The recent sale of the old cruiser Baltimore in Honolulu leads this writer to recollections of her most famous cruise under a gallant captain.
Toward the end of 1897 our’ relations with Spain had become so strained that war seemed more than probable. At this time the Baltimore, on which I was serving as a watch and division officer, was in Honolulu expecting to relieve the Olympia as flagship of the Asiatic. Honolulu was then an isolated paradise without cable connections and with only a mail steamer once a week.
One evening near the end of February, 1898, when our officers had gathered on the lanai of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel from various pastimes in the city, a clerk rushed out to tell us that the mail steamer had arrived bringing news that the Maine had been blown up in Havana Harbor with the loss of 260 officers and men.
We sat silent in the darkness for awhile, mentally stunned, then hurried back to the ship, one of us remarking:
“That means war!”
Whereupon Ensign George Hayward, a research hound, remarked:
“Well, we’ve got a good old war horse for a skipper. I’ve looked up his record.” Our captain was N. M. Dyer. He had been executive officer of the old Tennessee just before I joined her for my postgraduate cruise and the older steerage officers were then still singing to the tune of “I Dreamed That I Dwelt in Marble Halls” the following ditty:
Nee—hee—miah Diah is my name
But the midshipmen call me snarlyowl.
If I can catch the one to blame
Oh, won’t I make him howlyowl!”
And it was often told that on one occasion when he was going down to the wardroom and an apprentice boy sitting in the companionway merely moved aside to let him pass he took the youngster by the scruff of his neck and seat of his pants and threw him overboard through the pivot gun port.
Such was all I knew of Captain Dyer at that time but he had a remarkable background. Born in the salty atmosphere of Provincetown, Massachusetts, he finished high school at fourteen, shipped in the Merchant Marine, remaining in it four years, and had almost reached a master certificate when the Civil War broke out. He immediately enlisted in the Massachusetts Militia, accompanied it to Washington through the mob attack in Baltimore, fought in the Battle of Bull Run and subsequent actions for a year, and then got an appointment as Acting Master’s Mate in the Navy. Within a year he was cited for gallant conduct in a boat expedition which captured a Confederate vessel under the guns of Fort Morgan, and was promoted to Acting Ensign by Admiral Farragut. Given command of a small steamer he was again cited for gallant action on blockade and dispatch duty and promoted to Acting Master. His super-strenuous activity then brought on a physical breakdown and he was placed on sick leave but only got as far as New Orleans when he heard Farragut was going to fight his way into Mobile Bay and rushed back asking for duty. He then served on the Metacomet in the Battle of Mobile Bay, after which Farragut gave him an independent command of the U. S. gunboat Rodolph. As an outcome of his impetuous daring the Rodolph was torpedoed and sunk, but Dyer was promoted to Acting Volunteer Lieutenant.
He had one opportunity for gallantry after the war when his ship was hove to in a cyclone off the Pacific coast of Mexico. A sailor was knocked overboard from the maintopsail yard and Dyer dove into the tempestuous sea and rescued him.
Dyer was not content with being a good seaman. After the war he took technical courses at the Washington Gun Foundry, the Torpedo Station at Newport, and was in the first class of the Naval War College. He never married and in later life had no living near relatives.
Remembering the Snarlyowl ditty, I apprehended the worst when he reported on the Baltimore, but felt reassured when I saw a tall, erect, slender but well-formed man, clean shaven and with close-cropped, graying sandy hair and keen blue eyes behind pinz nez glasses, quiet but very positive in manner, who carried himself with the ease and grace of a British baronet. It was soon obvious that he did not drink but was an inveterate smoker of high-priced cigars.
Upon the receipt of the news about the Maine Dyer immediately took the Baltimore to Lahaina Roads and held target practice with all the combat realism he could put into it.
We had a newly appointed chaplain, a young man from a quiet country parish, full of ardor and the evangelical fervor of “peace on earth and good will toward men.” When I entered the wardroom after target practice he was sitting at the table with his head in his hands.
“What’s the matter, Chaplain?” I asked.
