_ The first step of the Syndicate was to purchase
from the United States Government ten war-vessels.
These were of medium size and in good condition, but
they were of an old-fashioned type, and it had not been
considered expedient to put them in commission. This
action caused surprise and disappointment in many
quarters. It had been supposed that the Syndicate,
through its agents scattered all over the world, would
immediately acquire, by purchase or lease, a fleet of
fine ironclads culled from various maritime powers.
But the Syndicate having no intention of involving, or
attempting to involve, other countries in this quarrel,
paid no attention to public opinion, and went to work
in its own way.
Its vessels, eight of which were on the Atlantic
coast and two on the Pacific, were rapidly prepared for
the peculiar service in which they were to be engaged.
The resources of the Syndicate were great, and in a
very short time several of their vessels, already
heavily plated with steel, were furnished with an
additional outside armour, formed of strips of elastic
steel, each reaching from the gunwales nearly to
the surface of the water. These strips, about a foot
wide, and placed an inch or two apart, were each backed
by several powerful air-buffers, so that a ball
striking one or more of them would be deprived of much of its
momentum. The experiments upon the steel spring and
buffers adopted by the Syndicate showed that the force
of the heaviest cannonading was almost deadened by the
powerful elasticity of this armour.
The armament of each vessel consisted of but one
gun, of large calibre, placed on the forward deck, and
protected by a bomb-proof covering. Each vessel was
manned by a captain and crew from the merchant service,
from whom no warlike duties were expected. The
fighting operations were in charge of a small body of
men, composed of two or three scientific specialists,
and some practical gunners and their assistants. A few
bomb-proof canopies and a curved steel deck completed
the defences of the vessel.
Besides equipping this little navy, the Syndicate
set about the construction of certain sea-going vessels
of an extraordinary kind. So great were the facilities
at its command, and so thorough and complete its
methods, that ten or a dozen ship-yards and foundries
were set to work simultaneously to build one of these
ships. In a marvellously short time the Syndicate
possessed several of them ready for action.
These vessels became technically known as "crabs."
They were not large, and the only part of them which
projected above the water was the middle of an
elliptical deck, slightly convex, and heavily mailed
with ribs of steel. These vessels were fitted with
electric engines of extraordinary power, and were
capable of great speed. At their bows, fully protected
by the overhanging deck, was the machinery by which
their peculiar work was to be accomplished. The
Syndicate intended to confine itself to marine
operations, and for the present it was contented with
these two classes of vessels.
The armament for each of the large vessels, as has
been said before, consisted of a single gun of long
range, and the ammunition was confined entirely to a
new style of projectile, which had never yet been used
in warfare. The material and construction of this
projectile were known only to three members of the
Syndicate, who had invented and perfected it, and it
was on account of their possession of this secret
that they had been invited to join that body.
This projectile was not, in the ordinary sense of
the word, an explosive, and was named by its inventors,
"The Instantaneous Motor." It was discharged from an
ordinary cannon, but no gunpowder or other explosive
compound was used to propel it. The bomb possessed, in
itself the necessary power of propulsion, and the gun
was used merely to give it the proper direction.
These bombs were cylindrical in form, and pointed
at the outer end. They were filled with hundreds of
small tubes, each radiating outward from a central
line. Those in the middle third of the bomb pointed
directly outward, while those in its front portion were
inclined forward at a slight angle, and those in the
rear portion backward at the same angle. One tube at
the end of the bomb, and pointing directly backward,
furnished the motive power.
Each of these tubes could exert a force sufficient
to move an ordinary train of passenger cars one mile,
and this power could be exerted instantaneously, so
that the difference in time in the starting of a train
at one end of the mile and its arrival at the other
would not be appreciable. The difference in
concussionary force between a train moving at the rate
of a mile in two minutes, or even one minute, and
another train which moves a mile in an instant, can
easily be imagined.
In these bombs, those tubes which might direct
their powers downward or laterally upon the earth were
capable of instantaneously propelling every portion of
solid ground or rock to a distance of two or three
hundred yards, while the particles of objects on the
surface of the earth were instantaneously removed to a
far greater distance. The tube which propelled the
bomb was of a force graduated according to
circumstances, and it would carry a bomb to as great a
distance as accurate observation for purposes of aim
could be made. Its force was brought into action
while in the cannon by means of electricity while the
same effect was produced in the other tubes by the
concussion of the steel head against the object aimed
at.
What gave the tubes their power was the jealously
guarded secret.
The method of aiming was as novel as the bomb
itself. In this process nothing depended on the
eyesight of the gunner; the personal equation was
entirely eliminated. The gun was so mounted that its
direction was accurately indicated by graduated scales;
there was an instrument which was acted upon by the
dip, rise, or roll of the vessel, and which showed at
any moment the position of the gun with reference to
the plane of the sea-surface.
Before the discharge of the cannon an observation
was taken by one of the scientific men, which
accurately determined the distance to the object to be
aimed at, and reference to a carefully prepared
mathematical table showed to what points on the
graduated scales the gun should be adjusted, and the
instant that the that the muzzle of the cannon was in
the position that it was when the observation was
taken, a button was touched and the bomb was
instantaneously placed on the spot aimed at. The
exactness with which the propelling force of the bomb
could be determined was an important factor in this
method of aiming.
As soon as three of the spring-armoured vessels and
five "crabs" were completed, the Syndicate felt itself
ready to begin operations. It was indeed time. The
seas had been covered with American and British
merchantmen hastening homeward, or to friendly
ports, before the actual commencement of hostilities.
But all had not been fortunate enough to reach safety
within the limits of time allowed, and several American
merchantmen had been already captured by fast British
cruisers.
The members of the Syndicate well understood that
if a war was to be carried on as they desired, they
must strike the first real blow. Comparatively
speaking, a very short time had elapsed since the
declaration of war, and the opportunity to take the
initiative was still open.
It was in order to take this initiative that, in
the early hours of a July morning, two of the
Syndicate's armoured vessels, each accompanied by a
crab, steamed out of a New England port, and headed for
the point on the Canadian coast where it had been
decided to open the campaign.
The vessels of the Syndicate had no individual
names. The spring-armoured ships were termed
"repellers," and were numbered, and the crabs were
known by the letters of the alphabet. Each repeller
was in charge of a Director of Naval Operations; and
the whole naval force of the Syndicate was under the
command of a Director-in-chief. On this momentous
occasion this officer was on board of Repeller No. 1,
and commanded the little fleet.
The repellers had never been vessels of great
speed, and their present armour of steel strips, the
lower portion of which was frequently under water,
considerably retarded their progress; but each of them
was taken in tow by one of the swift and powerful
crabs, and with this assistance they made very good
time, reaching their destination on the morning of the
second day. _