Russian ships could recognize him, or tell the direction that he took. And before midday he steamed into sight of Astrabad Bay with the oil in his bunkers running low, and with a seasick crew, but with his bare red head held high, and his ex- traordinary eyes ablaze with knowledge that he had more than lanced Russia—he had driven her from her own sea, battered, and bruised, and sunk her ships, drowned he did not know how many of her men and utterly disheartened more of them. Lanced Rus- sia? He had gored her wide open! He had given her and her ruthless advance a setback she would not recover from for months! “Run the boats ashore outside the bay!” he ordered. ‘Then blow them up. Let the engineers and crew bring their things ashore, but keep them prisoners—they’ll be useful in an hour or two. Andry!’ “Ves, Mr. Dicky.” “Tower a boat, and take the orders back to the rest of them!” : ““Aye-aye!l”’ BEFORE dawn the storm died DOOK C@