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diff --git a/17967-h/17967-h.htm b/17967-h/17967-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a8988cc --- /dev/null +++ b/17967-h/17967-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6472 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns, by Halsey Davidson</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p {margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + text-indent: 1.25em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + .unindent {margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + img {border: 0;} + .tnote {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;} + ins {text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray;} + .right {text-align: right;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .bbox {border: solid 1px; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + hr.full { width: 100%; } + pre {font-size: 75%;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns, by Halsey +Davidson, Illustrated by R. Emmett Owen</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns</p> +<p> Sinking the German U-Boats</p> +<p>Author: Halsey Davidson</p> +<p>Release Date: March 11, 2006 [eBook #17967]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NAVY BOYS BEHIND THE BIG GUNS***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Brian Sogard, Emmy,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net/)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 258px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="258" height="400" alt="Cover" title="Cover" /> +<span class="caption">Cover</span> +</div> + + +<h1>NAVY BOYS BEHIND<br />THE BIG GUNS</h1> + +<h4>OR</h4> + +<h3>SINKING THE GERMAN U-BOATS</h3> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>HALSEY DAVIDSON</h2> + +<div class="center"><span class="smcap">Author of</span><br /> + +"<span class="smcap">Navy Boys After the Submarines," "Navy Boys +Chasing<br />a Sea Raider," Etc.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Illustrated</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +NEW YORK<br /> +GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY<br /> +PUBLISHERS<br /></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 264px;"> +<img src="images/p001.jpg" width="264" height="400" alt="The gunners were literally "stripped for action," their glistening supple bodies alert as panthers." title="The gunners were literally "stripped for action," their glistening supple bodies alert as panthers." /> +<span class="caption">The gunners were literally "stripped for action," their glistening supple bodies alert as panthers.</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class='bbox'> +<h3>BOOKS FOR BOYS</h3> +</div> +<div class='bbox'> +<h3>NAVY BOYS SERIES</h3> + +<div class='center'><span class="smcap">By Halsey Davidson</span><br /> +<br /> +12mo. Cloth. Illustrated<br /><br /></div> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Navy Boys Books"> +<tr><td align='left'>NAVY BOYS AFTER THE SUBMARINES</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or Protecting the Giant Convoy</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><br />NAVY BOYS CHASING A SEA RAIDER</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or Landing a Million Dollar Prize</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><br />NAVY BOYS BEHIND THE BIG GUNS</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or Sinking the German U-Boats</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><br />NAVY BOYS TO THE RESCUE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or Answering the Wireless Call for Help</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><br />NAVY BOYS AT THE BIG SURRENDER</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or Rounding Up the German Fleet</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><br />THE NAVY BOYS ON SPECIAL SERVICE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or Guarding the Floating Treasury</td></tr> +</table></div> + +</div> +<div class='bbox'> +<div class="center">GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY<br /> +<span class="smcap">Publishers New York</span></div> +</div> + +<div class="center"><br /><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1919, by</span><br /> +GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY</div> +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<div class="center"><i>Navy Boys Chasing a Sea Raider</i><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +PRINTED IN U.S.A. +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>NAVY BOYS BEHIND THE BIG GUNS</h2> + + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<tr><td align='right'><span class="smcap">chapter</span></td><td align='left'></td><td align='right'><span class="smcap">page</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>I</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Run to Elmvale</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Stranger</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_11'>11</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>III</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Water Wheel</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_19'>19</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IV</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. P. 888</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_27'>27</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>V</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Streak on the Water</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_38'>38</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VI</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">An Old Friend</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_44'>44</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VII</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fog Haunted</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_54'>54</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VIII</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Puzzled</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_64'>64</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IX</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Just Too Late</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_74'>74</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>X</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Ahead of the Flood</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_81'>81</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XI</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Unexpected Peril</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_90'>90</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XII</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Courage</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_100'>100</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIII</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Kennebunk Sails</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_106'>106</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIV</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">An Unexpected Target</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_115'>115</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XV</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Big Gun Speaks</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_127'>127</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVI</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">An Accident</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_135'>135</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVII</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Blown Up</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_144'>144</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVIII</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">More Trouble</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_155'>155</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIX</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Coincidence</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_162'>162</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XX</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Witch's Warning</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_173'>173</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXI</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Explanation</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_180'>180</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXII</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Race</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_190'>190</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXIII</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Under Special Orders</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_196'>196</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXIV</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tick-tock! Tick-tock!</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_204'>204</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXV</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">In the Thick of the Fight</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_211'>211</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>NAVY BOYS BEHIND THE<br />BIG GUNS</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>A RUN TO ELMVALE</h3> + + +<p>When Philip Morgan announced his approach by an unusually cheerful +strain, Al Torrance was already behind the steering wheel of his +father's car, with the engine purring smoothly.</p> + +<p>"'Lo, Whistler," Al said. "Thought you had forgotten where we planned to +go this morning. What made you so late?"</p> + +<p>"'Lo, Torry. Never hit the hay till after one. Just talking. My jaws +ache," Morgan broke off his whistling long enough to say.</p> + +<p>"Sure it isn't whistling that's made your jaws ache?" queried his chum +slyly. "Not having had much chance to pipe up while we were aboard ship, +I guess you are making up for lost time."</p> + +<p>"Talking, I tell you," returned Morgan. "Thought the girls never would +let me stop. And father, too. Mother won't own up she's reconciled to my +being in the Navy," and Whistler grinned suddenly. "But she listened to +all I told them, too. She was just as eager to hear about it as Phoebe +and Alice."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Guess you made yourself out to be some tough garby," chuckled Torrance, +using the term the seamen themselves employ to designate a sailor.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I gave 'em an earful," Whistler agreed, and puckered his lips +again.</p> + +<p>"Come on and get in," ordered Torry impatiently. "Pa's got to use the +car this afternoon. But he says we can have it to run over to Elmvale +in, if we want."</p> + +<p>"Where are Frenchy and Ikey?" Whistler broke off in his tune again to +ask.</p> + +<p>"Going to wait for us down on High Street—and Seven Knott, too."</p> + +<p>"Did Hansie say he'd go?" cried the other sailor boy. "Bet he's sore as +he can be because he's not with the <i>Colodia</i> and Lieutenant Lang."</p> + +<p>"He'd never 've taken this furlough, he says, if his mother hadn't +begged so hard. Did you ever see a garby so stuck on a gold stripe as +Seven Knott is on Lieutenant Commander Lang?" said Torry, rather +scornfully.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Mr. Lang has been a good friend to Hans Hertig. This is +his second hitch under Mr. Lang," Whistler said.</p> + +<p>"Wonder if we'll enlist a second time, too, Whistler."</p> + +<p>"Bet you!" was the succinct reply.</p> + +<p>The car started under Torry's careful guid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>ance, and they quickly +whisked around the corner into the main street of Seacove, the small +port in which the chums had been born and had lived all their lives +until they had enlisted as seamen apprentices in the Navy not many +months before.</p> + +<p>They passed the little cottage in which Mrs. Hertig, Seven Knott's +mother, lived. Beyond that was the Donahue home, where Frenchy's widowed +mother lived with his younger brothers and sisters.</p> + +<p>Then came the Rosenmeyer delicatessen shop, and there the car was pulled +down by Torry, for there was a little group outside the shop, the center +of which were three figures in blue.</p> + +<p>"Look at those happy Jacks, will you?" ejaculated Torry in feigned +disgust. "Got an audience, haven't they? And even Seven Knott must be +talking some, too. What do you know about that?"</p> + +<p>For the attitude of Seacove had changed mightily since these boys had +joined the Navy early in 1917. War had been declared between the United +States and Germany and her allies, the drafted men were being called to +the training camps, and some had already gone "over there" and were +fighting in the trenches of northern France.</p> + +<p>Philip Morgan, Alfred Torrance, Michael<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> Donahue, Ikey Rosenmeyer, and +their mates on the destroyer <i>Colodia</i> had already aided in convoying a +large number of troop ships across the Atlantic, had chased submarines +and destroyed at least one of the enemy U-boats, and had hunted for and +captured the German raider, <i>Graf von Posen</i>, which had among the other +loot in her hold the treasure of the Borgias which had been purchased +from an Italian nobleman by the four Navy boys' very good friend, Mr. +Alonzo Minnette.</p> + +<p>The four friends, Morgan, Torrance, Donahue, and Ikey Rosenmeyer, the +son of the proprietor of the village delicatessen store, had been given +a furlough since landing at Norfolk with the captured raider, of the +prize crew of which they had been members. Coming north to Seacove by +train, they had met their shipmate, Hans Hertig, known aboard the +<i>Colodia</i> as Seven Knott, who had likewise been given a furlough after +leaving the naval hospital where he had been convalescing from a wound.</p> + +<p>The <i>Colodia</i> was still at sea—or across the Atlantic—or somewhere. +The young seamen who belonged to her crew did not know where. They +awaited her return to port in order to rejoin her.</p> + +<p>They had another iron in the fire, too; but that they did not talk about +much, even among themselves. Mr. Minnette, who was their very <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>good +friend, and who worked now in a War Department office at Washington in a +lay capacity, had told them he would try his best to get them aboard a +new superdreadnaught that was just out of the yard and was being fitted +for her maiden cruise.</p> + +<p>A number of Naval Reserves would be put aboard this new huge ship; and +the Seacove boys, with their experience in the training school at +Saugarack and aboard the <i>Colodia</i>, surely would be of some use as +temporary members of the dreadnaught's crew.</p> + +<p>The boys had written Mr. Minnette about Seven Knott, for he was eager to +get back into harness, too. And Seven Knott had held the rank of +boatswain's mate aboard the <i>Colodia</i>.</p> + +<p>Naturally the friends were all eager to get behind the big guns. Almost +every boy who joins the Navy desires to become a gunner. Whistler and Al +Torrance were particularly striving for that position, and they studied +the text-books and took every opportunity offered them to gain knowledge +in that branch of the service.</p> + +<p>"Hi, fellows!" called Torry, having stopped the car. "Going to stand +there gassing all day?"</p> + +<p>The three figures in seaman's dress broke away from their admiring +friends and approached the automobile. Frenchy Donahue was a little +fellow with pink cheeks, bright eyes, and an Irish <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>smile. Ikey +Rosenmeyer was a shrewd looking lad who always had a fund of natural fun +on tap. The older man, Hans Hertig, was round-faced and solemn looking, +and seldom had much to say. He had had an adventurous experience both as +a fisherman and naval seaman, and really attracted more attention in his +home town than did the four boy chums.</p> + +<p>"Get in, fellows," urged Torry. "We want to be sure to catch those chaps +at Elmvale during the noon hour. They go home from the munition works +for dinner, and we must talk with them then."</p> + +<p>Frenchy and Ikey and Seven Knott climbed into the tonneau and the car +whizzed away, leaving the crowd of boys and girls, and a few adults, +staring after them.</p> + +<p>"By St. Patrick's piper that played the last snake out of Ireland!" +sighed Frenchy, ecstatically, "we never was of such importance since we +was christened—hey, fellows?"</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi!" murmured Ikey, wagging his head, "my papa don't even suggest I +should take out the orders to the customers no more. He does it himself, +or he hires a feller to do it for him.</p> + +<p>"Mind, now! Last night he closed the shop an hour early so's to sit down +with my mama and me and Aunt Eitel in the back room, after the kids was +all in bed, and made me tell about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>all we'd done and seen. I tell you +it's great!"</p> + +<p>"And before we began our hitch," Al Torrance chuckled, as he expertly +rounded a corner, "we were scarcely worth speaking to in Seacove. Now +folks want to stop us on the street and tell us how much they think of +us."</p> + +<p>"Gee!" exploded Frenchy, "I could eat candy and ice cream all day long +if I'd let the kids spend money on me."</p> + +<p>"We're sure some pumpkins," drawled Whistler Morgan, dryly, sitting +around in the front seat so he could talk with those in the rear. "I +say, Hans!"