Frank R. Stockton

“ All the way from the American coast to the Bermuda Islands, the great Adamant blazed, thundered, and roared, not only because her commander saw, or fancied he saw, an American vessel, but to notify all crabs, repellers, and any other vile invention of the enemy that may have been recently put forth to blemish the sacred surface of the sea, that the Adamant still floated, with the heaviest coat of mail and the finest and most complete armament in the world, ready to sink anything hostile which came near enough—but not too near. ”

“ A torpedo had been exploded in the harbour, an unfinished fort had been mined and blown up, and all this had been done to frighten him—a British soldier—in command of a strong fort well garrisoned and fully supplied with all the munitions of war. In the fear that his fort would be destroyed by a mystical bomb, he was expected to march to a place of safety with all his forces. If this should be done it would not be long before these crafty fellows would occupy the fort, and with its great guns turned inland, would hold the city at their mercy. ”

“ If one torpedo could but reach her hull, the Vice-Admiral, in spite of seven disabled ironclads and a captured gun-boat, might yet gaze proudly at his floating flag, even if his own ship should be drifting broadside to the sea.
The line of torpedo-boats, slightly curving inward, had advanced about a mile, when Repeller No. 11 awoke from her seeming sleep, and began to act. The two great guns at her bow were trained upward, so that a bomb discharged from them would fall into the sea a mile and a half ahead. ”

“ But if the British Government, or the people of England or Canada, recognized this position at all, it was merely as a temporary condition. In a short time the most powerful men-of-war of the Royal Navy, as well as a fleet of transports carrying troops, would reach the coasts of North America, and then the condition of affairs would rapidly be changed. It was absurd to suppose that a few medium-sized vessels, however heavily armoured, or a few new-fangled submarine machines, however destructive they might be, could withstand an armada of the largest and finest armoured vessels in the world. ”

“ There was nothing, in the opinion of the ablest naval officers, to prevent the Syndicate's fleet from coming up the Thames. Instantaneous motor-bombs could sweep away all forts and citadels, and explode and destroy all torpedo defences, and London might lie under the guns of the repeller. ”

“ To firmly establish the prestige of the instantaneous motor was the object of the war. Crabs were of but temporary service. Any nation could build vessels like them, and there were many means of destroying them. The spring armour was a complete defence against ordinary artillery, but it was not a defence against submarine torpedoes. The claims of the Syndicate could be firmly based on nothing but the powers of absolute annihilation possessed by the instantaneous motor-bomb. ”

“ Photographs and pictures of Caerdaff as it had been and as it then was were produced with marvellous rapidity, and the earthquake bomb of the American War Syndicate was the subject of excited conversation in every civilized country.
The British Ministry was now the calmest body of men in Europe. The great opposition storm had died away, the great war storm had ceased, and the wisest British statesmen saw the unmistakable path of national policy lying plain and open before them. ”

“ A feeling of indignation against the Syndicate had existed in the navy from the time that the war contract had been made, and this feeling increased daily. That the officers and men of the United States navy should be penned up in harbours, ports, and sounds, while British ships and the hulking mine-springers and rudder-pinchers of the Syndicate were allowed to roam the ocean at will, was a very hard thing for brave sailors to bear. ”

“ There were very few people in the city and suburbs who were at that hour out of doors where they could see the great cloud of water arise toward the sky, and behold it descend like a mighty cataract upon the harbour and adjacent shores; but the quick, sharp shock which ran under the town made people spring from their beds; and although nothing was then to be seen, nearly everybody felt sure that the Syndicate's forces had begun their day's work by exploding another mine. ”

“ When the approach of this flag-of-truce was perceived from the fort nearest the mouth of the harbour, it occasioned much surmise. Had the earthquake brought these Syndicate knaves to their senses? Or were they about to make further absurd and outrageous demands? Some irate officers were of the opinion that enemies like these should be considered no better than pirates, and that their flag-of-truce should be fired upon. But the commandant of the fort paid no attention to such counsels, and sent a detachment with a white flag down to the beach to meet the approaching boat and learn its errand. ”

