Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/238

 broadside from a battery of them would keel over any vessel that wasn't of proportionately enormous tonnage. And there is a reasonable limit, of course, to the size of all warships, even though our newer inventions have emancipated gun range beyond the mere line of human vision. It was once possible, I mean, to shoot only as far as the eye can see. But the hydroplane and the machinery of modern range-finding have pretty well overcome that. And now the naval gun that can reach the farthest is the gun that wins the fight. Do you follow me?"

"We're right behind yuh!" retorted Sadie.

"But, as I said before, charges can't be increased because guns can't be made heavier. And too much explosive in a gun makes it about as dangerous for the man behind it as for the man in front of it. Strasser apparently realized all this. So he set to work studying the character of the explosive. He decided that what was wanted was not a pound on the projectile, but a push. He wanted an explosive that would 'follow through,' like the driver of a golf player as it lifts the ball, and not like the single sharp crack of a baseball bat. That single sharp crack burns out the bore, after a certain number of