One of the survivors of the _Blücher_ gave a vivid account of the effects of our gunnery.[101] "The British guns were ranging. Those deadly waterspouts crept nearer and nearer. The men on deck watched them with a strange fascination. Soon one pitched close to the ship, and a vast watery pillar, a hundred metres high, fell lashing on the deck. The range had been found. Now the shells came thick and fast, with a horrible droning hum. At once they did terrible execution. The electric plant was soon destroyed, and the ship plunged in a darkness that could be felt. Down below there was horror and confusion, mingled with gasping shouts and moans as the shells plunged through the decks. At first they came dropping from the sky. They penetrated the decks, they bored their way even to the stokehold. The coal in the bunkers was set on fire. Since the bunkers were half-empty the fire burned merrily. In the engine-room a shell licked up the oil, and sprayed it around in flames of blue and green, scarring its victims and blazing where it fell. Men huddled together in dark compartments, but the shells sought them out, and there death had a rich harvest. "The terrific air-pressure resulting from explosion in a confined space left a deep impression on the minds of the men of the _Blücher_. The air, it would seem, roars through every opening and tears its way through every weak spot. All loose or insecure fittings were transformed into moving instruments of destruction. Open doors bang to and jamb, and closed iron doors bend outwards like tin plates, and through it all the bodies of men are whirled about like dead leaves in a winter blast, to be battered to death against the iron walls." Has Dante beaten this description of an Inferno? FOOTNOTES: [100] _Globe and Laurel._ [101] _Times._ CHAPTER XXI The Royal Naval Air Service "The human bird shall take his first flight, filling the world with amazement, all writings with his fame, and bringing eternal glory to the nest whence he sprang." LEONARDO DA VINCI. "The feathered race on pinions skim the air, Not so the mackerel, and still less the bear; Ah! who hath seen the mailèd lobster rise, Clap her broad wings, and claim the equal skies?" Poem in _The Anti-Jacobin_. "The French are all coming, for so they declare; Of their floats and balloons all the papers advise us; They're to swim through the ocean and ride on the air, On some foggy evening to land and surprise us." _The Invasion._ DIBDIN.