# The Popular Magazine/Volume 28/Number 6/The Fight of the Fire Control

   A duel between battleships won by a man high in the air and five miles from the guns which he directed.
The Fight of the Fire Control
By Edwin Balmer
Author of "The Battle Below the Water," "The Third Arm," Etc.
How a great duel between battleships was won by a man with a pair of glasses and twenty feet of wire, high in the air, and five miles from the guns which he directed
SHIPS in column!" the signal flags flew from the mast of the New York, the American flagship. The wireless, crackling out in the cabin behind the bridge and below it, confirmed the flags. "Battle order number four!" the wireless waves flashed, while the fresh pennants hoisted to the peak were breaking out to the breeze.
From the halyards of the mighty superdreadnaught Wyoming, eight hundred yards ahead over the pale, green surface of the Caribbean Sea, the answering pennant fluttered its acknowledgment against the sky. Eight hundred yards ahead of the Wyoming, the sister-superdreadnaught Texas also acknowledged and repeated the signal for the ships still farther forward in the column—the Oklahoma, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
Directly astern the flagship, the Utah already had acknowledged the signal; behind it, in battle position at intervals of eight hundred yards, followed the remaining five battleships of the American fleet—the Georgia, Florida, and the Michigan, the Arkansas, and the North Dakota! So the twelve most powerful battleships of the navy steamed in column, all cleared for action, all watching the twelve ships of the enemy's column slowly converging closer and closer, all waiting—with turrets turned, and guns trained, and every man at battle station—for the final battle signal.
For twelve ships of the enemy's fleet—the same in power, in armor, and in guns—had survived, undamaged, the attacks of the destroyers, the submarines, the aerial craft. At twenty thousand yards to the east—for so the range finders now gave the distance between the fleets—the American officers could not clearly distinguish the order in which the ships of the same type steamed in the opposing column. It was clear only that, as in the American fleet, the newest and most powerful of the superdreadnaughts led, with the flagship steaming sixth, to be in command in the center.
As in the American line, the enemy's battleships had shaken off their attendant cruisers, colliers, supply and repair ships. Beyond the line of the dreadnaughts, and behind it, the auxiliaries steamed far off by themselves. A dozen destroyers and a few swift scout ships of each side darted back and forth between the battleships; but they hazarded no attack; they kept well out of range of the enemy's guns. Under water, somewhere, the submarines of either side might lurk; high above the smoke haze of each fleet, and above the mast tops, monoplanes flew with their scouts. But both sides already had spent the strength of their subordinate attacks. With equal damage done—four ships of each fleet either, sunk or dropped from the battle line—both columns closed for the finally decisive blows of dreadnaught against dreadnaught, turret against turret, gun against gun!
A light breeze blew up from the south and the equator—scarcely a breeze, indeed, only a doldrum zephyr. It added to the wind of the moving ships only enough to bear away a little more swiftly the smoke from the funnels—enough, if it blew during the next hour, to clear the powder haze a little sooner from the guns; but it could not stir the warm surface of the sea. The only waves washing across it came from the cutwaters and the churning screws of the ships which had steamed ahead.
Steadily the American ships steered toward the south, and a little to the east; as steadily, the enemy's ships in column steered south, and a little west. Before both fleets—but still beyond the horizon—lay Venezuela, to possess which the enemy had come, to protect which the American fleet offered battle.
Directly overhead, so high now at noon that it gave no advantage to the ships in either column, the glaring, equatorial sun blazed down, heating the armor and the bared decks, and raising from the sea surface the thin, transparent film of water vapor which confused with refractions the calculation of the fire-control officers determining the decreasing range from every American ship. But, to the same degree, it must trouble the enemy also. So the conditions of the great battle—the first great engagement between fleets of modern ships of war of equal power—remained equal.
The American admiral, scanning the enemy's column through his glass, recognized it.