“The guns!” he moaned. “They were terrible; and when I think what it is all for it horrifies me.”
We knew nothing more until a week later when the U.S.S. Mohican arrived with orders for us to proceed to the Asiatic, and with ammunition for Dewey’s squadron and some officers and enlisted men to replace short-timers. Among the officers was an old friend of mine, Ensign Noble Irwin, right from the Navy Department.
“What are we going to do out there?” I asked him.
“We are going to take the Philippines if there is war,” he replied.
“Rather a rash idea,” I remarked. “We’ll have no base from which to replenish fuel or supplies. Who is behind it?”
“Teddy Roosevelt,” he said.
Some officers had their wives in Honolulu and war apprehension lay heavily upon them, especially upon our chaplain whose very beautiful young wife was his constant companion. They were newlyweds and she sang divinely. His earnest eloquence and her singing drew full church attendance and affection from the whole ship’s company.
On the Sunday before our departure I was officer of the deck and could only gaze down upon the church service from the poop. When the two stood shoulder to shoulder singing “God be with us till we meet again” I felt decidedly choky. Even Captain Dyer, I noticed, took off his glasses, polished them vigorously, and mopped his eyes.
But, of course, it was a very warm day.
As a matter of fact they were destined never to meet again in this world, although she followed the ship out to Yokohama in the next mail steamer.
During the trip Dyer’s every thought was of preparation for battle. When I took my division to the sick bay for first- aid instruction I let imagination grip me for a moment and pictured some of those splendid young men torn and mangled around me at the guns. For some reason I did not picture myself in such a condition.
The chaplain assiduously attended first-aid seances. When complimented for this he replied, “I must be prepared to do my bit physically as well as spiritually, but it makes my blood run cold.”
His disappointment was acute when he found his wife had not arrived in Yokohama, for we got a cable from Commodore Dewey to join him immediately in Hongkong, so continued on the same day in the face of a violent typhoon.
After a hectic struggle through tempestuous weather we arrived off Kongkong late in the afternoon of April 22, but in the gloom and rain we did not see Dewey’s ships.
Then they slowly loomed in sight painted a dark gray. It was our first introduction to war color. The Baltimore was still white.
Dewey gave a dinner that night in the Hongkong Hotel, returning the courtesies of British officials. All his captains were present. We youngsters assembled on a balcony and looked on through the French windows. The hazard of his task was stressed in postprandial speeches to which Dewey replied with a brief talk closing as nearly as I can remember with the following words:
“We cannot fail. I have captains in whom I have implicit confidence. We will work together with infallible co-ordination.”
And well he could say this. Four of his captains were Civil War veterans and three, like himself, had been with Farragut in the Battle of Mobile Bay.
Next morning the Baltimore dry-docked at Kowloon. Never in my life have I witnessed and heard such pandemonium. Throughout that day and night over a hundred Chinese dockworkers scraped and leaded the ship’s bottom while half the ship’s company painted her upperworks gray, and dockyard mechanics altered the emplacements of two secondary battery guns.
Next morning we rejoined the squadron and not a moment too soon. War had been declared and Dewey had been given notice to leave within 24 hours. The Baltimore was nearly out of coal but as our nearest home port was 5,000 miles away we were allowed to fill our bunkers.
We had been ordered by cable from Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt to proceed to the Philippines and destroy the Spanish fleet.
A bit of the Raleigh's machinery was under repair ashore and U. S. Consul Williams, expected from Manila with last minute information, had not arrived. Dewey sent the Boston, Concord, Petrel, McCulloch, and two purchased vessels, the collier Nanshan and small mail boat Zafiro, to Mirs Bay, an almost uninhabited inlet about 50 miles from Hongkong, and remained the time limit with the Olympia, Baltimore, and Raleigh. When he sailed with these vessels from Hongkong next day British sailors spontaneously manned the rails of their ships and cheered lustily.
During my watch that evening Dewey ordered a general blackout. Captain Dyer stood on the poop to watch its effectiveness.
