Free At the Midway by J. Clayton Rogers

ashes from the holds could be cleanly removed, rather than being dumped into the water as was the usual practice.
    If the president was so adverse to dirtying foreign harbors, imagine his horror if they ran down a foreign ship--no matter how inexplicable its actions.
    The Minnesota had retreated to port.  A thick bank of fog made judging her distance virtually impossible.  The baleful low of her foghorn kept fading in and out--difficult even to tell what direction it was coming from.  Oates wanted to slow down, but that was what Second Division had done, causing chaos in the Third.  If he reduced speed, Fourth Division might run smack into his rear.
    The schooner kept coming.  The officers watched with widening eyes.  The beams darting down from the Florida's spotlights exploded in a murky haze.  They were not much improvement over total darkness.
    "Those lights make us a fine, fat target if she has torpedo tubes amidships."
    "Doctor, I doubt the Flying Dutchman carried torpedo tubes."  Turning to his right, Oates commanded, "Hard to port!"
    "Hard to port, sir!"
    He had waited until the last possible moment for the maneuver.  He was hoping the Minnesota was still swerving away, increasing the distance between them.  Could the bridges of the Ohio and the Missouri see the bow lights of the two ships behind them?  Everything was so faint.
    Not the mystery ship, though.  It was now close enough to count her travelers, the metal rings on her spars.  Something that might have been a slicker lay on the deck next to a bin.  Its fore-and-aft rig was handy to leeward--a quaint reminder to the men on the Florida that one did not need steam to drive against the wind.
    "Rudder amidships."
    "Rudder amidships, sir!"
    Dr. Singleton's brief foray into levity was forgotten.  He took a prominent role in the chorus of awed silence.  How could she go into the wind so effortlessly?  How did she maintain her trim?
    The Florida's ram threw up a rich, snowy bone in the artificial light.  The bows of the two ships came with a few dozen yards of closing a "V," then started to draw apart.
     
    From Gun Number 3, starboard amidships, Midshipman Davis peered through the gun shutter.  With only eleven feet of freeboard, the crew of the six-inch gun was blinded by spray whenever the Florida made flank speed or veered to port.  The narrowness of the gunport limited their line of vision.  Their befogged telescope sight was next to useless.
    The twelve-inch batteries could, via phone or voice tube, communicate with both the bridge and Central Station.  But the only contact the Number 3 six-incher had was through the electrical indicator bolted to the wall of the casemate.  It displayed four pieces of information: range, command (CEASE FIRE, COMMENCE...), target (CONNING TOWER, BOWS...), and projectile (LYDDITE, SHRAPNEL...)--but nothing at all about the nature of the target.  Until the searchlight beams from overhead flashed on the water in front of them, the gun crew was ignorant of what they were up against.
    "Jesus!  A pipsqueak schooner!" Davis fumed.  "I could sink it with a spit wad."
    Davis not only had a clear view, he had a clear shot.  She could not be more than forty yards away--and that was worrisome.  The Florida had sixteen six-inch guns mounted in broadside, twelve on the main deck and four on the upper deck.  In addition, there was a battery of twenty-two three-inch rapid-fire guns, twelve three-pounder rapid-fire guns, four one-pounders, eight machine guns, and six Colt automatic guns spread fore and aft between the six-inchers, in sponsons over the gun deck, on the superstructure and bridges, and in the fighting tops.  All of them were arranged to blow a torpedo boat to hell as quickly as possible.  If that schooner was being steered by an enemy, and if it carried torpedo launchers, the Florida was practically a dead duck already.
    The ammo hoist rattled behind them, but before they could get the shell to the gun