The men's quarters were hardly less comfortable, and the whole place was organized as a self-contained garrison, with carpenters' shops and blacksmiths' sheds, and a quartermaster's stores still crowded with bombs and aerial Torpedoes-thousands of them, which the enemy had left behind in his hurry-and kitchens with great stoves and boilers, and a Red Cross establishment for first aid, and concrete bath-houses with shower-baths and cigar-racks for officers, who smoke before and after bathing.
"From Bapaume to Passchendaele, 1917"
Philip Gibbs
Either the enemy might succeed in an effort at evasion, a chance which required us to maintain a distinctly superior force of battleships in order to allow the occasional absence of one or two for coaling or repairs, besides as many lighter cruisers as could be mustered for purposes of lookout, or, by merely remaining quietly at anchor, protected from attack by the lines of Torpedoes, he might protract a situation which tended not only to wear out our ships, but also to keep them there into the hurricane season,-a risk which was not, perhaps, adequately realized by the people of the United States.
"Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles"
Alfred T. Mahan
But there were the Confederate batteries on the wharf, and a line of Torpedoes across the entrance to the bay.
"The Missourian"
Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle