Story of the Boarding of the Hermonthis
Fortunately
for you, HMCS Prince Henry is nearly three times as fast as the German
boats. You catch up with them in short order. At this point, to avoid being
captured, the German seamen set fire to their own ship. You and your crew decide
to go capture the closest German ship, because you cannot seize them all. The
one you attack is called the Hermonthis. HMCS Prince Henry approaches the burning
Hermonthis and launches a boat. You get into the boat yourself, at the head
of the boarding party. You take 53 crewmen prisoner and bring them aboard HMCS
Prince Henry. Then you go aboard the burning ship and spend the day there. Among
other things, you carry out an thorough inspection of the ship to assess the
damage caused by the flames and to see whether they can be put out. In the course
of your inspection, you go to the wheelhouse and find navigation instruments
such as two sextants and a barograph, along with a German flag. You also discover
a pregnant German shepherd dog. You take these items away with you to HMCS Prince
Henry. You are very careful to conceal the flag under your uniform, to avoid
angering the German sailors, but also because you have no right to bring back
such items. You also gather up other trophies from the adventure, including
a lifebelt, a buoy and, of course, the live pigs, which the crew will eat at
a later date.
After your inspection, members of your crew go aboard the Hermonthis
to try and put out the fire. They fight it for a whole day, while the other
three German ships burn in an enormous mass of flames. These three ships, being
loaded with cotton, burn very quickly and the crew of HMCS Prince Henry
cannot fight all four fires at the same time. "No one can be expected to
do the impossible," you say. As the fire burns, HMCS Prince Henry and the
Hermonthis find themselves side by side and strike one another with each
wave. To avoid excessive damage to your ship, the sailors look for makeshift
fenders to insert between the two vessels. They come up with the idea of placing
mattresses at the waterline, to minimize the impacts between the two vessels.
Unfortunately, this trick doesn't work, because the mattresses are pulverized
almost instantly by the force of the shock.
After
a full day of relentless firefighting, it is obvious that to save the Hermonthis
is impossible. The captain of HMCS Prince Henry telegraphs the Admiral
in Ottawa to find out what to do with the near-wreck. After a few hours, the
Admiral orders that, judging from the description of the fire, the German ship
is probably too heavily damaged to be still serviceable. His exact words: "She
is to be sunk by gunfire." In other words, the crew have to sink the German
ship with the fire from their weapons: four six-inch guns and projectiles weighing
93 pounds each.
Still intoxicated with your adventure on the Hermonthis, you hesitate
between:
