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Updated: June 6, 2025
They had been steaming for about five hours, and had covered a little more than a quarter of the distance to Wei-hai-wei, when a puff of smoke burst out on board one of the torpedo-boats, the one farthest away to port, or toward the north-east, followed by the sharp, ringing sound of one of her twelve-pound quick-firers.
After that no body of men would stand against them, so hopeless was the enterprise. Even the crews of the torpedo-boats and destroyers that had brought their quick-firers up the Thames refused to stop, mutinied, and went down again. The only offensive operation men ventured upon after that night was the preparation of mines and pitfalls, and even in that their energies were frantic and spasmodic.
'The prisoners are those of whom I spoke last night to Colonel Henkel. Disguised in the overcoats of Turkish soldiers, they contrived to destroy one of our quick-firers, and to-day they were discovered hiding in a wood behind our lines. They had, it appears, been plundering our wounded, for food and a Turkish rifle were found in their possession.
So might I have felt had I sat in the kraal of Moshesh or Lobengula or the great Msiligazi. Though the city about me was a modern city, and though quick-firers crowned its heights, here before me was something that was passing away. But I considered my audience, and told the President and his listening Boers that I was glad to meet a man who had stood up against the British Empire without fear.
A large foreign timber-brig lay at my feet, and under the round of her stern cowered, close to the wharf-edge, a slate-coloured, unkempt, two-funnelled craft of a type but I am no expert between the first-class torpedo-boat and the full-blooded destroyer. From her archaic torpedo-tubes at the stern, and quick-firers forward and amidship, she must have dated from the early nineties.
"I'm very sorry," he said to the crowd, "but C Company's full." "Excuse me, Sir," said a man, "but wouldn't sea-time count in my favour? I've put in three months with the Fleet. Small quick-firers, Sir? Company guns? Any sort of light machinery?" "Come away," said a voice behind. "They've chucked the best farrier between Hull and Dewsbury. Think they'll take you an' your potty quick- firers?"
We could see one man getting another belt of ammunition ready to "feed." Bullets from the Turkish quick-firers went singing with an angry "ssss-ooooo! zzz-z-eeee!... whheee-ooo-o-o! zz-ing!" "D'you know where Brigade Headquarters is?" asked the adjutant. "I'll find it, sir." "Very well, go up with this message, and I shall be here when you come back."
Barricades of paving-stones and mattresses and sometimes farm carts were built across the highways. At certain points wires were stretched across the roads at the height of a man's head for the purpose of preventing sudden dashes by armoured motor-cars. The walls of such buildings as were left standing were loopholed for musketry. Machine-guns and quick-firers were mounted everywhere.
The only sounds were the lapping of the waves along the riven hull and the intermittent reports of the quick-firers. Then came the shrill squeal of the pipes. "Fall in!" roared a voice down the hatchway. "Clear lower deck! Every soul on deck!" The bugle rang out again. Thorogood staggered with his burden across the buckled plating of the flat, and reached the hatchway.
He was followed by a hurricane of shells from the three-pound quick-firers in the upper tops of the battleships. Then came an explosion in mid-air which seemed to shake the very firmament itself. She had fifty or sixty of the terrible shells which had wrought so much havoc on board, and as a dozen shells pierced her hull and burst, they too exploded with the shock.
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