“Watch out for smokers,” he called to me. “Take the names of all you catch.”
“How about your cigar, sir?” I ventured to ask.
“Huh!” he grunted, and threw his perfecto overboard.
On the 26th all dispensable spars and furniture were sent to the Nanshan.
Next day Consul Williams arrived in a British launch from Hongkong. After conference on the flagship he was assigned to the Baltimore for domicile and we sailed that morning. In the afternoon a general muster was held on all the ships to publish a proclamation of the Governor General of the Philippines unequaled by the most lurid Nazi propaganda of today. The following excerpts show its character:
The North American people, constituted of all the social excrescences, have ... provoked war with their perfidious machinations, with their acts of treachery, with their outrages against the Law of Nations and international conventions.
A squadron manned by foreigners, possessing neither instruction nor discipline, is preparing to come to this archipelago with the ruffianly intention of robbing us of all that means life, honor and liberty.
The aggressors shall not profane the tombs of your fathers; they shall not gratify their lustful passions at the cost of your wives’ and daughters’ honor.
This was read simultaneously on all the ships and we were then officially informed that we were en route to the Philippines to destroy the Spanish fleet.
The cheers which followed could be heard from ship to ship throughout the squadron.
Next day more woodwork which could be dispensed with in battle was thrown into the China Sea. A vessel passing through the area later reported in Hongkong that she had seen evidence of a terrible wreck or battle but could find no survivors.
It was a three-day journey in almost calm weather. We steamed in two columns, the Olympia, Baltimore, Boston, Raleigh, Concord, and Petrel in the left and the McCulloch, Nanshan, and Zafiro in the right.
All our officers seemed to be impressed deeply with the hazard of our venture but with a curious lack of apprehension. The possibilities were so entirely beyond comprehension that each tomorrow was like a curtain through which we could not see. Our minds seemed not to go beyond the day’s work.
On the morning of April 30 we made a landfall off Bolinao, at the entrance to Lingayan Gulf, and turned southward, following the coast. Our guns were cast loose and provided.
“Wonder why we struck the coast so far north,” I remarked to Captain Dyer during my forenoon watch.
“We discussed this in Hongkong,” he said. “The Commodore thought his presence up here might draw the Spanish fleet out from behind their fortifications into an open sea engagement.”
The Boston and Concord were sent ahead at full speed as scouts and to search out Subig Bay. When we reached Subig they were not in sight. The Baltimore was sent in to look for them but met them coming out and signalling no enemy there. Captain Dyer intercepted a Filipino fishing boat and learned from the owner that the Spanish fleet had been in Subig the day before but had returned to Manila Bay.
Our squadron was then hove to.
Commodore Dewey signaled for all commanding officers to report on board the flagship.
I came on watch at six o’clock. The day had been cloudless and intensely hot and the sea was almost calm. Our ships were drifting idly more or less out of formation. In about an hour Captain Dyer returned.
“Stand by to get under way,” he said. “We are going to try something tonight never attempted since the Civil War.”
We were soon under way again in single column, the McCulloch’s division bringing up the rear. We displayed no running lights, but a single light at the stern of each vessel boxed in so as to show only to the one behind her.
I was relieved at eight o’clock and went down to dinner, which was served on my desk in my stateroom, there being no wardroom table. As I sipped my after dinner coffee I noticed that my mess boy, a young Chinese, was standing close behind me instead of leaving me as usual at that stage of the meal.
“That’s all, Won,” I said. “You may go now.”
But he lingered, saying:
“Missee Ellicott, are we going to fight Spanish tomorrow?”
“Yes, Won,” I replied.
“Will it be velly bad fight?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied, “it will be a very hard fight but we will win.”
He came closer and laid his hand on my shoulder.
“Missee Ellicott,” he said, “I flaid.”
“No, no, Won!” I said. “Don’t be afraid. You are in powder division and will be whipping up shell. When battle comes just keep thinking ‘faster I whip up shell faster we whip Spanish.’”
After he had gone I overhauled the papers in my desk, destroying unimportant ones and re-sorting the others. While so engaged the chaplain came in and watched me.