</p> + +<p>"Yep?" was Seven Knott's reply.</p> + +<p>"Do you really think we can get some of those fellows at Elmvale to go +to the recruiting office and enlist?"</p> + +<p>"Yep. You fellows can tell 'em. You can talk better'n I can."</p> + +<p>Seven Knott knew his shipboard duties thoroughly, and never was +reprimanded for neglect of them. But since the four chums had known him +well, the petty officer had been no conversationalist, that was sure.</p> + +<p>"If this war was going to be won by talk, like some fellows in Congress +seem to think," Al Torrance once said, "Seven Knott wouldn't have a +chance. But it is roughnecks just like him that man the boats and shoot +the guns that are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>going to show Kaiser Bill where he gets off—believe +me!"</p> + +<p>Elmvale was a factory town not more than six miles above Seacove. It was +on the river, at the mouth of which was situated the little port in +which were the homes of Whistler Morgan and his friends.</p> + +<p>The biggest dam in the State, the Elmvale Dam, held back the waters of +the river above the village; and below the dam were several big mills +and factories that got their power from the use of the water.</p> + +<p>On both sides of the stream, and around the cotton mills, the thread +mills, and the munition factories, were built many little homes of the +factory and mill hands. It had been pointed out by the local papers that +these homes were in double peril at this time.</p> + +<p>Guards were on watch night and day that ill-affected persons should not +come into the district and blow up the munition factories. But there was +a second and greater danger to the people of Elmvale.</p> + +<p>If anything should happen to the dam, if it should burst, the enormous +quantity of water held in leash by the structure would pour over the +village and cover half the houses to their chimney tops.</p> + +<p>Two bridges crossed the river at Elmvale; one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>at the village proper and +the other just below the dam itself and about half a mile from the first +mill, Barron & Brothers' Thread Factory.</p> + +<p>"Let's take the upper road," proposed Frenchy, as the car came within +sight of the chimneys of the Elmvale mills. "We've plenty of time before +the noon whistle blows. I haven't been up by the dam since before we all +joined the Navy."</p> + +<p>"Just as you fellows say," Al responded, and turned into a side road +that soon brought them above the mills on the ridge overlooking the +valley.</p> + +<p>"I say, fellows," Whistler stopped whistling long enough to observe, +"there's a slue of water behind that dam. S'pose she should let go all +of a sudden?"</p> + +<p>"I'd rather be up here than down there," Al said.</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi!" croaked Ikey, "you said something."</p> + +<p>"I wonder if they guard that dam as they say they do the munition +factories," Frenchy put in.</p> + +<p>Al turned the machine into the road that descended into the valley by a +sharp incline. In sight of the bridge which crossed the river Whistler +suddenly put his hand upon his chum's arm.</p> + +<p>"Hold on, Torry," he said earnestly. "I bet that's one of the guards +now. See that fellow in the bushes over there?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I see the man you mean!" Frenchy exclaimed, leaning over the back of +the front seat of the automobile. "But he isn't in khaki. And he hasn't +got a gun."</p> + +<p>All the Navy boys in the automobile, even Seven Knott, saw the man to +whom Whistler Morgan had first drawn attention. The man had his back to +the road. He was standing upright with a pair of field glasses to his +eyes. His interest seemed fixed on a point along the face of the dam +just where a thin slice of water ran over the flashboard into the rocky +bed of the river.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>THE STRANGER</h3> + + +<p>For the life of him Phil Morgan could not have told why he was so keenly +interested in that stranger. He could not see the man's face; he did not +presume it was anybody he had ever seen before; nor had he any reason to +be suspicious of the man.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless he felt a little thrill as he first caught sight of the +stranger, and this feeling spurred his exclamation to Torry, which lead +the others' attention to him.</p> + +<p>After they had all seen the man, Phil added: "Pull her down. Let's see +what he is up to."</p> + +<p>Torrance stopped the automobile. His chum was their acknowledged leader +in most things, and all the other Navy boys were used to obeying Phil +Morgan's mandates without much question. As told in the former books of +this series, Morgan was an observant and level-headed youth, and his +friends might have followed a much more dangerous leader in both work +and play.</p> + +<p>The four boys, at that time all under eighteen <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>years of age, had begun +their first enlistment in the Navy several months before the United +States got into the war. They spent some months in the training camp at +Saugarack, on the New England coast.</p> + +<p>The Government commissioned new craft of all kinds as rapidly as they +could be obtained, and was obliged to man some of them partly with +youths who had not yet finished their preliminary training ashore.</p> + +<p>Phil Morgan and his friends had made rapid progress in their studies and +the drills, and they were lucky enough to be assigned to the same ship. +This was the destroyer <i>Colodia</i>, one of the newest of her class, a fast +ship of a thousand tons' burden. She made two cruises, both crammed full +of excitement and adventure; and the story of these cruises is related +in the first volume of the series, entitled "Navy Boys After the +Submarines; Or, Protecting the Giant Convoy."</p> + +<p>In this first narrative of their adventures in the United States Navy, +Phil had a very thrilling experience. He fell overboard from his ship +and was picked up by the German U-boat No. 812.</p> + +<p>After the conclusion of the destroyer's second cruise the four chums +from Seacove were enabled to spend a week at home. Returning to the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>port in which they had been instructed to join the <i>Colodia</i> the +evening before she again was to sail, the four chums were held up by a +burning railroad bridge, which had been set on fire by German agents.</p> + +<p>It looked as though they would be unable to reach the <i>Colodia</i> on time. +This event would be a very serious matter, for the naval authorities +frown upon any tardiness of enlisted men in returning from shore leave. +Besides, the boys particularly desired to be aboard the <i>Colodia</i> during +her coming cruise.</p> + +<p>The second volume of the series opened with this situation. The boys +made the acquaintance of an influential man, Mr. Alonzo Minnette, who +was likewise a passenger on the stalled train. And he made it possible +for the four apprentice seamen to reach their ship in time.</p> + +<p>In this second volume entitled: "Navy Boys Chasing a Sea Raider; Or, +Landing a Million Dollar Prize," the four young members of the +<i>Colodia's</i> crew, whose adventures we are following, had many thrilling +experiences. In the end, the destroyer, by a ruse, captured the <i>Graf +von Posen</i>, a noted sea raider, and Whistler and his chums are allowed +to board her as part of the prize crew.</p> + +<p>The boys were particularly interested in the cargo of the raider, for +Mr. Minnette had prom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>ised them a thousand dollars to divide among them +if they discovered aboard the raider the treasure of the Borgias, a +collection of precious stones, that the captain of the <i>Graf von Posen</i> +had taken from an Italian merchant ship which had been captured and sunk +by the Germans.</p> + +<p>Naturally the Navy boys were interested in having others join the Navy; +and Hans Hertig, whom they found at home visiting his mother, was +particularly anxious to get some young men, who were working in Elmvale +and who came of German stock like himself, to enlist and show their +patriotism and love for the country of their birth.</p> + +<p>"Say! what do you suppose is the matter with that chap?" Frenchy +demanded at last in his rather high, penetrating voice.</p> + +<p>Instantly the man in the bushes turned and saw the automobile. Like a +flash he settled down in his tracks and disappeared. One moment he was a +plain figure standing out against the background of the dam; the next he +was not there at all!</p> + +<p>"By St. Patrick's piper that played the last snake out of Ireland!" +gasped Frenchy, "he ain't there no more."</p> + +<p>"You poor fish!" ejaculated Al in disgust, "you scared him off with your +squealing. Who do you suppose he was?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And what is he doing over there?" added Ikey Rosenmeyer.</p> + +<p>"Funny thing," observed Whistler. "Must be something important up on +that dam he was looking at through his glasses."</p> + +<p>"Might as well drive on," growled Al, punching the starter button again. +"This Frenchman from Cork would spoil anything."</p> + +<p>"Aw—g'wan!" muttered the abashed Michael Donahue.</p> + +<p>"Well, that chap was no guard, that is sure," Whistler said.</p> + +<p>They drove slowly on across the bridge. All of them searched the base of +the dam—or as much of it as could be seen, for the fringe of trees and +shrubs that masked it—but not a moving figure did they see. The water +poured over the flashboard with a splashing murmur at that distance, and +ran down under the bridge in a rocky bed. It was clear and cool looking. +Below the factories the river water was of an entirely different color, +and people in Seacove had begun to object to the filth from the Elmvale +mills being dumped into the cove.</p> + +<p>Al Torrance stopped the car at the side gate of the biggest munition +works just as the noon whistle blew. Seven Knott got out and began to +look about for his friends to whom he had tried to talk enlistment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<p>He soon spied two of them, and beckoned them near. Others followed. +Whistler and his chums were introduced by the boatswain's mate, who left +the talking to the youths after he had introduced his friends.</p> + +<p>In five minutes there was a very earnest enlistment meeting going on at +the gate of the munition factory. Perhaps no harder place to gain +recruits could have been selected. In the first instance, all the boys +working here were earning big money. And there was, too, some excitement +in the work. As one of them said:</p> + +<p>"You Jackies haven't anything on us. We don't know but any moment we may +be blown sky-high."</p> + +<p>"True for you," put in Frenchy smartly. "But you don't get any fun out +of your danger. We do. And we get promotion and steadily increased pay +and a chance to get up in the world."</p> + +<p>"Sure!" broke in Al. "Some day we're all going to win gold stripes; +aren't we, fellows?"</p> + +<p>His chums declared he was right. But one listener said doubtfully:</p> + +<p>"You won't ever win commissions if you get sunk or blown up, on one of +those blamed old iron pots."</p> + +<p>"Say!" put in Ikey Rosenmeyer hotly, "you fellows won't get no advance +in rating at all, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>you may get blown up any time. We've got +something to work for, we have!"</p> + +<p>"We've got money to work for," declared one of the munition workers.</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi!" sneered Ikey. "What's money yet?" A sneer which vastly amused +his chums, for Ikey's inborn love for the root of all evil was well +known.</p> + +<p>As the group stood talking, along came a man, walking briskly from the +direction the Seacove boys had come in their automobile. Two or three of +the munition workers spoke to the man, who was broad-shouldered, walked +with a brisk military step, and was heavily bewhiskered.</p> + +<p>Whistler stopped talking to a possible candidate for the blue uniform of +the Navy, and looked after this stranger.</p> + +<p>"Who is he?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"That's Blake. Works in our laboratory. Nice fellow," was the reply.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I didn't know but he was one of the men guarding the dam," Whistler +murmured.</p> + +<p>"Shucks! there aren't any guards up there. There are soldiers here at +the factories, though."</p> + +<p>"Is that so?" questioned Whistler. "Where's he been, do you suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Who? Blake?"</p> + +<p>"That man," said young Morgan grimly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, he's a bug on natural history, or the like.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> Always tapping rocks +with a hammer, or hunting specimens, or botanizing. Great chap. Hasn't +been here in Elmvale long. But everybody likes him."</p> + +<p>Phil made no further comment aloud, but to himself he said:</p> + +<p>"He wasn't botanizing through that field-glass; or knocking specimens +off of rocks. His interest was centered on the face of the dam. I wonder +why?"</p> + +<p>For the military looking man, called Blake, was the individual he and +his friends had seen in the bushes as they drove along the Upper Road, +and who had seemed desirous of being unobserved by the passers-by.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>THE WATER WHEEL</h3> + + +<p>Phil Morgan was no more suspicious by nature than his chums. Merely a +thought had come into his mind that had not come into theirs; and he +disliked to be annoyed by anything in the nature of an unsolved problem. +He always wanted to know why.</p> + +<p>In this particular case he wished to know why the man called Blake had +tried to hide himself in the clump of bushes beside the Upper Road when +the automobile load of boys had come along and caught him examining the +face of the Elmvale Dam through a field-glass.</p> + +<p>It was through a break in the trees that partly masked the dam the man +had been looking, and Whistler knew that the spot in which he was +interested must be directly beside the overflow of the dam—where the +water splashed down into the rocky river bed.</p> + +<p>Whistler did not lose interest in the attempt to inspire some of the +factory workers to enlist in the Navy, and he worked just as hard as his +mates all through the noon hour. But the puzzle <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>connected with the man +named Blake continued to peck at his mind like an insistent chick trying +to get out of its shell.</p> + +<p>Hans Hertig's desire to get some of his old friends to enlist bore some +fruit. Three men promised to go down to the enlistment bureau on +Saturday afternoon, when they had a half holiday.</p> + +<p>The Seacove party then wanted to go to a dining-room for dinner; but +Whistler excused himself. He was hungry enough; but he "had other fish +to fry," he whispered to Torrance.</p> + +<p>"Come around by the Upper Road—same way we got here," directed +Whistler. "I'll meet you at the bridge. Wait if I'm not there."</p> + +<p>"What is the matter with you, Whistler?" demanded Al.</p> + +<p>But although Morgan went away without making answer, he knew that his +chum would do as he was asked, and bluff off the others when they asked +questions, too.</p> + +<p>Philip Morgan hurried past the factories and the few houses which lay in +this direction. The land near the dam which had been built across the +valley was so sterile that few people lived in this neighborhood.</p> + +<p>Up on the ridges, on either side, were farms; but this was a wild piece +of scrub at the foot of the dam. One could jump a rabbit in it, or get +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>up a flock of quail at almost any time during the hunting season.</p> + +<p>Like most boys of Seacove, as well as Elmvale, Whistler was familiar +with this stretch of untamed ground and plunged into it with full +knowledge of its tangled brier patches and rough quarries. He started +diagonally for the dam, and in a brief time came to the edge of the +shallow channel, which now carried the overflow of the huge reservoir +behind the dam down to the cove.</p> + +<p>As he followed this stream, he could not help thinking of the +possibility of a break occurring in the high wall of masonry which +loomed ahead of him. If there should be any undiscovered weakness in the +wall! Or if an enemy should sink a charge of dynamite, or some other +high explosive, at the base of the dam and blow a hole through it!</p> + +<p>He did not see any one moving about the dam either above or below. He +knew that on the ridge, level with the top of the barrier, lived a man +they called the dam superintendent. He sometimes walked across the +embankment, from end to end; a privilege forbidden to others.</p> + +<p>But Whistler was quite sure that this dam superintendent seldom went to +the foot of the wall, or examined the face of it for any break in the +stonework. Of course, the dam had stood <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>secure for so many years that +it seemed improbable that it would fail in any part now.</p> + +<p>But Whistler Morgan was not considering any leakage of the water through +the masonry which might endanger the foundation of the dam. Such seepage +must have shown itself long ago if the barrier had not been properly +constructed.</p> + +<p>It was of a sudden, unexpected, and treacherous blow-out that the young +sailor was thinking. That man in the bushes, who had seemed so desirous +of hiding from the passers-by and whose interest in the face of the dam +had been so marked, puzzled Phil and excited his suspicions.