“ In the midst of the profound satisfaction with which the members of the American War Syndicate regarded the success of their labours,—labours alike profitable to themselves and to the recently contending nations,—and in the gratified pride with which they received the popular and official congratulations which were showered upon them, there was but one little cloud, one regret. ”

“ Every newspaper urged that if the repeller carried guns capable of throwing the bombs which the Syndicate professed to use, there was no reason why every ship in the British fleet should not have been destroyed. But as the repeller had not fired a single shot at the fleet, and as the battle had been fought entirely by the crabs, there was every reason to believe that if there were such things as motor-guns, their range was very short, not as great as that of the ordinary dynamite cannon. ”

“ They had, so far, successfully defended the American coast, and when they had increased the number of their vessels, they would have been relied upon to continue that defence. Even if a British armada had set out to cross the Atlantic, its movements must have been slow and cumbrous, and the swift and sudden strokes with which the Syndicate waged war could have been given by night and by day over thousands of miles of ocean. ”

“ The British fleet came steadily on, headed by the great Llangaron. This vessel was very much in advance of the others, for knowing that when she was really in action and the great cylinder which formed her stern-guard was lowered into the water her speed would be much retarded, she had put on all steam, and being the swiftest war-ship of her class, she had distanced all her consorts. It was highly important that she should begin the fight, and engage the attention of as many crabs as possible, while certain of the other ships attacked the repeller with their rams. ”

“ Every man on board the Scarabaeus was wild with amazement and excitement. Few could comprehend what had happened, but this very quickly became evident. So far as motive power was concerned, the Scarabaeus was totally, disabled. She could not direct her course, for her rudder was gone, her propeller was gone, her engines were useless, and she could do no more than float as wind or tide might move her. Moreover, there was a jagged hole in her stern where the shaft had been, and through this the water was pouring into the vessel. As a man-of-war the Scarabaeus was worthless. ”

“ For some years the United States navy had been steadily improving, but this improvement was not sufficient to make it worthy of reliance at this crisis. As has been said, there was money enough, and every ship-yard in the country could be set to work to build ironclad men-of-war: but it takes a long time to build ships, and England's navy was afloat. It was the British keel that America had to fear. ”

“ The great ironclad battle-ship, with her lofty sides plated with nearly two feet of solid steel, with her six great guns, each weighing more than a hundred tons, with her armament of other guns, machine cannon, and almost every appliance of naval warfare, with a small army of officers and men on board, was left in charge of Crab K, of which only a few square yards of armoured roof could be seen above the water. This little vessel now proceeded to tow southward her vast prize, uninjured, except that her rudder and propeller-blades were broken and useless. ”

“ The destruction of the Syndicate's fleet would now be a heavy blow to the United States. It would produce an utter want of confidence in the councils and judgments of the Syndicate, which could not be counteracted by the strongest faith in the efficiency of their engines of war; and it was feared it might become necessary, even at this critical juncture, to annul the contract with the Syndicate, and to depend upon the American navy for the defence of the American coast.
Even among the men on board the Syndicate's fleet there were signs of doubt and apprehensions of evil. ”

“ The character of the new defence which had been fitted to the Llangaron was known to the Syndicate, and the directors of the two new crabs understood the heavy piece of work which lay before them. But their plans of action had been well considered, and they made straight for the stern of the British ship.
It was, of course, impossible to endeavour to grasp that great cylinder with its rounded ends; their forceps would slip from any portion of its smooth surface on which they should endeavour to lay hold, and no such attempt was made. ”

“ These twenty-three men had formed themselves into a Syndicate, with the object of taking entire charge of the war between the United States and Great Britain.
This proposition was an astounding one, but the Government was obliged to treat it with respectful consideration. The men who offered it were a power in the land,—a power which no government could afford to disregard. ”

