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As for the sixth Russian battleship, the Tsarevich, she took advantage of the darkness to separate from the rest of the fleet, and made for Kiaochau, where she arrived on the following day, and where she was of course interned. The same fate befell the cruisers Askold and Diana, the former of which sought shelter at Shanghai, while the latter succeeded in escaping as far south as Saigon.
In fact, all the British fleet within wireless radius knew before night that there was a new champion of the British fleet; and they cheered him, though he could not hear. It was upon the following morning, while the Queen Mary steamed about in the North Sea, that Jack and Frank embarked upon their first piece of work since they had been assigned to the giant battleship.
Armor, being an element of fighting power, belongs properly to the battleship rather than the cruiser; and in the latter, if the weight spent in armor detracts from speed or coal endurance, it contravenes the leading idea of a cruiser, mobility. But, while the name is incongruous, the type has its place as an armored vessel, though not as a cruiser.
Dinner in the ward-room was the formal meal of the day. The table, covered with snowy damask, glittered with crystal and silver. Silent, soft-moving little Filipinos, in their white mess suits, glided about, serving noiselessly. At the head of the table sat Commander Bainbridge, the executive officer, for the captain of a battleship dines in solitary state in his own apartments.
Again, a torpedo leaped from the bowcap of the Monitor and hurled its ton and a quarter of steel gray mass directly upon the port bow of the German craft. As the Monitor dived away again her captain beheld the battleship listing badly, going down by the bow at a rapid rate. "Two strikes!" he exclaimed enthusiastically.
The murk up here on this semi-height was thick to choking; the odour and taste of the battle poisoned brass on the tongue, the colour that of a sand storm, the heat like that of a battleship in action, and all the place shook from the thunder and recoil of the tiers of great guns beyond, untaken, not to be taken. A regiment rushed out of the rolling smoke, by the half regiment. "Mississippi!
Best of all, however, was the example of a huge old fellow wearing the cap and clothes of a boatswain's mate of a United States battleship; he seemed to dominate the excited throng in a moment, going about from group to group, quieting them all, spreading a feeling of confidence and courage throughout the whole ship.
Erskine would have dearly loved to sink a battleship or one or two cruisers, just to show his lordship how it was done, but the Admiral forbade this, as he wanted to get the Frenchmen, who still thought they were going to easy victory, entangled in the shallows of the narrow waters, and therefore with the exception of rolling over and sinking three submarines which happened to get in the way, no damage was done.
"We're necessarily a little crowded on a craft of this size," explained Benson. "Also the service is not what it would be on a battleship. We can carry but few men, so the cook must also act as waiter."
One other adventure, it transpired, was to befall Frank and Jack before they found themselves once more aboard the British battleship, Queen Mary; and while it did not result seriously, both lads once more approached the very door of death. The morning sun was well above the horizon when Jack, shading his eyes, made out in the distance a smudge of smoke. "Smoke ahead, Frank," he called.
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