TOLD BY THE NAVY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 137, 3 November 1914, Page 6

TOLD BY THE NAVY.

CRUISERS' HEART TO HEART TALK, j A naval lieutenant on a British des- ; troyer gives a lively account in the Morning Post of his personal experiences in the Heligoland light. "Have you ever noticed a dog rush in on a flock of sheep and scatter them?" says this vivid writer and man of action. "He goes for the nearest and barks, and it goes so much faster than the Hock that it bunches up with its companions; the dog then barks at another, and the sheep spread out fanwise, so that all round in front of the dog there is a semi-cirele of sheep and behiud him none. That is what we did at 7 a.m. on 28th. The sheep were the German torpedo craft who fell back just on the limits of range and tried to lure us within lire of the Heligoland forts.

A QUITE NASTY "TUMMY ACIIE." "Paa si bete! but a cruiser came out *nd engaged our Arethusa; they had a real heart-to-heart talk while we looked on, and a few of us tried to shoot at the enemy, too, though it was beyond our distance. We were getting nearer and nearer Heligoland all the time; there was a thick mist, and I expected every piinute to find the forts on the island bombarding us; so Arethusa presently drew off, after landing at H ast one good shell on the enemy. Seeing our papers admit it, so may I; our fellows got q;iiie : a nasty "tummy" ache. Tho enemy | gave every bit as good as he got there, i "We then reformed, but a strong ues- : troyer belonging to the submarines got chased, and Arethusa and Fearless wen; back to look after her, mid we prcMiul.i heard a hot action astern. So the cap tain who was in command of. the flotilla turned us round and we" went back to help, but they had driven the onjin.. oil, and on our arrival told us to iV.nn up on the. Arethusa..

OUT OF "EVERYWHERE." "When we had partly formed and wert very much bunched together, a line target, suddenly out of 'everywhere' arrived live or six shells not .150 yards away We gazed at whence they came, and 'again five or six stabs of lire pierced the mist, and we made out a four-funnelled cruiser of the Breslau class. Those five stabs were her guns going off, of course. "We waited fifteen seconds, and the shots and the noise of the guns arrived pretty well simultaneously, fifty yards away. Her next salvo went over us, and I personally ducked as they whirred like a covey of fast partridges overbed. You would have supposed the captain had done this sort of tiling all his life; he gives me the impression of a Nelson officer who has lived in a state of suspended animation since, "but yet has kepi pace with the times, and is nowise perturbed at finding his frigate a destroyer. He went full speed ahead at once at the first salvo to string tile bunch out and thus offer less target, and the Commodore from the Arethusa made a signal to us to attack with torpedoes.

LIKE A HUSSAR ATTACK. "So we swung round at right angles »nd charged with ful speed at the enemy, like a Hussar attack. We got away at the start magnificently, and led the field so that all the enemy's lire was aimed at us for the next ten minutes. When we got so close that the debris of their shells fell on board we altered course, and so threw them out in their reckoning of our speed, and they-had all their work to do over agam. "Humanly speaking, therefore, the captain, by twisting and turning at the psychological moment saved us; actually I feel we are in God's keeping these days. After ten minutes we g6t near enough to open our torpedo, and then turned back to Arethusa. Next our follower arrived just where we had turned, and fired his torpedo, and, of course, the enemy fired at him, instead of at us —what a blessed relief! It was like coming out of a really hot and oppressive orchid-house into the cool air of a summer garden. \A '"hot' fire is properly descriptive; it seem 9 actually to be hot.

ENGAGING THE MAIKZ. "After the destroyers came the Fearless, and siie -stayed on the scene, and soon we found she was engaging a threefunneller, the Mainz. So off we started again for the Main/., the situation being, 1 take it, that crippled Arethusa was too "tummy' aching to do anything, but be defended by us, her children. Scarcely, 'however, had we started, ( 1 did not feel the least like another gruelling) when out, from the mist and across our front in furious pursuit came the First Cruiser Squadron, the Town Class, Birmingham, etc., eiK-h unit a match for three 'Mainz, and as we looked, and reduced speed, they opened lire, and the clear bang, bang of their guns was just a cooling drink!

'"To see this big four-funneller spouting (lame, which flame denoted shells, starting, and those not aimed at us, but for us, was the most cheering thing possible. Even as Kipling's infantrymen under heavy fire cries, 'The Cuns, thank Gawd, the guns,' when his own artillery had come into action over his head, so did I feel as those 'big brothers' came careering across."

"Once We were in safety I hated it; we had jus; been ha.ving our imagina tiona 'stimulated on *»ni UvibjVvt -of ' shells striking us, ami now a few mill utos later to see another ship not : lire,miles away reduced to piteous mass of unrecognisability, wreathed in black fumes, from which flared out angry gouts of fire, like Vesuvius iu eruption as an unending stream of hundred-pound shells burst on board; it just pointed the moral and showed us what might have been. The Mainz was immensely gallant. Tho last I saw of her she was absolutely wrecked alow and aloft, her whole midships a fuming inferno. She had one gun forward and one aft still spiting forth fury and defiance, 'like a wild cat mad with wounds.'

'"Our own four-funnelled friend recommenced at this juncture with a, couple of salvoes, 'hut rather half-heartedly; and we really did not car a d , for there straight ahead of ns in lordly procession, like elephants walking through a pack of 'pi-gogs,' came the Lion, Queen Mary, Invincible and New Zealand, our battle cruisers.

<h;ns: silexce: retire. "O.reat and grim and uncouth as some antediluvian monsters, how solid they looked, how utterly earthquaking!' Wc pointed out our latest aggressor to thorn, whom they could not see from whore they were, and they passed down the field of battle with the little destroyers oil their left, and the destroyod on their right, and we went west while they went east, and turned north between poor four funnels and her home, and just a little later we heard the thunder of their guns for a space, then, all silence, and we knew. "Then wireless—Lion to all ships and.j destroyers: Ketire."