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Updated: May 31, 2025
You can read the telegrams, but you can't understand English well enough to pick up the gossip of the bars. I must do that myself." "You have stopped all leave on the battle-cruisers the real ones, I mean but what about the dockyard men," inquired Froissart. "Are they to be allowed to go to their homes when they come off their shifts?" "I have thought of that and weighed both sides.
They were to be put aground under Mount Edgcumbe, patched up, and pumped dry, and then would go into dock for repairs. It was a job of weeks, and during all that time the Fleet would be short of two battle-cruisers which might have swept the South Seas clear of the German Ensign. It was cruel luck, and the Three Towns had enough to talk of to keep them occupied for many days.
"There has been a serious naval disaster in the South Seas," said Jacquetot, "and we must clean up the mess, pretty damn quick. The news came yesterday. Orders were wired at once that two battle-cruisers, the Intrepid and Terrific, should be sent at full speed from Scotland to Devonport to dock, coal, and complete with stores.
I am to give you all possible assistance. All right. Go ahead. What do you want of us?" Dawson rapidly told how the two dummy battle-cruisers had come stumbling into the Sound in the afternoon, and how the Three Towns believed that the Intrepid and Terrific were at that moment lying on the shoals out of service for weeks to come.
That's all been the luck of the battle-cruisers and destroyers. They've had a topping rag three of our term have been wounded already. But we aren't allowed to gas about what we're going to do why, that waiter might be a German spy, for all we know."
The Invincible and Inflexible were the two first battle-cruisers built; each had a tonnage of 17,250, a speed of 27-28 knots, and eight 12-inch guns which could be fired as a broadside to right or left; and there would be little chance for Von Spee if he encountered such a weight of metal. Sturdee reached Port Stanley on 7 December.
The two battle-cruisers remained upon the shoals of Picklecombe Point all through November and well into the following month. The great salvage steamer with the arc light went away, but others remained. Work seemed to proceed, though it was unaccountably slow in producing a result.
But before their arrival our three battle-cruisers had been blown up, supposedly the result of gunfire, although possibly they were victims of torpedoes. "Such close range fighting with battle-cruisers might be criticized as bad tactics, but our fleet, following the traditions of the navy, went out to engage the enemy, and on account of weather conditions could do so only at short range.
If a single one of your officers or men goes out of the dock gates the game will be up and I won't answer for the consequences. Everything rests with you, sir. Will you give orders that no one, no one, not even you yourself, shall leave either of the battle-cruisers while they are in dock no one, not for a minute." The Admiral laughed, and the officers in his room respectfully joined in.
To the seaman, here was a battle-cruiser with her sister battle-cruisers astern, and there around her were Dreadnoughts of different types and pre-Dreadnoughts and cruisers and all manner of other craft which could fight each in its way, each representing so much speed and so much metal which could be thrown a certain distance. "Homogeneity!"
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