Dreadnought

“ As if they had been one, all four of his assailants hurled themselves on the Dreadnought Boy. Strive as he would, Ned felt his arms pinioned to his sides, and he was borne down by sheer weight of numbers. He struggled with every steel-like muscle in his powerful young body. With teeth set and eyes that flamed, he fought with every fraction of an ounce of strength he possessed. But, with two men hanging like bulldogs to his neck from behind, and two more clinging to his arms and battering him in front, the lad could do nothing. ”

“ It is a literal fact that we have always been an inch or two ahead of Germany in the calibre of our biggest guns—the history of the Dreadnought fully proves that—and it is incredible that we should suddenly be caught napping in a matter on which we have led the world. ”

“ England’s latest Dreadnought, which had just been launched, was lying in the basin, being fitted with engines, guns, etc. With her two enormous oval funnels standing out against a group of workshops and towering high above them, her huge turret guns which still lay along the wharf amid a litter of smaller guns, searchlights, and armoured plates, she made an impressive picture of Britain’s sea power. ”

“ When fired with full charges, each gun develops a force able to lift the Dreadnought herself bodily nearly a yard up, exerting a force equivalent to 47,697 “foot-tons,” in gunnery language. The entire broadside of eight 12-inch guns, fired simultaneously, as at the gun [46] trial off the Isle of Wight, develops a force sufficient to heave the huge vessel herself, 21 feet up—nearly out of the water, in fact.
[Extreme range of the Dreadnought’s turret-guns:—Fired from in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral.] ”

“ Some enthusiastic adherents of the Dreadnought even went so far as to assert that she was equal to half a dozen Lord Nelsons, but the more extreme views of this nature were rather severely criticised. It was not only in the number of big guns that the Dreadnought exceeded all previous ships, but in their penetrative quality also. Compared with those of the Majestic they are of about fifty per cent. greater power. ”

“ The bucks were deposited in the stern of the boat, the guns laid softly across them, covered with a plaid, and Dreadnought followed slowly and sternly, and laid himself down with an air as if, like Don Alphonso of Castile, 'the body trembled at the dangers into which the soul was going to carry it.' I took the oars—there were no directions to be given—Donald knew how to cross the pool, and every other where we were used to ferry. ”

“ Down they dropped, till the gauge showed that they were twenty-four feet under the surface. Ned brought the craft on an even keel, and then began the ascent. As they rose to the surface, every one in the conning-tower gave a cry of surprise. So accurately had the Dreadnought [158] Boy gauged the distance that the Lockyer came to the top not more than ten feet astern of the gunboat. They could see her big counter looming up blackly against the starry sky. ”

“ They still constitute a mighty fleet. The Dreadnought has not rendered them obsolete, and many of them would give a good account of themselves in the line of battle for many years to come. But, though they have not been rendered obsolete by the Dreadnoughts and the Invincibles, yet their life has been shortened. ... A battleship must be regarded as a machine of which the output is fighting capacity. All improvements in the designs of ships which increase the fighting capacity necessarily shorten the life of earlier battleships just as in the case of any other machine. ”

“ The seamen and Marines grounded arms and watched the Dreadnought of the Air with the deepest interest. She had spotted the advancing force, and starboarding her helm was making in the direction of the column.
Her propellers stopped; she lost way, then, slowly sinking, alighted on level ground at less than a hundred and fifty yards from the place where Captain Staggers and his staff were standing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Dreadnought had drawn back and away from the remains of the broken Gate, so that now it lay ahead of them and far to the left. The out-ships as well, low on fuel and tentative, spread outward so that two almost parallel walls were formed, filled with eyes. The would-be combatants faced each other across the margin that they themselves created: the empty distance of war's chasm, that unholy no-man's land wherein, once entered, frightened men kill frightened men until one side has had enough. ”

