The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-04-12

deck. If they have a CHARGE to think at all.
Moreover, there is such a thing as heavy
projectile penetrating an armored ship be-
low the water line. as was proved on the
Yalu and If this should happen at a point
of the ship where magazine CHANGED 10
be located the men hauling ammunition and
manning the hoists in the same would never
know what had happened to them. Then
there is always a likelihood of shells eX-
plodng on deck and bits finding their way
through tho open magazine hatches-and
such a thing would be dangerous enough
The magazine men, moreover, have to work
in practical darkness. Magazines on mod
ern men-of-war are of course fitted with TO
standing lights of any sort In times or
peace, when the gunners mates and IN
teriorS OF magazines, they carry portapie
incandeScent electric lights with them, but
in handling loose ammunition during actual
lighting even these portable electric lgnts
would be deemed dangerous, so that the
magazine men would no doubt have 10
groDe for it and take out their nervous
curiosity as to what might be happening to
their ship or fleet in wondering.
EQUAL PERIL.
The officer would have no advantage
whatever over the enlisted man in the mat
ter of greater safety in a modern naval
engagement The sword-carrying men with
the range finders were Topped off with COM
plete impartiality in the Yalu fight. An Of
ficer in command of a gun has even bit
the worst of the chance in comparison with
the men handling the gun, for in order to
get a line on the enemy he must necessarily
expose himself to the enemy's scientific
rapid-fire play. while the gunn9rs have the
protection of the gun shields and barbetteS.
Even the commanding officer is no better
as a war risk than the humblest mess at
tendant in a fight. His station on modern
ships will gener ally be in his ships coming
tower, and, well coming towers on ships
of-war of to-day are protected, eminent ma
val authorities haven't much faith in their
hill TJY1Gr a
Sarily in exposed SpotS-almOSt always Tor
ward, beneath where the bridge ought to
be, but isn't, when the ship is cleared Tor
acton-and gunners of the enemy are natu-
rally expected to do what they can toward
sending the commanding officer of an an
tagonistic ship into the next world before
his time
The man IN tho bunkers, viz, the humble
cCal passer, is likely to have dismal, UNI
satisfactory time of it during the progress
of fight. He sees absolutely nothing, but
what he does not see is more than atoned
for by what he hears. Any man who has
ever listened to the information of great
guns during target practice from the shelter
of an empty coal bunker is likely to re-
member the twenty times amplified thun-
in twain. Theoretically, the coal passer is
supposed to shovel buckets full of coal and
trundle them along the trolleys in the mel
low light of many sixteen-candle incandes-
cent lamps, and as a matter of fact, all
modern ships coal bunkerS are lighted.
But the writer, who has craWled through
American and foreign has found that
standing electric bunker lamps rarely il
Illuminate The glass around the wires is
smashed in the process of coaling ship, and;
of course, the lamps do not work. Naval
constructors are still trying to find some
scheme to illuminate bunkers. The coal
passer, standing his watch in the bunker of
ship in action, then, has the additional
gloom of darkness to fight, unless he vio-
lateS rigid regulation by carrying an open
light into his bunker. He does not know
when an armor- piercing shell is going to
pass directly through the bunker he is
working in, and altogether his station in a
fight is not q desirable one. Nor has the
fireman or the water tender very cheer
full station. Both of these members of the
black gang, of course, are in the boiler
rooms, and they have perpetually before
them the possibility of a great shell rip
ping it's way through boiler, thus insur-
ing them death by scalding. The oiler is
another man of the black gang who has a
title to feel nervous when his ship is fight
ing, for he is always more or less tangled
up in the machinery, apparently endeaVor-
ing to see how near he can approach death
without actually comprising his own, and
in the event of a shot dropping through the
deck and among the intertwisted masses of
machinery he is liable to be torn to pieces
by the same, racing wild" as the en-
gineers call it, even if he is not done for by
the explosion.
The soft spot" as an old gunner's mate
put it, lis about five fathoms beneath her,
in a diving suit -