Perth Amboy evening news., 1915-09-18

The cities stared to sea. They lis
tened for sounds from the sea. That
serving ocean that had made them
rich and great had become suddenly
terrible, a secret place where there
brooded wrath. Every day great null
titudes, stirred by helpless, vague i'm
pulse, moved toward the water fronts
and gazed down the harbors. Every
rumble Of blasts or heavy vehicle, ev-
cry sudden great noise startled the
cities into a quick: Listen! Cannonsr
Where is the fleet?" The question
ran from Maine to Florida, till 1t, too,
became one great Clamor, storning at
the White House. Again there was no
answer.
Days before, the American feet had
steamed out of the eastern end of
Long Island sound The tall, gray
Dreadnoughts and armored cruisers,
each with its circling, savage brood of
destroyers; light cruisers, torpedo
| boats, seagoing submarines, hospital
ships, auxiliaries and Golfers, one by
one they had passed into the open sea
and vanished.
But though no man knew where 1t
was, from It's unknown place it spoke
by wireless to Washington, and
through Washington to the nation.
From somewhere between the Vir-
ginia capes and the northern end Of
the Bahama islands" where it lay, 1t
had sent out its feelers across the sea
toward the oncoming foe-swift gray
feelers whose tall skeleton fire control
tops were white with watching sailors.
And so, presently, between the enemy
and the American coast there lay line
Of relays to catch the news and pass
1t On to the nation and its feet.
CHAPTER II.
The Inevitable Order to an inferior
Fleet
q E ORE than a hundred miles OF
kHa sea, said the news, were COW
IVA cred by the advancing feet.
1t was a hundred miles of
steel forts, and outside Of them, dash
ing back and forth in ceaseless patrol,
were the lighter and faster craft, con-
sistlng of desEroyers and small, swift
cruisers.
The scout cruiser Birmingham had
spied ships insiG& even the inner line.
But they were not transports. They
were still warships. The troop trans
ports were so far within all the pro-
tective cordons that the American
scouts, lying far along the horizon.
could not even sight their masts.
The enemy feet scarcely made an
attempt to attack the spying vessels.
1t seemed almost that the enormous
mass was too insolently sure of its
power to trouble about the scouts
so with watching cruisers and de-
stroyers hanging to its sides day and
night, the invaders armada moved
westward as steady as lifeless, wick
ed machine. And the outer Gordon held
true.
1t did not move slowly majestically,
Ike the armored line. Incessantly it
swept back and forth and In and out,
patrolling the sea to a distance so far
from the battleships that the American
scouts rarely could approach nearer
than to sight from their own tops the
tops Of the Dreadnoughts.
AS the enemy covered the sea, SO he
filed the air. Constantly all day long,
floating and drifting with the soft
white clouds far beyond the faIthest
extent Of the Gordon, his aeroplanes
surveyed the water world. And all
day long and all night long the ships
wireless tore the air
The American wireless, too, played
forth its electric waves of air night
and day. From daring scouts to relay
ships and from relay ships to hidden
feet and to waiting nation went the
story out Of the far sea The American
millions knew the progress Of the COM