The Great War Syndicate

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The gunners of this piece had been well trained. In a moment the boom was swung around, the cannon reloaded, and when Crab K fixed her nippers on the rudder of the Adamant, two more shot came down upon her. As in the first instance she dipped and rolled, but the ribs of her uninjured armour had scarcely sprung back into their places, before her nippers turned, and the rudder of the Adamant was broken in two, and the upper portion dragged from its fastenings then a quick backward jerk snapped its chains, and it was dropped into the sea.

A signal was now sent from Crab J to Repeller No. 7, to the effect that the Adamant had been rendered incapable of steaming or sailing, and that she lay subject to order.

Subject to order or not, the Adamant did not lie passive. Every gun on board which could be sufficiently depressed, was made ready to fire upon the crabs should they attempt to get away. Four large boats, furnished with machine guns, grapnels, and with various appliances which might be brought into use on a steel-plated roof, were lowered from their davits, and immediately began firing upon the exposed portions of the crabs. Their machine guns were loaded with small shells, and if these penetrated under the horizontal plates of a crab, and through the heavy glass which was supposed to be in these interstices, the crew of the submerged craft would be soon destroyed.

The quick eye of the captain of the Adamant had observed through his glass, while the crabs were still at a considerable distance, their protruding air-pipes, and he had instructed the officers in charge of the boats to make an especial attack upon these. If the air-pipes of a crab could be rendered useless, the crew must inevitably be smothered.

But the brave captain did not know that the condensed-air chambers of the crabs would supply their inmates for an hour or more without recourse to the outer air, and that the air-pipes, furnished with valves at the top, were always withdrawn under water during action with an enemy. Nor did he know that the glass blocks under the armour-plates of the crabs, which were placed in rubber frames to protect them from concussion above, were also guarded by steel netting from injury by small balls.

Valiantly the boats beset the crabs, keeping up a constant fusillade, and endeavouring to throw grapnels over them. If one of these should catch under an overlapping armour-plate it could be connected with the steam windlass of the Adamant, and a plate might be ripped off or a crab overturned.

But the crabs proved to be much more lively fish than their enemies had supposed. Turning, as if on a pivot, and darting from side to side, they seemed to be playing with the boats, and not trying to get away from them. The spring armour of Crab K interfered somewhat with its movements, and also put it in danger from attacks by grapnels, and it therefore left most of the work to its consort.

Crab J, after darting swiftly in and out among her antagonists for some time, suddenly made a turn, and dashing at one of the boats, ran under it, and raising it on its glistening back, rolled it, bottom upward, into the sea. In a moment the crew of the boat were swimming for their lives. They were quickly picked up by two of the other boats, which then deemed it prudent to return to the ship.