Battledore and shuttlecock

“ The game of battledoor and shuttlecock is a popular one with us from childhood upwards, but I am not aware that any close observer and noter of curious things has ever calculated how many shuttlecocks an ordinary battledoor will outlast. ”

“ Kicking the shuttlecock is a favorite outdoor amusement with both boys and gentlemen. The shuttlecock consists of a bunch of feathers stuck in small, round pieces of leather, or pasteboard, and tied together by a string. The game is to kick it when it is served to you and not allow it to drop on the ground. When one muffs, he has to serve some one else. From two to six persons can play. Skilful players will keep the shuttlecock above ground for some time. ”

“ Battledoor or shuttlecock may be taught to children of both sexes very early; and it affords a healthy and almost untiring source of amusement. It gives activity as well as strength to the muscles or moving powers, and has many other important advantages. There is some danger, according to Dr. Pierson [Footnote: See his Lecture before the American Institute of Instruction] of distorting the spine by playing at shuttlecock too frequently and too long; but this will seldom be the case with little children in the nursery. ”

“ The shops are not shut, but ingress is denied by means of bamboo blinds hanging underneath tablets which bear the name of the householder and are fastened in place with cords of red and white. There is a sound of laughter everywhere, for all the young people turn out, in bright costumes, and play battle-board (hago-ita) and shuttlecock, the penalty for dropping the shuttlecock being to receive, on a tender part of the body, a whack from the battle-boards of all the other players, or a smudge of ink on the face, each of which visitations evokes peals of mirth. ”

“ After service is properly given, if either player fails to return the shuttlecock clean over the net, and so that it drops within the external boundary of the ground on the side of the net furthest from the striker, the player failing loses an ace, or is hand-out as the case may be. It will be observed that in the service the shuttlecock must be sent from right court to right court, or from left to left, but in the return, by either player, it is only required that the shuttlecock shall drop within any part of the ground, bounded by the external line of all. ”

“ By hanging in the infra band, on the ragged edge of threespace, a scout ship could remain concealed until a critical moment, breakout into threespace—discharge her weapons—and flick back into Cth before an enemy could get a fix on her. Scouts, with their high capacity converters, could perform this maneuver, but the ponderous battlewagons and cruisers with their tremendous weight of armor, screens, and munitions couldn't maneuver like this. They simply didn't have the agility. Yet only they had the ability to penetrate defensive screens and kill the Rebel heavies. ”

“ Grappling oars with sword blades and ballast in slings, to show how they could sink my [170] boats, made a formidable appearance against one poor torpedo boat and eight poor men. Moreover, all this would not have saved them had the nets not been to the ground; I was not prepared for nets thus arranged. Hence the committee gave me till the 29th of this month to show how I would get through the nets or carry them away. I am now prepared to prove that nets and booms are no better protection than cobwebs. Commodore Rodgers opposes me with much ardor and ingenuity ”

“ Why, the captain of a torpedo boat, if he has but one torpedo on board, could sail in under a fleet, pick out his battleship, sink it and then scuttle away, under water, from the rest of the enemy's fleet."
"It seems almost like cowardice, doesn't it?" asked Hal Hastings, soberly.
"Not exactly," replied Lieutenant Danvers, grimly. "In the first place, the game of war is to destroy the enemy with as little loss as possible to yourself. Moreover, the commander and crew of a submarine torpedo boat, during a naval campaign, would have to take risks enough to make most men's hair turn gray." ”

“ The coast has been so denuded of destroyers for the sake of strengthening the force with you (amounting now to seventy-one destroyers) that there is only a skeleton force of patrol vessels available on the East Coast, amounting to three Scouts, twenty-three Destroyers, twelve Torpedo Boats, between the Naze and St. Abbs Head, a distance of 300 miles. In these circumstances we are reluctantly compelled to decide on the King Edwards and the Third Cruiser Squadron going to Rosyth, and you should detach half a flotilla of the seventy-one destroyers at Scapa Flow to act with them. ”

