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These strips, about a foot wide, and placed an inch or two apart, were each backed by several powerful air-buffers, so that a ball striking one or more of them would be deprived of much of its momentum. The experiments upon the steel spring and buffers adopted by the Syndicate showed that the force of the heaviest cannonading was almost deadened by the powerful elasticity of this armour.
The spring buffers, which, as has been said, form an essential part of the quadrant, are fitted with steel rollers at the point of contact with the crosshead, thereby reducing the friction to a minimum. The springs, by their compression, absorb any shock coming on the rudder, and greatly reduce the vibration when struck by a sea. They are made adjustable, and can be either steel or rubber.
What effect had been produced by the frightful concussion? Had Barbican's ingenuity been attended with a fortunate result? Had the shock been sufficiently deadened by the springs, the buffers, the water layers, and the partitions so readily ruptured?
I sprang off on the platform before the engine reached the terminal buffers, and saw passing me like a nightmare the ghastly trainload of the dead. Most of the doors were swinging open, and every compartment was jammed full, although, as I afterwards learned, at each curve of the permanent way, or extra lurch of the train, bodies had fallen out all along the line.
But it was a long job, for Willie was not one of those slovenly boys that scamp their work. Such boys are nothing but soft, pulpy creatures, who, when they grow to be men, will be too soft for any of the hard work of the world. They will be fit only for buffers, to keep the working men from breaking their heads against each other in their eagerness.
But, to my companion, a shortish, thick-set man, with a masterful air and a bowler hat very much over one eye, these marvels were an everyday affair; and now, ducking under a steel hawser, he led me on, dodging moving trucks, stepping unconcernedly across the buffers of puffing engines, past titanic cranes that swung giant arms high in the air; on we went, stepping over chain cables, wire ropes, pulley-blocks and a thousand and one other obstructions, on which I stumbled occasionally since my awed gaze was turned upwards.
Trainloads bristling with ragged soldiers passed us open truck-loads of them, carriage tops covered with sleeping men, some were clinging to the steps and to the buffers. Nish station had lost its sleepy air. Every one was energetically doing everything all wrong. The four orderlies and the two Belgian sisters were minus their passports. Some one had taken them away.
He was now so sorry for Corp that the tear rolled down. But at the same moment he saw how the effect could be still further heightened by doing away with his friend's rude state of health, and he immediately jammed him between the buffers of two railway carriages, and gave him a wooden leg.
On the latter vessel, which was the first fitted with it, the gear has been working for over two years, giving, we are told, entire satisfaction to the owners, who say the spring buffers undoubtedly reduce the vibration when the rudder is struck by a sea, and the arrangement of quadrant and tiller appears to give increase of power.
At about the moment when the attack was to begin, it was found that the pom poms and the Vickers guns were not working. The thermometer at this time stood at fifty below zero and the intense cold had frozen the oil in the buffers of the pom poms and machine guns, rendering them worse than useless.
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