</p> + +<p>Blake. And Blake was an English name! He looked about as much like an +Englishman as he, Whistler, looked like Dinkelspiel!</p> + +<p>"I have seen plenty of Britishers," thought the young fellow, "and not +one of them ever looked like this chemist, or whatever he is. And he's a +stranger—worked here only a month.</p> + +<p>"He was not tapping rocks or getting botanical specimens over here when +we fellows came along the Upper Road. His interest was in this dam—if +it was at long distance. I wonder if we ought to report him to the +marshal's office.</p> + +<p>"And get him, if he's innocent of any wrongdoing, into hot water," +Whistler added, wagging his head. "Say! that won't do. We fellows came +near getting poor Seven Knott into trouble, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>thinking him a German spy," +he added, referring to an incident mentioned in "Navy Boys After the +Submarines."</p> + +<p>Thus meditating he drew nearer to the place where the flashboard was +down and the water poured into the rocky river bed. There were stepping +stones here, so it was easy for an agile person to get across the +stream.</p> + +<p>A blue haze of spray rose from the foaming water on the rocks, and there +sounded a pleasant murmur from the falling water. Birds darted in and +out of this spray, fluttering their pinions in the bath thus provided.</p> + +<p>On this side of the waterfall Whistler could discover nothing on the +face of the dam nor along its foot that seemed in the least suspicious. +The masonry was perfect.</p> + +<p>He crossed the river bed, leaping from stone to stone, and stepped up so +close to the falling water that the spray splashed him. It was somewhere +about here, he thought, that the man, Blake, had focused his field-glass +from the roadside.</p> + +<p>There was absolutely nothing out of the way here that he could see. The +brush was kept cleared out at the foot of the dam for a dozen feet or +so; there seemed to be no cover here. Not a stone had been overturned +along this cleared path.</p> + +<p>The water splashed and bubbled at the foot of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>the fall. Did it seem to +splash more vigorously just here at the edge of the pool, hidden by the +spray in part, and partly by the overhang of a great rock on which +Whistler stood?</p> + +<p>The observant youth stooped, then knelt beside the stream. The rock was +wet and his garments were fast becoming saturated. But he paid no +attention to this.</p> + +<p>There was something down there in the pool, at its edge, struggling +beneath the surface. Not a fish, of course!</p> + +<p>Suddenly he thrust in his hand, wetting his sleeve to the elbow. Quickly +he made sure that his suspicion was correct. There was some kind of +water wheel whirling down there.</p> + +<p>He moved a flat stone which seemed to have lain for ages in its present +position. Yet under that stone was the end of the wheel's axle with +cogwheels rigged to pass on the power engendered by the wheel to some +mechanical contrivance not yet placed.</p> + +<p>Whistler returned the flat rock back to its former position, and moved +slowly back from the place on hands and knees. Then he stood up and +looked all around to see if he had been observed. Particularly did he +look through the break in the trees toward the spot where Blake, the +stranger, had stood when Whistler and his friends had first spied him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was nobody in sight as far as the young fellow could see. He moved +back into the shelter of a clump of brush. He heard an automobile +chugging up from the village and believed Al and the others were +approaching the bridge where he had asked his chum to wait for him.</p> + +<p>But he lingered a bit. He was deeply moved by his discovery. This was no +boy's plaything. The mechanism was the effort of a mature mind, perhaps +the result of inventive genius of high quality.</p> + +<p>Some inventor might be secretly experimenting with water power here; and +if Whistler told of his discovery he might be doing the unknown a grave +wrong.</p> + +<p>Yet Blake's peculiar actions and the fact that the foot of the dam had +been chosen for the experiment troubled the young fellow vastly.</p> + +<p>There was nothing along the wall, as far as he could see, or upon its +face, that excited Whistler's further suspicion. Just that little water +wheel under the rock whirling and splashing by the power of the falling +stream. It was perfectly innocent in itself; yet Philip Morgan had never +been more excited and troubled in his life.</p> + +<p>He went slowly back to the road and found the car waiting on the bridge. +The other boys were loud in their demands as to what he had been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>doing, +and Frenchy and Ikey did their best to pump information out of him.</p> + +<p>"What for did you go up there to the dam yet?" demanded Ikey.</p> + +<p>"Cat's fur, to make kittens' breeches," declared Whistler. "Because I +couldn't get any dog fur. Now do you know?"</p> + +<p>And this was all the satisfaction there was to be got out of their +leader at this particular time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">s. p.</span> 888</h3> + + +<p>The result of the boys' campaign for recruits to the Navy was very +encouraging. They had been to places besides Elmvale; and several of +their old friends in Seacove were getting into one branch or another of +the service.</p> + +<p>Many of the young men in the neighborhood, of course, were of draft age; +but, being longshore bred, they naturally preferred salt water service. +So they enlisted before the time came for them to answer the call of +their several draft boards.</p> + +<p>The interest of our four friends, and of Seven Knott even, was not +entirely centered in this patriotic duty of urging others into the +service. Their release from duty might end any day. Under ordinary +circumstances the chum would have been assigned before this to some +patrol vessel, or the like, until their own ship, the <i>Colodia</i>, made +port.</p> + +<p>Mr. Minnette, however, was trying to place them on the <i>Kennebunk</i>, the +new superdreadnaught, for a short cruise. If he succeeded the friends +might be obliged to pack their kits and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>leave home again at almost any +hour. The <i>Kennebunk</i> was fitting out in a port not fifty miles from +Seacove.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the chums were "having the time of their young sweet lives," +Al Torrance observed more than once. The home folks had never before +considered these rather harum-scarum boys of so much importance as now +that they were in the Navy and becoming real "Old Salts." From Doctor +Morgan down to Ikey's youngest brother the relatives and friends of the +quartette treated them with much consideration.</p> + +<p>To tell the truth it had not been patriotism that had carried Ikey +Rosenmeyer and his friends into the Navy. At that time the United States +was not in the war, and the four friends had thought little of the pros +and cons of the world struggle.</p> + +<p>They thought they had had enough school, and there was no steady and +congenial work for them about Seacove. Entering the Navy had been a lark +in the offing.</p> + +<p>As soon as they had joined, they found that they had entered another +school, and one much more severe and thorough than the Seacove High +School. They were learning something pretty nearly all the time, both in +the training school and aboard the <i>Colodia</i>. And there was much to +learn.</p> + +<p>However, Whistler and Al took the work more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>seriously than their +younger mates. They were studying gunnery, and hoped to get into the gun +crew of the <i>Kennebunk</i> for practice if they were fortunate enough to +cruise on that ship. Just at present Frenchy and Ikey Rosenmeyer were +more engaged in getting all the fun possible out of existence.</p> + +<p>The thing that delighted the latter most was the way in which his father +treated him. Mr. Rosenmeyer had been a stern parent, and had opposed +Ikey's desire to enlist in the Navy. He always declared he needed the +boy to help in the store and to take out orders. Ikey had got so that he +fairly hated the store and its stock in trade. Pigs feet and sauerkraut +and dill pickles were the bane of his life.</p> + +<p>Now that he was at home on leave, Mr. Rosenmeyer would not let Ikey help +at all in the store. If a customer came in, the fat little storekeeper +heaved himself up from his armchair and bade Ikey sit still.</p> + +<p>"Nein! It iss not for you, Ikey. Don't bodder 'bout the store yet. We +haf changed de stock around, anyvay, undt you could not find it, +p'r'aps, vot de lady vants. Tell us again, Ikey, apout shootin' de +camouflage off de German raider-poat, de <i>Graf von Posen</i>. Mebby-so de +lady ain't heardt apout it yet. I didn't see it in de paper +meinselluf."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> + +<p>So Ikey, thus urged, spun the most wonderful yarns regarding his +adventures; and he was not obliged to "draw the long bow"; for the +experiences of him and his three friends had been exciting indeed.</p> + +<p>Mr. Rosenmeyer had become as thoroughly patriotic as he once had been +pro-German. It was a great cross to him now that he could not learn to +speak English properly. But German names he abhorred and German signs he +would no longer allow in the store. He even put a newly-printed sign +over the sauerkraut barrel which read: "Liberty Cabbage."</p> + +<p>Into the store on a misty morning rolled Frenchy Donahue in his most +pronounced Old Salt fashion. Frenchy had acquired such a sailorish roll +to his walk, that Al Torrance hinted more than once that the Irish lad +could not get to sleep at night now that he was ashore until his mother +went out and threw several buckets of water against his bedroom window.</p> + +<p>"Hey, Ikey! what you think?" called Frenchy. "Channel bass are running. +Whistler and Torry are going out in the <i>Sue Bridger</i>. What d'you know +about that? Bridger's let 'em have his cat for the day. Never was known +to do such a thing before," and Frenchy chuckled. "Oh, boy! aren't we +having things soft just now? Want to go fishing, Ikey?" Ikey favored his +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>friend with a sly wink, but only said crisply:</p> + +<p>"I don't know about it. I was going to wash the store windows. Where are +Whistler and Torry going?"</p> + +<p>"As far as Blue Reef. They say the bass are schoolin' out there."</p> + +<p>"They'd better be on the lookout for subs, as far out as the Reef," Ikey +said solemnly. "I don't believe they've got this coast half patrolled. +We don't often see one of those chasers in the cove here."</p> + +<p>"Mebbe we'll catch a submarine instead of bass," remarked Frenchy.</p> + +<p>"You petter go along mit your friends in dot catboat, Ikey," said Mr. +Rosenmeyer, who was listening with both ears and his eyes wide open. "If +there iss one of them German submarines in dese waters idt shouldt be +known yet. Ain't that right?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. We'd have to report it, Papa, to the naval authorities," admitted +Ikey seriously.</p> + +<p>"Vell, you go right along den," urged his father. "Nefer mindt yet de +winders. I can get a winder washer easy."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you don't mind, Papa," said Ikey, with commendable hesitancy.</p> + +<p>"Come along, Ikey," urged Frenchy under his breath. "And be sure you +bring along your submarine tackle—I mean your bass rod," and he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>rolled +out of the store, chuckling to himself.</p> + +<p>"Undt take a lunch, Ikey!" cried Mr. Rosenmeyer after his son. "Ham, +undt bologna, undt cheese, undt there's some fine dill pickles——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my!" groaned his son. "No dill pickles."</p> + +<p>He joined Frenchy in a few minutes with a basket crammed with things to +eat, as well as his fishing tackle. It was not far to Bridger's float, +off which the twenty-four-foot catboat, <i>Sue Bridger</i>, was moored.</p> + +<p>Ikey remarked: "Sometimes I almost faint when I see the change in papa. +He never wanted me to have a bit of fun before. He didn't have no fun +when he was a boy. He always worked. That is the German way, he says.</p> + +<p>"But he don't have any use for <i>any</i>thing German now—not even the way +they bring up children."</p> + +<p>"Ain't it a fact?" chuckled Frenchy. "Me mother makes the kids git up +and give me the best chair when I come into the sitting room.</p> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Git up"> +<tr><td align='left'>'Git up out o' that,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Ye impident brat!</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;">An' let Mr. M'Ginnis sit down.'</span></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>That's the way she treats me. Me head's gettin' that swelled I couldn't +draw a watch cap down over me ears."</p> + +<p>The exhaust of the auxiliary engine of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>catboat was spitting when +Frenchy hailed their mates. Whistler was loosening the points of the big +sail while Torry worked at the engine.</p> + +<p>"How'll we get over there?" demanded Ikey. "There's no boat here."</p> + +<p>Whistler Morgan, barefooted and with his sleeves rolled up, came aft and +tossed Ikey the end of a coil of line.</p> + +<p>"Draw her in to the float. I'll pay out the mooring cable. What have you +in that basket?"</p> + +<p>"A litter of pups a neighbor wants him to drown," answered Frenchy +solemnly. "You fellows brought lunch enough for all, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Couldn't get any at my house," Al confessed. "The girl's on a strike."</p> + +<p>There was no mother at the Torrance house, and sometimes the +housekeeping there was "at sixes and sevens."</p> + +<p>"I was going to get some crackers and sardines," confessed Whistler. "I +had no idea we could get this boat when I left the house. But I can run +up and get Alice to put us up a snack."</p> + +<p>Frenchy was carrying Ikey's basket very carefully—indeed, lovingly. He +allowed his mate to catch the line and draw the <i>Sue Bridger</i> in to the +float alone.</p> + +<p>They stepped aboard, and Al made a grab for the basket handle with his +greasy hands. "Let's see the pups," he demanded suspiciously.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Have a care! Have a care!" cried Whistler as the two struggled for +possession of the basket. "What is in it, Ikey?"</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi! Oi, oi!" moaned Ikey. "They will the basket haf overboard yet! +Stop it! Stop it!"</p> + +<p>It was Whistler who rescued the lunch basket with a firm hand. In the +struggle Frenchy came near going overboard, but he fell into the bilge +in the bottom of the boat instead.</p> + +<p>"Wow!" he yelled. "Me clean pants! This old tub is leaking like a sieve, +Whistler!"</p> + +<p>Whistler and Al were peeping into the basket. Their delight was +acclaimed at once.</p> + +<p>"Good boy, Ikey!" declared Torry, smacking his lips. "You must have +robbed the whole delicatessen shop."</p> + +<p>"You don't know my papa," declared Ikey with pride. "He would like to +feed the whole American Navy—that's the way he feels about it."</p> + +<p>"He's all right," agreed Torry. "Come on, now, fellows, let's stir +around. The best of the day will be gone soon. Don't worry about your +wet pants, Frenchy. Get up and pump out the bilge. She hasn't been used +for a fortnight, and of course some moisture has gathered."</p> + +<p>"'Moisture?' Good-night!" growled the Irish lad, setting to work as he +was told with the tin pump. "I bet I have to sit and do this all day +while you fellows fish."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<p>The engine was only for an emergency. Captain Bridger had told them +that. Gasoline was expensive. So Whistler and Ikey got up the sail, it +filled, and they cast off the moorings. The catboat began to edge her +way out into the cove. There was no rain falling; but fog wreaths rolled +in from the sea.</p> + +<p>"Get your scare!" shouted Whistler as he ran back to take the tiller. +"Toot away once in a while. We don't want to stub our toe against some +other craft, and that before we get out of the cove."</p> + +<p>"A submarine, for instance?" chuckled Frenchy, soon becoming pacified. +"Ikey's father thinks maybe he might bag one while we're out here."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to get a close-up view of one of those submarine chasers," +remarked Torry, finding the horn in the forward locker. He tooted it +raucously, and then continued: "They say some of 'em can go like the +wind."</p> + +<p>"Go right through a tub like this, if once we got in the way," commented +Whistler. "Mind you! faster than the <i>Colodia</i>—and that's some speed."</p> + +<p>"Wow!" cried Frenchy. "Don't believe anything on water ever does go +faster than a torpedo boat destroyer."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, there are faster boats. How about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>a hydro?" Phil said, when +Ikey broke in with an inquiry:</p> + +<p>"Say! lemme ask you: Why do they call the <i>Colodia</i> and her sister ships +'torpedo boat destroyers'? We don't see many torpedo boats anyway. They +are all old stuff."</p> + +<p>"That's right," Torry said. "What is the why-for? All naval craft are +supposed to be destroyers anyway—I mean service craft."</p> + +<p>Morgan was the oracle on this occasion.