Banzai! Part 16

"Fire at the forepart of the _Satsuma_ with shrapnel," rang out the command from the wall.

"Shrapnels from below!" ordered the lieutenant, and "shrapnels from below" was repeated by the man at the lift into the 'phone leading to the ammunition chamber.

But the lift continued to bring up the blue armor-piercing sh.e.l.ls; five times more and then it stopped.

During a momentary pause in the firing on both sides, the buzzing and whirring of the electric apparatus of the lift could be distinctly heard. Then the lift appeared once more, this time with a red explosive sh.e.l.l.

"Aim at the forepart of the _Satsuma_, 1950 yards!"

The _Connecticut_ rolled over heavily to starboard, the water splashed over the railing, rus.h.i.+ng like a torrent between the turrets; then the s.h.i.+p heeled over to the other side. The shot rang out.

"At last," cried the lieutenant proudly, pointing through the peep-hole.

High up in the side of the _Satsuma_, close to the little 12-cm.

quick-firing gun, a piece was seen to be missing when the smoke from the bursting sh.e.l.l had disappeared.

"Good shot," came from above; "go on firing with shrapnel!"

The distance-register silently showed the number 1850. Then came a deafening roar from below and the sharp ring of tearing iron. A hostile sh.e.l.l had pa.s.sed obliquely below the turret into the forepart of the _Connecticut_, and clouds of thick black smoke completely obscured the view through the peep-hole.

"Four degrees higher!" commanded the lieutenant.

"Not yet correct," he grumbled; "three degrees higher still!" He waited for the _Connecticut_ to roll to port.

"What's the matter?"

"Use higher elevation in turrets. The _Connecticut_ has a leak and is listing to starboard," said the telephone. "Three degrees higher!"

ordered the lieutenant.

A shot from the left barrel.

"Splendid," cried the lieutenant; "that was a fine shot! But lower, lower, we're merely shooting their upper plates to bits," and the gun went on steadily firing.

The turrets on the starboard side were hit again and again, the hostile sh.e.l.ls bursting perpetually against their armored sides. As if struck by electric discharges the gunners were continually thrown back from the rumbling walls, and they were almost deaf from the fearful din, so that all commands had to be yelled out at the top of the lungs.

The raging storm and the rough sea prevented the Americans from using a part of their guns. While the explosive sh.e.l.ls from the enemy's heavy intermediate battery were able to demolish everything on deck and to pa.s.s through the unarmored portions of the sides, working fearful havoc in the interior and among the crew, the light American secondary battery was compelled to keep silence.

An attempt had been made, to be sure, to bring the 7-inch guns into action, but it proved of no avail. The gunners stood ready at their posts to discharge the sh.e.l.ls at the enemy, but it was utterly impossible, for no sooner had they taken aim, than they lost it again as the hostile s.h.i.+ps disappeared in the foaming gla.s.sy-green waves that broke against their sides. The water penetrated with the force of a stream from a nozzle through the cracks in the plates and poured into the casemates till the men were standing up to their knees in water. At last the only thing that could be done was to open the doors behind the guns in order to let the water out; but this arrangement had the disadvantage of allowing a good deal of the water which had run out to return in full force and pile up in one corner the next time the s.h.i.+p rolled over, and on account of this perpetual battle with the waves outside and the rolling water inside, it was impossible for the men to aim properly or to achieve any results with their shots. It was therefore deemed best to stop the firing here, and to have the gunners relieve the men at the turret-guns, who had suffered greatly from the enemy's fire. The men in charge of the completely demolished small guns on the upper deck had already been a.s.signed to similar duty.

We therefore had to depend entirely on our 12-inch and 8-inch guns in the turrets, while the enemy was able to bring into action all his broadside guns on the starboard side, which was only little affected by the storm. And this superiority had been used to such advantage in the first eleven minutes of the battle, before the surprised Americans could reply, that the decks of the latter's s.h.i.+ps, especially of the admiral's flag-s.h.i.+p, were a ma.s.s of wreckage even before the first American shot had been fired. The decks were strewn with broken bridges, planks, stanchions and torn rigging, and into the midst of this chaos now fell the tall funnels and pieces of the steel masts. In most instances the water continually pouring over the decks put out the fires; but the _Vermont_ was nevertheless burning aft and the angry flames could be seen bursting out of the gaping holes made by the sh.e.l.ls.