“ The moonlight, as intense as it usually is in the tropics, flooded the beautiful grounds of the hotel, making checker-work patterns of black and white beneath the tropical growth.
The Pulsifers and Mr. Varian were standing full in the center of a moonlight flooded opening as the Dreadnought Boy approached them.
"Now, see here, Varian," the elder of the two Pulsifers was saying, "it's sheer madness for a man in your position to refuse our offer."
"I confess that your knowledge of my 'position,' as you call it, puzzles me," rejoined the inventor of the most powerful explosive known, quizzically. ”

“ A modern Dreadnought is intended to fire its guns in broadsides and not in succession, and when it is borne in mind that at one discharge these guns will deliver on an enemy's ship, if they are fired accurately, between five and six tons of metal, it will be realized that at such a moment the calibre of men will count more than the calibre of guns. ”

“ Some of the men get out the oars and boat-hooks, and push for their very lives, thrusting and striving their utmost to free the Dreadnought, which is so dangerously thumping and crashing under the quarter of the larger boat. It is a terrible struggle in that boiling sea, with the surf breaking over them. ”

“ Back again on the huge, drab Dreadnought Manhattan, where they made their début into naval life, they formed part of the crew of the flag-ship of the sixteen battleships sent around the world to give other nations an impressive demonstration of Uncle Sam’s great sea-power. The passage down the eastern coast of South America and around the Horn had been made, the great fighting sea-dogs exciting the most intense interest and enthusiasm everywhere. ”

“ So it was that we once more arrived at the "all-big-gun ship", and in the Dreadnought, launched in 1906, went back to the principle followed in the armament of her namesake of 1875, and confined her armament—except for a few small anti-torpedo-boat guns—to cannon of the largest size. A comparison of the two Dreadnoughts will form an appropriate termination to this chapter, which has already occupied more pages than I intended.
1875—H.M.S. Dreadnought. Displacement, 10,820 tons; speed, 14 knots; guns, four muzzle-loaders; armour, 10, 11, 13, and 14 inches; weight of projectiles, 809 pounds ”

“ That number again, including the four titanic battleships, were held in reserve.
The straggle of fighters and destroyers from the planet's last line of defense the launched ships ignored altogether, these being handled easily by the multitude of blazing turrets aboard the Dreadnought. One or two handfuls managed to elude fire long enough to harry the rear of the advancing ranks; but these were little more than beetles biting at the legs of wolves. A single heavy cruiser would turn its guns in their direction, and end forever the one-sided argument. ”

“ But if he had thought to catch the Dreadnought Boy off his guard, he was dreadfully mistaken. Ned jumped nimbly to one side, as Kennell rushed at him, and the bully [Pg 82] carried by the impetus of his onrush, crashed against the wall. He recovered himself in an instant and came back at Ned with formidable force. But once more Ned was ready for him. The Dreadnought Boy dived suddenly, as Kennell raised his knotted club, and, coming up under the man's arm, caught him a blow on the chin that caused the former bully of the Manhattan to reel and stagger. ”

“ The waist bulwarks of the Dreadnought, if she swims as she ought, will be some twenty feet above the water-line. Nearly four hundred tons in burden is our new man-of-war—five tons heavier than the Swiftsure, than which ship too she is six feet longer, though the pair reckon as sister ships. Upwards of six thousand pounds out of Queen Elizabeth’s treasury (about £30,000 at present day value) will have been the cost of the Dreadnought when she leaves Deptford dockyard. ”

“ I do not, of course, for a moment admit with him that the gun has yet mastered the armor. I believe the Dreadnought, though of old design, would still fight a good action against all ships now ready for sea, and have to fear only a very exceptional, and therefore either a very skilful or very fortunate, shot. The recent Admiralty ships, where they are armored, are practically proof against almost every gun afloat. ”

“ He left the deck of the dreadnought as the Prince and his protégé vanished down the steel companionway, and passed out of the docks. Nor did he neglect to give the necessary orders for his visitors' departure. After that, however, he went straight to his headquarters.
Meanwhile the Prince, without the least hesitation, led his companion along the steel passages, past the maze of machinery which formed the bowels of the dreadnought. At the extreme peak of the vessel was situated the light-room of the U-rays, where they found four engineers at work. ”