</p> + +<p>"Ikey is right. I've read that torpedo boats antedate the Spanish War. +Their exclusive business was to run up close to an enemy battleship and +deliver against it an automobile torpedo. These boats were great stuff +in the beginning.</p> + +<p>"Then they invented a craft as an antidote for the torpedo boat—the +torpedo boat destroyer. Our Admiral Sims called this new vessel 'a tin +box built around a mighty big engine.'"</p> + +<p>"Wow! And he is right," cried Frenchy Donahue. "That's just what our +<i>Colodia</i> is."</p> + +<p>"And these subchasers are still faster," Torry observed. "They tell me +they can make thirty-five, and better, an hour."</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi!" cried Ikey Rosenmeyer at this juncture. "Speak of the Old +Harry and hear his wings, yet! What's that off yonder?"</p> + +<p>The <i>Sue Bridger</i> was now skimming out of the cove, and the fog was +lifting. They got a sight <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>of a patch of open sea across which a low, +gray vessel was shooting like a shark after its prey.</p> + +<p>"What a beaut!" shouted Torry.</p> + +<p>"That's one of the new chasers all right," Whistler agreed. "Their base +is at New London where the submarine base is."</p> + +<p>At that moment the sun broke through the murk overhead. Its rays shone +brilliantly upon the patch of blue sea on which the submarine patrol +boat steamed at such a rapid pace.</p> + +<p>The sunbeams pricked out the letters and figures painted so big upon the +side of the craft and the Navy boys repeated in chorus:</p> + +<p>"S. P., Eighty-eighty-eight."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>THE STREAK ON THE WATER</h3> + + +<p>The Navy boys arrived at the patch of shallow water over the Blue Reef +at about noon. By that time the fog was pretty well dissipated, and they +had a clear view of miles and miles of sea as well as of the coastline +behind them and the narrow entrance to the cove.</p> + +<p>The submarine chaser was out of sight. No other craft appeared upon the +open sea beyond the <i>Sue Bridger's</i> present anchorage. The boys threw +out a little chum, and then dropped their hooks.</p> + +<p>"First nibble!" whispered Torry. "Now watch me play him."</p> + +<p>But the first few "nibbles" proved to be merely "hook-cleaners." The +fish got the bait, and the boys had the exercise of swishing their lines +in and out of the water.</p> + +<p>Channel bass run to large sizes. Torry told about seeing one hung up on +the dock at Seacove weighing sixty-four and a quarter pounds.</p> + +<p>"That's all right," grumbled Frenchy, who had just lost a nibbler, "but +a two-pound one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>will satisfy me. What would we do with a +sixty-four-pound bass?"</p> + +<p>"Keep it alive and teach it to draw a little red wagon," chuckled Ikey. +"Oi, oi! That would be fine!"</p> + +<p>"It would be as big as Dugan's goat. Don't know why it shouldn't be +tackled up and made use of," Whistler agreed, dryly.</p> + +<p>"Only they lack feet—Gee-whillikins! what's this?" burst forth Torry.</p> + +<p>He certainly had a bite at last. His reel hummed and the fish started +for the coast of Spain; or, at least, in that general direction.</p> + +<p>He had to play the fish well to save his line, for the latter was +neither a very heavy one, nor new. The bass ran stubbornly out to sea.</p> + +<p>"That's a whale, Torry," Whistler declared, breaking off in a military +tune to make the observation. "You should have harpooned it."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to get him aboard here if I swamp the boat!" declared Torry +with vigor.</p> + +<p>The boys were so interested in his playing the fish for the next ten +minutes that they did not cast a glance shoreward. Finally the bass was +tired out, and Torry drew him in close to the boat. Whistler leaned over +the side and, with a maul, tapped the bass on the head.</p> + +<p>But when he got his hand in the gills of the fish they clamped down upon +his fingers, and, in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>the struggle, he was almost hauled out of the +boat.</p> + +<p>"Hey! Help!" he bawled. "What are you fellows? Just passengers?"</p> + +<p>Frenchy gave him a hand on one side and Ikey on the other; between them +the trio hauled a ten-pound bass over the gunwale. Torry was dancing +around in glee and shouting at the top of his voice.</p> + +<p>"Hush!" commanded Whistler. "You'll scare even the sharks and dogfish +away."</p> + +<p>"Or you'll dance through the rotten old bottom boards of the boat and +we'll have to walk ashore," added Frenchy.</p> + +<p>But it was a great catch, and the others could feel nothing but envy of +Torry's success. He had set a pace that none of them could equal; for +after that there did not seem to be another bass of even two pounds' +weight in the whole ocean.</p> + +<p>"Hey, fellows!" ejaculated Ikey suddenly. "Who's this coming?"</p> + +<p>"Somebody walking on the water, is it?" chuckled Frenchy.</p> + +<p>"Aw, you needn't be correcting my English," responded Ikey. "There are +no medals on you for being a purist."</p> + +<p>"Wow, wow!" yelled Torry. "Listen to him sling language."</p> + +<p>"Hold on, fellows," Whistler said, diving for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>the glass he never went +to sea without. "That's no smack."</p> + +<p>They all had turned to look at the approaching craft which Ikey had +first sighted. It was a power boat and was running parallel with the +coast in a southeasterly direction and inshore of the anchorage of the +<i>Sue Bridger</i>.</p> + +<p>She was about forty feet long and was showing some speed; but her hull +looked battered, and there was nothing natty or yacht-like about her.</p> + +<p>"No pleasure craft, that," ventured Torry, as Phil trained his glasses +on her. "She's too slouchy."</p> + +<p>"She's got speed, just the same," observed Frenchy. "What's her name, +Phil?"</p> + +<p>"Can't make it out," returned Morgan. Then immediately he uttered a +surprised ejaculation.</p> + +<p>"What's up?" Torry asked him.</p> + +<p>Whistler said nothing but he drew his chum up beside him and thrust the +glass into his hand. "Look at that fellow," he commanded.</p> + +<p>"Which fellow?" asked Torry trying to focus the glass on the strange +craft.</p> + +<p>"The man forward. He's looking this way. See! The man with the +whiskers," whispered Morgan.</p> + +<p>"I see him," returned Torry.</p> + +<p>The other boys were giving more attention to their fishing again. +Whistler was very much <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>in earnest, and he spoke softly in his chum's +ear:</p> + +<p>"You've seen him before. It's the man we saw in the bushes up there by +the Elmvale Dam the other day. Remember, Al?"</p> + +<p>"Gee! Yes!" breathed Torry.</p> + +<p>"They told me his name was Blake. He doesn't look it," said Whistler +earnestly. "He looks more like a German than Hansie Hertig—and that's +enough!"</p> + +<p>"Aw——"</p> + +<p>"Of course, he can't help that," agreed Whistler before Torrance could +voice objection. "But he is a stranger in Elmvale. He works at the +munition factory. You'd think of course they'd be careful who they +employ. But he wouldn't be the first alien that has been employed in +such a factory."</p> + +<p>"What are you driving at, Phil?" demanded his chum, much puzzled now.</p> + +<p>"I found something up there near the dam that I didn't tell you fellows +about. And it is something that I think that man's interested in. Now, +what's he out here for?"</p> + +<p>"For a sail."</p> + +<p>"In that old tub that is full of oil casks and the like?"</p> + +<p>"Whistler Morgan!" breathed Torry in amazement, "how do you know at this +distance what kind of cargo that boat has?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why, she fairly reeks of oil!" said Whistler confidently. "See that +streak along the water in her wake—that purplish, reddish streak?"</p> + +<p>"I see it!" admitted Torry in a moment.</p> + +<p>"Nothing but oil would do that. She's got leaky casks aboard. And where +would an oil lighter be going out this way? Where is she coming from and +where is she going? And what is that bewhiskered Blake doing aboard her? +Tell me that, will you?"</p> + +<p>But the wondering and excited Torrance could not answer these +questions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>AN OLD FRIEND</h3> + + +<p>Fishing rather palled upon both Whistler and Trry after sighting the +other boat. The younger boys had not paid much attention to the passing +of the craft which Whistler was confident was an oil lighter of some +kind.</p> + +<p>"You're so plaguy suspicious, Whistler," muttered Al Torrance, as they +heaved up the anchor and the younger boys hoisted the big sail.</p> + +<p>"For all you know, that Blake may be as harmless as a baby."</p> + +<p>"Sure," agreed Morgan. "But what's he doing out in that boat, and what +is the boat itself doing out here? She's headed off shore—and you saw +she was loaded. The water almost lapped over her rail."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"She surely isn't headed for the other side of the Atlantic," Whistler +declared. "Yet she's aiming straight out to sea right now. She isn't +following the coast any longer."</p> + +<p>It was a fact. Although the strange power launch was now at a great +distance, it was plain <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>she was leaving the land behind her. There was +no land in that direction save the European coast.</p> + +<p>"You believe she's a supply ship for German subs?" asked Torry.</p> + +<p>"Or taking out gasoline or oil to put aboard some Swedish or Norwegian +ship that expects to give the cargo to the Germans at some rendezvous in +the North Sea. That isn't impossible, Torry."</p> + +<p>"Just the same I fancy you are hunting a mare's nest," his chum +declared.</p> + +<p>Torry—nor the other Navy boys—was not apt to call in question +Whistler's judgment. But on this occasion it seemed to him as though +Morgan was shooting wild.</p> + +<p>Frenchy Donahue and Ikey Rosenmeyer had caught several fish and were +satisfied; but soon they began to notice that their companions had +something on their minds besides the catch of channel bass.</p> + +<p>"What's bitin' you fellows?" demanded Frenchy. "Had a spat?"</p> + +<p>"I bet they've had a lover's quarrel," grinned Ikey. "Ain't you going to +speak to us, ever again, Torry?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my eye!" growled Torry.</p> + +<p>But he and Whistler really had very little to say while the boat was +running back into the cove. The wind was not so favorable, so it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>took a +much longer time for the trip than it had to come out to the fishing +grounds.</p> + +<p>"But if we use a drop of his gas, old Cap Bridger will know it," +grumbled Frenchy. "Maybe we'll have to row her in."</p> + +<p>A little flicker of breeze helped after a while, however; but it was +just then, too, and after they had rounded one of the crab-claw capes +that defended the cove from the ocean, that Ikey sang out:</p> + +<p>"What's this coming? Oi, oi! D'you see it, Whistler? It's a streak of +light!"</p> + +<p>The other boys turned to look seaward. Rushing in from that watery world +was a gray shape—narrow, low-decked, with slight upperworks and a +single stack.</p> + +<p>"A chaser!" cried Torry, finding his voice and growing excited.</p> + +<p>"She's aiming right this way," added Frenchy excitedly.</p> + +<p>Phil Morgan had his glass out again, and his lips unpuckered and the +tune he had been monotoning died.</p> + +<p>"What do you make of her, Phil?" whispered Al Torrance.</p> + +<p>"It is a sub patrol boat all right," agreed their leader.</p> + +<p>Ikey, who had the tiller at this juncture, got so excited watching the +swiftly approaching craft <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>that he pretty nearly swung the <i>Sue Bridger</i> +in a circle.</p> + +<p>"Look out, you chump!" yelled Torry. "Want to yank the stick out of her? +If you haven't a care Captain Bridger will get the price of a new +catboat out of us."</p> + +<p>Whistler gave Torrance the glass and went aft himself to relieve Ikey at +the helm.</p> + +<p>"You're a fine garby," called Donahue to Rosenmeyer. "Lose your head +mighty easy. That chaser isn't chasing us."</p> + +<p>"How do you know she isn't?" returned Ikey.</p> + +<p>"She certainly is following us," Whistler said. "But until she bespeaks +our attention with her forward gun I guess we need not worry," and he +smiled grimly.</p> + +<p>The boys watched the <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'swifty'">swiftly</ins> approaching boat. It came in through the +narrows at top speed, circled around toward the docks, and passed the +catboat at a distance.</p> + +<p>"'S. P. 888'!" yelled Torry. "Look there!"</p> + +<p>"I thought it was that same chaser we saw before," Frenchy said.</p> + +<p>"Wonder what she wants in here at Seacove?" Ikey asked.</p> + +<p>Whistler had changed their course to bring the catboat nearer to the +naval boat, which was slowing down. Torry leaped upon the low-decked +cabin and began signaling by the sema<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>phore code. In his blue uniform +his body stood out clearly against the catboat's sail, and he was at +once observed by the crew of the S. P. 888.</p> + +<p>"Whew! Look at that!" gasped Frenchy. "They are answering."</p> + +<p>Then he and Ikey began to spell out the word that the seaman on the deck +of the chaser was signaling in the same code Torrance had used.</p> + +<p>"M-O-R-G-A-N!"</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi!" yelled Ikey. "They're after you, Whistler!"</p> + +<p>"What's the next?" gasped Frenchy.</p> + +<p>Another name was not long in coming.</p> + +<p>"T-O-R-R-A-N-C-E!"</p> + +<p>"They want you, too."</p> + +<p>"Look, they are calling somebody else."</p> + +<p>Quickly the Navy Boys spelt out the next name.</p> + +<p>"D-O-N-A-H-U-E!"</p> + +<p>"That's me," came in a groan from Frenchy.</p> + +<p>"Maybe they don't want me," murmured Ikey.</p> + +<p>"Don't you fool yourself," returned Whistler promptly. "We couldn't do +without you."</p> + +<p>"But they ain't wigwaging no more, Whistler."</p> + +<p>"Maybe the sailor doin' it got tired," offered Torry.</p> + +<p>"R-O-S-E-N-M-E-Y-E-R!" came the signal presently.</p> + +<p>"See them coming, boys!"</p> + +<p>"Some speed there!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He's after us," said Torry. "Whip up this old tub, Whistler. Let's +start the engine."</p> + +<p>"Hold your horses," advised Morgan. "He knows we are aboard. We'll get +there all right, give us time."</p> + +<p>The chaser was circling around, and finally headed toward them. The +excited boys in the catboat saw Mr. MacMasters examining them through a +glass. The S. P. 888 came to a stop near the usual mooring of the <i>Sue +Bridger</i>. Captain Bridger put off in a dory from the float and began to +scull out toward the Government boat.</p> + +<p>"We're going aboard!" cried Torry. "Say, Whistler! do you suppose he's +been sent for us? Shall we join up with the crew of that shark?"</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi!" groaned Ikey. "No dreadnaught for us, then? What will my papa +and mama say? I've been tellin' 'em maybe I get to command a battleship +this next cruise."</p> + +<p>"I had no idea Ensign MacMasters was in service again," Whistler said. +"But I am glad he is on this particular boat."</p> + +<p>"Why?" asked Torry, to whom he spoke in a low tone.</p> + +<p>"I want to tell him about that oil boat," returned Morgan, nodding his +head.</p> + +<p>In a few moments they dropped the sail and fended off from the chaser's +side, just as Captain Bridger reached the spot too.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You want these four boys, Skipper?" demanded the old fisherman.</p> + +<p>"That's what I do," said Ensign MacMasters. Then to the chums: "Come +aboard, boys; I've news for you."</p> + +<p>"They been using my catboat," said Captain Bridger. "All right, Phil +Morgan. You can go aboard. I'll take charge of the <i>Sue</i>. Got some right +nice lookin' bass, ain't you?"</p> + +<p>"But you won't take charge of them!" Torry exclaimed. "I caught that big +fellow, and I donate it to the officer's mess of the S. P. +Eight-eighty-eight, right now!"</p> + +<p>The fisherman looked somewhat disappointed, for he was eager to make a +penny. Whistler, however, gave him some of the smaller fish. The +remainder were tossed to a grinning sailor upon the deck of the chaser.</p> + +<p>"Come right aboard, boys," Ensign MacMasters repeated. "I am glad to see +you looking so chipper."</p> + +<p>He shook hands with them, in rotation, as they came over the side. But +the chums did not forget to salute the officer. They lined up before him +in a respectful attitude as Captain Bridger got aboard the catboat and +shoved her away from the chaser's side.</p> + +<p>"I am only acting commander of this little knifeblade," said Ensign +MacMasters. "Junior<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> Lieutenant Perkins has time off to attend to some +private business, and I have been stuck aboard here for a few days. +We're patrolling this stretch of coast, and I ran in to see if I could +pick up you boys. Do you know what is going to happen?"</p> + +<p>"We're going to lick the Germans!" exclaimed Frenchy.</p> + +<p>The ensign laughed. "Smart boy," he said. "You will go to the head of +the class for that. But my information is new stuff. I am assigned to +the <i>Kennebunk</i> and you four boys are to go with me."</p> + +<p>"Hurray!" shouted Torry, unable to suppress his delight.