"No opportunity to-day to maneuver with Nelson's or Togo's tactics to gain superior concentration of fire, is there?" he said grimly to the captain of the New York, on the bridge beside him. "They seem to have at least as much speed as we have; there's no part of their column upon which we can bring a superiority to bear before that part can be supported."
"But neither is there a part of our column upon which they can concentrate, sir."
The admiral lowered his glasses. "No; if I can't put my ships across the. head of their column, at least they can't cross us. So we must fight evenly, ship to ship; superiority in individual handling of ships and ingenuity in battle emergencies must decide this battle."
He glanced an instant overhead to where, from the forward mast to the tall steel mast aft, the antennæ of the wireless installation stretched; from it, his glance descended to the lee of the bridge, away from the enemy's ships. There, protected by the superstructure from gun fire from the port beam, stretched three shorter wires joined and secured as wireless antennæ. Farther astern, another set of these short wires, secured independently, showed. The admiral gazed at them with a question, and then away from them to where the swift cruiser Salem, carrying a wide-winged biplane on its forecastle deck, and another astern, steamed a thousand yards off the New York's beam, and nearer to the enemy's fleet.
"It would be strange to have twenty feet of spare wire per ship win the battle, wouldn't it?" he appealed to the captain. "But if we win decisively, I think that's what will do it!" His gaze still rested upon the Salem.
Beside the biplane on the Salem's forecastle deck, poised on a launching runway, an aviator in hood and close- fitting suit examined and tested wires and levers. Up and down the deck from the biplane to the bridge, where the Salem's lieutenant commander stood, young Lieutenant Sterret paced impatiently.
"What do you make the range now?" he asked the commander again.
"Eighteen thousand yards."
"That means almost nineteen for our fleet."
The younger officer glanced keenly up and down the long column of American ships stretching two miles and a half forward, more than three miles astern. He looked to the enemy's ships steaming in a similar six-mile column ten miles off to the east, and looked back to the American ships, and longingly up to the fire-control stations on the tops of the New York's masts. His normal battle station was in such a mast top of a dreadnaught. As chief fire-control officer in the foretop, his part in battle was the vital part of "spotting" the strike of the shells fired from his ship's turret guns.
The lieutenant commander on the Salem's bridge appreciated the appeal of such a battle station to the younger officer beside him.
"Wishing you were up there now?" he nodded to the flagship's foretop.
Sterret shook his head. "They gave me the chance; but, well, maybe I'm going to be only a spectator in this fight, but then, maybe——" He broke off.
"Seventeen thousand yards!" the officer at the range finder announced the decreasing distance.
Sterret strode forward to the biplane on its launchingway over the forecastle. He bent and felt under the lower plane where the trailing antenna? of a light wireless apparatus were coiled to be dropped when the machine was in flight.
"Sixteen thousand yards!" the range was announced, and now, "Fifteen!"
At the head of the column, the leading ships were coming close to battle range. Flags flew from the New York, ordering the accompanying cruisers and destroyers back of the battle line. As the Salem steered astern of the flagship, and, at the order, took position so far to the lee that no chance ricocheting shot from the enemy might strike it, Sterret saw that the destroyers accompanying the other column also were scurrying to cover. A few of the American aëroplanes still flew back and forth overhead; a few of the enemy's still at- tempted sallies. But their light bombs, even when dropped with effective aim, now caused not even confusion on board the battleships. With the tops of the funnels fendered, the little bombs fell all but harmless on the great armored ships. The men upon the dreadnaughts, waiting half naked at their battle stations, were steeled now to the shock of the fourteen-inch shells so soon to strike.
At the head of the American column, the Pennsylvania, leading, had come into range of the ship at the head of the enemy's column—the superdreadnaught Zeus. A single gun from the forward turret of the Pennsylvania flashed with fire, and then hid itself in a yellow haze of powder gas. Simultaneously a spurt of spray, splashing up just astern the Pennsylvania, told at the same instant—or the instant sooner, for the haze already was clearing from the Zeus' forward turret—the enemy had fired their shot to try the range. And now, as Sterret's eyes still rested on the Zeus, a-splash of spray whitened the sea before it—how far before it or how far on either side, Sterret could not see from the deck of the Salem; but the men in the fire-control tops of the Pennsylvania saw. The salvo of the Pennsylvania; twelve fourteen-inch guns erupted—the whole broadside fired together!
