Better days; or, A Millionaire of To-morrow

by Thomas Fitch; Anna M. Fitch

With salvos of cannon and music of bands, the gaily-decked fleet sped out to sea. Through the narrow channel they steamed, past Point Loma, with brow of purple and feet of foam. When they reached the open sea, they spread out in line abreast, the Siva taking a position on the extreme north, and slackening her speed a little so as to accommodate it to that of her companions.

Arrived at the scene of the proposed experiment, sixteen miles west of San Diego bar, the speed of all the vessels was slackened so as to afford only steerage way, and the Esmeralda was signaled to leave her position next the Siva, and steam away at full speed to the north. Simultaneously with this order, the hatches on the Siva were opened, chains and ropes tightened, the vast power of the engines applied, and the Stromboli, with her crew and cargo in place, was lifted from the hold of the Siva, swung over the side, and launched in the ocean.

It was four minutes from the time the whistle sounded until the launch of the Stromboli, and in the meantime the Esmeralda steamed quite one mile away. The Siva was a few hundred yards ahead of the other vessels, and the Stromboli was launched form her port side, so that the launch was witnessed by those who thronged the starboard side of the other vessels. The entire fleet then resumed its former rate of speed, and the distance between it and the Esmeralda was soon placed at one mile, at which it was subsequently maintained.

The Stromboli glided away for a minute on the surface of the sea, and then, admitting water to the space between her steel shells, rapidly sank to a depth of forty feet. The Esmeralda was still at full speed, and making twenty knots an hour, but the Stromboli was pushing her way under the sea, propelled by her powerful electric engines, at the rate of twenty-five knots an hour, and in fifteen minutes had overtaken the doomed vessel, and was preparing to make fast the torpedo which should destroy her.

One pair of great steel claws, holding a chain basket containing five hundred pounds of potentite set by clockwork to explode in sixty minutes, was, by the power of the electric engine, raised above the cigar-shaped steel monster gliding through the cool, quiet waters, and driven through the plates of the Esmeralda, just forward of the stern of that vessel. A second was placed amidship, and a third near the bow.

The upper deck of the Stromboli had a dozen plate-glass openings, through which a number of powerful electric lights illuminated the depths of the ocean, and enabled the men in charge of the machinery to direct with accuracy the work of fastening the torpedoes. If it had been necessary, men in submarine armor, fastened to steel arms projected from the Stromboli, and supplied with air through rubber tubes, could have been placed at work on the bottom of the Esmeralda, and maintained there for hours, even while she was coursing through the seas. But it was not necessary to invoke this process, for, by the aid of the ordinary machinery of the Stromboli, the three great shells were fastened in twenty minutes’ time, and the Esmeralda was proceeding on her journey with fifteen hundred pounds of potentite fastened to her keel. The officers and crew of the Esmeralda all subsequently testified that this work was performed noiselessly and without jar, or any evidence that it was going forward.

But had they possessed all knowledge, they could not have prevented it. No rate of speed possible to the doomed vessel would have enabled her to outrun the speedier submarine torpedo boat, and no machinery or appliance could have reached her under the keel of the Esmeralda, or prevented her work, and once the potentite shells were in place, it was beyond the power of man to remove them, and no human skill could prevent the explosion taking place at the appointed time.

The introduction of this deadly force into naval warfare was not intended to be unaccompanied with some merciful provisions for preventing unnecessary destruction of human life, and a code of signals had been prepared for all naval powers, to be used whenever a vessel was to be destroyed.

The Stromboli, having performed her duty, glided from under the keel of the Esmeralda, and, at a distance of a few hundred yards, shot up a signal pipe above the surface of the ocean, and with her electric whistle shrieked through it a succession of signals that were heard by the multitude upon the fleet a mile away.

“Submarine torpedo boat has been underneath your keel,” said one short shriek, and one more prolonged.