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Rh water 13,000 yards away, sending up huge geysers of water. The projectiles, ricochetting in great sweeping arcs, finally died down into the water some thousands of yards beyond.

Then came the mortar-battery salvo. Lifting their stubby barrels to an angle of 45 degrees they shot their 12-inch shells skyward. Several miles they rose, and just one minute after the discharge four columns of water rose about 1,000 yards from the ships.

"I knew it," said the captain of the leading troopship, an officer of the German naval reserve; "18,000 yards is the extreme range of those bateries, and a study of the chart convinced me that we could just squeeze through."

And next day, April 3d, 5,000 German infantry, together with the proper quota of engineer corps, field batteries, signal and medical corps, and the full equipment for a