The Great War Syndicate

More Books

More by this Author

The Syndicate did not particularly desire this vessel, but there was no other that could readily be made available for its purposes, and accordingly the Tallapoosa was purchased from the Government and work immediately begun upon her. Her engines and hull were put into good condition, and outside of her was built another hull, composed of heavy steel armour-plates, and strongly braced by great transverse beams running through the ship.

Still outside of this was placed an improved system of spring armour, much stronger and more effective than any which had yet been constructed. This, with the armour-plate, added nearly fifteen feet to the width of the vessel above water. All her superstructures were removed from her deck, which was covered by a curved steel roof, and under a bomb-proof canopy at the bow were placed two guns capable of carrying the largest-sized motor-bombs. The Tallapoosa, thus transformed, was called Repeller No. 11.

The immense addition to her weight would of course interfere very much with the speed of the new repeller, but this was considered of little importance, as she would depend on her own engines only in time of action. She was now believed to possess more perfect defences than any battle-ship in the world.

Early on a misty morning, Repeller No. 11, towed by four of the swiftest and most powerful crabs, and followed by two others, left a Northern port of the United States, bound for the coast of Great Britain. Her course was a very northerly one, for the reason that the Syndicate had planned work for her to do while on her way across the Atlantic.

The Syndicate had now determined, without unnecessarily losing an hour, to plainly demonstrate the power of the instantaneous motor-bomb. It had been intended to do this upon the Adamant, but as it had been found impossible to induce the captain of that vessel to evacuate his ship, the Syndicate had declined to exhibit the efficiency of their new agent of destruction upon a disabled craft crowded with human beings.

This course had been highly prejudicial to the claims of the Syndicate, for as Repeller No. 7 had made no use in the contest with the Adamant of the motor-bombs with which she was said to be supplied, it was generally believed on both sides of the Atlantic that she carried no such bombs, and the conviction that the destruction at the Canadian port had been effected by means of mines continued as strong as it had ever been. To correct these false ideas was, now the duty of Repeller No. 11.

For some time Great Britain had been steadily forwarding troops and munitions of war to Canada, without interruption from her enemy. Only once had the Syndicate's vessels appeared above the Banks of Newfoundland, and as the number of these peculiar craft must necessarily be small, it was not supposed that their line of operations would be extended very far north, and no danger from them was apprehended, provided the English vessels laid their courses well to the north.

Shortly before the sailing of Repeller No. 11, the Syndicate had received news that one of the largest transatlantic mail steamers, loaded with troops and with heavy cannon for Canadian fortifications, and accompanied by the Craglevin, one of the largest ironclads in the Royal Navy, had started across the Atlantic. The first business of the repeller and her attendant crabs concerned these two vessels.