About a couple of miles out lay an ironclad, very low in the water,
almost, to my brother's perception, like a water-logged ship.  This
was the ram _Thunder Child_.  It was the only warship in sight, but far
away to the right over the smooth surface of the sea--for that day
there was a dead calm--lay a serpent of black smoke to mark the next
ironclads of the Channel Fleet, which hovered in an extended line,
steam up and ready for action, across the Thames estuary during the
course of the Martian conquest, vigilant and yet powerless to prevent
it.