第22章 THE GREAT WAR SYNDICATE(22)

An hour after the receipt of the note in which it was stated that Caerdaff had been selected, the Syndicate's fleet started for that place.The crabs were elevated to cruising height, the repeller taken in tow, and by the afternoon of the next day the fleet was lying off Caerdaff.A note was sent on shore to the officer in command, stating that the bombardment would begin at ten o'clock in the morning of the next day but one, and requesting that information of the hour appointed be instantly transmitted to London.When this had been done, the fleet steamed six or seven miles off shore, where it lay to or cruised about for two nights and a day.

As soon as the Government had selected Caerdaff for bombardment,immediate measures were taken to remove the small garrisons and the inhabitants of the fishing village from possible danger.When the Syndicate's note was received by the commandant of the fort, he was already in receipt of orders from the War Office to evacuate the fortifications, and to superintend the removal of the fishermen and their families to a point of safety farther up the coast.Caerdaff was a place difficult of access by land, the nearest railroad stations being fifteen or twenty miles away; but on the day after the arrival of the Syndicate's fleet in the offing, thousands of people made their way to this part of the country, anxious to see--if perchance they might find an opportunity to safely see--what might happen at ten o'clock the next morning.Officers of the army and navy, Government officials, press correspondents, in great numbers, and curious and anxious observers of all classes, hastened to the Welsh coast.The little towns where the visitors left the trains were crowded to overflowing, and every possible conveyance, by which the mountains lying back of Caerdaff could be reached, was eagerly secured, many persons, however, being obliged to depend upon their own legs.Soon after sunrise of the appointed day the forts, the village, and the surrounding lower country were entirely deserted, and every point of vantage on the mountains lying some miles back from the coast was occupied by excited spectators, nearly every one armed with a field-glass.A few of the guns from the fortifications were transported to an overlooking height, in order that they might be brought into action in case the repeller, instead of bombarding, should send men in boats to take possession of the evacuated fortifications, or should attempt any mining operations.The gunners for this battery were stationed at a safe place to the rear, whence they could readily reach their guns if necessary.The next day was one of supreme importance to the Syndicate.On this day it must make plain to the world, not only what the motor-bomb could do, but that the motor-bomb did what was done.Before leaving the English Channel the director of Repeller No.11 had received telegraphic advices from both Europe and America, indicating the general drift of public opinion in regard to the recent sea-fight; and, besides these, many English and continental papers had been brought to him from the French coast.Fromall these the director perceived that the cause of the Syndicate had in a certain way suffered from the manner in which the battle in the channel had been conducted.Every newspaper urged that if the repeller carried guns capable of throwing the bombs which the Syndicate professed to use, there was no reason why every ship in the British fleet should not have been destroyed.But as the repeller had not fired a single shot at the fleet, and as the battle had been fought entirely by the crabs, there was every reason to believe that if there were such things as motor-guns, their range was very short, not as great as that of the ordinary dynamite cannon.The great risk run by one of the crabs in order to disable a dynamite gun-boat seemed an additional proof of this.It was urged that the explosions in the water might have been produced by torpedoes; that the torpedo-boat which had been destroyed was so near the repeller that an ordinary shell was sufficient to accomplish the damage that had been done.To gainsay these assumptions was imperative on the Syndicate's forces.To firmly establish the prestige of the instantaneous motor was the object of the war.Crabs were of but temporary service.Any nation could build vessels like them, and there were many means of destroying them.The spring armour was a complete defence against ordinary artillery, but it was not a defence against submarine torpedoes.The claims of the Syndicate could be firmly based on nothing but the powers of absolute annihilation possessed by the instantaneous motor-bomb.About nine o'clock on the appointed morning, Repeller No.11, much to the surprise of the spectators on the high grounds with field-glasses and telescopes, steamed away from Caerdaff.What this meant nobody knew, but the naval military observers immediately suspected that the Syndicate's vessel had concentrated attention upon Caerdaff in order to go over to Ireland to do some sort of mischief there.It was presumed that the crabs accompanied her, but as they were now at their fighting depth it was impossible to see them at so great a distance.But it was soon perceived that Repeller No.11 had no intention of running away, nor of going over to Ireland.From slowly cruising about four or five miles off shore, she had steamed westward until she had reached a point which, according to the calculations of her scientific corps, was nine marine miles from Caerdaff.There she lay to against a strong breeze fromthe east.