Page:The Invasion of 1910.djvu/90

 about her to seize those of her crew that survived. In ten minutes all was over. The steamer had disappeared, her side torn open by a dozen 7.5-in. shells charged with lyddite. But the Leicestershire was in serious plight. The damage done by the German torpedo was of the gravest nature. The British cruiser was heavily down by the stern; her port engine and propeller would no longer revolve; two compartments on the port quarter had filled, and water was leaking into the port engine-room. Very slowly, with the help of the starboard engine, Captain Cornwall took her in towards Leith and beached his ship on the shoals near the new harbour.

The opening act had been cleverly thought out by the German staff. While the torpedo boats were picking up the crew of the steamer, three divisions of German torpedo craft, each six boats strong, had passed into the Forth under the shadow of the northern coast. They glided like shadows through the darkness, and they do not seem to have been seen by the British vessels off Inchkeith, whose crews' attention was riveted upon the Leicestershire. A fourth division, moving rapidly in the shadow of the southern coast, was seen by the Leicestershire and by the British launches about her and with her, and at once she opened fire upon the dim forms. But, bereft of motive power, she could not use her battery to advantage, and though it was thought that one of the destroyers disappeared in the water, the others sped up the estuary, towards the British fleet.

Warned by wireless telegraphy that destroyers had been sighted, the British crews were on the qui vive. There was not time at this eleventh hour to weigh and put out to sea; the only possible course was to meet the attack at anchorage. The fleet was anchored off Rosyth, the battleships in two lines ahead, headed by the flagships Vanguard and Captain. The Vanguard and Captain, the leading ships in the starboard and port lines respectively, were just abreast of the Beamer Rock and