“ It was during the first week of the involuntary cruise of the Adamant that the Syndicate finished its preparations for what it hoped would be the decisive movement of its campaign. To do this a repeller and six crabs, all with extraordinary powers, had been fitted out with great care, and also with great rapidity, for the British Government was working night and day to get its fleet of ironclads in readiness for a descent upon the American coast. Many of the British vessels were already well prepared for ordinary naval warfare; but to resist crabs additional defences were necessary. ”

“ It had been decided in British naval circles that the proper thing to do in regard to a repeller was to ram her as quickly as possible. These vessels were necessarily slow and unwieldy, and if a heavy ironclad could keep clear of crabs long enough to rush down upon one, there was every reason to believe that the "ball-bouncer," as the repellers were called by British sailors, could be crushed in below the water-line and sunk. So, full of courage and determination, the captain of the Craglevin bore down upon the repeller. ”

“ The director reflected a moment, and then ordered that the signals should be given at every discharge of the gun, and that the columns of black smoke should be shot up to their greatest height.
At precisely ten o'clock, up rose from Repeller No. 11 two tall jets of black smoke. Up rose from the promontory of Caerdaff, a heavy gray cloud, like an immense balloon, and then the people on the hill-tops and highlands felt a sharp shock of the ground and rocks beneath them, and heard the sound of a terrible but momentary grinding crush. ”

“ Against waves and winds she formed a massive breakwater, with a wide stretch of smooth sea between her and the land. There she lay, proof against all the artillery of Europe, and all the artillery of the sea and the storm, until a fleet of small vessels had taken from her her ponderous armament, her coal and stores, and she had been lightened enough to float upon a high tide, and to follow three tugs to Portsmouth.
When night came on, Repeller No. 11 and the crabs dropped down with the tide, and lay to some miles west of the scene of battle. ”

“ But what could a repeller and half a dozen crabs do against the combined force of the Royal Navy,—a navy which had in the last few years regained its supremacy among the nations, and which had made Great Britain once more the first maritime power in the world? ”

“ In a vast plain, shaven and shorn down to a common level of scarred and pallid rock, there lay an immense chasm two miles and a half long, half a mile wide, and so deep that shuddering men could stand and look down upon the rent and riven rocks upon which had rested that portion of the Welsh coast which had now blown out to sea.
An officer of the Royal Engineers stood on the seaward edge of this yawning abyss ”

“ Every man who had a post of duty was instantly at it; and in less than half an hour the British man-of-war Scarabaeus, which had been lying at anchor a short distance outside the harbour, came steaming out to meet the enemy. There were other naval vessels in port, but they required more time to be put in readiness for action.
As soon as the approach of Scarabaeus was perceived by Repeller No. 1, a boat bearing a white flag was lowered from that vessel and was rapidly rowed toward the British ship. ”

“ The projectile with which the cannon was loaded was not an instantaneous motor-bomb. It was simply a heavy solid shot, driven by an instantaneous motor attachment, and was thus impelled by the same power and in the same manner as the motor-bombs. The instantaneous motor-power had not yet been used at so great a distance as that between the repeller and the Adamant, and the occasion was one of intense interest to the small body of scientific men having charge of the aiming and firing. ”

“ Another idea arose in the minds of the wisest British statesmen. If prohibitive warfare were a good thing for America, it would be an equally good thing for England. More than that, it would be a better thing if only these two countries possessed the power of waging prohibitive warfare.
In three days a convention of peace was concluded between Great Britain and the American Syndicate acting for the United States, its provisions being made subject to such future treaties and alliances as the governments of the two nations might make with each other. ”

“ From the interior there were clamours for troops to be massed on the Northern frontier, and from the seaboard cities there came a cry for ships that were worthy to be called men-of-war,—ships to defend the harbours and bays, ships to repel an invasion by sea. ”

“ To save the United States from a dragging war, and to save themselves from the effects of it, were the prompting motives for the formation of the Syndicate.
Without hesitation, the Syndicate determined that the war in which it was about to engage should be one of defence by means of offence. Such a war must necessarily be quick and effective ”