Admiral Perry, in company with the commander and staff-officers, watched the progress of the battle from the conning-tower. The officers on duty at the odometers calmly furnished the distance between their s.h.i.+p and the enemy to the turrets and casemates, and the lieutenant in command of the fire-control on the platform above the conning-tower coolly and laconically reported the results of the shots, at the same time giving the necessary corrections, which were at once transmitted to the various turrets by telephone. The rolling of the s.h.i.+ps in the heavy seas made occasional pauses in the firing absolutely necessary.

The report that a series of sh.e.l.ls belonging to the 8-inch guns in the front turret had unreliable fuses led to considerable swearing in the conning-tower, but while the officers were still cursing the commission for accepting such useless stuff, a still greater cause for anxiety became apparent.

Even before the Americans had begun their fire, the j.a.panese sh.e.l.ls had made a few enormous holes in the unprotected starboard side of the _Connecticut_, behind the stem and just above the armored belt, and through these the water poured in and flooded all the inner chambers. As the armored gratings above the hatchways leading below had also been destroyed or had not yet been closed, several compartments in the forepart of the s.h.i.+p filled with water. The streams of water continually pouring in through the huge holes rendered it impossible to enter the rooms beneath the armored deck or to close the hatchways. The pumps availed nothing, but fortunately the adjacent bulkheads proved to be watertight. Nevertheless the _Connecticut_ buried her nose deep into the sea and thereby offered ever-increasing resistance to the oncoming waves. Captain Farlow therefore ordered some of the watertight compartments aft to be filled with water in order to restore the s.h.i.+p's balance. Similar conditions were reported from other s.h.i.+ps.

But scarcely had this damage been thus fairly well adjusted, when a new misfortune was reported. Two j.a.panese projectiles had struck the s.h.i.+p simultaneously just below her narrow armor-belt as she heaved over to port, the sh.e.l.ls entering the unprotected side just in front of the engine-rooms, and as the adjacent bulkheads could not offer sufficient resistance to the pressure of the inpouring water, they were forced in, and as a result the _Connecticut_ heeled over badly to starboard, making it necessary to fill some of the port compartments with water, since the guns could not otherwise obtain the required elevation. This caused the s.h.i.+p to sink deeper and deeper, until the armor-belt was entirely below the standard waterline and the water which had rushed in through the many holes had already reached the pa.s.sageways above the armored deck.

The splas.h.i.+ng about in these rus.h.i.+ng floods, the continual bursting of the enemy's sh.e.l.ls, the groans and moans of the wounded, and the vain attempts to get out the collision-mats on the starboard side--precautions that savored of preservation measures while at the same time causing a great loss of life--all this began to impair the crew's powers of resistance.

As the reports from below grew more and more discouraging, Captain Farlow sent Lieutenant Meade down to examine into the state of the chambers above the armored deck. The latter asked his comrade, Curtis, to take his place at the telephone, but receiving no answer, he looked around, and saw poor Curtis with his face torn off by a piece of sh.e.l.l still bending over his telephone between two dead signalmen....

Lieutenant Meade turned away with a s.h.i.+ver, and, calling a mids.h.i.+pman to take his place, he left the conning-tower, which was being struck continually by hissing splinters from bursting sh.e.l.ls.

Everywhere below the same picture presented itself--rus.h.i.+ng water splas.h.i.+ng high up against the walls in all the pa.s.sages, through which ambulance transports were making their way with difficulty. In a corner not far from the staircase leading to the hospital lay a young mids.h.i.+pman, Malion by name, pressing both hands against a gaping wound in his abdomen, out of which the viscera protruded, and crying to some one to put him out of his misery with a bullet. What an end to a bright young life! Anything but think! One could only press on, for individual lives and human suffering were of small moment here compared with the portentous question whether the steel sides of the s.h.i.+p and the engines would hold out.

"Shoot me; deliver me from my torture!" rang out the cry of the lieutenant's dying friend behind him; and there before him, right against the wall, lay the sailor Ralling, that fine chap from Maryland who was one of the men who had won the gig-race at Newport News; now he stared vacantly into s.p.a.ce, his mouth covered with blood and foam. "Shot in the lung!" thought Meade, hurrying on and trying, oh so hard, not to think!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "It went up in a slanting direction and then, ... it steered straight for the enemy's balloon...."]

The black water gurgled and splashed around his feet as he rushed on, das.h.i.+ng with a hollow sound against one side of the pa.s.sage when the s.h.i.+p heeled over, only to be tossed back in a moment with equal force.