“What are you doing?” he asked, almost in a whisper.
“Just preparing for eventualities,” I said. “I’m glad you came in. See here. All my important papers and my will are in this pigeon hole.”
“How can you be so composed,” he murmured. “You don’t seem to realize the horrors ahead of us; the crashing shells; the mangled bodies; the ship perhaps on fire and sinking; the—”
At that moment Assistant Engineer E. L. Beach, who had been within earshot in the wardroom, stepped in and slapped the chaplain on the back.
“Brace up, Chaplain,” he said. “Remember that you represent God in this ship. If you fear all that, go to your room and pray for us.”
The chaplain squared his shoulders and left.
I picked up my sword and went on deck to escape the stifling heat below, thinking as I did so what a useless appendage a sword was for the kind of combat ahead of us.
It was after nightfall but a first quarter moon revealed the ghostlike ships and the shadowy outline of the mountainous coast. There was an occasional flare of coppery lightning behind it.
After a look around I sat upon a secondary battery gun platform and ruminated. Less than a month before I had sat on that same platform with Princess Kaiulani of Hawaii during a reception. Less than two weeks before I had watched our young chaplain and his beautiful wife almost at that very spot standing together and singing “God be with us till we meet again.” Then I leaned back against an ammunition box and dozed.
I had been asleep nearly two hours when a call was passed quietly to stand by the guns. Buckling on my sword I hastened to my division on the forecastle. It consisted of two 8-inch guns, two secondary battery guns under the forecastle, and a one-pounder revolving gun in the foretop. The foretop gun’s crew was just getting into the rigging. There were two handsome youngsters in it, brothers and, I think, twins. I had offered to assign them to different guns to increase the probability of one at least surviving but they wanted to fight together.
“Good-by, Mr. Ellicott,” one of them said, pausing at the rail. “Maybe we won’t meet again any more.”
“Good-by nothing!” I answered. “We’ll all be together after it’s over tomorrow.” But I didn’t feel so sure of it.
After receiving a report of “all present” I looked around. I caught a glimpse of a long mountainous island on our port beam. Then the setting moon passed under a mat of cirro-cumulus cloud spreading over nearly half the heavens and everything was blotted out in darkness
To provide for engagement on both sides at once a gun’s crew of marines was assigned to my division in charge of Lieutenant Dion Williams. After inspection Williams and I sat on an arms chest near the break of the forecastle and almost under the bridge, which was about 8 feet above us. A caution for silence had been passed but we could hear occasional low conversation between the officers on it.
Presently a huge rock loomed through the darkness close to our starboard beam.
“El Fraile!” exclaimed the navigator. “The Olympia must have almost run into it.”
“Oh, no,” said Captain Dyer. “The Commodore intended it so. He’s an old hand at crossing mine fields and figured that if there was a gate through this one it would be close to that rock.”
Some moments of tense silence followed. Then the signal officer exclaimed:
“There’s a ship on fire astern of us!”
There was a lurid flare in the darkness behind us.
“Soot burning in a smokestack,” said Dyer. “Looks like the McCulloch. That’ll give us away.”
We were told afterwards that it so mortified the McCulloch’s chief engineer that he had a heart stroke and died.
Almost immediately a signal light blinked on the south shore and a rocket shot up from Corregidor. Then a gun flashed and boomed in the distant darkness on our starboard hand followed by two more much nearer, apparently from El Fraile. We heard the shells shriek overhead and a loud splash on our port quarter. A shot apiece crashed out from two ships astern of us, then, to our surprise, there was again silence.
We learned afterwards that one of our shells struck squarely between two 15-cm. guns1 on El Fraile, temporarily disabling both.
Then a vertical string of red and white lights blazed on the flagship and was answered by all the others. We must have looked to the chagrined and dismayed Spaniards like a flock of drugstores.
“Flagship signals ‘speed four knots,”’ reported the signal officer.
“I see,” said Dyer. “The Commodore intends to be off Manila at daylight.”
