U. S. S. BALTIMORE.
The roar and crackle of the enemy’s guns still continued, yet Dewey withheld the order which every man was now most eager to hear.
The Spanish gunners were getting the range; the shells which had passed over our fleet now fell close about them; the tension among officers and men was terrible. They wondered how much longer the commodore would restrain them from firing. The heat was rapidly becoming intense. The guns’ crews began to throw off their clothes. Soon they wore nothing but their trousers, and perspiration fairly ran from their bodies.
Still the word was not given to fire, though the ships steadily steamed on and drew nearer the fort. Orders were given by the officers in low voices, but they were perfectly audible, so great was the silence which was broken only by the throbbing of the engines. The men hugged their posts ready to open fire at the word.
A huge shell from Cavite hissed through the air and came directly for the Olympia. High over the smoke-stack it burst with a mighty snap. Commodore Dewey did not raise his eyes. He simply turned, made a motion to a boatswain’s mate who stood near the after 5-inch gun. With a voice of thunder the man bellowed an order along the decks.
“Remember the Maine!” yelled a chorus of five hundred gallant sailors. Below decks in the engine-rooms the cry was taken up, a cry of defiance and revenge. Up in the turrets resounded the words, and [pg 74]the threatening notes were swept across the bay to the other ships.
“Remember the Maine!”
In that strange cry was loosed the pent-up wrath of hundreds of American sailors who resented the cowardly death of their comrades. It bespoke the terrible vengeance that was about to be dealt out to the defenders of a detestable flag.
“You may fire when you are ready, Gridley,” was Commodore Dewey’s quiet remark to the captain of the Olympia, who was still in the conning-tower.
The Olympia’s 8-inch gun in the forward turret belched forth, and an instant later was run up the signal to the ships astern: