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Updated: August 9, 2024
She was launched in November, 1906, and had a water-line length of 443 feet; beam, 57 feet; draft of 21-1/ feet, and a speed of 21 knots. She carried two 8-inch, eight 6-inch, twenty-two 12-pounders, four 3-pounders, and two torpedo tubes. Seven inches of Krupp armor protected the vessel amidships and four inches forward.
The remaining four batteries of field artillery were intended at the proper moment to concentrate their fire upon the Wylie kopjes, preparing the way for the crucial charge of the 2nd Brigade. For this object, two followed Lyttelton's 4th Brigade, and two the 6th; the last, under Colonel Long, being accompanied by six naval 12-pounders.
"Oh! not a very heavy one," answered Milsom; "probably four 12-pounders, of the latest pattern, and a couple of Maxims would be sufficient." Jack made a note of these particulars for reference to Senor Montijo, and then said: "Now, is there anything else that you can think of, Phil?"
The bridge was destroyed, and the creek was too deep to be forded. A strong picket of the enemy was on the opposite bank behind entrenchments, and about three-quarters of a mile off were two 32-pounders and five 12-pounders bearing on the spot. The pontoons must be laid for the infantry and artillery to cross, and that quickly or the movement would be a failure.
Bulwaan fired a single shot by way of parting salute, and then a tripod was rigged up for lifting "Puffing Billy" from his carriage. It was a bold thing to do in broad daylight, and our naval 12-pounders made short work of it by battering the tripod over. After that a steady fire was kept up on the battery to prevent, if possible, the Boers from moving their guns.
“And fortune once more favoured the brave, for in the wake of the mighty Maria Teresa came Spain’s two big torpedo-boats, called destroyers, because of their size,—the Pluton and the Furor. Either was more than a match for the Gloucester, for one carried two 12-pounders, and the other two 14-pounders, besides the 6-pounders that both carried.
We were still devoting all our energies to the task of getting to windward of our antagonist, and firing at her as fast as our leaping guns could be loaded, in the endeavour to disable her, when they succeeded in bringing her again to the wind, and as she rounded-to they gave us their whole broadside of seven 12-pounders, with a shot from their long 32-pounder by way of make-weight.
But meanwhile she had been most assiduously pegging away at us, in the first instance with her long gun only, but latterly with her 12-pounders of which she mounted seven in each battery as well, and we had by no means come off scathless, having been hulled three times, and losing two men killed and five wounded before a single shot of ours had reached her, though our spars had thus far escaped, and our rigging had not suffered to any very serious extent.
Nothing, however, happened to hinder our progress over the glass-smooth surface of the water, and in the course of about twenty minutes we reached the opening between the two headlands, and found ourselves in the mouth of a small, practically land-locked cove of some twenty acres in area, with our friend the brigantine in the very centre of it, with four anchors down two ahead and two astern with boarding nettings triced up, ports open, guns run out eight long 12-pounders in each battery and her starboard broadside bearing full upon the entrance!
But although a good many of them went down, enough were still left to enable them to man their port broadside of seven 12-pounders, as well as their long 32; and with astounding rapidity they brought the whole of these guns to bear upon the spot from which the jets of flame and smoke issued, marking the position of our guns, while they defiantly ran up the black flag to their main truck.
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