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In May we possessed only four battleships and one armed cruiser of the latest type; the English have ten ships-of-the-line and four armed cruisers which could be reckoned battleships. The new ships do not materially alter this proportion. The comparative number of the ships-of-the-line is becoming more favourable, that of the armoured cruisers will be less so than it now is.
But happily the armoured train was not on the scene. As we were so successful in our first undertaking, we determined to pass the enemy's line again in daylight. In fine, we had to cut the wire or surrender. The latter was more repulsive than the former. As my commando was now very near the line, there was not a moment to lose.
For this purpose an armoured train was despatched only three days after the expiration of the ultimatum to the point four hundred miles south of Bulawayo, where the frontiers of the Transvaal and of Bechuanaland join. Colonel Holdsworth commanded the small British force.
This platform, constructed throughout of 6-inch nickel-steel, was of oval shape, a hundred feet long and thirty broad in its greatest diameter, and carried the heavily armoured wheel-house and conning-tower, two funnels, six ventilators, and two huge pneumatic guns, each seventy-five feet long, working on pivots nearly amidships.
It will be repeated later with the Pine- chafer and the Rhinoceros Beetle, accompanied by the usual atrocious tactics of the Carabi. Even better than these last does the Calosoma know the weak point of the armoured Beetles, concealed beneath the wing-cases. And this will go on so long as we keep him provided with victims, for this drinker of blood is never satiated.
The whole thing was armoured, had the best of engines, and drew only twelve feet.... Well, the Merrimac had a startled breath, to be sure there is no denying the drama of the Monitor's appearance and then she righted and began firing. She gave to the cheese-box, or to the armoured turret, one after the other, three broadsides.
A world of comfort and reassurance, of homeliness and kindliness, without parrots and fierce-eyed cats and swaying pictures of armoured men a world of urbanity and light and space. There was a high white staircase with brown etchings in dark frames on the white walls. There was a thick soft carpet and a friendly fat grandfather clock. Many doors but none of them mysterious, all ready to be opened.
In this storm of shells every ship was struck again and again and the huge Pennsylvania, at the head of the column, seemed to be the target of the whole German column. About three o'clock, as the flagship rolled far over to port and exposed her starboard side, a twelve-inch shell caught her below the armoured belt and smashed through into the engine-room, where it exploded with terrific violence.
Daring journalists, with baskets of carrier pigeons, had on foggy nights dropped by parachute to the roof of the city; but neither they nor the birds had brought back a single word of what lay beneath the armed and armoured roof. My own resolution was but a boy's dream and I returned to Chicago to take up my chemical studies.
I am stationed here indefinitely, but I have a friend who drives an armoured car. I will ask him to do it." We then parted; I was to meet him with his friend that night. I packed my things as close as possible, tying two extra spools of film in a package round my waist under my coat, put on my knapsack, and drew my Balaclava helmet well down over my chin. Anxiously I awaited my friends.
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