AT FORT KELBURNE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 36, 6 November 1907, Page 8

AT FORT KELBURNE.

PETONE; NAVALS ON GUARD. Yesterday morning, while the peace-loving citizens of Wellington slept, in their, beds, and luxuriated in dreams of lotus-land, squads of naval-artillerymen trooped silently to their places behind tho big guns of the battery at Fort Kelburne, Ngahauranga, and with a callous deliberation proceeded to rudely awaken the sleepers. Out in the harbour, 4000 yards away, steamed the Janie Seddon, towing the Hong Kong targets. These targets represented the hostile cruisers of France, the Bruix and the Clanchy, which by some inexplicable strategy had sneaked into the inner, harbour, and were preparing to reduce by a devastatlrig bombardment. the Empire City and its fair envirous to ruins. Meanwhile the city slept, the Navals took posts at the guns, and the Hong Kong targets bobbed up and down in the middle distance. An ineffable air of peace lay upon the city, broken only by the rattling cans of the "morning milk," and the rumble and rattle of rubbish carts.

Bang! A shell screamed through the air, described a swift parabola, and shot through the bobbing target in the middle distance. The windows in the city rattled in their frames, and the sleepers stirred. Bang! went another, and yet another, and drowsy lips in the city moved in bitter anathema, The sleepers did not know that the Union Company's flier, the Maheno, had been fired on and chased by the enemy's cruisers when off Farewell Spit on Monday morning. Commerce raiders were prowling about the Central Pacific, and the Australian squadron had concentrated at Singapore, preparatory to intercepting the enemy's cruisers at obligatory points of passage in the Pacific. Two cruisers, the Bruix and the Clanchy, with three transports, had entered Cook Straits; detachments had been landed at Makara and Pencarrow, and yet the people of Wellington slept while two grim-looking cruisers, low-funnelled, two-masted, with double fighting tops on each mast, crept up the harbour and prepared to inflict unspeakable horrors on the city ! This is the general idea of the plan of defence underlying the annual training of the naval artillery volunteers. A scheme of defence, based on an imaginary state of war with another nation, is sketched out by the Council of Defence. The company commander is required to write an appreciation of the situation on the basis of certain facts presented to him for elucidation. To write out his scheme of defence the naval commander at the artillery camp must set out, by consulting books of reference, every detail of appearance, armament, type of armour-sheathing, speed, and points of vulnerability wth respect to the ships he is required to fight. He must know, from the type of gun and projectile he has available for attack, and the quality of the enemy's armour-plating, what his effective range will, be, and arrange his plans accordingly. The cruisers Bruix and Clanchy carry considerable top-hamper. Lyddite shells dropped on to their decks will make a devastating ruin of their decks. And so on. The whole work is extremely interesting, and is ample evidence of the, amount of detail knowledge required by artillery volunteer officers. The shooting yesterday was excellent. The range was 4000 yards, and in one instance of twelve shots fired in 51/2 minutes every one was a hit. Lieut. Ellis was batterycommander yesterday morning, and Major Hume acted as umpire. On the previous day Captain Freeman was battery, commander, and Lieut.-Colonel Campbell acted as umpire.