</p> + +<p>"That will sure please my papa," declared Ikey, with a broad smile and +twinkling eyes. "It sure will."</p> + +<p>"But how about the <i>Colodia</i>, sir?" asked Whistler anxiously.</p> + +<p>"That's right! Be faithful to your first love, Morgan," laughed Ensign +MacMasters. "I imagine they intend to send us all back to her in time. +But—whisper!—the <i>Colodia</i> is across the pond. So I am told. There is +something doing over there."</p> + +<p>"Crickey!" gasped Torry. "And we not in it!"</p> + +<p>"It may not come off before we get across in this new battleship——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Whew!" shrilled Frenchy, forgetting himself. "Will the <i>Kennebunk</i> go +across, too?"</p> + +<p>"That's telling," said Ensign MacMasters. "You will have several days +yet to get ready for the cruise, no matter how long it may be. Yes, +Morgan? What do you want to say?" for he observed that Whistler was +restless and wished to speak.</p> + +<p>"I've something to report, sir," Whistler declared.</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"We made an observation just now. Well, perhaps an hour and a half ago, +sir."</p> + +<p>"What was it?" queried the ensign, with interest.</p> + +<p>"A power boat passed us. She was not as long as this chaser and not very +swift. She was steering into the sou'east, and she left a streak of oil +in her wake. She was laden to the guards with oil casks, I believe."</p> + +<p>Ensign MacMasters made no comment for a moment; then he got the full +significance of Whistler's meaning and he briskly demanded:</p> + +<p>"Sure her casks were filled, Morgan, and not empty?"</p> + +<p>"She had a full cargo of something, sir," said Whistler, nodding.</p> + +<p>"And headed southeast?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. MacMasters wheeled to speak to his navigating officer. In thirty +seconds the swift craft started.</p> + +<p>"Hold on, Mr. MacMasters!" cried Torry. "We've got to get ashore somehow +for supper, you know."</p> + +<p>The ensign smiled at him. "I am afraid you will have to remain aboard +and help eat some of your own fish for supper. No time just now to put +you boys on land."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>FOG HAUNTED</h3> + + +<p>The S. P. 888 was shaking throughout her structure before she came +square with the exit of the cove. If a destroyer is "a tin box built +around a mighty big engine," the term even more nearly fits one of these +chasers.</p> + +<p>The four Navy boys from Seacove were amazed by the quickness with which +she got under way and the brief time it took to tune her up to top-notch +speed.</p> + +<p>"She's a hundred and ten feet long," said Mr. MacMasters, "about as wide +as a happy thought, and can make her thirty-five knots an hour without +any particular effort."</p> + +<p>"No effort?" muttered Torry. "And it feels as though she was shaking +herself to pieces!"</p> + +<p>"She's faster than the <i>Colodia</i>," observed Whistler, somewhat as though +he felt pained by that fact. That any other craft should be a sweeter +sailer than his beloved destroyer seemed to him almost a crime.</p> + +<p>"She most certainly is," agreed Ensign MacMasters. "She is some speed +boat!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why!" Frenchy cried, "she must be faster than the admiral's hydroboat +we saw at Newport."</p> + +<p>"No, no!" said the ensign. "Those hydroboats have got every other craft +in the Navy beaten to a standstill. And about all they use 'em for is +pleasure boats."</p> + +<p>"They'll be dispatch carriers maybe?" suggested Whistler.</p> + +<p>"What do they want of dispatch carriers in a day of wireless?" returned +the ensign, and went about his duty of conning the S. P. 888 as she shot +through the breach between the claw-like capes that defended the cove, +and so straight out to sea in a southeasterly direction.</p> + +<p>The "bone in her teeth," as sailors call the white water under the +ship's bows, became a windrow of sea, foamed-streaked and agitated, +parted by the knife-sharp bows, and rolling away on either hand. The S. +P. 888 traveled so swiftly that at a distance "shark" really was the +name for her.</p> + +<p>She was not camouflaged, as were the hull and upperworks of many Navy +vessels with which the four friends were familiar; but her dull coloring +made her well nigh unobservable at a few miles' distance when she lay at +rest. When she was in action no amount of deceiving paint would hide +her, because of the water she disturbed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> + +<p>The motor boat Phil had suspected had more than an hour and half's +start. If she had kept straight ahead on the course she was going when +last observed by the boys, she must now be twenty miles or more off +shore.</p> + +<p>The chaser, propelled by her powerful engines, could traverse that +distance, and the oil boat's additional miles, in less than two hours. +If the pursued vessel did not change her course she could be easily +overtaken before twilight.</p> + +<p>Ensign MacMasters was too busy to talk further with the four chums; +indeed it would not be conducive to discipline for the commissioned +officer to give the apprentice seamen too much of his attention.</p> + +<p>But Mr. MacMasters and the four Seacove boys had been through some warm +incidents together; and there is always a particular bond between those +who have been shoulder to shoulder in a good fight.</p> + +<p>"Remember the rumpus we had, Mr. MacMasters and us fellows, when those +Germans tried to recapture the <i>Graf von Posen?</i>" Ikey asked his mates.</p> + +<p>"Are we likely to forget it?" retorted Al.</p> + +<p>"What about it, Ikey?" asked Michael Donahue, complacently. "It was a +lovely fight!"</p> + +<p>"Do you s'pose the fellows on this oil tender we are chasin' will +fight?" asked Ikey.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Not a chance. Here's fifty men on this chaser. The Germans—if they are +Germans—wouldn't stand any show. There are only a few of them," said +Torry.</p> + +<p>"Including the black-whiskered chap Whistler tells about," Frenchy said. +"Hey, Whistler!"</p> + +<p>"What is it?" asked the older lad seriously.</p> + +<p>"D'you really think that power boat we saw is going out to meet a +submarine?"</p> + +<p>"Ask me an easier one," said Morgan. "I can't guess. But she might. We +know very well that German submarines and German raiders, and even +Germany itself, pass news back and forth by wireless. We can't control +the vibrations of the air—worse luck!"</p> + +<p>"Now you've said something, boy!" agreed Torry.</p> + +<p>"They read all the news that passes between our ships, too, unless it is +in a secret code. And they pick everything they need to know about our +ship movements out of the air."</p> + +<p>"Too bad wireless was ever invented, then," grumbled Torry.</p> + +<p>"Six of one and half a dozen of the other," grinned Frenchy. "You bet +our operators steal German messages."</p> + +<p>"It's likely. You know that chap on the <i>Colodia</i> whom we all liked so +well, the chief wireless operator, got lots of information that was +sup<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>posed only to be picked up by German submarines.</p> + +<p>"In this case," added Whistler Morgan, "the sub may have wirelessed word +for supplies. We don't know how many alien enemies may be running +wireless stations in the United States. The Secret Service men are +unearthing them all the time."</p> + +<p>"Well," sighed Ikey, "I only hope we'll catch up with this oil tub we're +hunting just as she is unloading her cargo onto a sub. Then! Blooey! +We'll drop a depth bomb or two, and settle Mr. Submarine."</p> + +<p>"Just like <i>that!</i>" drawled Whistler. "It sounds easy. How many times +did the <i>Colodia</i> chase a U-boat and lose it?"</p> + +<p>"Crickey!" breathed Torry, "even the <i>Colodia</i> couldn't travel like this +shark."</p> + +<p>"Oh! you admit it, do you?" grinned Frenchy. "Well, we are going some!"</p> + +<p>But there was an element working against the S. P. 888—an element which +could not be controlled. No matter how speedy the oil boat might have +been, the chaser could have overtaken her had she kept a straight +course. That was understood.</p> + +<p>But the farther they went the more certain it was that this new element +was going to balk them. It was fog. The horizon was masked by it, and +soon the damp feel of it was upon them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. MacMasters paced the deck anxiously. Not a smudge of smoke did he or +the lookouts raise. But the growing fog cloud would soon have hidden +anything of the kind, even if the oil boat had been near at hand.</p> + +<p>"Fog-haunted, Morgan," he said to Whistler, with disappointment. "We'll +run on for a while; but it is hopeless, I guess. You say you know one of +the men aboard that power boat?"</p> + +<p>Morgan told him what he knew of the bewhiskered man called Blake; and +also of the little water wheel that was whirling under the waterfall at +the Elmvale Dam, although really, it did not seem to him as though that +little invention could have a serious connection with any alien-enemy +activities.</p> + +<p>"I will report the whole thing," Mr. MacMasters said. "But, of course, +the Department receives similar and even less assured testimony every +day, of suspiciously acting persons. The information furnished the +Department has all to be sifted. There may be nothing wrong with this +man Blake."</p> + +<p>"If he is working at the munition factory, how comes it that he is out +here on an oil-laden boat?" demanded Whistler, with what he thought was +shrewdness.</p> + +<p>"Quite so. You boys are naval apprentices, but you were out fishing +to-day," returned Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> MacMasters, grimly. "There is an explanation for +everything, my boy."</p> + +<p>They ran on for another hour, but more slowly. They did not raise a +craft of any kind, and Mr. MacMasters lost hope.</p> + +<p>"I will put you boys ashore at Rivermouth," he said. "You can go home by +rail. I shall not be able to put in at Seacove again to-night. And +Rivermouth is off yonder—within a few miles."</p> + +<p>Even in the fog the navigator found the harbor in question without +difficulty. Just as they would have apprehended the presence of a +submarine had one been near. There are very delicate and wonderful +instruments aboard American naval vessels—instruments that may not be +described at present—that enable the officers to apprehend the near +approach of other vessels and their own nearness to the shore as well.</p> + +<p>The S. P. 888 made her landfall correctly and slipped into Rivermouth +Harbor like a ghost in the fog. There was a quantity of small shipping +in the place, and Ensign MacMasters did not want to take any chances of +collision. So he hailed a fishing smack and put the four friends from +Seacove aboard of her.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, boys!" he said, as they went over the side into the smack. +"We shall meet in a few days. You will get your notice by telegraph when +to join the <i>Kennebunk</i>, and where. I shall <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>be relieved from the +command of this shark, and we'll have a big cruise on the +superdreadnaught, I have no doubt."</p> + +<p>He spoke prophetically, as it was proved later. But at this time neither +Ensign MacMasters nor any of the four apprentice seamen imagined just +how wonderful a cruise it would be.</p> + +<p>As the fishing smack chugged away with her auxiliary engine toward the +docks of the town, the S. P. 888 swung in a narrow circle and put out to +sea so swiftly that in five minutes she was completely out of sight in +the fog and almost out of sound as well.</p> + +<p>The fishermen were curious about the boys and the business of the chaser +in this locality; but the Navy boys had long since learned to say +nothing that would circulate information of any moment. "Keep your mouth +closed" is an inflexible rule of the Navy; the yarns Ikey told his +"papa" and his "mama" notwithstanding!</p> + +<p>As they drifted in toward shore slowly, weaving their way among the +moored craft, Whistler suddenly began to sniff the air and show +excitement.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" demanded Torry, his closest chum. "You act like a +hound dog on a hot scent."</p> + +<p>"Or a colored gem'man smelling po'k chops on the frypan," suggested +Frenchy, chuckling.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Say, Mister," asked Whistler, turning to the skipper of the smack, "is +there a tank ship in here?"</p> + +<p>"An oil tanker? No! Nothing like it."</p> + +<p>"I smell it, too!" exclaimed Ikey suddenly.</p> + +<p>"What you boys smell is the <i>Sarah Coville</i> that came in just ahead of +us. She's anchored here somewhere," said the fisherman.</p> + +<p>"What sort is she?" Whistler demanded. Then he described <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'swifty'">swiftly</ins> the oil +tender he had marked that afternoon passing the Blue Reef fishing +grounds.</p> + +<p>"That's her," said the man. "She often slips in here. Don't know who +owns her now. Used to belong to the Texarcana Oil Company before the +war. She's only a lighter."</p> + +<p>"Is she laden?" asked Whistler.</p> + +<p>"Didn't look so to me," was the reply.</p> + +<p>Whistler Morgan said no more, and he warned his friends to have no +further talk upon the matter. After they got ashore, however, all four +were much excited by the incident.</p> + +<p>"She was loaded to the Plimsoll mark when she passed us," Torry said. +"What could she have done with her cargo in so short a time?"</p> + +<p>"I'd like to know," agreed Whistler thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"We ought to tell somebody," declared Frenchy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Let's be sure we tell the right person," Whistler advised. "Come on now +and get some supper. We've an hour to wait for a train to Seacove."</p> + +<p>They marched up the main street of the port. The fog was not so thick +inshore here. Just before they reached the restaurant they usually +patronized when they were in the town, Whistler uttered an exclamation +and held his friends back.</p> + +<p>"See those two men going into Yancey's Restaurant?" he queried.</p> + +<p>"What about 'em?" Frenchy asked.</p> + +<p>"The fellow ahead," said Whistler Morgan deeply in earnest, "is that man +Blake. The other I bet is the captain of the <i>Sarah Coville</i>."</p> + +<p>"Well," asked Torry, after a moment, "what are you waiting for? Their +eating at Yancey's won't stop us from going there too, will it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>PUZZLED</h3> + + +<p>Whistler Morgan's three chums had by this time become somewhat +interested in the bearded man, who called himself Blake and who worked +in the laboratory of the Elmvale munition factory.</p> + +<p>They were not at all as sure as Whistler seemed to be that the man was +an alien enemy, and dangerous; for one reason they did not know all that +Whistler had discovered up by the dam. It was only to Ensign MacMasters +that their leader had told of the water wheel under the rock.</p> + +<p>Frenchy began to grin when he saw how Whistler hesitated about entering +the restaurant in Rivermouth.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter? You so mad with that fellow that you won't eat at +Yancey's because he does?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to get in there," said Whistler, "without attracting his +attention and that of the man with him. I know he's the skipper of that +oil boat."</p> + +<p>"How are you going to do that?" demanded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> Torry. "They'll spot our +blouses and caps in a minute."</p> + +<p>"That's just it. Wish we didn't have 'em on," grumbled his friend.</p> + +<p>"Good-<i>night!</i> We'd make a nice fumble, wouldn't we, if we didn't wear +the uniform? What would it be—a month in the brig on hard tack and +water?"</p> + +<p>"Say!" murmured the eager Ikey Rosenmeyer, "there's a side door. I'll +call Abe, the waiter, out there and tell him. If those fellows have gone +into one of the booths——"</p> + +<p>"Bully!" cried Torry. "Maybe he can sneak us into one next to 'em. How +about it, Whistler?"</p> + +<p>"Just the thing," agreed Morgan, nodding his head emphatically.</p> + +<p>Ikey ran down the alley beside the restaurant while his mates waited at +the corner. The side door was not used save by the restaurant help; but +Ikey insinuated himself in by that entrance and in half a minute poked +his head out of the door again and beckoned furiously to the other boys.</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi!" he chuckled in high feather, when they joined him. "We are in +luck all right. Those fellows got a booth, and Abe is layin' the table +in the one next to it, this side, for us. Come on! They won't see us."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> + +<p>"If they take a look out of the curtains they will," declared Torry.</p> + +<p>"Have a care, now, about talking," Whistler advised earnestly. "Say +nothing about boats or the sea. No whispering, remember! Talk right out +when you talk at all."</p> + +<p>"All right, me lud," said Frenchy. "Anything else?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Whistler grimly. "This is a Dutch treat. Every fellow pays +for his own eats. Last time we were in a restaurant you all wished the +check on to me."</p> + +<p>At that his mates chuckled much. Each had excused himself and gone out +"just for a minute," and Whistler found himself, after waiting half an +hour, expected by the waiter to pay the whole score.