THE SPANISH FLEET IS DISCOVERED OFF FORT CAVITE
“We’re off the island!” whispered Striker to Larry, as both peered
through the opening beside their gun.
“It’s as dark on the island as it is on the ships,” returned the boy.
His heart was thumping so violently that he could scarcely speak.
“Silence, men!” came the low command from out of the semi-darkness of
the gun-deck. And then, for the time being, nothing more was said.
On swept the flagship at a speed of eight knots an hour. Corregidor
Island was now directly abeam, and every glass on the big warship was
trained on those dark and frowning works, while a sharp lookout was
kept ahead and the “mine catchers” were out in force. In a minute more
the _Olympia_ would sweep into Boca Grande, the main channel, supposed
to be fairly thick with hidden mines. What if their ship should strike?
The thought sent a cold shiver down Larry’s back. All in an instant
he thought of his former home, of his two brothers, perhaps already in
Uncle Sam’s service, of the _Columbia_, of Olan Oleson, and a score of
other persons and things. He had turned away from the opening, but now,
as Striker caught his arm, he turned back once more.
The _Olympia_ had passed the fort on the island, and still no alarm
had sounded forth. Next came the _Baltimore_, and still the silence
remained unbroken. The men on both warships almost felt like giving a
cheer.
Suddenly all was changed. Sizz! a colored rocket went sailing up into
the darkness of the night, fired from Corregidor Island. Immediately an
answering rocket came from the distant shore. The American ships had
been discovered!
“The game is up!” cried Striker, and the hum of a dozen voices broke
the stillness as the men began again to talk in whispers. “There, they
have opened the ball! Now may the best men win, an’ thet means us
Yankees, every trip!”
While Striker was speaking, a dull boom had sounded over the night
waters, and now an eight-inch shell whistled over the deck of the
_Raleigh_, the third ship in the line. The shell had scarcely struck
the sea beyond when it exploded with a loud noise, scattering the
spray in all directions.
“I wonder if we have got to take this in silence,” muttered Barrow,
when a boom from the _Raleigh_ told that she had answered the enemy’s
fire. Soon came a shot from the _Boston_, as that ship passed close to
the fort. In the mean time the other vessels were out of range. Not to
be outdone by her companions, the _Concord_ sent a six-inch shell into
a shore battery that began firing. At that time the damage done was
not known, but later on it was ascertained that the shell had landed
directly in the battery, and one Spanish soldier was killed and several
gunners injured; and thus was the first blood of the war spilt in this
part of the world.
But the Americans had suffered a loss too, although not through the
illy aimed shots of their enemy. Signalled to run alongside of the
big _Olympia_ for protection, the _McCulloch_ reported the death of
her chief engineer, a highly esteemed man named Randall, who had been
overcome by the terrific heat in the despatch boat’s engine-room. This
was the first, and, in fact, the only life lost by our side during the
world-famous battle now so close at hand.
“We’re out of that,” said the chief of the gunners, when Corregidor
Island had been left in the distance. “And I don’t believe they even
touched us.”
“We’re not over the mines yet,” said Barrow. “I take it we’ve got good
cause to remember the _Maine_ just now. If we strike anything like
that――”
“Don’t go for to speak of it!” cried Striker. “It’s bad enough to have
your nerves up like the string o’ a bow, without spittin’ out your
tongue about it.” And several nodded so vigorously at this that the
word “mine” was not mentioned again. The lazy ones stretched themselves
beside their “big brothers,” as they called their guns, but the
majority were in no humor to do aught but peer through the portholes,
trying vainly to pierce the darkness of the night as the moon scurried
beneath some fleeting clouds.
“Four hundred pairs of eyes on the watch and nothing to see but water
and sky,” mused Striker. “I hope we don’t feel anything more either,”
he added, and that was the last reference the down-easter made to the
mines.
However, by one o’clock in the morning the bugbear was a thing of the
past, for all the warships were standing out into the middle of Manila
Bay, where it was not likely a mine would be encountered. That they
had actually passed through a field of mines, though, is a matter of
history, and this being so, their complete escape from injury seems
little short of a miracle. Some naval experts have said that running
the mines was as much to the Americans’ credit as what came after.
There now remained nothing to do but to wait for daylight, since
Commodore Dewey did not deem it advisable to go in shore in the
darkness. The vessels consequently sailed on slowly towards the outer
anchorage off Manila. A great many more men turned in to snatch a nap
previous to engaging in a battle that was likely to be not far off.
From what they had seen off Corregidor Island, those in command felt
almost certain that Admiral Montojo’s fleet must be in the vicinity.
