The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1915-07-03

gin of their zone of fire is another
armored line of Dreadnoughts. And the
outer Gordon is at the margin OF that
ships would have to break through at
least thirty miles. every inch of it I'M
der fire from half a dozen ships 1t
cannot be done. This enemy fleet could
be broken only by brute force. To at
tack in force with our. inferior feet
would mean simply that we should
smash ourselves against him as I'M
availingly as If we smashed ourselves
full speed ahead against rocky coast
"But surely at night our ships can
dash inr' insisted the public. reluctant
to give up romantic hopes. "Wait-and
some night you will seer
Then there came a wireless relayed
from the Conyngham. biggest and
swfftest Of the American destroyer di-
visions she has circled the whole en-
envy feet, flying around 1t through
days and nights at the full speed of
her thirty knots. Her message told
why there could be no daring raids at
night
There was no night All the sea. ran
the Conyngham's tale, was lit like a
flaming city. The outer Gordon played
its searchlights far toward each hori.
zon. 1t played other lights inward, to-
ward its own battleships. And the line
of battleships in turn kept mighty
searchlights bow and stern steadily on
their transports.
Each transport had its guard, whose
bright surveillance never shifted, never
wavered, from dusk to dawn. These
sentinel Dreadnoughts never turned a
searchlight to sweep the surrounding
sea. They held their transports stead
/ lily in the white glare.
There was not an inch of ocean
within their lines that was not ablaze.
A fragment Of driftwood could not
have doated into that vivid sea with
out being detected by hundred eyes.
But those steady, unshifting lights
told the Conyngham the secret story
Of the hidden transports Though the
destroyer's men could not even have
sighted the tops of their masts in the
brightest light of day, they could
count the fixed light beams, distant as
they were.
| In the war and navy departments
they made up estimates from the code
report. When it was done the chief
of staff nodded. "Of course our in
| formation assured US that they would
send at least 10000 men. Now that
we have an idea how many transports
they've got, we are sure of it And
they are bringing vast munitions"
/ The Alabama. sister ship to the
Kearsarge, by haphazard fortune got
between two enemy scouts and the
main fleet and accomplished by sudden
attack what she never could have ac-
complished by speed. She sank them
within twenty minutes and returned
/ without injury. 1t was thirteen inch
guns against eight inch, and the story
was as it always is. The inferior ene-
my ships went down like pasteboard
under the fire OF the turret guns on
! the American vessel
On the same day. almost at the same
hour, the scout cruiser Birmingham. at
the other end of the enemy line, sent
report that the destroyer cambridge,
tiniest of the division, had driven her
two eighteen-inch torpedoas home and
sunk an armored cruiser that had fall
] en- out of line to repair some unknown
injury to its machinery. The Balm
bridge did not tell its own story The
little boat and her men were blasted
into nothing within ten minutes by a
battle cruiser that had turned to pro-
tect her mate.
These disasters. that might have
been appalling to lesser sea power
left the great navy of the coalition IN.
shaken Steadily, imperturbably, ii
kept on its way.
So there came the day when coasters
and small craft sped wildly into the
shelter OF Boston and New York har
bors, into Long Island sound and into
the Delaware and Chesapeake bays
They had seen the enemy.
Next morning, in gray, transparent
peaceful April dawn, watchers on the
coast, gazing across the empty, dat At
lantic to the immense half circle of the
horizon, saw innumerable tiny objects
just sticking up above the rim of the
sea. Through the glass they seemed tt
be little perches of skeleton iron bull
in the deep ocean.
Set at beautifully precise distances
apart they dotted the sharply outlined
Il ledge Of water and sky north and soutf
far beyond vision.
Innocent and quiet they appeared a:
they stood there, growing slowly, very
slowly, up out Of the far sea.
f@ And the roaring presses. spoutins
forth extra editions east, west. NORTH
ahd south. told the United States Of
America:
~sInvaders Appear Off American Coast.