What was that?--Lieutenant Meade had reached the officers' mess--was it music or were his ears playing him a trick? Meade opened the door and thought at first he must be dreaming. There sat his friend and comrade, Lieutenant Besser, at the piano, hammering wildly on the keys. That same Johnny Besser who, on account of his theological predilections went by the nickname of "The Reverend," and who could argue until long after midnight over the most profound Biblical problems, that same Johnny Besser, who was perpetually on the water-wagon. There he sat, banging away as hard as he could on the piano! Meade rushed at him angrily and seizing him by the arm cried: "Johnny, what are you doing here? Are you crazy?"

Johnny took no notice of him whatever, but went on playing and began in a strange uncanny voice to sing the old mariner's song:

"Tom Brown's mother she likes whisky in her tea, As we go rolling home.

Glory, Glory Hallelujah."

Horror seized Meade, and he tried to pull Johnny away from the piano, but the resistance offered by the poor fellow who had become mentally deranged from sheer terror was too great, and he had to give up the struggle.

From the outside came the din of battle. Meade threw the door of the mess shut behind him, s.h.i.+vering with horror. Once more he heard the strains of "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah," and then he hurried upstairs. He kept the condition in which he had found Johnny to himself.

When Lieutenant Meade got back to the conning-tower to make his report, the two fleets had pa.s.sed each other in a parallel course. The enemy's sh.e.l.ls had swept the decks of the _Connecticut_ with the force of a hurricane. The gunners from the port side had already been called on to fill up the gaps in the turrets on the starboard side. By this time dead bodies were removed only where they were in the way, and even the wounded were left to lie where they had fallen.

When large pieces of wood from the burning boats began to be thrown on deck by the bursting sh.e.l.ls, a fresh danger was created, and the attempt was made to toss them overboard with the aid of the cranes. But this succeeded only on the port side. The starboard crane was smashed to bits by a j.a.panese explosive sh.e.l.l just as it was raising a launch, the same shot carrying off the third funnel just behind it. When Togo's last s.h.i.+p had left the _Connecticut_ behind, only one funnel full of gaping holes and half of the mainmast were left standing on the deck of the admiral's flag-s.h.i.+p, which presented a wild chaos of bent and broken ironwork.

Through the ruins of the deck structures rose the flames and thick smoke from the boilers.

The j.a.panese s.h.i.+ps seemed to be invulnerable in their vital parts. It is true that the _Satsuma_ had lost a funnel, and that both masts of the _Kas.h.i.+ma_ were broken off, but except for a few holes above the armor-belt and one or two guns that had been put out of action and the barrels of which pointed helplessly into the air, the enemy showed little sign of damage. Those first eleven minutes, during which the enemy had had things all to himself, had given him an advantage which no amount of bravery or determined energy could counteract. In addition to this, many of the American telescope-sights began to get out of order, as they bent under the blows of the enemy's sh.e.l.ls against the turrets.

Thus the aim of the Americans, which owing to the heavy seas and to the smoke from the j.a.panese guns blown into their eyes by the wind was poor enough as it was, became more uncertain still. As the enemy pa.s.sed, several torpedoes had been cleared by the Americans, but the s.h.i.+ning metal-fish could not keep their course against the oncoming waves, and Admiral Perry was forced to notify his s.h.i.+ps by wireless to desist from further attempts to use them, in order that his own s.h.i.+ps might not be endangered by them.

The enemy, on the contrary, used his torpedoes with better success. A great ma.s.s of boiling foam rose suddenly beside the _Kansas_, which was just heeling to port, and this was followed immediately by sheets of flame and black clouds of smoke which burst from every hole and crevice in the sides and the turrets. The _Kansas_ listed heavily to starboard and then disappeared immediately in the waves. The torpedo must have exploded in an ammunition chamber. On the burning _Vermont_ the steering-gear seemed to be out of order. The battles.h.i.+p sheered sharply to port, thus presenting its stern, which was almost hidden in heavy clouds of smoke, to the enemy, who immediately raked and tore it with sh.e.l.ls. The _Minnesota_ was drifting in a helpless condition with her starboard-railing deep under water, while thick streams of water poured from her bilge-pumps on the port side. She gradually fell behind, whereupon the last s.h.i.+p of the line, the _New Hamps.h.i.+re_, pa.s.sed her on the fire side, covering her riddled hull for a moment, but then steamed on to join the only two s.h.i.+ps in Admiral Perry's fleet which were still in fairly good condition, namely the _Connecticut_ and the _Louisiana_.

When the hostile fleet began to fall slowly back--the battle had been in progress for barely half an hour--Admiral Perry hoped for a moment that by swinging his three s.h.i.+ps around to starboard he would be able to get to windward of the enemy and thus succeed in bringing his almost intact port artillery into action. But even before he could issue his commands, he saw the six j.a.panese ironclads turn to port and steam towards the Americans at full speed, pouring out tremendous clouds of smoke.

