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Great War Syndicate, The
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Frank R Stockton
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       _ The great ironclad battle-ship, with her lofty
       sides plated with nearly two feet of solid steel, with
       her six great guns, each weighing more than a hundred
       tons, with her armament of other guns, machine cannon,
       and almost every appliance of naval warfare, with a
       small army of officers and men on board, was left in
       charge of Crab K, of which only a few square yards of
       armoured roof could be seen above the water. This
       little vessel now proceeded to tow southward her vast
       prize, uninjured, except that her rudder and propeller-
       blades were broken and useless.
       Although the engines of the crab were of enormous
       power, the progress made was slow, for the Adamant
       was being towed stern foremost. It would have been
       easier to tow the great vessel had the crab been
       attached to her bow, but a ram which extended many feet
       under water rendered it dangerous for a submerged
       vessel to attach itself in its vicinity.
       During the night the repeller kept company,
       although at a considerable distance, with the captured
       vessel; and early the next morning her director
       prepared to send to the Adamant a boat with a flag-of-truce,
       and a letter demanding the surrender and subsequent
       evacuation of the British ship. It was supposed that
       now, when the officers of the Adamant had had time to
       appreciate the fact that they had no control over the
       movements of their vessel; that their armament was
       powerless against their enemies; that the Adamant
       could be towed wherever the Syndicate chose to
       order, or left helpless in midocean,--they would be
       obliged to admit that there was nothing for them to do
       but to surrender.
       But events proved that no such ideas had entered
       the minds of the Adamant's officers, and their action
       totally prevented sending a flag-of-truce boat. As
       soon as it was light enough to see the repeller the
       Adamant began firing great guns at her. She was too
       far away for the shot to strike her, but to launch and
       send a boat of any kind into a storm of shot and shell
       was of course impossible.
       The cannon suspended over the stern of the
       Adamant was also again brought into play, and shot
       after shot was driven down upon the towing crab. Every
       ball rebounded from the spring armour, but the officer
       in charge of the crab became convinced that after a
       time this constant pounding, almost in the same place,
       would injure his vessel, and he signalled the repeller
       to that effect.
       The director of Repeller No. 7 had been considering
       the situation. There was only one gun on the Adamant
       which could be brought to bear upon Crab K, and it
       would be the part of wisdom to interfere with the
       persistent use of this gun. Accordingly the bow of the
       repeller was brought to bear upon the Adamant, and
       her motor gun was aimed at the boom from which the
       cannon was suspended.
       The projectile with which the cannon was loaded was
       not an instantaneous motor-bomb. It was simply a heavy
       solid shot, driven by an instantaneous motor
       attachment, and was thus impelled by the same power and
       in the same manner as the motor-bombs. The
       instantaneous motor-power had not yet been used at so
       great a distance as that between the repeller and the
       Adamant, and the occasion was one of intense interest
       to the small body of scientific men having charge of
       the aiming and firing.
       The calculations of the distance, of the necessary
       elevation and direction, and of the degree of motor-
       power required, were made with careful exactness, and
       when the proper instant arrived the button was touched,
       and the shot with which the cannon was charged was
       instantaneously removed to a point in the ocean about a
       mile beyond the Adamant, accompanied by a large
       portion of the heavy boom at which the gun had been
       aimed.
       The cannon which had been suspended from the end of
       this boom fell into the sea, and would have crashed
       down upon the roof of Crab K, had not that vessel, in
       obedience to a signal from the repeller, loosened its
       hold upon the Adamant and retired a short distance
       astern. Material injury might not have resulted from
       the fall of this great mass of metal upon the crab, but
       it was considered prudent not to take useless risks.
       The officers of the Adamant were greatly
       surprised and chagrined by the fall of their gun, with
       which they had expected ultimately to pound in the roof
       of the crab. No damage had been done to the vessel
       except the removal of a portion of the boom, with some
       of the chains and blocks attached, and no one on board
       the British ship imagined for a moment that this injury
       had been occasioned by the distant repeller. It was
       supposed that the constant firing of the cannon had
       cracked the boom, and that it had suddenly snapped.
       Even if there had been on board the Adamant the
       means for rigging up another arrangement of the kind
       for perpendicular artillery practice, it would have
       required a long time to get it into working
       order, and the director of Repeller No. 7 hoped that
       now the British captain would see the uselessness of
       continued resistance.
       But the British captain saw nothing of the kind,
       and shot after shot from his guns were hurled high into
       the air, in hopes that the great curves described would
       bring some of them down on the deck of the repeller.
       If this beastly store-ship, which could stand fire but
       never returned it, could be sunk, the Adamant's
       captain would be happy. With the exception of the loss
       of her motive power, his vessel was intact, and if the
       stupid crab would only continue to keep the Adamant's
       head to the sea until the noise of her cannonade should
       attract some other British vessel to the scene, the
       condition of affairs might be altered.
       All that day the great guns of the Adamant
       continued to roar. The next morning, however, the
       firing was not resumed, and the officers of the
       repeller were greatly surprised to see approaching from
       the British ship a boat carrying a white flag. This
       was a very welcome sight, and the arrival of the boat
       was awaited with eager interest.
       During the night a council had been held on board
       the Adamant. Her cannonading had had no effect,
       either in bringing assistance or in injuring the enemy;
       she was being towed steadily southward farther and
       farther from the probable neighbourhood of a British
       man-of-war; and it was agreed that it would be the part
       of wisdom to come to terms with the Syndicate's vessel.
       Therefore the captain of the Adamant sent a
       letter to the repeller, in which he stated to the
       persons in charge of that ship, that although his
       vessel had been injured in a manner totally at variance
       with the rules of naval warfare, he would overlook this
       fact and would agree to cease firing upon the
       Syndicate's vessels, provided that the submerged craft
       which was now made fast to his vessel should attach
       itself to the Adamant's bow, and by means of a
       suitable cable which she would furnish, would tow her
       into British waters. If this were done he would
       guarantee that the towing craft should have six hours
       in which to get away.
       When this letter was read on board the repeller it
       created considerable merriment, and an answer was sent
       back that no conditions but those of absolute
       surrender could be received from the British ship.
       In three minutes after this answer had been
       received by the captain of the Adamant, two shells
       went whirring and shrieking through the air toward
       Repeller No. 7, and after that the cannonading from the
       bow, the stern, the starboard, and the port guns of the
       great battle-ship went on whenever there was a visible
       object on the ocean which looked in the least like an
       American coasting vessel or man-of-war.
       For a week Crab K towed steadily to the south this
       blazing and thundering marine citadel; and then the
       crab signalled to the still accompanying repeller that
       it must be relieved. It had not been fitted out for so
       long a cruise, and supplies were getting low. _