</p> + +<p>The four got into the booth the waiter had prepared for them, and +Whistler sat with his back against the partition dividing it from that +in which Blake and his companion sat. Between the clatter of dishes, the +waiter's calls to the order man, and the talking of his own friends, +Whistler could not hear much at first. But he knew the two men whom he +suspected were talking in English.</p> + +<p>Of course they would not be unwise enough to speak in German. By this +time the German language when spoken in public places was begin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>ning to +cause remark. Wise Germans, whether friendly or enemy aliens, were not +using it.</p> + +<p>One of the voices Whistler heard in the other booth, however, was +distinctly German in its accent. This he was quite sure was the skipper +of the oil tender. The other man used perfect English.</p> + +<p>"They would not be likely to select a man too obviously German for a big +part in any plot," thought Whistler. "And that Blake looks like a suave, +well educated fellow."</p> + +<p>The latter man spoke low, too. The other had a bluff and coarse voice. +He was a typical old sea-dog in his way. Only, a German sea-dog!</p> + +<p>"Are you going back there yet?" Whistler heard him ask.</p> + +<p>"For just one thing. You know what that is, Braun."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach!</i> Yes."</p> + +<p>"My work is done there," said the man, Blake, with pride in his voice. +"Oh, it will be taken note of, don't fear."</p> + +<p>"I bet you!" growled the other, in evident admiration. "Undt so she goes +oop, yes? Boom!"</p> + +<p>"Sh!" warned the other. "Never mind any talk about it."</p> + +<p>But the other was inclined to be voluble. Whistler thought the skipper +of the oil tender, Braun, had been drinking. "And when alcohol <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>is in +the brain wit is very likely to move out," he muttered.</p> + +<p>"Grand work!" he ejaculated. "<i>Ach</i>, yes! Undt there will be more grand +work when two-fifty is joined by the others."</p> + +<p>"Sh!" warned Blake again. "You talk too much, Braun. The wise man keeps +a still tongue."</p> + +<p>Ordinarily Whistler Morgan would have found nothing in this overheard +conversation to fan suspicion into a blaze. He quite realized this fact. +But what he had seen at Elmvale, and the presence of Blake on the oil +tender, led in his mind to but one conclusion.</p> + +<p>Blake and his companion referred to the former's work in Elmvale. And +what was that work? Not merely the peaceful occupation of chemist in the +laboratory of the munition factory. He was convinced that Blake referred +to something entirely different when he said: "My work is done there."</p> + +<p>Nor was Blake merely an inventor, hiding away the actual working model +of an invention until he could secure its patent, for instance. No, +indeed!</p> + +<p>Yet Morgan could not imagine what that water wheel was for. To what end +could it have been placed under the rock on the edge of the +overflow-stream from the Elmvale Dam?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + +<p>Whistler had little to say himself during that meal at Yancey's. He +heard nothing more from the next booth, for Blake seemed to manage the +half drunken skipper of the <i>Sarah Coville</i> with better judgment. By and +by the two men left the restaurant.</p> + +<p>"Say! are we going to follow them?" asked the excited Frenchy.</p> + +<p>"Aw, you poor fish!" scoffed Torry. "Where'd we follow them to? Back to +that stinking oiler? And how would we follow them to sea? We haven't a +boat."</p> + +<p>"That's so," Frenchy admitted, crestfallen.</p> + +<p>"No good to try to keep tabs on them," admitted Phil. "I hope Ensign +MacMasters will pick up news of that boat again. Just think of his +chaser coming right in here and not seeing the oiler in the fog. Tough +luck!"</p> + +<p>"Say!" queried Ikey, "what did you hear, Whistler?"</p> + +<p>"Just about what you did," returned the older lad. "Nothing much."</p> + +<p>"What are we going to do?" demanded Torry.</p> + +<p>"Pay our bills and go to the train. It is almost time," said Whistler +rather grumpily.</p> + +<p>And this they did. The train for Seacove came along in a few minutes. +The boys got aboard. Ikey ran ahead down the aisle of the car and got +into a seat by an open window. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>first thing he did was to thrust his +head out of the window and look back along the platform as the train +started.</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi!" he cried, under his breath. "Here he comes!"</p> + +<p>"Here who comes?" demanded Al Torrance.</p> + +<p>"The German spy," declared Ikey.</p> + +<p>"Hush up!" commanded Frenchy. "Want everybody to hear you?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" asked Whistler.</p> + +<p>"That man," said Ikey. "He got aboard. He went into the last car."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean Blake?"</p> + +<p>"That's who I mean," declared Ikey with conviction.</p> + +<p>"Aw, he's crazy," scoffed Frenchy.</p> + +<p>But Torry went back through the train after it was well under way and +the conductor had taken their tickets. He peered through the glass in +the door of the rear car.</p> + +<p>He came back shaking his head and looking puzzled.</p> + +<p>"He's there all right," he said to Whistler. "Bet he's going to Elmvale +instead of to sea again. What do you make of it?"</p> + +<p>"Not a thing," grumbled Whistler. "I wish I knew what to do."</p> + +<p>"Let's have him pinched," suggested the eager Frenchy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Not a chance! On what charge?" asked Torry. "Accuse him of being in +disguise because he wears that beard?" and he chuckled.</p> + +<p>But to Whistler Morgan's mind it was no laughing matter. He was silent +all the way to Seacove. Torry suggested that they stay on the train to +Elmvale and see if Blake got off at that station.</p> + +<p>"No," his friend said decidedly, "we can't do that. Our folks will be +worried about us if we don't report soon. Cap Bridger may have told +around town that we went off on the submarine chaser, and perhaps our +folks will think we've gone for good."</p> + +<p>So they alighted at their station and left the mysterious Blake aboard +the train. Whistler hurried home to consult with his father. There was +nobody else in whom he had so much confidence; at least, nobody within +reach.</p> + +<p>In this case, however, his father was not within reach. Dr. Morgan had +been called away to see a patient in the country. It was a call that +might keep him away from home all night. Whistler was greatly +disappointed.</p> + +<p>He went down town again and hunted up Torry. He found his friend getting +into his father's car in front of the garage.</p> + +<p>"I was just coming over to get you," Torry said. "D'you know, Whistler, +I feel just as nervous as a cat?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I guess that's what is the matter with me," Morgan confessed. "I'm +bothering my head about that fellow Blake."</p> + +<p>"Me, too. Say! let's run over there."</p> + +<p>"To Elmvale?"</p> + +<p>"Yep. Pa's gone away——"</p> + +<p>"So has my father," admitted Whistler.</p> + +<p>"Well, neither of them can advise us, then," said Torry, practically. +"How about talking with somebody in Elmvale? The manager of the munition +works, for instance?"</p> + +<p>"That's so! Mr. Santley. Say! let's 'phone him and see if he is at +home."</p> + +<p>"But you can't say anything over the telephone about Blake, or about us +fellows thinking he is up to something wrong."</p> + +<p>"We'll make an appointment with the manager," said Whistler, running +into the Torrance house.</p> + +<p>He knew where the telephone was, the girl at central quickly gave him +the connection. A man answered the call.</p> + +<p>"Is this Mr. Santley?" Whistler asked.</p> + +<p>"It is. Who are you?"</p> + +<p>Morgan told him who he was and asked if he could see the manager if he +drove right over to Elmvale in his friend's car.</p> + +<p>"What for?"</p> + +<p>"It has something to do with a man named<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> Blake in the employ of the +factory," said Whistler plainly. "But I can say nothing more about it +over the 'phone."</p> + +<p>"'Blake'?" repeated the voice at the other end, and Whistler thought +there was a startled note in it. "What about him?"</p> + +<p>"I can only tell you when I see you."</p> + +<p>"Come on, then!" exclaimed the man. "I shall wait here for you at my +office."</p> + +<p>Whistler ran out of the house. Al was already at the steering wheel of +the car.</p> + +<p>"What did he say?" he shouted.</p> + +<p>"For us to come over," Whistler replied. "And somehow, Torry, I feel we +ought to hurry."</p> + +<p>"You said it!" agreed the other and turned on the power.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>JUST TOO LATE</h3> + + +<p>"Shall we stop and pick up the other fellows?" demanded Al as the heavy +car shot up the road toward High Street. They had to cross the railroad +tracks to get into the Elmvale road.</p> + +<p>"Stop for nothing!" exclaimed Phil Morgan. "I feel that we can't delay a +minute."</p> + +<p>But as it chanced Michael Donahue was standing at the open door of the +Rosenmeyer delicatessen shop as the Torrance car wheeled around the +corner into Seacove's main street. Dusky as it now was, the Irish lad +recognized the car and the two boys on the front seat.</p> + +<p>"Hi, Ikey!" he yelled to his chum, back in the store. "See who's +joy-riding! And they never said a word about it."</p> + +<p>Ikey ran out in a hurry.</p> + +<p>"Stingy! Stingy!" he cried, almost getting into the path of the +automobile.</p> + +<p>Torry had been obliged to slow down to turn the corner; so it was easy +for the reckless Frenchy and Ikey to jump upon the running board of the +car.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Tumble in, kids!" exclaimed Torry, out of the corner of his mouth, for +he had to keep his eyes ahead for traffic. "We're in a hurry."</p> + +<p>"I—should—think—you—were!" gasped out Frenchy, as the car jounced +over the railroad tracks by the station. "I almost swallowed my gum."</p> + +<p>"Who's sick?" demanded Ikey.</p> + +<p>"Nobody. Sit down," adjured Whistler. "We're going to Elmvale."</p> + +<p>"Wow, wow!" yelled Frenchy. "What for?"</p> + +<p>"We don't know till we get there," declared Torry suddenly grinning.</p> + +<p>Torry increased the speed the very next moment. There were not many +constables around Seacove, and the first five miles of the road to +Elmvale was perfectly straight. The amber lamps of the car gave a good +light ahead, and Torry was really a safe driver.</p> + +<p>But he seemed reckless on this evening. Inspired by the same feeling +that impressed Whistler Morgan, he felt that they could not get to +Elmvale too quickly.</p> + +<p>During the journey the older boys vouchsafed no explanation to the +younger pair save that they had made an engagement with Mr. Santley at +the munition factory over the telephone. In fact, they had no idea what +they would do, or what they would say to Mr. Santley.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> + +<p>The car roared on, the dogs barked behind them, and finally they came to +the slope leading down into Elmvale. Lights were already twinkling in +the valley. But the mills were closed, and even the munition factory +seemed deserted.</p> + +<p>This time they did not take the Upper Road, but drove through the center +of the little hamlet. The stores were open and there were lights in most +of the cottages of the workmen. There were lively parties in all the +long, barrack-like boarding houses. The town was wide awake.</p> + +<p>Torry brought the car to an abrupt stop before the brick office building +of the munition works. The place had been a mill before the war. The +long, many-windowed buildings behind the offices covered a good deal of +ground. There was a high stockade fence about the whole plant. An armed +guard stood at the main door when Whistler ran up the steps. The other +boys chose to wait in the car for him.</p> + +<p>"I want to see Mr. Santley," Whistler said to the guard in khaki.</p> + +<p>"The manager? I don't know whether he is here at this hour or not."</p> + +<p>"I see lights in the offices yonder. And I have made an appointment with +him."</p> + +<p>At that moment the bolts of the big door were shoved back and a man +looked out. Whistler Morgan did not know the manager of the muni<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>tion +works by sight; but the guard at once said:</p> + +<p>"Here's a boy to see you, Mr. Santley."</p> + +<p>"What is your name, young man?" asked the manager, eying the boy with +interest.</p> + +<p>Whistler told him.</p> + +<p>"Dr. Morgan's son, from Seacove? Come in," and Whistler was ushered +inside and the heavy door was again barricaded.</p> + +<p>"We have to keep locked up here like a fortress at night," said Mr. +Santley. "Come in and let me hear what you have to say, young man. What +do you know about Mr. Blake?"</p> + +<p>"Did you know he had been out at sea on an oil tender to-day?" blurted +out Whistler. "She was chased by a submarine chaser, but the tender +escaped in the fog. Afterward she came into Rivermouth Harbor without +her cargo."</p> + +<p>"What's this? What's this?" demanded Mr. Santley. "Why, that has nothing +to do with the factory."</p> + +<p>They were in his private office. He stood with his hand upon Whistler's +shoulder and asked the boy sternly:</p> + +<p>"What have you to tell me about Mr. Blake, anyway? I don't want to hear +a lot of inconsequential gossip. I am worried about the man."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. So am I," declared Whistler very earnestly. "I've been +worried about him ever since the other day when we fellows were over +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>here trying to get some of the boys to enlist in the Navy."</p> + +<p>"Ah, were you one of that crowd?" asked Mr. Santley.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir; and coming over here we saw that man Blake——"</p> + +<p>He went on to tell the manager of the munition factory about how his +suspicions were aroused and about the water wheel he had found at the +foot of the dam, ending with a detailed account of the affair of the oil +tender.</p> + +<p>Mr. Santley's face expressed nothing but lively curiosity.</p> + +<p>"And to-day you saw him on a boat that you think is a feeder for German +submarines?" muttered the manager. "It is whispered that they are off +this coast."</p> + +<p>"We overheard this Blake and a man who I'm sure is captain of that oil +boat talking in a restaurant to-night. They mentioned two-fifty which I +believe is the number of the submarine off this coast. They spoke as +though more were expected. The Germans are going to make a big drive on +our shipping over here."</p> + +<p>"You may be right, boy," agreed Mr. Santley. "That man Blake—well, he +doesn't seem to be in Elmvale now."</p> + +<p>"He came back on this evening's train," declared Whistler.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Are you sure? I have been waiting for him to show up here," cried Mr. +Santley. "To tell the truth, young man, I have discovered some things +here that I want him to explain. For one thing, I have picked up a +letter in his locker which is addressed to him, it is evident, but not +by the name of Blake. It is written in German and I want it explained."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Santley!" cried Whistler, "I believe there is something wrong. +He told that Captain Braun, of the <i>Sarah Coville</i>, that his work was +finished here. He was only returning for a particular thing to Elmvale."</p> + +<p>"But he hasn't come here!" exclaimed Mr. Santley. "And he has some +private property in the office."</p> + +<p>"Maybe he isn't coming here," breathed the boy. "Maybe he is only going +up to the dam!"</p> + +<p>"To the dam?"</p> + +<p>"That water-wheel business! It perplexes me," explained Whistler Morgan.</p> + +<p>"We'll go up there and take a look!" exclaimed Mr. Santley, grabbing his +hat and banging down the roll top of his desk and locking it. "You've +got me all stirred up now, boy."</p> + +<p>They hurried out of the office. Mr. Santley spoke in a low voice to the +armed guard on the front steps.</p> + +<p>"If Blake comes here, hold him till I return,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> he said. "Do you +understand? <i>Hold him</i>—even if you have to knock him down and sit on +him."</p> + +<p>"All right, sir," said the man, nodding grimly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Santley started down the steps after the excited Whistler, who was +already getting into the automobile, the engine of which was still +running. At that instant the night was as peaceful as could be. The +valley below the high dam lay quietly under the light of the stars, and +a pale moon was just rising above the treetops.</p> + +<p>Then, with a shock which electrified the atmosphere and seemed to make +heaven and earth tremble, a burst of flame rose at the foot of the dam, +not more than half a mile away!</p> + +<p>The glare of it blinded them; the reverberating explosion that followed +almost immediately well nigh stunned them. It was Ikey, standing in the +tonneau of the car, and pointing a trembling arm toward the dimly +distinguished wall of masonry, whose voice was first heard:</p> + +<p>"Look! Look! The dam's broke!"</p> + +<p>A balloon-shaped cloud of smoke had risen above the wall of masonry. +Beneath it the dam crumbled, dissolved, and poured away into the bed of +the river like the changing picture in a kaleidoscope.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>AHEAD OF THE FLOOD</h3> + + +<p>Each one in the little group at the main entrance to the munition +factory had cried out—no doubt of that! Indeed, Torry said afterward +that he forgot to shut his mouth until his jaws were positively stiff.