The American-Spanish war; . was visiblein the direction of the entrance escaped notice. It wasthought from the columns of smoke, that some of the shipsinside were changing their position ; it was l^ped, no doubt,by many, that the Spanish ships were coming out. Very soonafter the smoke was first observed, the black bow of a bigship was seen poking out of the channel to the east of SmithCay. Almost simultaneously, signal guns w^ere fired from thelozva and Oregon ; and the signal, 250, The enemys vesselsare escaping, was hoisted on all our ships. On the Texas,some one shouted down through the war
The American-Spanish war; . was visiblein the direction of the entrance escaped notice. It wasthought from the columns of smoke, that some of the shipsinside were changing their position ; it was l^ped, no doubt,by many, that the Spanish ships were coming out. Very soonafter the smoke was first observed, the black bow of a bigship was seen poking out of the channel to the east of SmithCay. Almost simultaneously, signal guns w^ere fired from thelozva and Oregon ; and the signal, 250, The enemys vesselsare escaping, was hoisted on all our ships. On the Texas,some one shouted down through the ward-room hatch, Theyrecoming out! and a moment later the general alarm is hard to describe ones emotions at this time. There wasa feeling of intense but suppressed excitement and of mo-mentary doubt that the Spaniards were really coming out ;and there was a desire on the part of nearly every one toverify, by the testimony of his own eyes, the stupendous factthat the enemy was at last coming out to meet. v/^t<^. ^^ V ^.^. A- THE STORY OF THE TEXAS. 147 us ; but with all, I think, there was a feeling of elation over thefact that the enemy was coming. One felt as if the time ofhis life—or at least, of his naval life,—had come. In a moment, all was activity aboard. The ships were al-ready cleared for action and ammunition was kept in readinessnear the guns. We were practically ready for battle at anytime. The men instinctively went to their stations. Theyhad almost lived at the guns for five weeks. As the engineswere moved frequently to keep the ship in position, the fireswere kept in good condition, heavy and covered over, a thirdof them being cleaned every watch, as is usual at sea. Thesteam pressure was always kept up to the highest working-pressure. The officer-of-the-deck shouted down the speakingtube: For Gods sake give us all the steam you can!Theyre coming out ! Then came the slamming down ofbattle-hatches, shutting out the last ray of natural l
Size: 1220px × 2049px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidamericanspanishw00norw
