Word: spee
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...they fought, ten and one-half hours more. Within full sight of the headland called Punta del Este, where Uruguayans gathered in crowds as if to watch a pelota match, Ajax and Achilles craftily slipped around Spee inshore of her, leaving the enemy silhouetted in the east by the reflected light of the setting sun, themselves under shore's gloom. Just before dark there were two sharp clashes, and it was evidently in one of those that Spee suffered a final disaster: A hit at the forefoot, at bow and waterline, so that as she went through...
Battle shifted from shells and smoke screens to words and laws. How long should Uruguay allow the Spee to stay? Articles 14 and 17 of The Hague Convention of 1907: A belligerent ship may remain in a neutral port only 24 hours, unless to repair damages affecting seaworthiness; under no circumstances may she repair armaments...
Uruguayan officials went aboard, found Spee's seaworthiness impaired, granted a 72-hour stay. Spee took on oxygen welding torches and steel plates and went to work. There was sad work to do, too. Sixty wounded men were treated: two went ashore to hospital. Thirty-six bodies were put into swastika-draped coffins, carried ashore, buried far from home...
...hours and to spare before the deadline, Spee weighed. Slowly she started moving for the breakwater mouth. The evening was clear-sun at the set, half moon already up, lazy little clouds. The supply ship Tacoma, with all Spee's married men aboard, picked up after...
What would she do? To try to run that Allied gantlet would be suicide. Spee had had time to make herself seaworthy, but not battleworthy. A rumor got around that Captain Langsdorff would slip her across the Plata's mouth to Buenos Aires, there perhaps to intern...