Again the flagship displayed a string of signals directing the McCulloch’s division to move up on her port beam.
1 Calibers of the Spanish guns estimated.
“I guess that’s all for tonight,” said Dyer. “Pass the word the men may sleep at their guns.”
Our crews sat around for awhile. A mess cook came up and passed around a pan of hardtack. I was not hungry but put two in the pocket of my blouse. Then I felt that I should set an example of relaxation, so stretched out on deck between the 8-inch guns and played possum. Presently someone slipped a little pillow gently under my head. Later in the night, when it grew chilly, a marine brought up two overcoats and covered Williams and myself. I had just begun to appreciate its warmth when one of my own crew quietly slipped mine off and put it over himself. It was too dark to tell who it was.
Thus we cat-napped through the night and I had really got into a sound sleep when awakened by a shout from the bridge:
“There they are!”
We all sprang up. It was daylight and through a low lying haze ahead of us we could see a forest of masts, and back of these the battlements and cathedral domes of Manila. Captain Dyer was scrutinizing all this with his binoculars.
“They are all merchant vessels,” he said.
“But look over there,” said the executive, pointing to starboard.
There indeed was the Spanish fleet, a long line of dull gray ships stretching across Bacoor Bay in front of Cavite Arsenal. One of the largest, near the center of the line, was still white.
A flag signal went up on the Olympia.
“Flagship signals ‘prepare for general action,’” reported the signal officer.
Immediately from every masthead and gaff our Stars and Stripes, which had been in stops, floated out.
At the same time huge red and yellow banners of Spain unfurled on the enemy ships.
Simultaneously the Olympia changed course toward Cavite making signal:
“Follow the flag.”
And to the McCulloch's division:
“Heave to out of range.”
Then said Captain Dyer to all who could hear him:
“Well, men, we have empty stomachs but full hearts. Let us see what can be done under the old flag once more.”
Perhaps he recalled an almost identica l situation when he was on the Metacomet entering Mobile Bay.
His remark about empty stomachs reminded me of my hardtack and I commenced to eat it, but just then red flashes and puffs of smoke came from the Spanish ships and my mouth went dry. I had to go to a near-by scuttle butt to wash my mouthful down.
The bay was silvery smooth. Shells from both the Spanish ships and the batteries along the Manila water front were falling short ahead and to port throwing geysers of water into the air.
“Should we answer?” asked the executive officer.
“No” said Dyer, “let the flagship open the battle.”
As we waited I had a curious feeling that it was almost a sacrilege to cause those beautiful flags of a 400-year-old nation to flutter down in defeat.
My chief gun captain touched me on the arm.
“I have a spare gun lock hanging around my neck,” he said, “in case the ones we are using jam. If anything happens to me you take it.”
By coincidence his name was Locke. He lived to be killed in an explosion at an ammunition depot in the Hudson River.
“And another thing,” said Locke. “Our second trainer, that big fellow who is a good deal of a bully, had a marine overcoat over him when we got up just now and in spite of it he is still shivering. I think you had better exchange him for a supernumerary.”
“No,” I said. “Let’s try him out. I think he will warm up when the battle is on.”
He did.
We were approaching Bacoor Bay beyond the right flank of the enemy. Presently the Olympia turned again to starboard and opened fire.
The Baltimore was equipped with the Fiske Range Finder of those days consisting of tripod telescopes on poop and forecastle electrically connected with a central control station. A range was reported from the latter which proved very inaccurate, due perhaps to the nervousness of the observers and co-ordinators, and our first shell fell disgustingly short. The next range it gave was quite accurate, then both telescopes were knocked over by the concussion of our own guns. After that I followed the flight of my 8-inch shells with my binoculars and we soon had merciless accuracy.
Captain Dyer, seeing me looking through my glasses, called out from the bridge:
“This is not a sightseeing tour, Mr. Ellicott. Pay more attention to your guns.”
I explained what I was doing. He grunted but did not apologize.
