SOMETHING ABOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF THE “MAINE”
About an hour had been passed by Larry in steady work, when, on looking
towards the companionway of the _Columbia_, he saw Captain Ponsberry
rush up, newspaper in hand, and so excited that he could scarcely speak.
“Tom Grandon, look here!” he cried. “Consarn the Spaniards, anyhow!
Here’s news for all to listen to, and news that ought to set the
whole United States on fire with indignation. We ought to drown every
mother’s son of ’em at the bottom of the sea.”
“What is it, Nat?” returned Grandon, rushing forward, while Larry and
the others paused in their work. “What have the Spaniards been doing to
the poor Cubans now?”
“Cubans!” fairly roared the master of the _Columbia_. “It ain’t the
Cubans I’m talking about now. It’s the teetotal busting up of the
battleship _Maine_ and the killing of I don’t know how many of our
gallant jack-tars! See here, the newspaper from San Francisco is full
of it, with type six inches long!”
[Illustration: IT AIN’T THE CUBANS I’M TALKING ABOUT NOW]
And Captain Ponsberry held up the sheet in question, so that not only
Grandon but all the others might see the flaring head-lines.
THE MAINE BLOWN UP!
Total Destruction of Our Battleship in the
Harbor of Havana!
OVER TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY OFFICERS
AND SAILORS KILLED!
The Shock Comes at Night, and Without Warning. Captain
Sigsbee Safe, but Several Officers Known to be Lost.
A Partial List of the Saved Ones――How the
News Was Received at Washington.
THOUGHT TO BE THE WORK OF SPANISH
AGENTS.
Captain Sigsbee Telegraphs to Withhold Judgment――He Says,
“It is best not to think, it is best to know.”
A whole page of reading followed, in smaller type, which Larry could
not catch. The youth stared at the head-lines, with mouth agape, and
instantly he thought of Ben and Walter, and what they had said about
going to war. If this awful news was true, and the Spaniards were
guilty, would war follow?
There was a second of silence, as the sailors read the lines, a silence
broken by Tom Grandon. “Tell you what, this is awful, simply awful,
Nat! And they say the Spaniards did it? If that’s so, there will be war
in a jiffy, and don’t you forget it――and Cuba will be free.”
“Yes, Cuba will be free, and Spain will get knocked into six million
pieces,” blazed away Captain Ponsberry, who was wont to talk very
extravagantly when warmed up. “The cowards! to blow ’em up when they
were sleeping.”
“Does it say that?” questioned Hobson. “No fair-minded nation would do
such a dastardly bit o’ work, cap’n.”
“I don’t say the nation did it,――as a nation,――but their officers did
it, and that’s the same thing――the sneaks! I see some think it was an
explosion from the inside, but I know that couldn’t happen in our navy;
the rules aboard a warship are too strict.”
“That’s right,” piped up a thin, nasal voice,――that belonged to
Luke Striker, a sailor who had been working beside Larry. “Didn’t
I put in five years aboard a warship, cruising the Atlantic? There
couldn’t be no explosion from inside, not with the daily inspections
of the magazines, and the wetting of the guncotton, and the keys and
electrical connections in the captain’s cabin; no, sir. That explosion
came from the outside, and――and――but, captain, won’t you read the full
account?”
“Yes, Nat, read it out; all of the boys will want to hear it, especially
those who claim the stars and stripes as their flag,” added Tom Grandon.
And so the captain of the _Columbia_ read the account which, stripped
of its newspaper sensationalism, was as follows; the special report
being dated at Havana, Cuba, Feb. 16, 1898.
“At quarter to ten o’clock last evening a terrible explosion
occurred on board or under the United States battleship
_Maine_, lying in the harbor of Havana. The battleship has been
completely destroyed, and over two hundred and fifty sailors
and two officers have lost their lives.
“The explosion was so heavy that many of the houses in Havana
were shaken, and people ran outside, thinking it was an
earthquake shock. It was soon learned that the great battleship
had gone up, and the docks were lined with people, while
rescue boats put out from all directions.
“The shock came without an instant’s warning. Captain Sigsbee
was seated in his cabin, writing a letter to his wife, while
many of the officers and sailors had retired for the night,
when there came a deafening report, followed by thick volumes
of smoke and a shower of iron piping and splinters, and then
the vessel began to sink, her heavy structure and armor plate
twisted, bent, and broken like a battered wash-boiler.
“The officers who were below, and who had escaped serious
injury, rushed or rather swam on deck, only to find themselves
in a mass of wreckage from which it was almost impossible to
extricate themselves. The explosion occurred close to the men’s
quarters, and but few of the gallant jackies got out alive. One
ladder leading from the rear torpedo compartment was literally
jammed with men struggling for life.
“Fortunately the _Alfonso XII._ was lying close by, and a
powerful searchlight was speedily turned upon the scene. The
steamer _City of Washington_, also close at hand, sent out
all her boats and brought in a great number of those swimming
about, many of whom were wounded and on the point of drowning.
“So far but few of the dead bodies have been recovered,
everybody being on the lookout for the injured. Many have been
taken to the hospitals in Havana, while some are lying at
death’s door on the steamships which were in the vicinity of
the explosion.
“A dozen theories have started up as to the cause of the
explosion. One is that the guncotton on board went off by
spontaneous combustion; another is that the plating between
the engine rooms and one of the magazines became too hot
and ignited the powder; and still another that the electric
lighting system is responsible. The general opinion among those
on board, however, is that the _Maine_ was blown up from the
outside, either by a torpedo or by a sunken mine, most likely
the latter.
“There is fearful though suppressed excitement in Havana, and
the Americans here look blackly at the Spanish soldiers as
they move from place to place. Spanish officers declare the
explosion must have come from the interior of the ship, and
profess to be deeply concerned over the disaster. Certainly
a majority of them are sincere in their condolence. But in
the back quarters of the town the Spanish sympathizers do not
hesitate to declare that it serves the Yankees right, that they
had no right to send a big warship here at this time, and that
they hope every warship that may come from the United States
will be served the same way.”
“Is that all?” queried the mate of the _Columbia_, as Captain Ponsberry
paused in his reading of the newspaper account.
“That’s all the news there is of the explosion. I reckon everything was
upset, and they couldn’t get details,” answered the captain.
“The _Maine_ must have been a big boat,” said Hobson.
“She was a big boat,” answered Luke Striker. “I know something about
her. She was what they call a battleship of the second class――although
I allow as how she was fust class all over. She came out of the
Brooklyn Navy Yard and she was over three hundred feet long, nearly
sixty feet broad and drew about twenty-seven feet of water. Her hull
was of steel, and she was put down as about sixty-seven hundred tons’
displacement.”
“Who is this Captain Sigsbee?” asked Larry.
“I don’t know much about him, exceptin’ that he came from the Naval
Academy, and he used to be in charge of the Hydrographic Office, and
I’ve heard he made a big thing of that.”
“I see in another part of this paper that there were three hundred and
fifty men on the pay-roll,” said Captain Ponsberry. “If that’s so, then
only about a hundred of ’em escaped. It’s the wust accident I’ve heard
of since the sinking of that British warship the _Victoria_, which went
down by being struck by one of her own fleet while off the coast of
Tripoli. She carried about four hundred poor sailors down with her, and
Vice-Admiral Tryon in the bargain.”
A lively discussion lasting several minutes followed. The news was such
that it would furnish talk, especially for sailors, for a long time to
come.
But the work aboard the _Columbia_ was not to be forgotten, and soon
Larry was back at his post, trying to make up for lost time.