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Read Ebook: Famous Fighters of the Fleet Glimpses through the Cannon Smoke in the Days of the Old Navy by Fraser Edward
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Ebook has 805 lines and 80567 words, and 17 pages
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INTRODUCTION xi
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BEAVER 1
THE KING OF THE TROUT STREAM 41
THE STRENUOUS LIFE OF A CANADA LYNX 83
POINTERS FROM A PORCUPINE QUILL 125
THE ADVENTURES OF A LOON 163
THE MAKING OF A GLIMMERGLASS BUCK 199
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"On the grass in the warm, quiet sunshine of an autumn afternoon" 6
Building the Dam 22
Nesting Grounds 62
"He tried jumping out of the water" 72
"The hole was suddenly darkened, and a round, hairy face looked in" 100
"He was a very presentable young lynx" 110
"They both stood still and looked at each other" 120
"High up in the top of a tall hemlock" 132
"He quickly made his way to the beach" 148
"He went under as simply as you would step out of bed" 166
"She herself was a rarely beautiful sight" 170
"The old earth sliding southward fifty miles an hour" 180
"He was a baby to be proud of" 202
"The buck was nearing the prime of life" 226
"Wherever they went they were always struggling and fighting" 230
It is sweet to lie at evening in your little trundle-bed, And to listen to a porky gnawing shingles overhead; Porky, porky, porky, porky; Gnawing shingles overhead.
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BEAVER
A BROAD, flat tail came down on the water with a whack that sent the echoes flying back and forth across the pond, and its owner ducked his head, arched his back, and dived to the bottom. It was a very curious tail, for besides being so oddly paddle-shaped it was covered with what looked like scales, but were really sections and indentations of hard, horny, blackish-gray skin. Except its owner's relations, there was no one else in all the animal kingdom who had one like it. But the strangest thing about it was the many different ways in which he used it. Just now it was his rudder--and a very good rudder, too.
In a moment his little brown head reappeared, and he and his brothers and sisters went chasing each other round and round the pond, ducking and diving and splashing, raising such a commotion that they sent the ripples washing all along the grassy shores, and having the jolliest kind of a time. It isn't the usual thing for young beavers to be out in broad daylight, but all this happened in the good old days before the railways came, when northern Michigan was less infested with men than it is now.
Her three funnels each stand up 75 feet into the air--very nearly the height of the Round Tower of Windsor Castle above the mound at its foot. Each funnel weighs 20 tons, and costs ?400 to make--a year's pay of a colonel of hussars. In diameter each is the exact size, to an inch, of the 'Two-penny Tube.' If they were laid flat, a life-guardsman in King's Birthday regimentals could trot through them. Each lower mast is a steel tube, 80 feet from end to end and weighing 20 tons. The rudder weighs 18 tons; and the ram, a steel casting, 19 tons. The propellers each weigh 12 tons, and are each 16 feet across from tip to tip. The stern-post weighs 20 tons.
The strength of twice ten thousand horse That serve the one command,
Electricity works the great hooded turrets on the forecastle and quarter-deck, each of 4-inch nickel steel and carrying a pair of 6-inch guns, mounted side by side in double-barrelled sporting-gun fashion on a twin mounting, training the eighty odd tons of dead-weight to right and left, or from one side of the ship to the other, through three-quarters of a circle, as easily as one wheels one's arm-chair in front of the fire after dinner. Electricity also 'feeds' the guns, both in the turrets and in the casemates, as fast as they can be fired, bringing up the ammunition to the guns directly from the magazines.
How it is done is, of course, an engine-room affair. Two main engines drive the ship: one engine to each of the immense 16-feet-wide twin-screws. At full speed they work up to an aggregate power of twenty-two thousand horses: eleven thousand horses each engine. Thirty-one boilers, of the much-maligned Belleville type, supply the steam. What that means the staff below have good reason to know. The thirty-one boilers, with their 'economisers,' provide seven thousand tubes to be looked after and kept clean. Collectively, the boiler-tubes offer to the fires in the stoke-hold a total heating-surface of 50,300 square feet: an area, that is, of an acre and a sixth, a space about equal to Trafalgar Square within the roadway, or the floor-space of the Albert Hall. Each boiler has two furnaces to heat it, making sixty-two in all. When all are alight they burn 40 tons of coal at once, on a grate-area of 1610 square feet; practically giving off a square space of flame 170 yards each way.
