第23章 THE GREAT WAR SYNDICATE(23)

It was not yet ten o'clock when the officer in charge of the starboard gun remarked to the director that he suppose that it would not be necessary to give the smoke signals, as had been done in the channel, as now all the crabs were lying near them.The director reflected a moment, and then ordered that the signals should be given at every discharge of the gun, and that the columns of black smoke should be shot up to their greatest height.

At precisely ten o'clock, up rose from Repeller No.11 two tall jets of black smoke.Up rose from the promontory of Caerdaff, a heavy gray cloud, like an immense balloon, and then the people on the hill-tops and highlands felt a sharp shock of the ground and rocks beneath them, and heard the sound of a terrible but momentary grinding crush.

As the cloud began to settle, it was borne out to sea by the wind, and then it was revealed that the fortifications of Caerdaff had disappeared.

In ten minutes there was another smoke signal, and a great cloud over the castellated structure on the other side of the bay.The cloud passed away, leaving a vacant space on the other side of the bay.

The second shock sent a panic through the crowd of spectators.The next earthquake bomb might strike among them.Down the eastern slopes ran hundreds of them, leaving only a few of the bravest civilians, the reporters of the press, and the naval and military men.The next motor- bomb descended into the fishing village, the comminuted particles of which, being mostly of light material, floated far out to sea.The detachment of artillerists who had been deputed to man the guns on the heights which commanded the bay had been ordered to fall back to the mountains as soon as it had been seen that it was not the intention of the repeller to send boats on shore.The most courageous of the spectators trembled a little when the fourth bomb was discharged, for it came farther inland, and struck the height on which the battery had been placed, removing all vestiges of the guns, caissons, and the ledge of rock on which they had stood.The motor-bombs which the repeller was now discharging were of the largest size and greatest power, and a dozen more of them were discharged at intervals of a few minutes.The promontory on which the fortifications had stood was annihilated, and the waters of the bayswept over its foundations.Soon afterward the head of the bay seemed madly rushing out to sea, but quickly surged back to fill the chasm which yawned at the spot where the village had been.The dense clouds were now upheaved at such short intervals that the scene of devastation was completely shut out from the observers on the hills; but every few minutes they felt a sickening shock, and heard a momentary and horrible crash and hiss which seemed to fill all the air.The instantaneous motor-bombs were tearing up the sea-board, and grinding it to atoms.It was not yet noon when the bombardment ceased.No more puffs of black smoke came up from the distant repeller, and the vast spreading mass of clouds moved seaward, dropping down upon St.George's Channel in a rain of stone dust.Then the repeller steamed shoreward, and when she was within three or four miles of the coast she ran up a large white flag in token that her task was ended.This sign that the bombardment had ceased was accepted in good faith; and as some of the military and naval men had carefully noted that each puff from the repeller was accompanied by a shock, it was considered certain that all the bombs which had been discharged had acted, and that, consequently, no further danger was to be apprehended from them.In spite of this announcement many of the spectators would not leave their position on the hills, but a hundred or more of curious and courageous men ventured down into the plain.

That part of the sea-coast where Caerdaff had been was a new country, about which men wandered slowly and cautiously with sudden exclamations, of amazement and awe.There were no longer promontories jutting out into the sea; there were no hillocks and rocky terraces rising inland.In a vast plain, shaven and shorn down to a common level of scarred and pallid rock, there lay an immense chasm two miles and a half long, half a mile wide, and so deep that shuddering men could stand and look down upon the rent and riven rocks upon which had rested that portion of the Welsh coast which had now blown out to sea.