Like an inhaled breath, the moment between quiet and fire. Time to lay your pen down on the desk. Or below deck, rub your thumb on your stinking chode. Toss your apple core overboard and watch it sink toward the dark water, shimmering slightly in the harbor lights.

No moon tonight. The battleship explodes.

In a rush of heat and metal, a hole is punched in the underbelly of the mighty ship, hard enough to rock it to port, nearly capsizing it. The bow slips under the foaming water as the sailors in droves rush for the rear of the ship, some two hundred yards from the sinking front. Arms, legs float on the water’s surface while bodies bob, face down as if asleep, alongside the sinking fragments of metal.

Fires flicker across the ship’s deck, like lit matches scattered across a table, casting the Havana docks and shops in an eerie light; it’s the underside of a cauldron.

In the wee hours, a cable reaches Washington. President McKinley is awakened; he sits up and adjusts his starched nightcap. Bleary-eyed, scowling, he fumbles for his spectacles on the bedside table.