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Updated: May 4, 2025
Captain Farlow had taken up his stand on the upper conning-tower of the Connecticut the better to examine the horizon with his glass, but a thick curtain of rain rendered it almost invisible. "Nothing to be seen of our cruisers," he said to the navigating officer of the squadron, "this is disgusting weather for maneuvers."
Nobody but a German atheist would have fired on us at breakfast, lunch, and dinner the same Sunday. It got too hot when he put one ten yards from the cook. Anybody else we could have spared; then we had to go." We come to what looks like a sandbag redoubt, but in the eyes of heaven is a conning-tower.
The floor of the conning-tower took an angle of about sixty degrees, and Lennard gripped the holdfasts, of which there were two on each wall of the tower. He heard a rush of overwhelming waters then came darkness. The Ithuriel rushed forward at her highest speed. Then something hit the sea, and a quick succession of shocks sent a shudder through the vessel. "I thought so," said Erskine.
The execution on board was terrible; and Jim had an exceedingly narrow escape, for at the moment when the Union fired he was just entering the little conning-tower with a communication for Captain Condell, and a 100-pounder shell struck full upon one of the Covadonga's 70-pounder gun-shields, tearing a portion of it away.
So, without waiting for the admiral's signal for "General action", he pressed one of the electric buttons close to his hand in the wall of the conning-tower, and the two 9.4's in the Chih' Yuen's forward barbette roared out their hoarse defiance, dropping their shells full upon the Yoshino's after turret, where they burst with an explosion like that of a small powder-magazine, but without doing much damage.
He took his place with Mr Parmenter and Mr Hingeston on this and it rose with them into a little oval chamber almost exactly like the conning-tower of the Ithuriel, with the exception that it was built entirely of hardened papier-maché and glass. "You see, Mr Lennard," said Mr Parmenter, "we don't want armour here. Anything that hits us smashes us, and that's all there is to it.
But help from an unexpected quarter was at hand. Again we heard a terrific roar and crash, and with the noise of a thunderbolt a 15 in. shell exploded beneath the bridge. The blast of air swept away everything that was not firmly riveted down, and the chart-house disappeared bodily. But the astounding thing was that this same air pressure closed the door of the conning-tower!
There was the metallic sound of metal striking metal as the hatchway opened, a rush of cool, sweet air, and the Scientist found himself beside the two officers, without the slightest recollection of how he got there, standing in the wind and sunlight on the streaming platform of the conning-tower.
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.
From some conning-tower in this fourth dimension he perceived himself eating broiled lobster and drinking champagne and heard himself bearing an adequate part in the conversation; but his movements were largely automatic. Time passed. It seemed to Lord Dawlish, watching from without, that things were livening up. He seemed to perceive a quickening of the tempo of the revels, an added abandon.
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