Читать книгу The Story Teller of the Desert—"Backsheesh!" or, Life and Adventures in the Orient - Thomas Wallace Knox - Страница 87

In spite of all my attention I found myself somewhat soiled at the end of my journey, and on returning to the hotel I underwent a vigorous application of turpentine. Like our monitors, the Novgorod is not abundantly supplied with internal space for machinery, coal, ammunition, stores, and crew, though there is more of it than one might at first suppose. Her circular shape gives her an advantage in this respect, and it is really surprising how much room you find where you expect so little.

As you descend into the engine room—her engines were made by Bird of St. Petersburg—you find the machinery stowed so compactly and everywhere around you, that you begin to think she is all machinery inside like a watch, but when you are taken thence into the places where coal and provisions are stored, you change your mind. The quarters for the crew are cramped, as; in all ships of war, and occupy about the same space relative to the officers’ quarters as on our monitors. The captain’s room is quite spacious and neatly finished and furnished, and the other officers have nothing to complain of. In the captain’s room was a model of the boat, and I studied it attentively to ascertain the shape of the craft below the water line. The boat does not preserve its circular form all the way down, or rather I should say that the circular form is maintained above the water and an elongated one below.

Take an apple and cut the lower two-thirds of it so as to give it the general shape of a ship below the water line, and you have the idea of the general external shape of the Novgorod. She has a bow and stern like any other ship, but neither of them is very sharp. If you look for fine lines like those of a clipper sailer or of a fast steamship, you will be disappointed, as the Novgorod is not designed for speed, nor as a general thing, for attack. They claim that she can steam nine knots an hour, but her steaming qualities have never been fairly tested. She is intended for coast and harbor defence, and is made of light draft, ten or twelve feet, so that she can lie out of the reach of deep-draft ships. She has six screws, three on each side of her rudder, and by working the triplets in opposite directions she can be turned in her own length, or rather in her own diameter. The space below deck is lighted by means of a grated flooring inside the turret, by openings in the deck. Hatchways at several points permit of ingress and egress, and are so arranged that they can be closed whenever necessary.

So much for the general description of the boat. Now we come to the fighting business. When her coal and stores are all on board, she will be sunk within a couple of feet of the water—that is to say, the perpendicular side of the boat will rise about two feet above the surface. In this condition she can steam to her destination under about the same conditions of safety as those attending our monitors. Looked at from a distance she will appear like a tea-saucer, on an enormous scale, turned bottom upward, and having an old fashioned pill-box in the centre. In ordinary times she has a pair of smoke-stacks, one on each side of her turret, but these are made telescopic and will be lowered out of sight when she goes into action. Then she has ventilators which also disappear, and she has a temporary steering house on deck that disappears likewise. In action she is steered from the inside in accordance with signals given by an officer in a reasonably secure little lookout box in front of the turret. In fact, all the deck apparatus except the turret, is made to disappear entirely in time of battle, and the gunboat is as plain as the wardrobe of a country clergyman on a small salary which is not promptly paid.

Nothing is visible when the boat goes into battle but the sloping deck and the turret above it. Indeed there is not much of the deck visible, as the boat takes in water enough to sink her down, so that all the perpendicular side and some of her sloping portion is below the surface. The fixed turret stands up in the centre, and inside of it is the movable turret containing the guns. This is kept lowered until the moment for firing; then the machinery turns it round in the required direction, and raises it so that the holes for the muzzles of the guns come above the edge of the fixed turret. The guns are run out till their muzzles are even with the outside of the port-holes, and when the proper aim is obtained, they are fired and instantly lowered, or they may be kept in place and reloaded, according to the will of the commander. They are handled, so to speak, by machinery, a couple of rods in the hands of their captain performing all the work of aiming, one rod serving to raise and depress their muzzles, and another to move the turret horizontally.

Steam has been brought into satisfactory subjection in the Novgorod. The turret is controlled and the guns are operated by steam; steam propels the boat, and may be made to steer it. Very little hand labor is required, and the boat may carry fewer men than other war-ships of her capacity. She is built throughout in the strongest manner, and her constructors are very proud of her.

For harbor and coast defence they claim great advantages over the old style of war ships, and I was told that it was the intention of the government to build a considerable number of ships of the Novgorod pattern. They were to be stationed at the ports of the Black Sea, and along the Baltic, and it was thought they could made things lively for a blockading squadron. The Novgorod was of a hundred and the Popofka a hundred and twenty-five feet diameter; whether the others would be of greater or less size I am unable to say. Other ships of war are to be constructed on the Black sea, and in course of time the Russians hope to bring their Black Sea fleet up to something like its old standard. The arsenal at Sevastopol is theoretically the property of the Russian Company of Navigation and Commerce, and contains their repair shops, but practically it is the property of the government, and will be more and more so as time rolls on.

We spent the evening in the hotel and on the cliff overlooking the harbor, and tried to imagine the scenes of twenty years ago.

“The rocket’s red glare and bombs bursting in air” have ceased over Sevastopol—let us hope for ever—and all was calm as though the spot had never known the horrors of war. The loquacious landlord told us many stories of the siege, and of the fortunes of Sevastopol before and since the war. “Now we are to have better times,” he said; “the railway will be completed next year, and we shall then have a line of steamers direct to Constantinople. Capitalists are coming here to start business, and we shall hope for commercial activity. The government has determined that Sevastopol shall rise again, and we feel sure that it will rise.”

Before the war the city had little short of thirty thousand inhabitants. Now it has about five thousand, but the number is slowly increasing. With a revival of business and a restoration of the naval dockyard, Sevastopol will resume its old activity and importance and become again the mistress of the Euxine. Her harbor is one of the finest in the world, and her geographical position renders it of great value.

The landlord escorted me to my room, and as he set the dripping and guttering candle on a rickety table, his loquacity continued:

“This,” said he, “is the room that was occupied by Kinglake, when he came here to study the siege of Sevastopol. He was a good fellow, and, when he left, he gave my daughter a new sovereign and she has kept it ever since. Of course you have read his history of the war? Many officers who come here say he has made some mistakes, but no man can be expected to get everything right.”

I went to sleep and dreamed of assaults on the Malakoff and Redan, and of the morning when the grey regiments which were Russia’s pride and glory burst through the pall of fog, and fell upon the unexpecting allies in their camp at Inkermann. Clash of steel, roll of musketry, and the diapason of artillery resounded through the night and made my slumber unrefreshing. I recalled the time when the whole civilized world turned its eyes upon the Crimea, and with what an electric thrill was received the announcement “Sevastopol has fallen!” And here in the city, where for many months the sounds of war were heard almost without cessation, all was now the stillness of a long peace. Waking, I could hardly realize that I was in Sevastopol. Sleeping, I lived again in the midst of the strife, and participated in the exciting events that have found a place in history.

In the morning we set out for Yalta in a carriage which we hired of an enterprising Tartar who demanded his pay in advance. He demanded and we refused, and the more he wanted his money on the spot the more he didn’t get it.