Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

450 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. his wounded senior. In swinging round the guns a point is reached where they stop ; the roller bearings have been strained, and the young officer tells his captain up in the conning tower that he can only fire from right astern to a point or two before the beam. And they in the conning tower draw a white chalk mark across one of the hori- zontal coloured lines to correct the new arc of fire; whilst the midshipman in the bar- bette says, “ Thank Heaven, the wires aren’t cut,” and, taking the range from time to time as it is sent down, goes on flinging 850-lb. shells into the enemy at the rate of two a minute—for he has a pair of guns to control —with as much coolness as if it were a game of bowls. But down behind the armoured side is a man to whom the fight is nothing. He is surrounded by shooting blue sparks, coils, multitudinous wires, tele- rT’|1 zi 1 ne phones, and, finally, a shell- “ Wireless” Operator Pro°f> sound-proof (not quite, of course, but as near as can be made), worry-proof steel hut. He is the electrician in charge of the wireless teleg- raphy. From his little den a number of cables lead aloft to the many-wired antennæ stretching from mast-top to mast-top. If they should be shot away, a short-distance apparatus comes into operation ;—there is no end to the ingenuity of man. At the moment he is in touch with the main fleet at Rosy th, and has informed the commander-in-chief that, though holding their own, a squadron of the enemy is running down to aid their battered consort. A dot-and-dash conversa- tion ensues, as the result of which the British battleship is presently drawing north in the declining day to meet the reinforcements from the Forth.. Quickly the sun goes down behind the glassy sea, and a sombre moonless night covers with its pall the rolling battlefield. Yet the fight goes on, and the red flashes IN THE WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY CABIN. (Photo, Gale and Polden.) of the hostile vessels break the darkness with sickening regularity. Our ship puts on speed—not to escape a fight, but because, being alone and having had many of her smaller anti-torpedo craft guns disabled, her captain does not care to risk an attack by hostile destroyers. The firing dies away, as its effectiveness diminishes owing to the dark- ness. Moreover, guns are apt to wear, and a careful captain thinks of these matters. A hundred men are now on deck “ clearing away the mess,” and a further score are ex- amining the 4-inch quick-firing guns to see how many have escaped un- harmed. The commander Clearing Away. presently reports that fifteen out of the twenty can be used, and gun crews are therefore told off to prepare them for the anticipated destroyer attacks. Next in importance are the searchlights— three of these have been smashed to smither- eens, but a sufficiency—ten, as a fact—still remain unharmed.