WILLIAM LE QUEUX: 15 Dystopian Novels & Espionage Thrillers (Illustrated Edition). William Le Queux

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СКАЧАТЬ horrors of that bombardment were frightful. At the moment of the first shots, fired almost simultaneously from the two big guns of the Syzran, the panic became indescribable. Both shells burst with loud detonations and frightfully devastating effect. The first, striking one of the domes of the Dock Office, carried it bodily away, at the same time killing several persons; while the other, crashing upon the Exchange, unroofed it, and blew away the colossal statue of Britannia which surmounted the parapet on the corner. Surely this was an omen of impending disaster!

       MAP OF HULL AND THE HUMBER.

      Ere the horrified inhabitants could again draw breath, the air was rent by a terrific crash, as simultaneously flame rushed from the guns of the Kniaz Pojarski, the Pamyat Merkuriya, and the Mezen, and great shells were hurled into the town in every direction. The place trembled and shook as if struck by an earthquake, and everywhere walls fell and buildings collapsed.

      Long bright beams of the search-lights swept the town and neighbouring country, lighting up the turbulent streets like day, and as the crowds rushed headlong from the river, shot and shell struck in their midst, killing hundreds of starving toilers and unoffending men, women, and children.

      Lying off Salt End, the Cizoi Veliky, which had now come up the river in company with two torpedo boats, poured from her barbette a heavy fire upon the Alexandra Dock and Earle's shipbuilding yard, while the other vessels, approaching nearer, wrought terrible destruction with every shot in various other parts of the town. In the course of a quarter of an hour many streets were impassable, owing to the fallen buildings, and in dozens of places the explosion of the mélinite shells had set on fire the ruined houses.

      Missiles hurled from such close quarters by such heavy guns wrought the most fearful havoc. Naturally, the Russian gunners, discovering the most prominent buildings with their search-lights, aimed at them and destroyed many of the public edifices.

      Among the first prominent structures to topple and fall was the Wilberforce Monument, and then, in rapid succession, shots carried away another dome of the Dock Office, and the great square towers of St. John's and Holy Trinity Churches. The gaudily gilded equestrian statue of King William III. was flung from its pedestal and smashed by a heavy shot, which entered a shop opposite, completely wrecking it; and two shells, striking the handsome offices of the Hull Banking Company at the corner of Silver Street, reduced the building to a heap of ruins. Deadly shells fell in quick succession in Paragon Street, and at the North-Eastern Railway Station, where the lines and platforms were torn up, and the Station Hotel, being set on fire, was soon burning fiercely, for the flames spread unchecked here, as in every other quarter. Church spires fell crashing into neighbouring houses, whole rows of shops were demolished in Whitefriargate, High Street, and Saville Street, and roads were everywhere torn up by the enemy's exploding missiles.

      Not for a moment was there a pause in this awful work of destruction; not for a moment was the frightful massacre of the inhabitants suspended. The enemy's sole object was apparently to weaken the northern defences of London by drawing back the Volunteer battalions to the north. There was no reason to bombard after the fort had been silenced, yet they had decided to destroy the town and cause the most widespread desolation possible.

      Flame flashed from the muzzles of those great desolating guns so quickly as to appear like one brilliant, incessant light. Shells from the Cizoi Veliky fell into the warehouses around the Alexandra Dock, and these, with the fine new grain warehouses on each side of the river Hull, were blazing furiously with a terrible roar. High into the air great tongues of flame leaped, their volume increased by the crowd of ships in the dock also igniting in rapid succession, shedding a lurid glare over the terrible scene, and lighting up the red, angry sky. The long range of warehouses, filled with inflammable goods, at the edge of the Albert and William Wright Docks, were on fire, while the warehouses of the Railway Dock, together with a large number of Messrs. Thomas Wilson's fine steamers, were also in flames. Such a hold had the flames obtained that no power could arrest them, and as the glare increased it was seen by those flying for their lives that the whole of the port was now involved.

      The great petroleum stores of the Anglo-American Company, struck by a shell, exploded a few moments later with a most terrific and frightful detonation which shook the town. For a moment it seemed as if both town and river were enveloped in one great sheet of flame, then, as blazing oil ran down the gutters on every side, fierce fires showed, and whole streets were alight from end to end.

      Hundreds of persons perished in the flames, hundreds were shot down by the fragments of flying missiles, and hundreds more were buried under falling ruins. Everywhere the roar of flames mingled with the shrieks of the dying. Shells striking the Royal Infirmary burst in the wards, killing many patients in their beds, and setting fire to the building, while others, crashing through the roof of the Theatre Royal, carried away one of the walls and caused the place to ignite. One shot from the 13-ton gun of the Syzran tore its way into the nave of Holy Trinity Church, and, exploding, blew out the three beautiful windows and wrecked the interior, while another from the same gun demolished one of the corner buildings of the new Market Hall. The handsome tower of the Town Hall, struck by a shell just under the dial, came down with a frightful crash, completely blocking Lowgate with its débris, and almost at the same instant a shot came through the dome of the Council Chamber, totally destroying the apartment.

      The Mariners' Hospital and Trinity House suffered terribly, many of the inmates of the former being blown to pieces. One shot completely demolished the Savings Bank at the corner of George Street, and a shell exploding under the portico of the Great Thornton Street Chapel blew out the whole of its dark façade. Another, striking the extensive premises of a firm of lead merchants at the corner of Brook and Paragon Streets, swept away the range of buildings like grass before the scythe.

      In the Queen's, Humber, Victoria, and Prince's Docks the congested crowd of idle merchant ships were enveloped in flames that wrapped themselves about the rigging, and, crackling, leaped skyward. The Orphanage at Spring Bank, the Artillery Barracks, and Wilberforce House were all burning; in fact, in the course of the two hours during which the bombardment lasted hardly a building of note escaped.

      The houses of the wealthy residents far away up Spring Bank, Anlaby and Beverley Roads, and around Pearson's Park, had been shattered and demolished; the shops in Saville Street had without exception been destroyed, and both the Cannon Street and Pier Stations had been completely wrecked and unroofed.

      Soon after two o'clock in the morning, when the Russian war vessels ceased their thunder, the whole town was as one huge furnace, the intense heat and suffocating smoke from which caused the Russian Admiral to move his vessels towards the sea as quickly as the necessary soundings allowed.

      The glare lit the sky for many miles around. The immense area of great burning buildings presented a magnificent, appalling spectacle.

      It was a terrible national disaster — a frightful holocaust, in which thousands of lives, with property worth millions, had been wantonly destroyed by a ruthless enemy which Britain's defective and obsolete defences were too weak to keep at bay — a devastating catastrophe, swift, complete, awful.

      CHAPTER XVI

       TERROR ON THE TYNE

       Table of Contents

      England was thrilled, dismayed, petrified. The wholesale massacre at Eastbourne and the terrible details of the bombardment of Hull had spread increased horror everywhere throughout the land.

      Terror reigned on the Tyneside. Hospitals, asylums, and public institutions, СКАЧАТЬ