The second ship in the American line—the Nevada—now saluted the Poseidon, second of the enemy, with a spurt of spray alongside, and then the roar of all its guns. And now the Oklahoma, engaging the Xerxes, thundered into the action; the Texas and Wyoming joined; the two flagships—the New York and the Vulcan, fought abreast; broadside to broadside their guns battered and bellowed, the haze of the powder gas and smoke clouding up and concealing the fluttering flags. But without need for signal now, the battle jumped from ship to ship down the column, till every hull in the battle line seethed with its powder smoke, and shivered and shook from the shock of its own salvos, and blazed and staggered with the strike and explosion of the enemy's shells.
Sterret, standing on tiptoes, with his glasses pressed to his eyes, searched with cold-sweating, terrible tenseness for the effect of these detonations on the decks of the American ships. Swiftly glancing as the smoke of each salvo cleared from the turrets, he shouted to the aviator at place at the biplane's engine before him; and the clatter of the motor explosions at his ears added to the thunder of the guns.
"To the head of the column!" he bawled to the pilot, as he took his seat. "The Nevada is getting it awfully. To the head of the column opposite the Nevada!"
The compressed-air cylinder, to give speed for the throwing of the biplane forward into the air, catapulted them up; with the propeller whirring madly, the plane caught the air and drove forward. Sterret, bracing himself in his seat beside the pilot, glanced below as the biplane rose to see that all was clear, and released the coil into which the wireless antennas were wound. Weighted, the wires dropped and, stretched at full length, trailed below and behind as the aëroplane shot forward. The motor, now muffled, ceased the pounding clatter of its exhaust. From below, with more thundering detonation as the biplane rose, roared the broadsides of the smoke-seething ships. Sterret, searching them out with his glasses, dropped the binoculars and let them hang by their strap about his neck. With both hands he fixed over his ears the padded microphone receivers of the light wireless apparatus before him. With one hand, then, he reached forward and touched the sending key on the strut before him; with the other he held his glasses to his eyes and looked down at the line of the American ships.
Almost directly below him now, he saw the Nevada smothered with the smoke of its own salvos, staggered with the shock of the Poseidon's bursting shells. The turrets and the armored positions, as he saw them during the seconds when the powder haze was blown away, seemed still undamaged. The guns were firing at the interval for- each salvo, evenly, regularly. But all above the turrets was shattered by the Poseidon's shells; the foremast was fallen and crumpled in a heap of wreckage over the crushed and riddled funnels; the bridge and the superstructure behind it was shot away; the aftermast still stood—or, at least, the lower half of it. But the top, where the fire-control officers had been stationed, was sheared off; ragged supports stuck up; the after fire-control station, as well as the forward, was gone.
"Turn toward the Poseidon!" Sterret bawled to the pilot at his side. "Turn, so I can see the Poseidon!" And the biplane, circling, showed him the second ship of the enemy's column, miles abeam the Nevada, smothered also in smoke as its guns fired; but, when that smoke blew off, Sterret could see that the enemy's ship had ceased to suffer.
In the first moments of battle, clearly the shells of the Nevada had struck with terrible effect; one turret of the Poseidon was entirely out of action; a great gap showed toward the bow where the shells of one of the Nevada's broadsides must have struck almost together; but now the Poseidon, though fighting but four turrets to the Nevada's five, fought them deliberately, coolly, with triumphant certainty, with pitiless precision. The forward mast of the Poseidon was down; but from the after fire-control top, the enemy's officers were directing the strike of the shells, beating and battering into the Nevada's vitals, while the shells from the American guns splashed two hundred yards beyond the Poseidon, and a point astern it into the sea!
