The Commander held on as long as he could, watching the whitening water in the east, and watching the transports.
He saw that at a thousand yards’ distance around them (just what he would have chosen as neat torpedo range), there lay a little fleet of gun-boats, all thrusting out booms with steel nets, that made them look oddly as if they were hooped and wide-skirted. Disposed in an oval, they guarded the transports with a second wall of steel wire.
And overhead, soaring in spirals, never flying far away, and always returning, were three naval planes. The Commander of the M-9 knew that they were waiting and watching for just one thing—the “shadow” of a submerged submarine.[36]
This enemy, plainly, was taking no chances. The fleet had power and time. It bent them to one object—to land its men safely. It would not engage the harbor defenses, and so open itself to the risks of plunging fire and torpedo attack. It would not blockade harbors, and so make itself a chosen mark for such terrors as M-9.
The Three Harbor Gates to New York and Boston
Very scientifically, very thoughtfully, had the enemy staked out the vital spot at which he had decided to strike. Here, facing each to each almost like the salients of a fortification, lay three harbor gates to the northeastern United States—Buzzards Bay, gashing deeply into Massachusetts: Narragansett Bay, almost cutting Rhode Island in two: and the eastern entrance to Long Island Sound and the cities of Connecticut.[37]
Open any one of these gates, and it opened the way at one blow to both New York and Boston.
These three sea-salients were greatly armed for defense. In each harbor lay batteries of 12-inch all-steel rifled cannon. Hidden under facings of earth, steel and concrete, they sat on disappearing carriages and pneumatic gun-lifts that would swing them up as if they weighed ounces instead of tons, and instantly plunge them back again into cover after firing.
Deep under earth embankments, squatting in concrete-lined graves, 12-inch mortars, sixteen to a group, stared upward at the patches of sky over their heads, which was all that their men would see while they were firing, however bitter the fight might be.
A single shot from one of the long, graceful rifles might sink a ship, if it were well placed. A single salvo from the mortars, the sixteen firing together, assuredly would. And they could do it. Aimed by mathematics, they were sure to strike the spot.[38]