He spoke in reassuring tones, and led my mother to the side of the ship, whither I followed them, and became at once absorbed in what was going on.
The outrigger launch referred to was a goodly-sized boat, fitted with a small engine and screw propeller. Its chief peculiarities were two long poles or spars, which lay along its sides, projecting beyond the bows. These were the outriggers. At the projecting end of each spar was fixed an iron case, bearing some resemblance in shape and size to an elongated kettle-drum. These were the torpedoes. I heard the lieutenant explain to my mother that if one of these torpedoes chanced to explode where it hung, it would blow the boat and men to atoms. To which my mother replied, Horrible! and asked how, in that case, the crew could fire it and escape. Whereupon he responded, You shall see presently.
Another peculiarity in the launch was that it had a species of iron hood or shield, like a broad and low sentry-box, from behind which protection the few men who formed her crew could steer and work the outriggers and the galvanic battery, without being exposed.
This little boat seemed to me like a vicious wasp, as it left the side of the ship with a rapid throbbing of its engine and twirling of its miniature screw.
When at a sufficient distance from the ship, an order was given by the officer in charge. Immediately the outrigger on the right or starboard side was run out by invisible hands to its full extentapparently fifteen feet beyond the bow of the launch; then the inner end of the outrigger was tilted violently into the air, so that the other end with its torpedo was thrust down ten feet below the surface of the water. This, I was told, is about the depth at which an enemys ship ought to be struck. The launch, still going at full speed, was now supposed to have run so close to the enemy, that the submerged torpedo was about to strike her. Another order was given. The operator gave the needful touch to the galvanic battery, which, like the most faithful of servants, instantly sent a spark to fire the torpedo.
The result was tremendous. A column of seething mud and water, twenty feet in diameter, shot full thirty feet into the air, overwhelming the launch in such a shower that many of the unprofessional spectators imagined she was lost. Thus an imaginary ironclad was sent, with a tremendous hole in her, to the bottom of the sea.
That this is no imaginary result will be seen in the sequel of our tale.
Why, the shock has made the Nettle herself tremble! I exclaimed, in surprise.
Oh, the poor boat! cried my mother.
No fear of the boat, said young Firebrand, and as to the Nettlewhy, my good fellow, I have felt our greatest ironclad, the mighty Thunderer, of which I have the honour to be an officer, quiver slightly from the explosion of a mere five-pounds torpedo discharged close alongside. Few people have an adequate conception of the power of explosives, and still fewer, I believe, understand the nature of the powers by which they are at all times surrounded. That 100-pounds torpedo, for instance, which has only caused us to quiver, would have blown a hole in our most powerful ship if fired in contact with it, and yet the cushion of water between it and the tiny launch that fired it is so tough as to be quite a sufficient protection to the boat, as you see.
We did indeed see, for the waspish little boat emerged from the deluge she had raised and, steaming swiftly on, turned round and retraced her track. On reaching about the same position as to the Nettle, she repeated the experiment with her second torpedo.
Splendid! exclaimed young Naranovitsch, whose military ardour was aroused.
It means, does it not, said Bella, a splendid ship destroyed, and some hundreds of lives lost?
Wellyes said Nicholas, hesitatingly; but of course it does not always follow, you know, that so many lives
He paused, and smiled with a perplexed look. Bella smiled dubiously, and shook her head, for it did not appear to either of them that the exact number of lives lost had much to do with the question. A sudden movement of the visitors to the other side of the ship stopped the conversation.
They were now preparing to show the effect of a gun-cotton hand-grenade; in other words, a species of bomb-shell, meant to be thrown by the hand into an enemys boat at close-quarters. This really tremendous weapon was an innocent-looking disc or circlet of gun-cotton, weighing not more than eight ounces. Innocent it would, in truth, have been but for the little detonator in its heart, without which it would only have burned, not exploded. Attached to this disc was an instantaneous fuse of some length, so that an operator could throw the disc into a passing boat, and then fire the fuse, which would instantly explode the disc.
All this was carefully explained by Firebrand to my astonished mother, while the disc, for experimental purposes, was being placed in a cask floating in the water. On the fuse being fired, this cask was blown into matchwooda wreck so complete that the most ignorant spectator could not fail to understand what would have been the fate of a boat and its crew in similar circumstances.
How very awful! said my mother. Pray, Mr Firebrand, what is gun-worstedI mean cotton.
The young lieutenant smiled rather broadly as he explained, in a glib and slightly sing-song tone, which savoured of the Woolwich Military Academy, that, gun-cotton is the name given to the explosive substance produced by the action of nitric acid mixed with sulphuric acid, on cotton fibre. He was going to add, It contains carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, corresponding to when my mother stopped him.
Dear me, Mr Firebrand, is a popular explanation impossible?
Not impossible, madam, but rather difficult. Let me see. Gun-cotton is a chemical compound of the elements which I have just nameda chemical compound, you will observe, not a mechanical mixture, like gunpowder. Hence it explodes more rapidly than the latter, and its power is from three to six times greater.
My mother looked perplexed. What is the difference, she asked, between a chemical compound and a mechanical mixture?
Firebrand now in his turn looked perplexed. Why, madam, he exclaimed, in modulated desperation, the ultimate molecules of a mixture are only placed beside each other, so that an atom of gunpowder may be saltpetre, charcoal, or sulphur, dependent on its fellow-atoms for power to act; whereas a chemical compound is such a perfect union of substances, that each ultimate molecule is complete in its definite proportions of the four elements, and therefore an independent little atom.
Now, the next experiment, continued Firebrand, glad to have an opportunity of changing the subject, is meant to illustrate our method of countermining. You must know that our enemies may sometimes sink torpedoes at the entrance of their harbours, to prevent our ships of war entering. Such torpedoes consist usually of casks or cases of explosives, which are fired either by electric wires, like the telegraph, when ships are seen to be passing over them, or by contact. That is to say, an enemys ship entering a harbour runs against something which sets something else in motion, which explodes the torpedo and blows it and the ship into what natives of the Green Isle call smithereens. This is very satisfactory when it happens to an enemy, but not when it happens to ones-self, therefore when we have to enter an enemys harbour we countermine. This operation is now about to be illustrated. The last experiments exhibited the power of offensive torpedoes. There are several different kinds, such as Mr Whiteheads fish-torpedo, the Harvey torpedo, and others.