AN IMAGINARY PICTURE OF A SEA-FIGHT.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9303, 2 January 1896, Page 2

AN IMAGINARY PICTURE OF A SEA-FIGHT.

In Longman's Magazine Mr James Eastwick concludes his spirited description of the naval battle of the future, which, he holds, will be decided by the introduction of the automatic gun. He makes the smash single-handed a French three ironclads and one cruiser. The sti-fry" l is full of passages of lurid vigour. It quotes the following passage of how the Centurion i in her death throes made a triumphant effort against two French ironclads, the Charlemagne and the Jaurequiberry. The rapid firing of the Centurion had so smashed up the Jaurequiberry, that the French Admiral's last chance was to ram and go down with his adversary. At the same j time the Charlemagne, which had been very ' severely maimed, steamed down on the British ship from the starboard. The writer is on the Centurian in charge of the guns in one of the turrets, watching the onrush of the Jaurequiberry. He says :— An Attempt to Ram. The other was drawing up at full speed. Every second we could see more clearly the red point of her ram lifting amid the "foam round her bows as she roae on the swell. She was now but five cables off. We laid fair on that advancing ram and began to fire. Loud along our decks rang the cry, "Ready away, boarders." A torpedo or two from the enemy flashed, away somewhere, or atlea-t, I was told so afterwards —at the moment I had neither eyes nor ears for anything but that "sharp stem. Through the blinding rain and spray, through the incessant flame from the great muzzles in front of mc, I watched it draw nearer and nearer, the white smother around her now flying before "the gale, now leaping up in ! columns of spray and smoke from our bursting shell; would she touch us oT not ? Now she was within, three cables; she lifted her forefoot clear out of the water as she rose on a giant billow, and as she lifted it I saw two shots strike just by the i point of her ram. She dipped on the instant, and as quick as thought. we were ready again waiting for her to rise on J another wave, but now she faltered and swerved, and then she seemed to rise higher than before. Crash went our shells into j that rising bow, and still it faltered and | rose : then I saw what was happening, and asked leave through the telephone to cease firing on the sinking ship. Answer. there was none, but the howling of the wind and sea, and the shrill rattle-rattle of some machine guns in the foretops of the sinking foe. Now she swung round head to sea, and nearly broadside on, a short cable's length off, heeling heavily over towards us, and raising her bows high in the air. We could see her crew crowding her shattered decks, and tumbling in heaps into her scuppers; and as we tossed on the seas we seemed to look right down into the black vortex closing round her. There was a roar as of bursting boilers, • a murky torrent of water and ashes spouted up through her funnels, then the waves rolled over her in an angry swirl, and the great ship was gone. We were rolling oh the edge of that swirl in a way that threatened to have the guns

off their sides. I was singing out to secure them with the electric brakes when a voice shouted,'" Look out, sir, she's right aboard us !" I turned at the word, and sure enough, through the driving scud, close on our starboard loomed the huge shadow of t.iCharlemagne. The Torpedo. : " Hard over ; continue the firing," was t.twoVd. Alas '.it was easily said, out as I ■ the_siiip she was like a log, and what a unfit'seemed before the guns came round ! -* ; last we"got ours round, and all"four'swlvv- ; her point blank almost at the same min-ilu. , She swerved and faltered; again the roar of the great guns and the -.crash an.', j rattle of the bursting shell thundered out | together. There was a shock and a hollow t boom somewhere near our bows, and a great | column of water spouted up, flooding every- , thing forward. Again the great guns roared, j there was another shock, this time astern, j and another waterspout all speckled with splinters and pieces of plating ; then somehow or other the two ships fell on board each other, broadside on. In another minute every man that could move was on her decks. It was just one jump and rush and that was all, for every living thing on her seemed to have been slain or stunned by the terrible blast of our point-blank broadsides. The two ships were fast to each other, thumping and grinding together at every roll, and swaying about in a fashion that might make both of them broach to at any moment. *I tried to find some steering gear on board the prize ; the only thing that I discover was the stump of a binnacle and the supports from which a wheel had been blown away, while close by lay a mangled figure in the uniform of a rear-admiral of France. After the Battle. The havoc wrought by the shells was terjrible. The Charlemagne had no sooner been boarded and captured than it was discovered that the Centurion was fast sinking. She had been smashed by torpedoes stern and stem, and in a few minutes she went to the bottom. The Charlemagne was hardly in better plight, and it was with great difficulty that she was patched up so as to keep j afloat until she reached Gibraltar: — \

" The first thing to be done was to find some means of controlling her helm ; clearly the stearing-gear on deck was past hope, so I went below, into a state of things which surpassed my wildest dreams. Not a gun was left serviceable between decks ; ninetenths of her crew had been blown into every shape into which "high" explosives can twist and shatter human flesh and bone ; her main and battery decks were smashed into great holes, even the beams being wrenched and twisted ; her sides were in some places rent, in others blown away altogether ; and though her belts seemed fairly whole, her protective de_k was cut through in many places by the heads or splinters of shell. Through her torn sides the heavy seas were flooding her every moment and great masses of water were finding their way into her hold." I cannot, of course, express any opinion as to the merits or possibilities of Mr Eastwick's new " Centurion " with its automatic guns fired from below the Water-line. There is no doubt, however, that he has given a very vivid picture of what at any moment may become a ghastly reality.