The P. and O. mail steamer _Macedonia_ came into this port last night
with five shell holes between wind and water. She reports having been
attacked by a hostile submarine ten miles to the south-east of the
Lizard. Instead of using her torpedoes, the submarine for some reason
approached from the surface and fired five shots from a semi-automatic
twelve-pounder gun. She was evidently under the impression that the
_Macedonia_ was unarmed. As a matter of fact, being warned of the
presence of submarines in the Channel, the _Macedonia_ had mounted her
armament as an auxiliary cruiser. She opened fire with two
quick-firers and blew away the conning-tower of the submarine. It is
probable that the shells went right through her, as she sank at once
with her hatches open. The _Macedonia_ was only kept afloat by her
pumps.
Such was the end of the _Kappa_, and my gallant friend, Commander
Stephan. His best epitaph was in a corner of the same paper, and was
headed "Mark Lane." It ran:--
"Wheat (average) 66, maize 48, barley 50."
Well, if Stephan was gone there was the more need for me to show energy.
My plans were quickly taken, but they were comprehensive. All that day
(Saturday) I passed down the Cornish coast and round Land's End, getting
two steamers on the way. I had learned from Stephan's fate that it was
better to torpedo the large craft, but I was aware that the auxiliary
cruisers of the British Government were all over ten thousand tons, so
that for all ships under that size it was safe to use my gun. Both these
craft, the _Yelland_ and the _Playboy_--the latter an American ship--were
perfectly harmless, so I came up within a hundred yards of them and
speedily sank them, after allowing their people to get into boats. Some
other steamers lay farther out, but I was so eager to make my new
arrangements that I did not go out of my course to molest them. Just
before sunset, however, so magnificent a prey came within my radius of
action that I could not possibly refuse her. No sailor could fail to
recognize that glorious monarch of the sea, with her four cream funnels
tipped with black, her huge black sides, her red bilges, and her high
white top-hamper, roaring up Channel at twenty-three knots, and carrying
her forty-five thousand tons as lightly as if she were a five-ton motor-
boat. It was the queenly _Olympic_, of the White Star--once the largest
and still the comeliest of liners. What a picture she made, with the
blue Cornish sea creaming round her giant fore-foot, and the pink western
sky with one evening star forming the background to her noble lines.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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