After that the firing became general, each heavy gun being discharged as fast as the automatic rammer could thrust home the giant projectiles and the breechblocks could be closed. Between the deafening roars of the fifteen-inch guns came the quicker, though hardly less ear-splitting reports of the secondary armament--the six-inch guns in various armoured casements on the main deck and other parts of the ship.
All the while came the titanic sledge-hammer blows of the enemy's shells, accompanied by the rending of steel, the crash of falling masses of metal, and--far too frequently--the shrieks of men torn by the fragments of bursting projectiles in spite of the best protection that human ingenuity could provide.
Hamerton felt perfectly calm and collected now. The first blow had banished the burning sensation in his throat, although, did he but know it, his face was streaming with perspiration and streaked with dust from the exploded cordite charges.
Both fleets were now on parallel courses, hammering at each other at less than a mile apart. It is all very well to assert that the modern naval battle will be decided at eight to ten thousand yards range: the atmospheric conditions have to be taken into account, and this battle off Galloper Sands was fought in a haze that is more frequent than otherwise in the North Sea.
All order was now at an end. It was impossible for the ships to keep their stations. Already some were sinking, and others forced to haul out of line owing to serious damage; while there was hardly one of the vessels, which a bare quarter of an hour before were as taut and trim as a naval officer could desire, that looked little better than a mass of floating scrap iron. Almost everything that could be shot away had disappeared before the terrible force of the heavy shells, till it seemed a wonder that a single ship could remain afloat.
Of all this Hamerton saw nothing. He was waiting. It was his duty to wait till ordered to do something.
"See what is wrong with the for'ard starboard six-inch," he said abruptly. The voice tube and electric wires communicating with that particular casemate were long out of action.
Hamerton saluted, and promptly descended the ladder to the deck beneath the waterline. Half a dozen anxious pairs of eyes asked mute questions. The Sub could only shake his head; he knew nothing.