It was nearly midnight, and the battleshipArgyll, stripped to bare steel, was drifting with banked fires but a full head of steam, waiting for daybreak to discover the enemy. New things were expected in this coming action. Wireless news had told of the presence of submarines, as yet unproved in war, and before the going down of the sun a high-power telescope on board had brought to view two small moving spots in the distant sky—airships; but whether they were friends or enemies had not been determined. No hammocks were piped that night—men slept at their stations or remained awake and talked; and aft on the superstructure a group of officers off duty discussed the possibilities of future warfare, and the coming place of the battleship under the menace of the bomb-dropping dirigible balloon and the invisible submarine with its deadly torpedo. All had taken part, some with laughter and joking, others with the earnest conviction of serious thought, and the discussion finally had narrowed down to a wordy combat between the highest and the lowest of the commissioned officers, Mr. Clarkson, the executive officer, and young Mr. Felton, temporarily the torpedo lieutenant. Mr. Felton had become dogmatic in his assertions, which is excusable at sea only in the young.
"But, Mr. Felton," said the executive officer, slowly and earnestly,"have a little common sense. Can't you see that conditions must change, that the battleship, like the steamship, has almost reached the limit of size and development, while the airship and the submarine are in their infancy?"
"But there must be a center, a nucleus of the fleet. How can you preserve the line of battle without such a backbone? Where will you put the admiral?"
"Up in the air, where he can see things?"
"And be seen, too, and shot at."
"Felton, an ordinary gas bag can travel faster than the speediest water craft ever constructed. We cannot hit a destroyer at full speed. How can we hit an airship above us? Gun sights are useless at such elevations, even though guns could be pointed."
"All a matter of mathematics. Design new ones."
"And suppose a few bombs come down on deck, or down the funnels; what'll happen to the boilers?"
"Armor the deck, and do away with funnels. We will soon have internal combustion engines, anyhow."
"And for submarine attack? Armor the bottom, too? Felton, a battleship will cease to be a battleship. With that weight of armor she could only carry the guns of a cruiser without a cruiser's speed."
"But she would still hold the line of battle."
"Until she was further reduced. Then she would not be even a cruiser. Finally she would sacrifice some of
