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Updated: June 6, 2025
All at once the man ahead paused suddenly and stood looking out over the river. Between the Drive and the distance-dimmed lights of the Jersey shore there rose like great silhouettes the grim figures of several huge steel-clad battleships, their fighting-tops lost in the shadows of the opposite hills.
The shells of the heavy guns were combined with the projectiles of the lighter armament and the machine-guns posted in the fighting-tops, so that in the real sense of the word it was a "hail of projectiles," which came down in passing on the ships wrapped in smoke and steam.
Looking upward, Douglas saw that a number of Peruvians, armed with rifles, had clambered up on the roof of the turret, and up into the Huascar's low fighting-tops, and were firing directly downward into them. It was one of these bullets that put an end to the career of the gallant Chilian commander.
The scroll-work on her prow had twinkled with gilding; her belfry and stern-galleries and elaborate lanterns had flashed in the sun with gold; and her fighting-tops and the war-pavesse about her waist had been gay with painted coats and scutcheons.
In the turrets were the gun-crews, six men to a gun, with an officer above in the sighting-hood; behind the superstructure-ports were the quick-fire men, sailors and marines; and above all, in the fighting-tops, were the sharp-shooters and men who handled the one-pounders and Gatling guns the easiest-minded of the ship's company, for they could see and breathe.
Build underneath and each way from the ends of the box a cellular hull to float it; place within it, and below the box, magazines, boilers, and engines; construct above, between the turrets, a lighter superstructure to hold additional quick-fire guns and torpedo-tubes; cap the whole with a military mast supporting fighting-tops, and containing an armored conning-tower in its base; man and equip, provision and coal the fabric, and you can go to sea, confident of your ability to destroy everything that floats, except icebergs and other battle-ships.
"The enemy's ships are coming out," they signalled, and the ranks of white-clad figures which the moment before stood motionless on the decks, broke into thousands of separate beings who flung themselves, panting, down the hatchways, or sprang, cheering, to the fighting-tops.
The Warsaw yawed, slackened speed, and came to a stop, her turret-guns still speaking, but the secondary guns silent. The Argyll circled around her, sending her thirteen-, eight-, and six-inch shells into her victim with almost muzzle energy. The two military masts of the Warsaw sank, and dead men in the fighting-tops were flung overboard.
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