Popular Science Month!)/ 



411 



through the trapdoor at its bottom, fasten 

 the lure of the game on you so that you 

 would never forget it. You would wonder 

 if there could be another spot where so 

 much energ>' is crammed into the flying 

 seconds. 



The fire control station, down below 

 where the armor belt shelters it from harm, 

 would rival it if you 



could visit its 

 precincts . 

 Here comes 

 word of the 

 varying for- 

 tunes of the 

 game, from 

 turrets and 

 tops, from 

 bridge and 

 engine room. 

 Out from 

 it go the 

 changing 

 range and the 

 orders that 

 shake the big 

 fighter from 

 stem to stern, 

 from truck to 

 keel, with 

 the roar and 

 thunder of 

 salvos. 



^acred 



The deep keel of the target is all that saves the craft from toppling 

 over when the twelve-inch shells from the enemy fleet pepper it 



The game takes on an even sterner phase 

 when the umpire, from another ship, plays 

 his part. In actual warfare the ship might 

 meet with distressing casualties besides the 

 loss of men struck by shell fragments. A 

 big gun might be put out of action and she 

 would have to fight with the remaining 

 ones. So the umpire plays the part of the 

 enemy's shells and the ship must play the 

 game as he orders it. 



When the garne is at its height tons of 

 steel are rushing towards the luckless target 

 at the rate of half a mile a second, and their 

 sudden and almost simultaneous departure 

 creates an immense vacuum. From the 

 depths of the lower decks and the engine 

 rooms below them the air rushes out to fill 

 that vacuum. The sharp blast assaults 

 your ears and tears your cap off your head 

 if you are not vigilant. And when "Cease 

 firing!" shrills out of the bugles you welcome 

 their music. It is strangely quiet now but 

 the ship stills bustles with life. 



Bluejackets and maiines are shipping 

 ladders and stanchions, rigging out boats 

 and sweeping down. Uppermost in their 



thoughts is the picture of a shell-torn 

 target, and news of hits, rumors of a winning 

 salvo, stories of a turret's guns obscured by 

 flying spray at an unlucky moment, are told 

 and retold. The decks are thick with 

 cinders and dotted with white sticks that 

 look like toothpicks. They are the un- 

 burnt shreds of smokeless powder that the 

 guns have sprayed from their muzzles. The 

 "black gang." as the crew calls the engine 



room force, 

 come up- on 

 deck in little 

 squads, hun- 

 gr\- for news 

 and a draught 

 of fresh air. 

 Fifteen 

 years ago the 

 greatest 

 game of them 

 all was no 

 more like the 

 game you 

 have watched 

 than the first 

 practice of a 

 college eleven 

 is like the 

 champion- 

 ship match 

 that winds up 

 the football 

 season. Ordnance i^tself made seven-league 

 strides from the days when the red-tur- 

 banned pirate of the Spanish Main squinted 

 an eye along the barrel of his Long Tom 

 at a gold-laden galleon but, except for the 

 advance in gun, sights and projectiles, the 

 gunners who swept two Spanish squadrons 

 off the seas in 1898 had made but little 

 progress. Both had relied on their native 

 skill in firing at the moment when the 

 downward roll of the ship would bring the 

 gun to bear on the target. 



To-day the American gun pointer, the 

 best in the world's navies, lays the crossed 

 wires of his sight on the heart of the target 

 as soon as it can be seen, and holds it there 

 indifferent to the pitch or roll of a heavy 

 sea. Minute after minute, as the range 

 narrows by thousands of yards, he holds 

 his sight until the bugles end the gan^e. 

 The men who survive this last test make 

 the turret their home for the rest of the 

 cruise and work like a railroad president to 

 cut down the loading time and the firing 

 interval by the fraction of a second. They 

 are the kings of the Fleet. 



