Yes, the Germans got three good hauls in the cruisers; but I don’t think they’ll have another chance like it. CHAPTER XV THE RUNAWAY RAIDERS [“Practically the whole fast cruiser force of the German Navy, including some great ships vital to their fleet and utterly irreplaceable, has been risked for the passing pleasure of killing as many English people as possible, irrespective of sex, age or condition, in the limited time available. Whatever feats of arms the German Navy may hereafter perform, the stigma of the baby-killers of Scarborough will brand its officers and men while sailors sail the seas.” So wrote the First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Winston S. Churchill) on December 20th, 1914, in reference to the German raid on Scarborough, Whitby, and the Hartlepools on December 16th. In that cowardly bombardment of unprotected places, the Huns killed more than a hundred men, women, and children in the Hartlepools alone, and altogether the casualties numbered more than six hundred. This story is based on the narrative of Sapper W. Hall, R.E., one of the few English soldiers who have been under an enemy’s fire on English soil. Sapper Hall was badly wounded.] It is just a fortnight to-day since the German warships came up out of the mist, bombarded Hartlepool, wrecked many of the houses, killed a lot of defenceless women, children and men, and then tore away into the mist as hard as they could steam. Our own warships nearly got up with them, and if it had not been for the mist, never one of those vessels which were so valiant in bombarding helpless towns would have got back to Germany. A great deal of confusion has been caused in telling the story of the raids on the Hartlepools, the two places being hopelessly mixed up. They are, as a matter of fact, quite separate towns, with separate mayors and corporations. Hartlepool itself, where we now are, is on the coast, facing the sea; West Hartlepool is two miles inland. Both towns were bombarded, but it is hereabouts that most of the damage by shells was done, and many children and grown-up people killed. It was just over there, too, that eight Territorials were standing on the front, watching the firing, when a shell struck them and killed seven of the men and wounded the eighth.[2] It was soon after eight o’clock in the morning when we rushed out of our billets into the streets, and, looking seaward, we saw warships firing. In our billets we had heard the booming of guns, and supposing that it was our own warships practising or fighting, we had hurried out to see the fun. A few seconds was enough to tell us that there was no fun in it, but that this was a bombardment in deadly earnest by the enemy.