The Coming Conquest of England [139]
space of the magnificent flagship during this engagement, far surpassed in their awfulness everything that he had hitherto seen. Heideck was full of admiration for the heroic courage, contempt of death, and discipline of officers and men, not one of whom stirred a foot from the post assigned him. As he only played the part of an inactive spectator in the drama that had now reached its climax, he was able to move freely over the ship. Wherever he went, the same spectacle of horrible destruction and heroic devotion to duty everywhere met his eye. The men serving the guns in the turrets and casemates were enduring the pains of hell. In the low, ironclad chambers a fiery heat prevailed, which rendered even breathing difficult. The terrific noise and the superhuman excitement of the nerves seemed to have so dulled the men's senses, that they no longer had any clear idea of what was going on around them. Their faces did not wear that expression of rage and exasperation, which Heideck had seen in so many soldiers in the land battle at Lahore; rather, he observed a certain dull indifference, which could no longer be shaken by the horror of the situation. A shell struck a battery before Heideck's eyes, exploded, and with its flying splinters struck down nearly all the men serving the guns. Happy were those who found death at once; for the injuries of those who writhed wounded on the ground were of a frightful nature. The red-hot pieces of iron, which tore the unhappy men's flesh and shattered their bones, at the same time inflicted fearful burns upon them. Indeed, Heideck would have regarded it as an act of humanity to have been allowed with a shot from a well-aimed revolver, to put an end to the sufferings of this or that unfortunate, whose skin and flesh hung in shreds from his body, or whose limbs were transformed into shapeless, bloody masses. But those who had escaped injury, after a few moments' stupefaction, resumed their duty with the same mechanical precision as before. Amidst their dead and dying comrades, about whom nobody could trouble himself for the moment, they stood in the pools of warm, human blood, which made the deck slippery, and quietly served the gun which had not been seriously damaged. A very young naval cadet, who had been sent down to the engine-room from the Prince-Admiral's conning-tower with an order, met Heideck on the narrow, suffocatingly hot passage. He was a slender, handsome youth with a delicate, boyish face. The blood was streaming over his eyes and cheeks from a wound in the forehead. He was obliged to lean with both hands against the wall for support, while, with a superhuman effort of will, he compelled his tottering knees to carry him forward, his sole thought being that he must keep upright until he had fulfilled his errand. When Heideck inquired sympathetically after the nature of his wound, he even attempted to wreathe his pale lips, quivering with pain, into a smile, for in spite of his seventeen years he felt himself at this moment quite a man and a soldier, to whom it was an honour and a delight to die for his country. But his heroic will was stronger than his body, wounded to death. In the attempt to assume an erect military bearing before the Major, he suddenly collapsed. He had just strength enough to give Heideck the Admiral's order and ask him to carry it out. Then his senses left him. In another battery the store of ammunition had been exploded by a shell. Not a man had escaped alive. Heideck himself, although since the beginning of the engagement he had recklessly exposed himself to danger, had hitherto, by a miracle, escaped death that threatened him in a hundred different forms. He had been permitted, by express command of the Prince, to stay a considerable time in the upper conning-tower, from which the Imperial Admiral directed the battle, and the deliberate calmness of the supreme commander, steadily pursuing his object, had filled him with unshaken confidence in a victory for the German fleet, in spite of the numerical superiority of the English. Ever