Sterret's fingers trembled on the wireless sending key.
"Nevada!" he abbreviated swiftly his call. "Down two hundred, one right!" he vibrated off the correction for the guns.
With the battleship's masts gone, the main wireless antennæ, of course, were down; but with the two emergency strings of wires connected with the fire- control station behind the armor, there was at least a chance for one string to have been left undamaged, and for the Nevada to hear. The salvo now firing would tell him. Its cloud concealed the Nevada; the shells were flying below him; he turned to watch them. Again he saw fountains of white spray spurt up from the sea; the shells again had missed; but they were nearer. The battleship had heard his correction!
"Nevada!" Down fifty! One-half right!" he sent his second signal to guide the gunners. Another cloud of smoke shut out the American ship; the detonation of the Poseidon's shells striking on the Nevada's deck echoed up after the roar of the salvo; but now the American shells in turn struck again on the Poseidon!
He signaled it. The smother of the next salvo from the Nevada shut out the American ship.
"Borton, bring me nearer the Poseidon," Sterret called to the pilot. With his wireless signals he could govern the guns of the Nevada from five miles away as well as from one; and, if he flew more nearly over the Poseidon, he could more closely spot the strike of the American shells.
He came so close that he clearly saw the whole broadside from the Nevada's turrets crash into the sides of the Poseidon. Now a salvo missed; the shells fell short; they detonated only as they ricocheted up from the sea and struck the enemy's armor.
Instantly Sterret's fingers commanded: "Nevada; up fifty!" And instantly again came the terrible concussion of the Nevada's shells bursting aboard the enemy; another instant of cool, precise direction, and a mighty shock which the biplane felt, high up above the Poseidon, puffed the air up and lifted the flying machine, then dropped it a dozen feet through a vacuum, and puffed it up again as the planes caught the second blast from the explosion below.
The forward magazine of the Poseidon, reached by the last broadside of the Nevada, had blown up. The after turrets, firing their last shells in final defiance, clouded the stern also with smoke. Now, as the smoke blew off, that stern was lifting; the shattered forward part, flooded by the inrushing sea, was sinking. Farther and farther up the stern lifted, till the rudder and screws showed to the men in the aëroplane overhead.
"Nevada; cease firing. Enemy is sinking!" Sterret flashed mechanically. Already the American fire had ceased. The water about the sinking Poseidon was spotted with figures swimming . away from the ship. More dotted it each instant. Now, with a rush, and great suck and draw of the water about it, the battleship slipped farther and farther down. A final great gurgle, a splash, a burst of bubbles, a rush of steam, a seething, swirling, white whirl- pool of water; and the superdreadnaught Poseidon was gone. As Sterret stared down from far overhead, while the aëroplane bore him away, he saw only swimming specks, bits of wreckage, a last burst of bubbles.
He gazed, fascinated, at his little sending key and the short string of thin wires trailing below the fragile biplane. By him up there high in the air, and five miles from the guns he directed, that duel between the two dreadnaughts had been won—one man, a pair of glasses, and twenty feet of wire had made the vanquished victor, and overcome an advantage of armor and guns.
He gazed about at the rest of the battle. At the head of the American column, the powerful Pennsylvania was continuing its duel with the enemy's equally powerful Zeus; down the long columns of ships, the other ten smothered themselves with the smoke of their broadsides. The only gap in the enemy's line below the biplane was the gap made by the sinking of the Poseidon; no gap yet appeared in the American column—only the Nevada, steaming second, showed itself clearly, unclouded to him—without masts, without funnels or superstructure, but still with even keel, with turrets apparently undamaged, with engines speeding. To reënter the action, it lacked only an adversary.