“ Seagoing torpedo boats or destroyers are indispensable, not only for making night attacks by surprise upon an enemy, but even in battle for finishing already crippled ships. Under exceptional circumstances submarine boats would doubtless be of use. Fast scouts are needed. The main strength of the navy, however, lies, and can only lie, in the great battleships, the heavily armored, heavily gunned vessels which decide the mastery of the seas. Heavy-armed cruisers also play a most useful part, and unarmed cruisers, if swift enough, are very useful as scouts. ”

“ He raced to the side of his men, cutting a guard from his side, raying a second even as he was lining his gun on Jericho. The Negro grinned, and his swinging sword fled through the neck of a guard, followed about and dropped a hand from the wrist of a screaming second.
Schutler went down, his beard flaming where a bolt had grazed his chin. He roared like an angry bull, pawed at the flame and smoke of his burning beard, swept his other hand as a man sprays water. Guards dropped like flies beneath a poison spray.
A shot caught Crandal in one leg, dropped him to his knee. ”

“ But when the naval architect and the engineer have evolved a class of torpedo-using vessel which can both travel far and strike hard, and which, moreover, can stand a few well-directed shots penetrating her without succumbing to their effect, a new era will have been opened up in naval warfare—an era of high explosive weapons requiring to strike home with dash and bravery in spite of risk from shot and shell; but, like the bayonet on land, capable of overthrowing all war-machines which can only strike from a considerable distance. ”

“ The fleet needs to have a means of knowing where the enemy is, how many ships he has, what is their character, the direction in which they are steaming, and their speed. To accomplish this purpose, "scouts" are needed—fast ships, that can steam far in all kinds of weather and send wireless messages across great distances. So far as their scout duties go, such vessels need no guns whatever, and no torpedoes; but because the enemy will see the scout as soon as the scout sees the enemy, and because the enemy will try to drive away the scout by gun and torpedo fire, the scouts must be armed. ”

“ The general who, with such an army, would win the full measure of success due to greatly superior numbers, must manoeuver so as to compel the enemy to fight him on approximately equal terms, instead of assaulting fortifications where, against modern weapons, numbers are of little or no avail. In the days of the bayonet successful tactics consisted in massing a superior force upon some vital point, and breaking the enemy's line. Now it is the fire of the musket, not the bayonet, that decides the battle. To mass troops against the fire of a covered line is simply to devote them to destruction. ”

“ The observer above them saw those streaming flashes, and knowing what they meant, stuck doggedly to his task, although now the bullets were hissing close and thick about them, and the windage from the rushing shells of our own heavy guns and the air-eddies from the guns firing below set the "Gamecock" rocking and bumping and rolling like a toy boat in a cross tide. ”

“ He had a strong wire netting stretched around the bottom of the boat and anchored lashed spars to float at her sides; while grappling irons, hung far out from the rigging, were ready to plunge at any boat approaching with hostile intent. Huge scythes were hinged to her decks, ready to cut off the heads of any sailors who ventured within reach. It takes an American to beat an American! Fulton confessed that, for the time, he had been outwitted but promised the officers of the navy that he would yet find a way to conquer the difficulties. ”

“ But Captain Smollett made no change in his arrangement. If the mutineers succeeded in crossing the stockade, he argued, they would take possession of any unprotected loophole, and shoot us down like rats in our own stronghold.
Nor had we much time left to us for thought. Suddenly, with a loud huzza, a little cloud of pirates leaped from the woods on the north side, and ran straight on the stockade. At the same moment the fire was once more opened from the woods, and a rifle-ball sang through the doorway, and knocked the doctor’s musket into bits. ”

“ In attack it could alone annihilate a nation’s fleet. It is equally effective in defence. If equipped with proper acoustic and electrical appliances it has little to fear from a submarine, and an ordinary torpedo will scarcely hurt it. That is why the first of these monsters, built in England, has been name Dreadnought. ”