There was an iron breakwater about 2 feet high across the forecastle forward of my 8-inch guns, and beyond it two booby hatches through which I could communicate with my secondary battery beneath. Twice in crossing this the dolphin tail on the tip of my sword scabbard caught on it and threw me to my knees. After the second time I took the sword off and threw it across the deck. Someone retrieved it and returned it after the battle.
The action had scarcely got well under way when a sleek cabin cruiser put out from behind Sangley Point and headed full speed apparently toward the McCulloch.
“Torpedo boat!” cried out someone on the bridge.
Our secondary battery guns and those of the Olympia were turned upon her and she was quickly smothered in spray and fled back toward the shore. One large shell struck just under her stern as she grounded and tossed her high and dry.
We learned afterwards that she was the launch of the English manager of the marine railway, in which he and his family were endeavoring to escape to Manila.
That was the only time anything came within range of my one-pounder in the fore top. Frequently, however, I thought I heard it firing and admonished the crew that it was out of range, but they declared they had not been firing.
I learned some years later in a conversation with Sir Hiram Maxim at the War College that what I heard was the snap of the atmosphere when enemy shells passed close to my ears. I’m glad I did not know it at the time.
One huge shell, however, made itself heard and seen about every ten minutes as it tumbled end over end at low speed in a high arc toward us. Some of my men got to joking about it, calling it “Betsy.”
“Betsy is going to get us this time,” they would say. “Hope she hits feet first.”
It came from an old 10-inch smoothbore in Fort San Felipe, a walled redoubt in Cavite Arsenal. Once only it fell close to us and deluged my crew with water.
We soon saw that all the Spanish ships except the Castilla and Ulloa were under way but only maneuvering to maintain their places in line with the Castilla, apparently moored head and stern, and to keep their broadsides toward us. The Ulloa was moored on the Spanish left flank under low, sandy Sangley Point, which afforded her protection but over which she could fire at us.
The Castilla presented a beautiful white target but we were admonished by Captain Dyer to concentrate on the flagship Cristina.
We followed the Olympia in column along the 5-fathom curve as charted, all ships on both sides continuously and furiously firing. As we passed Sangley Point and came within range of Fort Sangley we countermarched, turning outward, and this maneuver was repeated three times to westward and twice to eastward.
It was evident that Dewey’s watchful eye was upon us. From time to time a vessel’s call letter would be displayed with the brief signal:
“Close up.”
The sky was cloudless. With the rising sun it became intensely hot. Many men at the guns stripped to the waist and wrapped water soaked neckerchiefs around their heads. They were sorry afterwards.
After that first dry mouthful my only sensation was that I was busier than I had ever been before in my life.
Presently Gun Captain Locke’s fear was verified. The lock of our starboard 8-inch gun jammed and had to be exchanged for the one around his neck. When we were disengaged on one of our turns I got tools from the arms chest and sat on it trying to put the jammed lock in order. While I was working on it Dion Williams came to me and said:
“Do you know you are swearing like a fishwife?”
I never swear beyond a muttered damn even when exasperated and did not know I was uttering a word.
On another occasion I went to the scuttle-butt at the break of the forecastle for a drink of water and at that moment heard a dull chug in the ship’s side below me. Ensign Hayward, who had the forward 6-inch guns on the main deck, looked out through a gun port and called up:
“Why, we’ve been hit!”
There were several more hits, one a severe one aft, but I was cognizant of only one of them. A shell passed over the bridge close above Captain Dyer’s head and punctured the cowl of a ventilator with a noise like the toll of a bell.
The Castilla was too good a target to be neglected and was soon on fire fore and aft. A little later the Cristina was seen to be on fire. It then seemed to become evident to the Spanish Admiral that it was hopeless to remain pocketed in Bacoor Bay, for the Cristina and the smaller vessels suddenly stood toward us approximately in line. They chose a bad time when we were in the middle of a run. The Cristina received the raking fire of the Olympia and Baltimore and the others were raked by our other vessels. All quickly turned back. The Cristina’s stern was then literally torn open by heavy shells and she was run aground under the walls of the Arsenal, burning fore and aft, flame-shot clouds of smoke and heavy jets of steam ascending high above her. We had then been engaged more than two hours.