The Pennsylvania was at least holding its own .against the Zeus; if anything, it was outfighting the enemy. Its masts still stood, its broadsides fired, quickly, evenly at the interval for the salvo; its engines kept it abreast the Zeus. It needed no help. Just astern the Nevada, the Oklahoma also fought at least on equal terms. Gun for gun it matched the Xerxes; but the Oklahoma's masts still stood, the Xerxes' were tottering; soon its fire control must fail. Clearly the enemy had no scheme of emergency fire control. No aëroplane hovered between the Xerxes and the Oklahoma. The American ship was in no danger. But the next ship of the American column—the Texas, opposed to the more powerful Sargon—showed signs of the greater distress.
The forward mast still stood upon the Texas; it was not failure of fire control, but less gun power—ten guns against twelve at the outset of the duel—which was beating the Texas. Sterret, flying back between the fighting columns, could see that the shells of the six guns which still were in action were striking the S argon; but the enemy still was fighting twelve guns against them.
The officers of the Nevada, too, saw it. Already, either from the captain's decision, or orders from the flagship, the Nevada was dropping back. The Pennsylvania, beam to beam with the Zeus, steamed on and fought its duel far ahead. A gap, where the Nevada had been, opened in the American column to match the gap left by the Poseidon. The Nevada, as it dropped back, fired at the Xerxes. Sterret, watching the effect of the fire, signaled his correction of the aim so that a few broadsides struck the Xerxes. But the Nevada now. dropped behind the Oklahoma; left the Xerxes to it, and turned its own guns on the Sargon.
None too soon. Since Sterret had observed the Sargon the few minutes before, the enemy's ship had all but overwhelmed the weakening Texas with its terrible salvos, silencing still another turret of the American ship, so that four guns only now fought back from the Texas. And the remaining fire-control mast of the Texas bent and bent farther and farther till, suddenly, with the men from the top leaping from it into the sea, the mast fell and crumpled into the wreckage on the deck. The Sargon fired one more broadside into the vessel, then the enemy turned their guns to the Nevada, which, now within range, had commenced to fire.
Confidently and with the assurance of triumph, it seemed to Sterret, the Sargon fired its first trial shot at the Nevada, and then thundered out its broadside. With masts and funnels gone, the Nevada must appear as a battleship beaten already in any fight at great range. If the officers of the Sargon had seen the victory of this mastless wreck over the Poseidon, they had not understood it. They could see the first shells from the Nevada splash far ahead of them, and over into the sea; at the long range, and without masts, the Nevada should not, except by accident, aim much better. But:
"Down three hundred; two left!" Sterret saw the miss and flashed the order for the gunners. High above the battle, and hardly a mile away from the Sargon, he could spot the effect of the fire closely, certainly. "T-x," he flashed to the Texas, now, after its four guns had fired to aid the rescuing Nevada. "T-x. Up one hundred; one right!"
The Nevada boomed its broadsides. The Sargon smothered itself in its own powder smoke. The Texas, firing again, burst its shells aboard the Sargon as the Nevada's broadsides, too, were striking. And it seemed to Sterret now, as the Sargon erupted its next salvo, that the sound of the guns was ragged with the gunners' surprise. Instantly the shock of the Nevada's shells again assailed the enemy; ten seconds later, the Texas again hit. So twelve guns to twelve—for two of the Nevada's ten were not firing—the ships fought.
Sterret, watching for both American ships, and flashing to each the effect of each salvo, had no time to glance toward the rest of the battle. With need to keep his eyes fixed constantly on the Sargon to spot the fall of the shells, he could not even look to see the effect of the enemy's fire on the Nevada, nearest. He understood hazily from the shouts of Borton that, in general, the battle of the other ships down the column seemed equal. And he knew from the terrible precision with which the twelve guns he was directing were firing, that the Sargon could not last much longer, if these guns could keep up their fire, and he could continue to control them.