“ Suddenly he saw a ball of flame shoot into the air from the hill directly ahead of him, followed almost immediately by other balls from right and left.
"Rocket signals!" exclaimed Rogers. "By the blood of old Barney! it won't do for me to delay getting to the Stockade. Judging from their rockets, the manhunters must be closing in on it. If I'm going to reach there at all, it must be to-night. I can never get through in the daytime."
Rose and the others also beheld the signals, and in the face of the danger all the girl's anger against the outlaw vanished. ”

“ This is not a mere theorist or dreamer talking, says Burton Roscoe in commenting on Admiral Scott's statements; it is the one man in England most supremely versed in naval tactics, the man to whom all nations owe the present effectiveness of the broadside of eight, twelve and fourteen inch guns and the perfection in sighting long range guns.
The newest type of submarine torpedo is 100 per cent efficient. The torpedo net of steel that used to be the ship's defense against torpedoes is now useless. ”

“ A scout who was with Bradley states that, while they were fighting their way up through the willows, he passed three squaws who were hidden in a clump of brush. Knowing their blood-thirsty nature, and that several of his comrades had already been killed by this class of enemies, he was tempted to kill them, but as they seemed to be unarmed and made no show of resistance he spared them and passed on. ”

“ A few minutes later, Admiral Hope, though fainting from loss of blood, transferred his flag to the Opossum, which had not been so badly served out as the Plover; but, no sooner had the square white flag, with its red Saint George’s cross been seen flying on the second gunboat, than every gun in every battery was apparently directed on her, the admiral getting wounded a second time, while nearly every officer and man was shot down.
“By heavens, it’s too cruel!” cried Mr Stormcock, jumping up in the launch as the Opossum dropped down towards us on the ebb tide, away from the withering fire. ”

“ Scudamore,' he cried, 'I would thou hadst not stolen my mare, so that I might fight with thee in a Christian fashion.'
'Roundhead scoundrel!' gasped Scudamore, wild with wrath. 'Thy unmannerly varlet tricks shall cost thee dear. Thou a soldier? A juggler with a mountebank jade—a vile hackney which thou hast taught to caper! A soldier indeed!'
'A soldier and seatless!' returned Richard. 'A soldier and rail! A soldier and steal my mare, then shoot my horse! ”

“ Just as dreadnoughts require battle-cruisers, and both require torpedo-boat destroyers, and all require other scout-ships and submarines, for co-operation against a fleet of an enemy, so do dirigibles and the different types of aëroplanes, according to their purpose, require one another for concert of action.
What we have already seen of battles fought in the sky leads us to surmise that aërial battles of the future will be fought on a much larger scale. It will be found that the commander who expects to conquer the ground held by an enemy must first conquer the sky. ”

“ Darrin answered. "Besides, he has to be at a greater altitude, when hunting submarines, than it's handy to drop a bomb from. There is too much margin of chance that the enemy craft will graze by when the bomb is dropped from the air. In our case, if we drop when directly over the Hun, there can hardly be a miss, and it's the dirigible's business to tell us when we are directly over the enemy."
In the meantime, on board the destroyer, all was made ready, and Dave followed the same tactics as before. ”

“ Barlow’s home, sat beside Robert Fulton and was charmed by his pleasant manner. Fulton’s topic of conversation—we can imagine his pleasure in the subject—was his invention of the steamboat upon which he was then at work; and his hope that the submarine torpedo-boat would end all naval warfare and bring universal peace. The Prince listened politely but later confessed his sadness in [92] realizing that the agreeable young American was mad or he would not devote his time to such impossible schemes! To many Fulton’s dream seemed utterly vain. ”

“ In a hand-to-hand encounter there can be but little opportunity for strategy or leadership, except in the purely physical sense. Yet, on either side, the men fought as though animated by a common instinct, the Doomsmen striving to force the Stockaders back into the gateway passage, and the latter endeavoring to cut their way bodily through the mass of the defenders and so divide its strength. For a while the tide began to run with the allies, and the Doomsmen were obliged to fall back slowly towards the interior barricade on the east side of the square that protected the women and children. ”