</p> + +<p>Their fright did not deprive them of action, however; everybody +immediately did something.</p> + +<p>Inside the door, in the hall, hung the bell rope. The bell swung in the +cupola on the roof of the office building. The guard dropped his rifle +and sprang to seize this rope. He slipped his foot in the loop and began +to toll the bell as hard as he could.</p> + +<p>"I'll get Central and tell them what's up!" gasped Mr. Santley, and +turned to run back into his office to spread the news of the catastrophe +by telephone.</p> + +<p>Whistler plunged into the car, yelling to Torry:</p> + +<p>"Turn around! Turn around! Down the valley road to warn 'em! Get a move +on, boy!"</p> + +<p>His chum was already starting the car. It <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>wheeled perilously in a sharp +curve, and with honking horn hurtled down the road which followed the +course of the river.</p> + +<p>Without doubt the wall of the dam had been burst through by the +explosion. The immense mass of waiter held in leash would immediately +pour through the opening. The valley would be flooded!</p> + +<p>As the car plunged across the main street of Elmvale people were running +out of their houses and out of the stores, shrieking that the dam had +burst. They began to stream away toward the higher ground, stopping for +none of their possessions. If they saved their lives they would be +fortunate.</p> + +<p>Torry speeded up the car until she vibrated like a motor boat—like the +submarine chaser, No. 888! They whirled along the half-lit road, the +horn sounding its raucous warning, and the boys shrieking themselves +hoarse.</p> + +<p>People came to their doors and windows The flying Navy boys pointed +behind them, repeating:</p> + +<p>"The flood! The flood!"</p> + +<p>The roar of the bursting dam was now in the ears of all the awakened +people of the valley. In three great explosions the weakened wall burst, +and the water roared through.</p> + +<p>Spouting through the wrecked masonry, the boys could see it spread below +the barrier, half <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>as high as the dam itself. It would sweep the narrow +valley clean of every small structure and of every living thing that +could not get out of its path.</p> + +<p>Half a mile was small leeway; the flood would pour down upon the village +and the mills in two or three minutes. But the Navy boys in the big car +were flying over the road at a forty-mile-an-hour pace.</p> + +<p>They could have easily escaped to the high ground on one side or the +other of the valley. There were many small farms down this river road, +however, and although the valley widened a good deal before the +outskirts of Seacove were reached, the flood might do a deal of damage +in the lower town unless the people there were warned.</p> + +<p>At least, the automobile and its occupants made noise enough as they +flew along to arouse most people along the way to the menacing peril. +The explosion followed by the bursting of the dam had, in any case, +shaken the valley to the very sea itself.</p> + +<p>They saw men, women and children run screaming from their houses and +mount through the fields toward the hilltops. Behind, the roar of the +waters was like a high wind. In a moment all the lights in Elmvale went +out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The powerhouse has gone!" shrieked Frenchy, when he saw this.</p> + +<p>"And everything else, I guess!" quavered Ikey, clinging to the back of +the automobile seat and hoarse from shouting.</p> + +<p>Dim as the light from the stars and the moon was, they could see the +front of the wave of released water. When it struck the big mill +buildings at Elmvale the foamy water sprang up in geysers.</p> + +<p>Several of the big buildings went down under the impact of the flood. +The smaller hovels were swept off their foundations. Those people who +had not escaped from the middle of the village must be overcome by the +sweep of the flood.</p> + +<p>Below the Main Street bridge in Elmvale, the channel of the river was +much wider than above the bridge. It was navigable for small vessels, +too, from Seacove to that point.</p> + +<p>Schooners and barges moored to the docks below the bridge were cast up +on the crest of the flood, their hawsers snapped like packthread, and +they were whirled away, some to be cast later far back from the +established bank of the stream.</p> + +<p>It was tidewater below the bridge, and fortunately it was low tide. The +channel of the river, therefore, could take the greater bulk of the +flood, and the valley widening so quickly, the depth of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>the outflow of +the dam was much decreased directly below the wrecked hamlet.</p> + +<p>The rushing automobile was two-thirds of the way to Seacove in five +minutes. Then the advance wave of the flood caught them.</p> + +<p>They saw the saplings along the bank of the stream bend and snap under +the force of the water. Some were uprooted. Chicken houses and other +small structures were snatched from their places and flung wildly along +with the charging water.</p> + +<p>With a roar and a cloud of spray the water surged around the automobile +on the road. Running, as the car was, at top speed, the flood picked it +up and drove it forward even more swiftly for several rods.</p> + +<p>"Shut her off! Shut her off!" yelled Frenchy excitedly.</p> + +<p>But Torry was wiser than that. The water flattened out, and the whirling +wheels bit into the road again. They did not skid, and the car remained +upright. For the next half mile they ran through more than a foot of +water; but it was plain the danger was over.</p> + +<p>Near the river bank the water flooded the first floors of the houses in +the suburbs of Seacove; but there was little other damage done at this +distance from the dam.</p> + +<p>As the water subsided from about them, how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>ever, Torry turned the +machine around and headed up the road again.</p> + +<p>"Yes, we'll go back," Whistler agreed. "Drive slowly, Torry. Maybe we +can help somebody. I'm afraid there were some people who did not get +away in time."</p> + +<p>They found enough to do, it was true, all that night. After getting back +to the outskirts of Elmvale they could not drive the machine over the +slime and mud in the roadway. There were deep washouts, too; and in some +places the wreck of light buildings barred the way.</p> + +<p>The Navy boys had done good service in warning the endangered people +along one side of the river. Mr. Santley had done much more in sending +the news of the broken dam broadcast by telephone. The girl at Central +had stuck to her post while the water rose to the second floor of the +telephone building, where the switchboard was situated.</p> + +<p>Whistler and his three chums were carrying children to the high ground +where it was dry, and packing bedding and blankets up to the +"shipwrecked mess-mates," as Frenchy called them, until dawn.</p> + +<p>When the sun crept up and showed the wreckage in the valley, and +particularly about Elmvale, it was enough to make one heartsick. The +lower floors of all mills, and of the munition fac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>tory, were wrecked. +Some of the buildings had fallen down.</p> + +<p>Much machinery was destroyed. It would take months to repair the damage +done to property by the flood. And there was a death list of twelve. +That was the hardest to bear and the saddest result of the catastrophe.</p> + +<p>Until the ruins around Elmvale were searched and the last body brought +to light, little was said about the cause of the disaster. But the +following evening Whistler and his chums were called to the office of +the sheriff of the county to tell what they knew about the stranger, +Blake, who had disappeared just before the dam burst.</p> + +<p>He had been seen getting off the train at Elmvale that evening. But he +had disappeared immediately after. He had not returned to the munition +factory, where the manager, Mr. Santley, was waiting for him; nor had he +been observed at all after leaving the railroad station.</p> + +<p>Later it was proved that he had obtained his position at the factory by +the aid of forged credentials. It was believed that he was rather a +famous German inventor who had been living in the United States for some +years. He had an almost uncanny knowledge of mechanics, as well as of +chemistry.</p> + +<p>The ingenious little water wheel Whistler had seen at the foot of the +dam had probably fur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>nished power for some machine that had been fixed +on the face of the dam with a charge of dynamite. This invention had +been rigged to explode the dynamite after a certain length of time—time +enough, without doubt, to enable the inventor to get well away from the +vicinity of the dam.</p> + +<p>"If Linder is his name," Whistler said, when the boys were afterward +talking it over among themselves, "I hope I'll see him again some time. +He was never blown up with the dam, that is sure."</p> + +<p>"You don't think he was 'hoist with his own petard, then?" suggested +Torry.</p> + +<p>"Hear the high-brow!" sniffed Frenchy.</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi!" cried Ikey. "He means was he blown up, too? I bet not!"</p> + +<p>"I ought to have told somebody about him before," sighed Whistler. "I +had a feeling he wasn't using his real name."</p> + +<p>"Say! why should you worry? That Mr. Santley didn't think anything wrong +of him until he found the letter in German in Blake's locker. And we did +set Mr. MacMasters and the S. P. Eight-eighty-eight after him and the +oil boat, didn't we?"</p> + +<p>"By the way," Whistler suddenly observed, drawing an official looking +letter from his pocket. "Did I tell you I got this?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No," said Torry. "What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Hurray!" yelled Frenchy, the quick-witted. "It's our assignment to the +<i>Kennebunk</i>, I bet you!"</p> + +<p>"Is that right, Whistler?" asked Torry.</p> + +<p>"That's what it is," admitted Morgan. "We're to report, however, to Mr. +MacMasters at Rivermouth day after to-morrow. But our ultimate +destination is the <i>Kennebunk</i>, superdreadnaught, just built and fitted +out for her first cruise. You know, she was only christened a month +ago."</p> + +<p>Even the Elmvale disaster and the mystery regarding the German spy, +Franz Linder, were at once ousted from the minds of the Navy boys. Their +first cruise in a superdreadnaught was of much greater importance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>UNEXPECTED PERIL</h3> + + +<p>The four apprentice seamen went down to Rivermouth in great spirits. The +home folks were not actually glad to see them go, but they were a little +relieved; for the chums had managed to keep things very lively about +Seacove during their shore leave.</p> + +<p>The terrible disaster at Elmvale, however, had sobered the four friends +a good bit at the last. Seven Knott had gone away before it happened, so +he had had no part in their later adventures. They were not even sure +that he had gone to join the crew of the <i>Kennebunk</i>, the new +superdreadnaught to which they were assigned for a brief cruise.</p> + +<p>They had heard nothing from Ensign MacMasters, so the Navy boys did not +know when or how they were to meet him; but they went to Rivermouth on +the early train and had plenty of time to look about the port and see +all of the shipping in the harbor.</p> + +<p>One craft they did not see. The oil tender, <i>Sarah Coville</i>, was not +here, and, on making some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>inquiries of the dock loungers, the boys +learned that she had not been seen at Rivermouth since the night they +had come in off the submarine chaser in the fog.</p> + +<p>Rivermouth was fast becoming a base for patrol boats and submarines, it +seemed, although New London and Groton, across the harbor from New +London, were really the headquarters for all such craft along the North +Atlantic seaboard.</p> + +<p>"Maybe we can spy the Three Eights," Torry said, referring to the +submarine chaser in which they had pursued the <i>Sarah Coville</i> a few +days before. "Mr. MacMasters must have been relieved of the command of +her before this, don't you think?"</p> + +<p>"Don't know," Whistler rejoined, breaking off in his whistling briefly.</p> + +<p>"But where is he?" queried the anxious Frenchy.</p> + +<p>"Don't worry," Whistler said. "He'll be here."</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi! If he don't come," said Ikey, "we're marooned, eh?"</p> + +<p>"That'll be fierce!" growled Frenchy Donahue. "I've got just fifty-five +cents left, and one of the nickels is punched. I can see my finish if he +doesn't show up to-day."</p> + +<p>The chums soon discovered that they were not the only boys from the Navy +in town. By ones <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>and twos other bluejackets made their appearance on +the water-front. But there was not even a petty officer assigned to the +port to meet them.</p> + +<p>The four friends from Seacove learned that every enlisted man and +apprentice they talked with was assigned to the <i>Kennebunk</i>, and +immediately all fraternized.</p> + +<p>At noon time the bluejackets marched up town in a body to Yancey's and +flocked into that eating place like a swarm of hungry locusts. Abe, the +waiter, was just about swamped, and Ikey and Frenchy volunteered to help +him serve the vociferous crew. Yancey's other customers were very much +out of it for the time being.</p> + +<p>They were a noisy crowd, but perfectly good-natured; and with the +freehandedness characteristic of the sailor ashore, bought the best +Yancey could provide. The restaurant proprietor had no complaint to +make.</p> + +<p>In the midst of the jollification a hush began to spread over the room. +It began at the tables near the main entrance of the restaurant; then +the men began to get briskly to their feet. With automatic precision +they came to attention, saluting the officer who had entered with that +jerky little downward gesture of the forearm typical of the bluejacket.</p> + +<p>Ikey, starting from the order window with a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>tray load of food, nearly +dropped the whole thing on the floor in trying to <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'saluate'">salute</ins>.</p> + +<p>"Ensign MacMasters!" hissed Torry for the benefit of the boys near, who +did not know the officer.</p> + +<p>And over Ensign MacMasters' shoulder glowed the moon-like face of Seven +Knott.</p> + +<p>"Keep your seats, men," said the ensign quietly, returning the salute in +general. "You have half an hour to finish before we march to the dock. I +take it you are all assigned to my present command?"</p> + +<p>He nodded to Seven Knott. Then he took a chair at an empty table and +ordered coffee, while the boatswain's mate went around among the other +tables making a list of the men's names and their former billets.</p> + +<p>Under the eyes of a commissioned officer the boys behaved with much more +decorum; but it was still a jolly party that finally lined up on the +sidewalk outside Yancey's, prepared to march to the dock.</p> + +<p>Ensign MacMasters sought out Whistler Morgan to speak to personally:</p> + +<p>"I shall expect you to keep the younger boys straight, Morgan. We're +going to be in crowded quarters aboard the patrol boat. Mr. Junior +Lieutenant Perkins has come back to his com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>mand and we are only guests +aboard," and Ensign MacMasters laughed.</p> + +<p>"We are about to have a taste of rough weather outside, too, I fancy. +But our instructions are to make the port where the <i>Kennebunk</i> lies +before the morning tide."</p> + +<p>"Has the submarine patrol boat, Eight-hundred-eighty-eight, come into +the harbor, sir?"</p> + +<p>"I have just been relieved of her command. I am assigned to take you +chaps on her to the battleship. I understand that we shall have a three +months' cruise in the <i>Kennebunk</i> before we are returned to the +<i>Colodia</i>," said the ensign.</p> + +<p>Whistler's eyes sparkled. "Then some of us will have a chance of +handling the big guns, sir?"</p> + +<p>"That is the object, I believe. That, and the fact that the full +complement of the battleship's crew cannot be at once made up. There +will be changes made in the crew of the <i>Colodia</i> when she returns from +her European cruise. If you youngsters do well on the <i>Kennebunk</i> some +of you may soon be gunners' mates. The present cruise of the <i>Kennebunk</i> +is mainly for practice work."</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir! won't we see any active service in her?" cried Whistler.</p> + +<p>Mr. MacMasters looked very mysterious. "You must not ask too many +questions. I am telling you, Morgan, what is generally known <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>about the +orders under which the superdreadnaught sails. But we may see plenty of +real work At least, we need not suppose that the <i>Kennebunk</i> will run +away from any enemy submarine that may appear along this coast."</p> + +<p>"Do you believe there are German subs over here again, sir?"</p> + +<p>"It is my private opinion that at least one is here and more are +coming," declared Ensign MacMasters. "And there is a supply boat for +them lying somewhere off our coast, too. We ran down that <i>Sarah +Coville</i> yesterday, by the way, with another cargo of oil aboard. Her +captain and crew will surely be interned."