The enemy seemed not yet to realize what he was doing. Even the officers of the Poseidon did not sense it while he, hovering over them, was sinking their ship. The enemy's aëroplanes merely dashed back and forth on futile bomb-dropping sallies and scouting service. They gave chase to the. American aëroplanes flying out on the same errands; but so far, at least, they had neglected the biplanes which were destroying their battleships. Because Sterret's machine and the others bearing the other fire-control officers to aid the ships farther down the American column did not try to drop bombs or attempt any direct attack of their own, the enemy had disregarded them. But now, as Sterret's machine, hovering over the Sargon as it had hovered over the Poseidon, was bringing upon it the fire of apparently helpless ships, the enemy seemed to begin to suspect.
Borton, at Sterret's side, suddenly yelled a warning. He swung his plane and circled up, careless of whether or not he shut the Sargon from the sight of fire-control officer. Sterret, unable to see the fall of the American shells, ceased to signal. As Borton yelled again to him, he pulled his rifle from its holster.
A monoplane was rushing at him; the man in it, beside the pilot, was firing his rifle. Sterret heard the bullets cutting the fabric over his head; he saw one cutting a strut beside him. He raised his rifle and swiftly fired back. But the monoplane came on, and, behind it, another. The rifleman in the first was reloading; Sterret reached for his clip of cartridges, also to reload. Below him, his glance caught the Sargon. He saw splashes all about—the great white spurts of spray sent up from the sea by a four teen-inch shell striking the water. So the gunners of the far-off Nevada and Texas, no longer able to see from his eyes their shots strike, were beginning to miss again! For every cartridge Sterret fired from his rifle, a fourteen-inch shell was being wasted by his ships below, and those ships were being laid helpless before the Sargon's guns. Yet, to save those ships, he must save himself.
The rifleman in the first monoplane was firing at him again, and the plane had come very close. The rifle shots were cutting through the wing fabric, singing off the wires or the metal of some support below him. A swift, stinging pain burned in his leg, and told Sterret he himself had been hit. He saw Borton bleeding, the red smeared all over his cheek. But the man kept the biplane steady, and Sterret, waiting for the monoplane to come closer, now that the other man's rifle was empty again, fired coolly; and the attacking machine tipped as it came on. Sterret saw the pilot fall forward, his weight on the levers; he saw the rifleman, reaching to support the other, drop his rifle and seize the control levers from the dead man's hands. But the plane already had tipped too far. It dived on and down toward the sea, passed beneath the American biplane, and dropped out of sight.
Sterret, reloading, looked for the second monoplane, which had been following; but now another American machine, sent to Sterret's aid, was dashing toward the other monoplane, and beating it back.
Hastily, Sterret searched for the Sargon on the water below him. He found it, and saw it still surrounded by the spurts of spray sent up by American shells wasted in the sea. He saw the Sargon firing confidently again at the Nevada, and beating it. Four guns only now were being fought from the Nevada; four from the Texas; and the fire of all eight was wild, useless.
"T-x; up one hundred; two right!" he called again and again for further elevation and right deflection. But now, though his fingers trembled constantly at his signaling, the American ships still spent their shells in the sea.
"Can all their antennæ be shot away?" Sterret cried aloud. "Can't they hear?"
In that moment of his helplessness to aid his ships below, the strangeness—the incredible quality—of his aid came to him and made him question his usefulness. Was it possible that he, in that aëroplane five miles from the American ships, and flying far above the battle, was, indeed, controlling those American guns—raising them, lowering them, swinging them to right or left, so that their shells struck home? How could it be that upon him, five miles from the guns, the battle could turn? Couldn't it have been coincidence that, when he had begun sending his directions before, the gunners had begun to find their mark? Now he was signaling again; and he gained no effect. He was sending his corrections constantly, but the guns still fired into the sea.
"Something's the matter with your spark; it isn't the same!" Borton shouted to him.
Sterret, testing it, worked over it feverishly. "The wire to the antennæ is cut!" he cried. He tried to reach down to it and all but fell from the plane.
"You can't fix it here; I'll take you down for it!" The pilot pulled him back, circling to descend.