“It will either be a case of meeting that fleet or bombarding Manila,
see if it ain’t,” remarked Striker, as he and Larry turned in near the
gun. Getting into one’s hammock under the circumstances was out of the
question.
At four o’clock, just as the first streaks of dawn were beginning
to show over the distant mountains of Luzon, there was a call for
something with which to arouse the men, and strong coffee was served,
to which were added hardtack for any one who cared for them. As Larry
sipped his steaming coffee and munched a soaked-up hardtack, he looked
occasionally through the port and over the distant waters, and beheld
what looked like a mass of shipping backed up by a solidly built-up
town. This was Manila itself.
“It looks exactly as it did when I was here years ago,” remarked
Striker. “That part over to the right is old Manila, where the military
post used to be. The main shipping is dead ahead of us, in the new
territory. There is a river running between the two portions.”
“I don’t see anything like a warship,” said Larry, “though, to be sure,
it’s too dark yet to see much.”
“They’ll see all they want to see when the sun is a bit higher, lad,
and they get out their best glasses. But I don’t think the Spaniards
would put their battleships in the midst o’ that shipping――it wouldn’t
be fair, if they were expecting us.”
The squadron now began to move along the front of Manila harbor, with
glasses trained on the shipping, from which, as the sun came up, could
be seen floating the flags of various nations. Some of the flags were
Spanish, but these were on merchantmen and fishing craft.
“We haven’t catched the Spanish admiral yet,” sighed the tall
down-easter, as word drifted below that Manila harbor did not hold the
fleet they were after. “I wonder what the commodore will do now?”
No one on the _Olympia_ was kept long in suspense over this point. The
squadron was moving southward, in the direction of the long neck of
land upon which was located, as previously mentioned, Fort Cavite, or,
as it is locally termed, the Cavite Arsenal.
“They have found the Spanish fleet!” The cry ran from one ship to
another, and soon it was on the lips of everybody, from the men in the
tops to the stokers in the depths of the coal bunkers. The warships
of the enemy had been discovered lying in the little bay formed by
the curving shore of old Manila and the neck of land supporting Fort
Cavite. The distance from Fort Cavite to Manila is almost eight miles
in a straight line. Along such an imaginary line, and back of it,
was Admiral Montojo’s fleet, flanked on the right by Manila’s shore
batteries, and on the left by the powerful guns of the fort.
The Spanish fleet was a formidable one. If their individual ships were
not the equal of the American vessels, they had more of them, and they
had, moreover, the assistance of the shore batteries and the powerful
fort. A glance at their vessels will not come amiss to the reader who
wishes to know some of the particulars of this stirring encounter.
The real flagship of the Spanish fleet was the cruiser _Reina
Cristina_, of 3100 tons, carrying twenty guns of small and large
caliber, including six rapid-firing guns supposed to be of first-class
pattern and efficacy. Like the _Olympia_, she carried about four
hundred officers and men.
Next in size to the flagship came the cruiser _Castilla_, the temporary
flagship, of 3300 tons, carrying a mixed battery of eighteen guns, and
manned by three hundred well-trained Spanish tars. Two other cruisers
were the _Don Antonio de Ulloa_ and the _Don Juan de Austria_, of about
1100 tons burden each, and each carrying nine guns and manned by a crew
of one hundred and seventy-three. There was another cruiser at hand,
the _Velasco_, but she was out of repair, and her best guns had been
placed near the fort, for use from shore.
Of the gunboats, of which there were quite a number, the principal ones
were the _Isla de Luzon_ and the _Isla de Cuba_, each of a thousand
tons, carrying a mixed battery of ten guns, and manned by a hundred and
sixty officers and men. There were also the _General Lezo_, mounting
half a dozen guns, the _Del Dueroe_, and also the Spanish mail steamer,
_Mindanao_, which had been hastily pressed into service as an auxiliary
cruiser, with a battery of no mean proportions. Added to these vessels
were four torpedo boats and the transport _Manila_. The total number
of officers and men on the various vessels was estimated to be between
eighteen and nineteen hundred――about a hundred more than in the
American forces.
A word may be added concerning Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasaron. He
was not only the commander of the fleet, but also the commander at
Cavite. He was an old and trained naval officer, known to be brave to
the degree of rashness, and even by Americans it was felt that he was
a foe fully worthy of Commodore Dewey’s steel. The men beneath the
Spanish admiral were as bold and hard fighters as himself. All in all,
the coming contest was to be a battle of giants, and what the outcome
of that mighty contest was to be no person at the outset could tell.