Man on the Ocean, Robert Michael Ballantyne [best classic novels txt] 📗

the guns, the change is not effected by moving them in the ports, but by revolving the turret itself. Should it ever happen in action that the free movement of the turret should become impeded from some cause, then the only means of changing the direction of the guns would be to turn the whole ship.

The turrets are armed with two twenty-five ton guns, carrying four hundred pound shot. The deck being flush, as has been mentioned, the guns can be fired straight ahead and astern, and command all sides. Less than one minute is needed to revolve the whole turret. This class of ships is believed to be able to keep up a constant steady fire whether in chase or in retreat.

Abaft the funnel in these ships there is an upright oval tube rising some seventeen feet above the level of the main deck, plated with iron. The upper plate is pierced with several small horizontal slits, from which the tube has received the name of the "conning-house," for through these openings the captain can "con" or note whatever is going on outside, without himself being exposed to danger. This circular box just allows the captain to turn himself about in; and here must he stand in time of action, directing and governing the whole conduct of his ship by mechanical telegraphs.

Of the many curious and remarkable features in these ships, one of the most remarkable is the extensive use made of machinery for every purpose. Engines revolve the turrets, raise the ashes from the engine-rooms, turn the capstans, work the rudders;--engines do everything.

Three monitors similar to those just described were built for the defence of several of our colonies. The colony of Victoria, we believe, purchased their ironclad, the _Cerberus_, from the home Government; at any rate, the people maintain her at their own cost. Before the _Cerberus_ could make the voyage out to Melbourne, her sides had to be built up with thin iron plating for nearly her whole length. In the same way the _Cyclops_ and her companion-ships might be made fit to face any sea or weather.

It may occur to the reader to ask, Why not have sea-going masted vessels at once? To which it may be answered, first, that the masted ships must inevitably draw more water than those of which the _Cyclops_ and _Hecate_ are types. Turret-ships like the _Monarch_, or broadside-ships like the _Hercules_ and _Sultan_, draw about twenty-five feet of water; the smaller ships only sixteen, while at the same time they are more heavily armoured. Thus the latter, if close pressed by an enemy's sea-going ironclads--the only class from which they have much to fear-- could take shelter up a river out of their reach. In action near the land these monitors, moreover, could be handled with greater ease.

Secondly, from their much smaller size, the coast-defence ships are built at a much less cost--an important consideration in days when a first-class ironclad costs about as much as a small fleet of bygone days. The vessels we have been describing are of rather more than two thousand tons burden, as compared with the five thousand tons of the larger sea-going ships; and, speaking roughly, the expense of construction is proportionate to the tonnage.

The _Glatton_ turret-ship has several characteristics in which it differs from the above class of monitors. It has but a single turret, and its guns throw six hundred pound shot, carrying three miles and a half. Her water-draught is about six feet more than that of the _Cyclops_ and _Hecate_, and her armour-plates three inches thicker. Though she carries fewer guns, the _Glatton_ is a much more powerful vessel than the other monitors. (Note: The above description of English monitors is adapted and abridged from an article in Chambers's Journal.)

We shall now briefly describe the _Devastation_, one of the largest and most powerful of all our ironclads. The _Devastation_ in her after-part rises but four feet and a half above the water; but to meet bad weather she is furnished with an armour-plated half-raised forecastle, so that forward she is nine feet out of the water. The free-board amidships is still higher, being at this point level with the platform on which the two turrets are placed. In the centre of the ship rises a circular iron erection, on the top of which is the hurricane-deck. Through this structure runs a passage, in which are situated the entrances to the hatchways and to the hurricane-deck overhead.

From the hurricane-deck rise the ship's two funnels; and here also are the captain's fighting box, already alluded to in describing the coast-defence ships, the fire-proof shield for protecting the steering gear, and the boats. In a gale the hurricane-deck is the only safe place in ships of this kind--the only place where one would not get speedily washed overboard. As for the below part of the ship, it is there almost impossible to breathe, even when air has been pumped in from above, which is the only means of ventilating this portion of the vessel.

The _Devastation_ carries two guns in each of her turrets, placed side by side, each weighing thirty-five tons. The turrets, directly the guns have been fired, can be wheeled rapidly round, thus turning the exposed parts away from the enemy.

Ships such as the _Devastation_, the _Thunderer_, and the _Fury_ do not, at first sight, strike one as particularly well adapted for rough weather, to put it in the mildest phrase. Nevertheless, the _Devastation_ has been fairly well tested in this way, having encountered some pretty rough weather, and, it is affirmed, behaved satisfactorily. The great danger about all ships of this class is that they may not rise to the seas, but that the waves, breaking over them, may press them down and founder them. The _Thunderer_ has been known to have her forecastle, which is somewhat lower than that of the _Devastation_, completely submerged, and this, too, when no very high sea was running. These ships are designed, not for home service and coast defence merely, but for general action in mid-ocean.

To attempt to describe even a single specimen of each type of modern war-ships would to a certainty weary the reader, for to any but an expert there would inevitably be a sense of repetition in the perusal of such a narrative. But in order to place before our readers something like an approximate idea, at any rate, of the present state of our navy, we shall examine briefly one other first-class ironclad, the _Inflexible_, which may be regarded as a leading example of ironclad ships, and, at the time of writing, as one of the highest achievements of modern naval architecture.

The _Inflexible_ is the vast size of 11,400 tons burden, her horse-power being 8000. The length is 320 feet, her armour-plating from 16 to 24 inches thick, with an inner lining of wood from 17 to 25 inches in thickness. She is divided into 135 compartments, and her engines are placed at such a distance from each other that should one be disabled from any cause the other would still be in working order.

The chief characteristic of the _Inflexible_ is the position of the turrets. The majority of ships of this description have their turrets in the middle line, from which it results that only one half of their guns can be directed on an enemy, whether ahead or astern. The _Inflexible_ has her turrets on each side--the fore-turret on the port-side, the after-turret on the starboard. She can thus use the whole of her guns against an enemy _at the same time_, whether it be ahead or astern.

It will be seen that the thickness of the armour-plating with which the _Inflexible_ is protected is enormous; and yet this thickness of iron has been pierced. The question, then, that immediately suggests itself is, _Can_ a vessel be constructed to carry much heavier armour-plating than this? A recent writer in the _Times_ declares not. "So far as the exigencies of the navy are concerned," he says, "the limit of weight seems to have already been reached, for the simple reason that the buoyancy of our ironclads cannot with safety be further diminished by the burden of heavier armour and armaments."

The following very graphic description of the interior of a turret-ship was written by an eye-witness of the scene described. It is an extract from a narrative supplied to the author of "The Sea: its Stirring Story of Adventure and Peril," from which we take it. The vessel described was the _Miantonoma_, an American ironclad turret-ship.

"You ascend again through a trap-door, and find yourself in a circular room, some twelve feet in diameter, padded from top to bottom like the interior of a carriage. By your side is a huge mass of iron. You are inside the turret. A glimmering lamp sheds its feeble light on the moving forms around you, and from below comes the faint whispering of the men, until the trap is shut and you are again in utter silence.

"`_Prepare_!' The gunner's mate stands on your toes, and tells you to lean forward and thrust your tongue out of your mouth. You hear the creaking of machinery. It is a moment of intense suspense. Gradually a glimmer of light--an inch--a flood! The shield passes from the opening; the gun runs out. A flash, a roar--a mad reeling of the senses, and crimson clouds flitting before your eyes--a horrible pain in your ears, a sense of oppression on your chest, and the knowledge that you are not on your feet--a whispering of voices blending with the concert in your ears--a darkness before your eyes--and you feel yourself plump up against the padding, whither you have been thrown by the violence of the concussion.

"Before you have recovered sufficiently to note the effects I have endeavoured to describe, the shield is again in its place and the gun ready for reloading. They tell you that the best part of the sound has escaped through the port-hole, otherwise there would be no standing it, and our gunner's mate whispers in your ears, `It's all werry well, but they bu'sts out bleeding from the chest and ears after the fourth discharge, and has to be taken below.' You have had enough of it too, and are glad that they don't ask you to witness another shot fired."

It must be stated that since the _Miantonoma_ was built a new and improved principle of turret-firing has been introduced. Electricity is now employed in discharging the guns, and there is thus no necessity for anyone being in the turret, which is of course a great advantage.

At the close of the civil war, America possessed a fine fleet of monitors, of which scarcely any now remain. For the time they seemed all but impregnable to shot and shell; but they were built by contract, of unseasoned wood, and in the course of ten or twelve years yielded to natural decay. But the _Brooklyn_ and the _Ohio_, both fine examples of naval architecture, still survive to maintain, in so far as two ships can, America's maritime prestige.

A chapter treating of ironclads would, we think, be incomplete without allusion made to the loss of the _Captain_, whose terrible fate in 1870 has caused a mournful interest to be attached to that vessel.

The _Captain_ was 320 feet in length and 53 feet broad. Her armour-plating reached to five