Читать книгу Champions of the Fleet. Captains and men-of-war and days that helped to make the empire онлайн

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All told, the Dreadnought’s armament weighs thirty-two tons. The guns are from Master Ralphe Hogge, “the Queen’s gunstone maker, and gunfounder to the Council.” They are of Sussex iron, from Master Hogge’s own foundry at Buxted. At this moment they are waiting at the Tower, together with the Dreadnought’s supplies of iron shot and cannon balls of Kentish ragstone from Her Majesty’s quarries at Maidstone, stacked “in ye Bynns upon ye Tower Wharfe each side Traitor’s Gate.” When the Dreadnought goes into battle she will carry some two hundred officers and men all told: a hundred and thirty “maryners”—“Able men for topyard, helme and lead,” and “gromets,” or boys and “Fresh men”; with twenty gunners and fifty soldiers. To keep her at sea will cost the Queen £303. 6s. 8d. a month for sea-wages and victualling. Three weeks provisions and water is the most that the ship can stow, owing to the space wanted for the ballast, the cables for the four anchors, and the ammunition and sea stores. That is why victualling ships have to attend Her Majesty’s fleets on service outside the Narrow Seas. The “cook room,” of bricks and iron and paving stones, is in the hold over the ballast. Two more notes may be made as we return on deck and quit the ship. The captain’s cabin, opening on the gallery aft, is neatly wainscoted and garnished with green and white chintz, and with curtains of darnix hung at the latticed cabin windows. There are three boats for the Dreadnought: the “great boat,” which tows astern at all times, the cock-boat and the skiff, both of which stow inboard. John Clerk, “of Redryffe, Shipwrighte,” built the “great boat,” being paid £24, in the terms of his bill, “For the Workmanshipp and makeinge of a new Boate for her Highness’ Shipp, the Dreadnought; conteyninge xi foote Di. in lengthe; ix foote Di. in Breadthe; and iij foote ij inches in Depthe.—By agrement.”