The black water gurgled and splashed around his feet as he rushed on, dashing with a hollow sound against one side of the passage when the ship heeled over, only to be tossed back in a moment with equal force.
What was that?—Lieutenant Meade had reached the officers' mess—was it music or were his ears playing him a trick? Meade opened the door and thought at first he must be dreaming. There sat his friend and comrade, Lieutenant Besser, at the piano, hammering wildly on the keys. That same Johnny Besser who, on account of his theological predilections went by the nickname of "The Reverend," and who could argue until long after midnight over the most profound Biblical problems, that same Johnny Besser, who was perpetually on the water-wagon. There he sat, banging away as hard as he could on the piano! Meade rushed at him angrily and seizing him by the arm cried: "Johnny, what are you doing here? Are you crazy?"
Johnny took no notice of him whatever, but went on playing and began in a strange uncanny voice to sing the old mariner's song:
"Tom Brown's mother she likes whisky in her tea,
As we go rolling home.
Glory, Glory Hallelujah."
Horror seized Meade, and he tried to pull Johnny away from the piano, but the resistance offered by the poor fellow who had become mentally deranged from sheer terror was too great, and he had to give up the struggle.
From the outside came the din of battle. Meade threw the door of the mess shut behind him, shivering with horror. Once more he heard the strains of "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah," and then he hurried upstairs. He kept the condition in which he had found Johnny to himself.
When Lieutenant Meade got back to the conning-tower to make his report, the two fleets had passed each other in a parallel course. The enemy's shells had swept the decks of the Connecticut with the force of a hurricane. The gunners from the port side had already been called on to fill up the gaps in the turrets on the starboard side. By this time dead bodies were removed only where they were in the way, and even the wounded were left to lie where they had fallen.
When large pieces of wood from the burning boats began to be thrown on deck by the bursting shells, a fresh danger was created, and the attempt was made to toss them overboard with the aid of the cranes. But this succeeded only on the port side. The starboard crane was smashed to bits by a Japanese explosive shell just as it was raising a launch, the same shot carrying off the third funnel just behind it. When Togo's last ship had left the Connecticut behind, only one funnel full of gaping holes and half of the mainmast were left standing on the deck of the admiral's flag-ship, which presented a wild chaos of bent and broken ironwork. Through the ruins of the deck structures rose the flames and thick smoke from the boilers.
The Japanese ships seemed to be invulnerable in their vital parts. It is true that the Satsuma had lost a funnel, and that both masts of the Kashima were broken off, but except for a few holes above the armor-belt and one or two guns that had been put out of action and the barrels of which pointed helplessly into the air, the enemy showed little sign of damage. Those first eleven minutes, during which the enemy had had things all to himself, had given him an advantage which no amount of bravery or determined energy could counteract. In addition to this, many of the American telescope-sights began to get out of order, as they bent under the blows of the enemy's shells against the turrets. Thus the aim of the Americans, which owing to the heavy seas and to the smoke from the Japanese guns blown into their eyes by the wind was poor enough as it was, became more uncertain still. As the enemy passed, several torpedoes had been cleared by the Americans, but the shining metal-fish could not keep their course against the oncoming waves, and Admiral Perry was forced to notify his ships by wireless to desist from further attempts to use them, in order that his own ships might not be endangered by them.
The enemy, on the contrary, used his torpedoes with better success. A great mass of boiling foam rose suddenly beside the Kansas, which was just heeling to port, and this was followed immediately by sheets of flame and black clouds of smoke which burst from every hole and crevice in the sides and the turrets. The Kansas listed heavily to starboard and then disappeared immediately in the waves. The torpedo must have exploded in an ammunition chamber. On the burning Vermont the steering-gear seemed to be out of order. The battleship sheered sharply to port, thus presenting its stern, which was almost hidden in heavy clouds of smoke, to the enemy, who immediately raked and tore it with shells. The Minnesota was drifting in a helpless condition with her starboard-railing deep under water, while thick streams of water poured from her bilge-pumps on the port side. She gradually fell behind, whereupon the last ship of the line, the New Hampshire, passed her on the fire side, covering her riddled hull for a moment, but then steamed on to join the only two ships in Admiral Perry's fleet which were still in fairly good condition, namely the Connecticut and the Louisiana.