Misfortunes never come singly; at this moment came the report that the boilers of the _New Hamps.h.i.+re_ had been badly damaged. Unless the admiral wished to leave the injured s.h.i.+p to her fate, he was now forced to reduce the speed of the other two s.h.i.+ps to six knots. This was the beginning of the end.

It was of no use for Admiral Perry to swing his three s.h.i.+ps around to starboard. The enemy, owing to his superior speed, could always keep a parallel course and remain on the starboard side. One turret after the other was put out of action. When the casemate with its three intact 7-inch guns could at last be brought into play on the lee-side, it was too late. At such close quarters the steel-walls of the casemates and the mountings were shot to pieces by the enemy's sh.e.l.ls. The fire-control refused to act, the wires and speaking-tubes were destroyed, and each gun had to depend on itself. The electric installation had been put out of commission on the _Louisiana_ by a sh.e.l.l bursting through the armored deck and destroying the dynamos. As the gun-turrets could no longer be swung around and the ammunition-lifts had come to a stand-still in consequence, the _Louisiana_ was reduced to a helpless wreck. She sank in the waves at 11.15, and shortly afterwards the _New Hamps.h.i.+re_, which was already listing far to starboard because the water had risen above the armored deck, capsized. By 12.30 the _Connecticut_ was the sole survivor. She continued firing from the 12-inch guns in the rear turret and from the two 8-inch starboard turrets.

At this point a large piece of sh.e.l.l slipped through the peep-hole of the conning-tower and smashed its heavy armored dome. The next shot might prove fatal. Admiral Perry was compelled to leave the spot he had maintained so bravely; in a hail of splinters he at last managed to reach the steps leading from the bridge; they were wet with the blood of the dead and dying and the last four had been shot away altogether. The other mode of egress, the armored tube inside the turret, was stopped up with the bodies of two dead signalmen. The admiral let himself carefully down by holding on to the bent railing of the steps, and was just in time to catch the blood-covered body of his faithful comrade, Captain Farlow, who had been struck by a sh.e.l.l as he stood on the lowest step.

The admiral leaned the body gently against the side of the military-mast, which had been dyed yellow by the deposits of the hostile sh.e.l.ls.

Stepping over smoldering ruins and through pa.s.sages filled with dead and wounded men, over whose bodies the water splashed and gurgled, the admiral at last reached his post below the armored deck.

To this spot were brought the reports from the fire-control stationed at the rear mast and from the last active stations. It was a mournful picture that the admiral received here of the condition of the _Connecticut_. The dull din of battle, the cras.h.i.+ng and rumbling of the hostile sh.e.l.ls, the suffocating smoke which penetrated even here below, the rhythmic groaning of the engine and the noise of the pumps were united here into an uncanny symphony. The ventilators had to be closed, as they sent down biting smoke from the burning deck instead of fresh air. The nerves of the officers and crews were in a state of fearful tension; they had reached the point where nothing matters and where destruction is looked forward to as a deliverance.

Who was that beside the admiral who said something about the white flag, to him, the head of the squadron, to the man who had been intrusted with the honor of the Stars and Stripes? It was only a severely wounded petty-officer murmuring to himself in the wild delirium of fever. For G.o.d's sake, anything but that! The admiral turned around sharply and called into the tube leading to the stern turret: "Watch over the flag; it must not be struck!"

No one answered--dead iron, dead metal, not a human sound could be heard in that steel tomb. And now some of the electric lights suddenly went out. "I won't die here in this smoky steel box," said the admiral to himself; "I won't drown here like a mouse in a trap." There was nothing more to be done down here anyway, for most of the connections had been cut off, and so Admiral Perry turned over the command of the _Connecticut_ to a young lieutenant with the words: "Keep them firing as long as you can." Then murmuring softly to himself, "It's of no use anyhow," he crept through a narrow bulkhead-opening to a stairway and groped his way up step by step. Suddenly he touched something soft and warm; it groaned loudly. Heavens! it was a sailor who had dragged his shattered limbs into this corner. "Poor fellow," said the admiral, and climbed up, solitary and alone, to the deck of his lost s.h.i.+p. The din of battle sounded louder and louder, and at last he reached the deck beneath the rear bridge. A badly wounded signalman was leaning against a bit of railing that had remained standing, staring at the admiral with vacant eyes. "Are the signal-halyards still clear?" asked Perry. "Yes,"

answered the man feebly.