The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-10-10
CHAPTER XIV. The End of the Battle,

"HE Idaho must be turning again. !, Bob knew, to prevent being
 headed by the Trajan Yes: i the -fiagship was turning and had signa1ed the others to follow, for the Arizona was sheering off. it was. made plain, by the degree which the turret had to turn to keep the guns on .he varon. That meant that the Amer can column was being crumpled back into a semicircle, with the enemy's fleet circling outside and able to con centrate the fire of two dreadnaughts upon one, but that was better than let ting the Trajan and the rest cross ahead. They had the speed and sim ply were taking advantage of it.
 Again it was only subconsciously and without bitterness that Bob recorded this. He. had too much which was ter ribly immediate for his attention. He had become aware that the telephone circuit, which brought the corrections from the chief fire control station, had been. silent for several salvos. The sight setters were taking off their hel- mets, which fastened tho telephone re- ceivers to their ears. They were nov ing in obedience to the visual signals, which still were working. Now, after those shells had struck again some where without the visunls remained unchanged, while the voice tube com manded a correction 1of the range. So connections to the visuals also were cut. Only the voice tube remained.
 Down 100; one leftw the voice in loudly. Down 100; one left"
 Bub saw to it, mechanically, that the corrections were made.
 rAIt was becoming more and more strange and uncanny to be shut up there in the turret, dispatching salvo after salvo of nonstrous shells at a ship eight miles away and witnessing your fire destroy foremast and funnel and now mainmast on the enemy's ship, It was strange to recognize that only two turrets of the Varon now were firing and not know of your own ship even how many guns were in ac- ton other than those you saw loaded. If the Arizona's foremast-the mast in the top of which Garry had his bat tie station-had fallen in different direction Bob might not have known for some time that it was gone. It would have been impossible for him to distinguish the crash of its fall from the disruption which had become al most constant as the Varon's shells struck and struck again.
 As it happened, the foremast fell forward, and the steel supports of its 'cage'' fnterfered with the guns. The turret could not turn to keep trained upon the Varon. Bob reported to the voice in the speaking tube why his turret did not fire, and he received or ders to keep his crew. behind the ar mor-other men would be sent to clear the wreckage away.
 The fan of the mast meant that Gar " was gone of course. Bobs brain recorded that certainty without feeling and wondered at the lack of emotion at the same time. Bob guessed it was one of the natural things about fight 1 ing a turret. You killed a thousand
 men-a dreadnaaght's crew, if you
 had luck-and on your own ship men I were being killed by hundreds, but you never saw them. Only main
 battery shell sorld possibly enter your turret, and tffn only df it struck very straight If H got in it would kill all your men and you, too, probably, soft | would be all over at once. So you did not see any one dying. You did not see the men who were blown to pieces | at this instant only eighteen inches away from you, just the other side of | the turret armor You knew they were blown to bits, for shell had just
 burst outside there, and the funny lit l tie tinkering and hammering with a I sledge which you heard the minute before was quiet. SoJyou knew the
 men were dead, but you could not pos 1 sibly have any feeling about it. The ] voice in the speaking tube knew the I linen were dead. It was saying that another gang was being sent to clecr 1 away the wreckage.
 l That was the wre1kage of the fore
 mast they were still speaking about. | Garry undoubtedly was killed when it | became wreck, but, no one was say ing anything about that. Bob won l dered whether if he had seen Garry fall he would have felt anything or
 whether now he. was ever going to feel anything again. Had Garry's wife seen Garry safe in a dream, too?
 Had she, too, been sure that God
 would keep Garry safe? What had
 God to do win guns and shells and
 ships which could stand what the Ari- zona now was getting? .Efr
 As Bob had nothing to do, now that
 his guns were loaded again, he was
 listening to try to decide whether one
 turret or two were firing astern. It
 was only one, he decided A shell
 must have wrecked the other as well
 as have killed the gun crews, and the forward turret, No. l must be wreck
 ed also, otherwise Bob and his men
 would be sent to it to fight
 How much more, he wondered, could | the Arizona endure? It was not only l the varon which was sending shells
 through the, sides and ricocheting