He shut off the motor and volplane. In the sudden silence of the soaring machine, the roar of the battle boomed and resounded with echoing thunder. They soared down to a height above the sea at which the shells from the fighting ships, traveling on their seven-mile trajectory, were rifling past. Then they had dropped below the path of the shells; the biplane's pontoons skimmed, and came to rest on the sea. Sterret, stepping down on them, and swimming under the machine, caught the connections of the antennæ and twisted them together. He scrambled back to his seat. The biplane, circling up past the shells, showed Sterret the ships.
One turret only now fought from the Nevada; the Sargon having battered it to all but helplessness, was swinging its guns back to the Texas, which still was firing its four futile shots in return. Sterret swiftly estimated the distance of their splash and signaled. He would know in an instant now whether he really had aimed those guns. The Nevada had fired again; he watched for the strike of the shells, and saw that they hit! The Texas had fired before the Nevada's shells had struck; and now its shells also hammered on the Sargon. He flashed the result of the firing to the two ships, and again and again their shells hammered.
And the Sargon could stand little more hammering. Off at the head of the column, the giant Pennsylvania and the Zeus seemed to have shattered each other to helplessness without either striking its flag, each awaiting the result of the rest of the battle, unable further to influence that result. But, nearer, the Oklahoma now had entirely silenced the Xerxes; the American ship, with two turrets still able to fight, was swinging back to bear any needed aid to the Texas and the Nevada. Farther down the column, where other American fire-control officers had flown between the ships to govern the American guns when needed, the result of the battle showed the same.
The ship fighting the North Dakota at the very end of the American column no longer was in sight; it had sunk; two others already had struck their colors; the enemy's flagship alone—the Vulcan—still fought. But American ships from the rear of the column steamed to aid the New York as the Oklahoma was steering to reënforce against the Sargon. So, hopelessly overwhelmed, at the same instant the last of the enemy's ships ceased firing. The American gun fire ceased. The commander of the Zeus, acknowledging the general rout, showed a white flag to the Pennsylvania; the enemy's admiral, from the Vulcan, signaled the surrender.
Sterret's biplane slid gently to the sea and skimmed along it, down the narrowing lane between the battleships, as the victors closed to aid the beaten ships.
The sun still glared down from almost directly overhead. It was not an hour later than when the first gun was fired. Now, of the enemy's twelve great battleships, two already were on the sea bottom; two more seemed soon to follow; the other eight were riddled, rent, and battered hulks, listing as they lay on the water; smoke no longer puffed from their grimy gun barrels; but smoke seeped up from all; all were afire somewhere, or smoldering.
The American ships—save that all twelve were still floating—showed little better off; but on all but two of them guns could still be served. So the cruisers and the auxiliaries of the enemy's fleet, which had waited off to the east, turned and scurried away to make their escape, with the American cruisers and destroyers racing after them. But, whether these were captured or not, the battle for the Caribbean coasts was over.
Supply ships, hospital ships, and the slower auxiliaries which, on the enemy's side, could not flee, and which, on the American side, could not give chase, crowded up to the beaten battleships; boats plied from them and from the American battleships, bearing wounded and prisoners from sinking or burning ships. Other boats rowed to the spots where ships already had gone down, to pick up survivors.
Sterret, with the other officers in biplanes, sped back over the path of the battle to discover more of these swimming men, and call the boats to them. Still skimming the surface, with the trailing antennæ of his wireless skipping on the water, he came back to the flagship.
The New York had stopped close to the Vulcan; the admiral and the officers from the Vulcan were stepping on board the American flagship.
The American admiral, standing on the edge of the deck to receive them, looked past them to the biplanes.
"The flagships of the future!" He raised his voice as he spoke to the men surrendering, so that the officers in the biplanes could hear. "Indeed, the flagships of to-day! It was by those that this battle was won!"
This series of stories of the navy began in the first February POPULAR. Back numbers at the news stands.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.
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