“ He had a feeling that if he could run them down without their observing him, he would be able to discover the whereabouts of Ned, for the more he pondered it, the more the Dreadnought Boy felt certain that the two worthies he was trailing knew what had become of his chum. ”

“ They missed the first target."
But even as the cry reverberated along the decks there came another sound that struck terror to the heart of the Dreadnought Boy.
It was a heavy, smothered explosion that seemed to come from within the turret itself. At the same instant great clouds of yellow-colored smoke began to roll from the top ventilators.
"It's a flareback!" Herc heard old Tom shout. "Heaven help the poor souls in there!" ”

“ After supper the Jackies talked and lounged,—those that were off duty, that is. Then came tattoo, and following that the long, melancholy sweet notes of “Taps,” which is the bugle’s way of saying good-night. The sky was heavily overcast and the sea was beginning to heave and roll under the twenty-thousand-ton dreadnought as the bugles sang plaintively the sailors’ bed-time call:
“Go to sleep! Go to sleep! ”

“ His threats proved effectual, coupled with his fierce looks, and the panic-stricken cowards subsided into whimperings and whinings like the lamentations of whipped curs. This duty attended to, Herc sprang up the ladder again, alert for orders.
“It’s a derelict, sir,” Ned was saying, as the Dreadnought Boy regained the conning-tower. “I can make out her masts and the outline of her hull.”
“That’s right,” approved Captain McGill; “you have sharp eyes, my lad. It is a derelict.” ”

“ CHAPTER I. CONCERNING SUB-LIEUTENANT DACRES.
IT was Thursday afternoon—Make and Mend Clothes Day as it is known in the Royal Navy. H.M.S. "Royal Oak," a Super-Dreadnought now relegated to the second class, lay at moorings off Singapore. Two cables' length ahead of her swung her sister ship the "Repulse," flying the flag of Admiral Maynebrace commanding the Special Squadron, now on a cruise round the world in order to display the White Ensign in foreign waters as a gentle reminder to petty potentates that the British Lion's tail could not be twisted with impunity. ”

“ At every place we’ve stopped since the fleet left Norfolk, haven’t the men of the squadron behaved themselves like men-o’-war’s-men and gentlemen, instead of the popular idea of a sailor ashore?” Warming to his subject the young Dreadnought Boy continued: “The navy of to-day is made up of ambitious, keen-witted young fellows. ”

“ Ned was at his gun almost before the last notes of the bugle calls had died out. Herc was not much behind him. The Dreadnought Boy hastily inspected the shining butt of the big twelve-inch gun that was in his charge. He patted it smilingly.
“You’ll have to do your best to-night, old girl!” he said.
The captain passed among the men as they took their stations.
“They’ll do,” he remarked to the executive officer with him; “smart work. A likely lot of lads. They all have themselves well in hand even though they have no idea what is going to happen.” ”

“ Hitherto four 12-inch guns have formed the standard main armament for all battleships. The Dreadnought carries ten 12-inch guns of a new and more powerful type than any heretofore in existence. They are mounted in pairs in “redoubts,” armoured with Krupp steel eleven inches thick, and are so grouped on board that when fighting broadside-on with an enemy, eight of the ten guns will bear on the enemy and be in action throughout. ”

“ The German Flag is banished from the seas. In January 1916 the German Fleet is still lurking in that zareba. The Dreadnought embodied an offensive in excelsis, even as the expansion of the Dreadnought policy embodies an offensive in extenso and imposes upon the enemy a defensive in extremis. ”

“ As well might it be argued that because the Dreadnought is practically obsolescent before it is completed for its first commission, we should cease building battleships until such time as the final development has been reached. The man who would seriously argue thus would, deservedly, be accounted a dangerous lunatic. ”