The navy owes the name to Charles the Second, who introduced it on the roll of the fleet as a mark of special favour and a paternal compliment to Lucy Walters' ill-starred son, the vanquished of Sedgemoor, whose headless body now lies beneath the altar of the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower.
Now clear the ring, for hand to hand The manly wrestlers take their stand.
Unfortunately for the French plans, the British Admiralty were well aware of what was to be attempted. The fitting-out of the squadron at Toulon had been carried on with the greatest secrecy, but not so secretly that the British admiral at the head of the Mediterranean fleet had not learnt all about it. Admiral Osborn had also been warned from home of the probable destination of the French ships. The result was that when the French came they found him cruising with twelve line-of-battle ships a little to eastward of the Rock, and with a chain of look-out frigates stretching right across from Ceuta to Cape de Gata. M. de la Clue, the French admiral, found his way out of the Mediterranean barred, and having only seven ships of the line with him to the British commander's twelve, he turned aside and ran into the 'neutral' harbour of Carthagena. He only got inside the port in the nick of time. Just as M. de la Clue's ships let go anchor within the Spanish batteries. Admiral Osborn's ships, duly warned by signals from their look-out frigates of every movement of the French squadron, came hastening up.
Her ports all up, her battle-lanterns lit, And her leashed thunders gathering for their leap.
'At half-past eight,' says Lieutenant Carkett, 'we came to a close engagement.'
Fate, however, unhappily had more in store for Arthur Gardiner that night. At half-past nine, the captain received a second and a mortal wound. 'Captain Gardiner received a mortal wound which obliged him to be conveyed off the deck,' Lieutenant Carkett briefly records. A grape-shot struck Gardiner on the forehead, according to the journal of Lieutenant Baron, the third lieutenant, and he was carried below insensible, to linger in the cockpit until four next morning, when he died, 'having been speechless since he received his wound.'
As senior officer after Captain Gardiner's fall, Carkett took charge on the quarter-deck, and the battle went on with even more desperate fury than before:--
Spars were splinter'd, decks were shatter'd, Bullets fell like rain; Over mast and deck were scatter'd Blood and brains of men.
Lieutenant Carkett in his log thus summarises what passed in the last hour. 'Half-past 12: Our mizen was shot away. At 1 A.M. the enemy's was shot away. Also at half-past her main-mast was shot away. She then ceased firing, having slackened her fire for some time before.'
It remained now only to count the cost and overhaul damages.
There is in the lone, lone sea A spot unmark'd but holy, For there the gallant and the free In his ocean bed lies lowly. Down, down beneath the deep, That oft in triumph bore him, He sleeps a sound and peaceful sleep, With the salt waves dashing o'er him.
He sleeps serene and safe From tempest and from billow, Where storms that high above him chafe Scarce rock his peaceful pillow. The sea and him in death They did not dare to sever; It was his home when he had breath, 'Tis now his home for ever.
Sleep on, thou mighty dead, A glorious tomb they've found thee, The broad blue sky above thee spread, The boundless ocean round thee. No vulgar foot treads here, No hand profane shall move thee, But gallant hearts shall proudly steer And warriors shout above thee.
And though no stone may tell thy name, thy worth, thy glory, They rest in hearts that love thee well, they grace Britannia's story.
STANZAS
'When once he bursts in dreadful roar, And vomits death from shore to shore, My glory to maintain; Repenting Britons then will see Their folly to dispute with me The empire of the main.'
He spake, th' obedient sails were spread, And Neptune reared his awful head, To view the glorious sight; The Tritons and the Nereids came, And floated round the high-built frame, With wonder and delight.
Then Neptune thus the Gods address'd: 'The sight is noble, 'tis confess'd, The structure we admire; But yet this monst'rous pile shall meet With one small ship from Britain's fleet, And strike to Britons' fire.'
Close to her mighty foe she came, Resolv'd to sink or gain a name Which Envy might admire; Devouring guns tumultous sound, Destructive slaughter flam'd around, And seas appear'd on fire.
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