The Cuba and Luzon fled out of sight behind the Arsenal and the Austria floundered around and around like a wounded duck.
Presently we noticed that we were steaming through some wreckage, in the midst of it the bow of a whaleboat.
About the same time signal was made by the flagship:
“Withdraw from action.”
We were all dumfounded.
“Just as we were tearing ’em to pieces!” someone exclaimed.
“The flagship must be disabled,” the executive called across the bridge to the Captain.
We all turned to look at her. The second trainer climbed upon the top of a gun shield for a better view but tumbled off with an oath when he found it too hot to stand on.
But when the smoke from her last salvo lifted the Olympia appeared to be intact, and another signal floated up to her yardarm. We turned toward the bridge to learn what it was.
“International!” exclaimed the signal officer, changing signal books, and then to the Captain:
“Let the people go to breakfast.”
“Hooray!” cried out some hungry man in our midst.
“Why international, I wonder,” said the executive to the Captain.
“Ha!” said Dyer, “so’s the enemy can read it. Who but Dewey would have thought of that.”
We followed the Olympia out to the vicinity of the McCulloch and when her speed cones came down all ships stopped. Commodore Dewey then signaled for commanding officers to report on board the flagship.
As Captain Dyer and the executive started down from the bridge, I went to the foot of the bridge ladder for a word with the latter and met Stanworth coming to take the watch.
“Call away the gig,” said Dyer.
“No use, sir,” said Stanworth. “She was blown to pieces by a blast from my starboard gun trained sharp aft.”
“Get excited?” said Dyer with obvious sarcasm.
“Not at all, sir,” said Stanworth with a quiet Virginia drawl. “I knew I’d bust her but it was too good a shot to miss.”
“The first whaleboat, then,” said Dyer.
“She’s gone, too, sir” said Stanworth. “Same way; port gun.”
Captain Dyer’s face flamed with rage and I almost expected to see Stanworth, a small, frail man, thrown overboard like the apprentice boy on the Tennessee, but after a moment Dyer turned to the executive and said quite calmly:
“My oversight. I should have dropped the quarter boats before going into action.”
But then he turned back to Stanworth and almost barked in his one time “Snarl-yowl” manner:
“Give me the dinghy, then—a punt—anything! I don’t want to swim.”
He got the second whaleboat.
I then told Stanworth I had had something to eat and would take the watch until he had had his breakfast.
A few minutes after I had climbed to the bridge a plaintive voice floated down to me:
“May we come down now, Mr. Ellicott?”
I had forgotten my foretop gun crew.
As the twins came down one of them called to me:
“You were right last night, Mr. Ellicott, but I wish we could have done more shooting.”
Then I got a look around. Our ships had drifted more or less out of formation. Manila and Cavite shore batteries were still firing at us, the shells throwing up beautiful geysers of water as they struck and ricochetted harmlessly short.
The master-at-arms reported all ready for breakfast and I had mess call sounded but instead of a rush of hungry men to breakfast there was an upsurge through all the hatches of half-naked, sweaty, grimy men who climbed on the rails and into the rigging to gaze at the devastation and cheer hysterically. It took a second call to get them below.
Then I thought of the chaplain’s apprehension the night before and sent for him. Soon he joined me, wearing a surgeon’s apron, and I gave him my binoculars to look at the flaming and smoke-panoplied inferno at Cavite. At that very moment one of the Cristina’s magazines blew up, throwing huge burning fragments into the air.
“We’ve got ’em! We’ve got ’em!” the chaplain said, slapping his leg. “Why don’t we go in and finish ’em up?”
“I think we will,” I said, “but you forget. Over there are the scenes you pictured last night.”
He handed back the binoculars and his eyes filled with tears.
“Yes,” he said, “I forgot,” and went below.
Stanworth relieved me and I went to the wardroom for a snack of toast and coffee. As Won served me I asked:
“How did you get along, Won?”
