Stanchions, rails, ventilators, anchor-davits disappeared as if by magic. Hatches and skylights were battened down and secured by steel coverings, and everything liable to interfere with the training of the guns was either ruthlessly thrown overboard or stowed out of sight. Hoses were coupled up, ready to combat the dreaded result of any shell that might "get home" and cause fire on board. All superfluous gear aloft was sent below; shrouds were frapped to resist shell-fire, and the fore-top-mast was housed. The main-topmast, since it supported the wireless aerials, had perforce to remain. In less than an hour the crew, each man working with a set purpose, had transformed the Hammerer into a gaunt [Transcriber's note: giant?] floating battery.
Dick Crosthwaite's action station was in the for'ard port 6-inch casemate, an armoured box containing one of the secondary battery guns, capable of being trained nearly right ahead, and through an arc of 135 degrees to a point well abaft the beam.
The major portion of the casemate was taken up by the gun and its mountings, while a little to the rear of the weapon, and protected by a canvas screen, was the ammunition hoist, by which projectiles weighing 100 pounds each were sent up from the fore magazine. Around the walls were the voice tubes communicating with the conning-tower, the magazine, and other portions of the ship, while in addition was a bewildering array of switches and cased wires in connection with the lighting of the casemate and the firing mechanism of the gun. Buckets of water, for use in case of a conflagration, stood on the floor in close company with a tub full of barley water, at which the parched men could slake their thirst. What little space remained was fully occupied by the gun's crew, who, stripped to their singlets, were coolly speculating as to the chances of "losing the number of their mess".
Strangely enough, no one imagined that he was to be one of the unlucky ones; it is always his pal or some of his shipmates. It is an optimism that is shared equally alike by the Tommies in the trenches and the Jack Tars at their battle-stations.
Craning his neck, the Sub looked through the gun-port. It was an operation that required no small amount of manoeuvring, for the aperture was barely sufficient to allow the chase of the gun to protrude, while the armoured mounting left very little space between its face and the curved wall of the casemate.
The Hammerer was third ship of the port column, for the older battleships were steering in double column, line ahead. Preceding the squadron were the mine-sweepers, covered on either flank by strong patrols of destroyers.
Ten or twelve miles to the north could be discerned a mountainous and rocky coast terminating abruptly to the west'ard. Part of the highland was in Europe, part in Asia, but where the line of demarcation existed the Sub was unable to determine. Somewhere in that wall of rock lay the entrance to the Dardanelles, but distance rendered the position of the hostile straits invisible.
Away on the port hand lay the island of Imbros. Under its lee could be seen the misty outlines of the Queen Elisabeth, Agamemnon, Irresistible, and the French battleship Gaulois, ready to open a long-range bombardment of the Turkish batteries.
"Think the beggars will fight when they see this little lot?" asked Midshipman Sefton.
"Why not?" asked the Sub.