IV 



My Log 393 



the air with a scream and a howl. Below deck 

 groups of splendid fellows tossing about the 95- 

 cwt. guns like toys, excited, eager, but not noisy ; 

 everything done rightly at the right moment ; a roar, 

 a flash, a gust of choking smoke, and far away the 

 snow-white column of spray, with the dense cloud 

 of the burst shell crowning it, drifting away slowly 

 to leeward. There is not so much smoke between 

 decks as 1 expected ; and even after a broadside 

 the air is clear enough, inside and out, to permit 

 another to be effectual as soon as it is ready. 

 Down into the magazines, where wonderful things 

 might have been seen could you but have seen 

 them ; but it was ' A little gloaming light, much 

 like a shade.' It was comforting even to have that ; 

 there were no lights in the magazine, they being 

 placed behind thick glass windows in the light-room ; 

 uncomfortable in that the magazine is only splinter, 

 not shell proof. I wonder if one was to come in 

 just now, and the whole business was to go off at 

 once, whether one would have time to feel oneself 

 breaking up into small bits ? I was struck by 

 hearing an old rhyme coming up from below in the 

 intervals of roaring that I had not heard since I 

 was a boy. I traced it to the gunner. It was 

 slowly spoken with great care as to time. 



' Fire on the port-side ! — bang / 

 Fire on the bow ! — ba7ig I 

 Fire on the gundeck ! — ba7ig ! 

 Fire down below ! — bangP 



