A motion to "Hay," who held the firing lanyard, and almost instantly came the sharp, vicious report of the breechloader. Each man sprang back to his station, and the process of reloading went on without delay. The battle smoke from Number Six, which had filled our port for some time, cleared away just then, enabling us to see "Hay's" last shot strike squarely upon the outer line of earthworks of the Punta Gorda battery.
"Splendid shot, 'Hay'!" exclaimed our division officer, briefly.
"Bully, that's what it is—bully!" cried "Stump," patting the second captain upon the back.
"Hurray! it's knocked out a gun," reported "Dye," from nearer the port. "I saw the piece keel over backward."
There was no time for further comment. When a gun's crew is firing at will, and the excitement of combat has taken possession of the individual members, the task in hand requires all one's attention. We of Number Eight had suffered one delay, and we really felt that the lost time must be made up.
Personal impressions in battle have been described in prose and poem until the subject is hackneyed, but it may be of interest to note that the impressions experienced by the novices in naval warfare manning the "Yankee," during the bombardment of Santiago, consisted mainly of one feeling. It was well-voiced by "Hod," who said many days later:
"I felt just as I did one time when I attended Barnum's circus in Madison Square Garden. They had three rings, two platforms, a lot of tight-ropes and trapezes and other things all going at the same time. Before I had been in the place three minutes I was wishing for a hundred eyes. And that is the way I felt at Santiago."
What we saw of the bombardment was limited to the range of our gun port, but that little was worth all the hardships and toil and discomforts of the whole cruise. The spectacle of the fleet itself was almost enough. To see the great ships ploughing through the water, each enveloped in a shroud of smoke, shot here and there with tinges of ruddy flame; to see that mighty line swinging and swaying in front of the enemy; to see the shells land and explode in fort and battery; to see the great gaps torn in cliff and earthworks; to see the geyser-like fountains of water spout up here and there as the Spanish shells struck the surface of the bay—to see all this, and to hear the accompanying thunder and booming of the guns, was payment in full for coal handling and standing watch and "Government straight." Not one of the "Yankee" boys would have missed the spectacle for anything earth could offer.