Won beamed. “All lite,” he said, “I no flaid. I likee battle.”
I learned then that Lieutenant Kellogg, Ensign Irwin, and eight enlisted men had been slightly wounded; one 6-inch gun disabled.
I was on deck again when Captain Dyer returned, smiling broadly.
“Not a man lost and none seriously wounded,” he said. “It’s incredible!”
“What next?” asked Commander Briggs.
“We’re going to mop up,” he replied. “The Concord and Petrel will go in behind the Arsenal after the gunboats, supported by the Boston and Raleigh. We are to destroy the shore batteries supported if necessary by the Olympia but I don’t think we will need her.”
A battery of two modern guns, apparently 15 cm., near the beach about a mile from Fort Sangley, had revealed itself by firing at us while we were hove to, so we ran in toward the shore until the leadsman called 5 fathoms then turned left and opened fire with all our starboard guns. The valiant return fire of the pugnacious battery was quickly demoralized and soon silenced. When I visited it some days later I found that we had knocked one gun end over end out of the redoubt and smashed the carriage under the other.
Soon we saw its gunners crowded into a caramatta driving furiously along the beach toward Fort Sangley.
“Put an 8-inch shell into ’em,” said Dyer.
“I can’t do it, Captain,” I replied. “They’re in flight.”
I expected a crushing reprimand for my impulsive speech but Captain Dyer only grunted.
Fort Sangley proved to be a tougher customer. Its guns were of larger caliber than our largest and equally modern but again we had more. It seemed unbelievable that they never hit us, for the shriek of their shells sounded dose around us, but our heavy barrage pounded down their parapet and soon smothered the guns in sand. Twice they ceased fire and we withheld ours but twice again they resumed. Then an improvised white flag appeared.
The Olympia, which had kept abreast of us offshore, now stopped.
We steamed on past Sangley Point and looked again into Bacoor Bay. The Castilla had sunk and was burned to the water’s edge, only her smoldering superstructure visible. The Cristina was also partially submerged and still burning, her red-hot steel superstructure glowing through the smoke. Only one other ship was visible, the Don Antonio de Ulloa, screened behind Sangley Point and apparently intact. She gave us a jolting surprise by opening on us as soon as we cleared the point but we stopped our engines and gave her a point-blank broadside. It was a coup de grace. She reeled away from us with the impact, then rolled toward us, her men sliding and jumping from her deck and swimming for shore. Then she righted and sank until only her masts and stack were visible, a beautiful, brand-new Spanish ensign still flying at her gaff.
For a few moments we stood in awestruck silence as if witnessing an execution. Then Stanworth came running forward and called out to the bridge:
“Let me take a boat, Captain, and get that flag.”
“No,” said Dyer. “Let it fly. She has made the most gallant fight of all.”
“Three cheers for Captain Dyer,” called out gun captain Locke, and three ringing cheers went up from all who heard him.
Captain Dyer removed his cap and when the cheers died away said in a husky voice:
“Thank you, men. I never got that before.”
A white flag was then seen flying from the Arsenal shears and at the same moment the Petrel came out from behind the Arsenal flying a signal:
“The enemy has surrendered.”
We watched to see a barge steam out to the Olympia bearing Admiral Montojo but no dramatic quarter-deck surrender with proffered sword by a defeated and heartbroken opponent was in Dewey’s mind. He had sent his chief of staff in on the Petrel to receive the surrender.
“Olympia under way, sir, heading toward Manila,” reported the signal officer.
“My God!” exclaimed Dyer. “He’s going to attack the city alone. I can’t let him do that. Full speed ahead.”
We soon caught up but the 30-cm. guns lining Manila’s water front, although evidently manned, remained silent, and we anchored off the city.
A little later a launch was seen to leave the Olympia and enter the Pasig River.
Soon afterward the crews were piped to dinner as unconcernedly as if we were in a home port.
In the afternoon the flagship wig-wagged:
“You may spread awnings.”
At eventide the bands of both ships held their customary concerts.
And that evening Captain Dyer smoked his cigar on the poop.