</p> + +<p>Mr. MacMasters had no more time to talk with Phil Morgan then. The men +being ready, the march to the dock was made, Seven Knott bringing up the +rear to see that there were no loiterers.</p> + +<p>"See that narrow streak!" ejaculated one fellow, when they came to the +dock where the chaser was moored. "Oh, boy! got your sea legs with you?"</p> + +<p>The slate-colored S. P. 888 looked to be no friend to a landsman, +especially with the sea as it was just then. Beyond the craft the harbor +was tossing in innumerable whitecaps, while through the breach between +the capes the Atlantic itself could be seen to be in ugly mood.</p> + +<p>They got aboard; and as soon as the moorings <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>were cast off the +newcomers were welcomed in friendly fashion, by the regular crew of the +chaser, to most of whom Whistler Morgan and his three friends were +already known.</p> + +<p>"Hey, garby! where d'you sleep on this hooker?" demanded one of the +strangers, hoarsely and behind the sharp of his hand, of a member of the +chaser's crew. "Or do you go ashore at nights?"</p> + +<p>"If we can't get ashore for the watch below," was the perfectly serious +reply, "every man gets a hook to hang on."</p> + +<p>"You mean to hang his hammock on?"</p> + +<p>"No such luck! There isn't room for hammocks on one of these chasers. +Why, even the officer commanding has to sleep on a hammock slung out +over the stern in pleasant weather."</p> + +<p>"Good-night!" gasped Al Torrance. "Where does he sleep when it isn't +pleasant?"</p> + +<p>"He doesn't sleep at all—or anybody else, as you'll probably find out +to-night, garby," was the reply.</p> + +<p>There was bound to be a deal of joking of this nature; but it was all +good-natured. The crew of the chaser were of course just as proud of +their craft as the crew of the battleship is of their sea-home. They +ignored the inconveniences of the S. P. 888 and dilated upon her speed +and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>what they hoped to do in her. She was even better than a destroyer +for getting right on top of a submarine and sinking that rat of the sea +with depth bombs.</p> + +<p>The latter—metal cylinders weighing more than a hundred pounds +each—were lashed in their stations at the bow and at the stern of the +chaser. They were rigged to be dropped overboard a little differently +from the method pursued upon the destroyers.</p> + +<p>As the chaser shot across the harbor the strangers aboard remarked in +wonder at the way in which she picked up speed. Within a couple of cable +lengths from the shore she was going like a streak of light.</p> + +<p>It was evident that the S. P. 888 was fully prepared for rough weather. +Not only the depth bombs, but everything else on her decks were lashed. +Passing between the capes, she plunged into a regular smother of rough +water, and at once the decks were drenched from stem to stern.</p> + +<p>"What do you know about this?" demanded Al Torrance of Morgan. "A +fellow wants to hang on to a handline like grim death to be sure to keep +inboard. Hope they won't pipe us to quarters while this keeps up."</p> + +<p>There seemed to be, however, no prospect of the sea's abating; and the +commander of the chaser had a considerable distance to go before +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>morning, so he urged the engineer to increase rather than diminish the +speed.</p> + +<p>With no regard to the comfort of her crew, the craft plowed along on her +way to the port where the <i>Kennebunk</i> awaited them. Naval vessels cannot +wait on weather signals. "Orders are orders."</p> + +<p>The forward deck was comparatively dry; but the after part of the vessel +was in a continual smother of spume and broken water. Now and then a +wave would charge and break over her, drowning everything and everybody +aft of the engines.</p> + +<p>These waves seemed racing to overtake and smother the chaser. The tons +of water discharged upon her decks would have sunk a less buoyant craft. +All she did was to squatter under the weight of the water like a duck, +her propellers never missing a stroke!</p> + +<p>Whistler Morgan and his chums did not remain below through this run. No, +indeed! The hardiest stomach would feel squeamish at such times in +quarters like those of the crew of the S. P. 888.</p> + +<p>At least the Navy boys got fresh air on deck if they were battered +around a bit. They were supplied with slickers, and they had been wet +many a time before.</p> + +<p>Frenchy Donahue raised his shrill voice in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>the old dirge: "Aren't you +glad you're a Navy man? Oh, mother!" and had not intoned the first +lachrymose verse through to the end before Ikey Rosenmeyer interrupted +with a shout:</p> + +<p>"Look there! She's broke loose! Hey, fellers! don't you see it?"</p> + +<p>They were hanging to a lubber line near the quarterdeck, which on the +chaser was a part of the after deck having imaginary boundaries only, +established by order of the chaser's commander.</p> + +<p>The depth bomb lashed there was the object to which Ikey called his +mates' attention. A line had snapped, and the heavy cylinder rolled +slowly across the deck.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the vessel heaved to starboard, and with a quick snap the bomb +rolled in the other direction, crashing against the port rail in a way +which made Whistler Morgan cry out in warning:</p> + +<p>"Have a care, fellows! If the safety pin isn't firmly inserted in that +bomb, and drops out, she may blow off."</p> + +<p>"Great glory!" muttered Torry, "where will we be then?"</p> + +<p>"It's pretty sure if she explodes we'll never join the <i>Kennebunk's</i> +crew," was his chum's grim answer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>COURAGE</h3> + + +<p>The four friends from Seacove were not the only members of the ship's +company that saw the depth bomb break loose from its fastenings. The +second in command of the submarine chaser, Ensign Filson, and two seamen +on lookout were on duty aft.</p> + +<p>"Stop that thing!" shouted the ensign.</p> + +<p>He was young and inexperienced, and he did not start for the rolling +cylinder himself. Had it been Ensign MacMasters, Phil Morgan and his +friends knew that he would have jumped for the bomb as he shouted the +order.</p> + +<p>The two lookouts were not supposed to leave their positions at such a +call; but it was a direct command. They turned from their posts at the +rail where they were scanning the sea on either hand just as the depth +bomb made its second plunge across the deck.</p> + +<p>It crashed into the port rail and then, as the chaser jerked her tail in +the heavy cross seas like a saucy catbird, the dangerous cylinder dashed +to starboard again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Stop it!" cried Mr. Filson for the second time; and just then <i>the +safety pin dropped out!</i></p> + +<p>The first lookout had almost clutched the plunging cylinder as it passed +him on its backward roll.</p> + +<p>"Ware the bomb!" shouted his mate, and both of them leaped away from the +vicinity of the peril.</p> + +<p>Nor were they to be blamed. With the pin out it was to be expected that +the big bomb would immediately explode. It banged against the rail, then +charged across the deck again. Every time it collided with an obstacle +the spectators expected it to blow up and burst the after part of the +ship asunder.</p> + +<p>To the credit of Ensign Filson be it said that he did not fall back from +his post on the quarter. Nor did he directly order, now that he thought +of it, any particular man to try to hold the plunging bomb. It was work +for a volunteer—a man who was willing to take his life in his hands.</p> + +<p>There is a quality of courage that is higher than that which takes men +into battle along with their fellows. The companionship of others in the +charge breeds courage in many weak souls.</p> + +<p>But to start alone on a dangerous mission, the lone man in an almost +hopeless cause, calls for a steadiness of courage that few can rise to.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p> + +<p>The four young fellows clinging together behind Mr. Filson were shot +with fear, as they might very well be. At any second the bomb was likely +to explode, and they were so near that they could not possibly escape +the full force of the blast.</p> + +<p>Even if the chaser herself escaped complete destruction, they could not +dodge the effect of the explosion; but like the ensign they would not +retreat.</p> + +<p>These bombs are timed to explode at about an eighty-foot depth. A very +few seconds would bring about the catastrophe. Every man on the deck of +the S. P. 888 felt that.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, along the deck charged a sturdy figure—a human battering ram. +The other men were knocked aside. One of the lookouts was toppled over +by the newcomer, falling flat upon his back and was shot by the next +plunge of the craft into the scuppers amidships.</p> + +<p>"Hi! Hi! Seven Knott!" yelled Al Torrance.</p> + +<p>"Good old <i>Colodia!</i> Go to it!" joined in the excited Frenchy.</p> + +<p>Philip Morgan was already crouching for a leap. Seven Knott passed him +and threw himself upon the unleashed peril that rolled about the deck.</p> + +<p>He grasped the cylinder as he fell, but it was snatched out of his arms +by the next plunge of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>the vessel. Seven Knott got to his knees and +sought to seize the bomb again when it charged back across the deck.</p> + +<p>The thing seemed actually to evade him; and swinging at an unexpected +angle as Seven Knott threw himself desperately forward, the heavy +cylinder banged the boatswain's mate on the head.</p> + +<p>The man was knocked down by the blow. He suddenly straightened out and +then relaxed, at full length, upon the sliding deck. Like an inanimate +lump his body followed the runaway bomb, but more slowly, to the lower +rail.</p> + +<p>Again the deck heaved upon that side, and the cylinder roared across it. +It missed the unconscious petty officer. At that instant Whistler Morgan +made his leap.</p> + +<p>He had taken time to study the angle at which the bomb was rolling; he +fell upon and grappled it as though it were a football.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Oh! <i>Colodia!</i>" yelled his three mates in wild excitement. +"Hurray!"</p> + +<p>"Well done, <i>Colodia!</i>" echoed a voice behind them, and Ensign +MacMasters appeared from the after hatchway, with the commanding officer +of the S. P. 888 in his wake.</p> + +<p>Some of the chaser's crew were now approaching the scene from forward. +Ensign Filson leaped for the safety pin that had been jerked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>out of the +depth bomb just as Phil Morgan, on his knees, set the bomb up on its +flat end.</p> + +<p>"Good boy, Whistler!" shrieked Torry.</p> + +<p>Ensign Filson reached the spot and slipped the plug into place. Between +them they held the bomb upright on its flat end until the seamen could +pass a line around it.</p> + +<p>The dangerous thing had yet to be held right there until Lieutenant +Perkins ordered the submarine chaser headed up into the sea. Then the +bomb could be removed to a place of safety.</p> + +<p>The whole affair had occupied seconds, that is all. But all felt as +though an hour had passed!</p> + +<p>"Good boy, Morgan!" declared Ensign MacMasters, his face shining with +approval. "Is the mate hurt badly?"</p> + +<p>The petty officer was still unconscious. They picked him up to carry him +below. Then the whole crowd began to cheer, and the officers did not +forbid it. Even Lieutenant Perkins wrung Phil Morgan's hand as he stood +abashed in the center of the congratulatory group on the quarter deck.</p> + +<p>"I'd be proud to have you as one of my own crew, Morgan," said the +commander of the submarine chaser. "Ensign MacMasters is to be +congratulated that he takes aboard the <i>Kennebunk</i> such an altogether +admirable young man. You will hear from this, Master Morgan. You +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>deserve the Medal of Honor and whatever other honor and special +emolument it is in the power of the Secretary of the Navy to award."</p> + +<p>He turned to MacMasters: "And your boatswain's mate deserves mention, +too. That he did not succeed in doing what this young man accomplished, +was not for lack of courage to attempt it. They are both men that the +Navy may be proud of. With a will, men!" and he led in another cheer.</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi, Whistler!" whispered Ikey when the greatly abashed Morgan went +forward, "you'll be an admiral next. If you beat me to it, what will my +papa and mama say?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>THE KENNEBUNK SAILS</h3> + + +<p>Put back upon her course, the S. P. 888 was soon beating her way through +the cross-seas—"bucking the briny" the boys called it—toward the port +from which the <i>Kennebunk</i> was to sail in the morning.</p> + +<p>It was a wild night. The peril through which the ship's company had just +passed, and from which Philip Morgan had been able to save them, made +the threatening aspects of sea and air seem small indeed. Let the wind +shriek through the wire stays and the waves roar and burst about and +over the submarine chaser as they listed, none of these dangers equaled +that of the depth charge which had run amuck.</p> + +<p>Seven Knott was brought to his senses in a short time, and, after +staring about a bit, murmured:</p> + +<p>"Well, I didn't get it, did I?"</p> + +<p>"Not your fault, my man," declared Ensign MacMasters cheerfully. "Wait till Lieutenant Commander Lang, of the +<i>Colodia</i>, hears about it. You have done well, Hertig. He will be proud +of you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> + +<p>At that the petty officer smiled, for he was inordinately fond of the +commander of the destroyer.</p> + +<p>Mr. MacMasters made it plain to the boatswain's mate that apprentice +seaman Morgan had saved him, as well as the rest of the ship's company, +from disaster, and Hansie Hertig grinned broadly.</p> + +<p>"That Whistler—he can do something besides make tunes with his mouth, +eh?" he observed.</p> + +<p>Most of the crew of the submarine chaser, as well as the members of the +squad going aboard the <i>Kennebunk</i>, personally congratulated Whistler on +his courage and quick action.</p> + +<p>"This is an awfully small boat, Torry," he complained to his chum. +"There isn't any place for a fellow to get away by himself. There are +too many folks here."</p> + +<p>He did not take kindly to so much approbation. He felt that Lieutenant +Perkins had already said enough.</p> + +<p>Although Whistler and his mates had no duties to perform on the S. P. +888, they did not turn in that night at all. To tell the truth the +chaser was making an awfully rough passage of it, and although they were +inured to the discomforts of their beloved <i>Colodia</i> in stormy weather, +this was even worse.</p> + +<p>They kept out of the way of the watch on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>duty, but remained for the +most part on deck, as they were free to do. The watchlights on the +shore, those in the lighthouses and the lamps in certain seaside +hamlets, gave them their position from time to time. They were aware +long before daylight that they were drawing near to the harbor mouth of +the port where the superdreadnaught lay.</p> + +<p>It was blowing a whole gale (in nautical language, sixty-five miles or +more an hour) and as the submarine chaser was meeting the seas on a +slant, it might almost as well have been a hurricane. As Frenchy said:</p> + +<p>"The smaller the boat, the bigger the wind seems. And a 'happy thought' +like this chaser will kick up like a frisky colt in a dead calm, I do +believe. By St. Patrick's piper that played the last snake out of +Ireland! I'll be a week gittin' over this pitchin'. What d'you say, +Mister Torrance, acushla?"</p> + +<p>"Don't blather me!" growled Torry.</p> + +<p>"Hast thou a feeling that all is not well in the daypartment av the +intayrior?" teased the Irish lad, who would joke at all times and upon +the most serious subjects.</p> + +<p>"Torry does look a bit green about the gills," put in Whistler.</p> + +<p>"Serves him right for eatin' crab-meat salad <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>there at Yancey's," +declared Ikey Rosenmeyer. "That's nice chow to go to sea on, yet."</p> + +<p>"I don't have to ask you what to eat," said Torry gruffly.</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi! That's right," agreed Ikey. "Just the same I could tell you +lots better than that."</p> + +<p>The boys had sampled the cook's coffee, but not much else, since +embarking on the S. P. 888. It was true that the pitching of the chaser +was not conducive to a ravenous appetite.</p> + +<p>"If Uncle kept all his bluejackets on these submarine chasers," said +Whistler, "he'd save money on grub. I wonder these fellows," referring +to the crew of the S. P. 888, "manage to keep up with their rations."</p> + +<p>The little craft swerved at last and took the waves directly astern as +she ran shoreward. The mouth of the harbor opened up to her, and in the +gray light, as the chaser shot in between the headlands, almost +smothered in foam, the men and boys on her deck sighted through the haze +the towering hull of the great battleship.</p> + +<p>"There she is!" gasped Frenchy. "My! isn't she a monster?"</p> + +<p>"She's a regular leviathan," agreed Whistler.</p> + +<p>Even Torry forgot his discomfort and showed enthusiasm. "She's the +biggest thing I ever saw afloat," he said. "Listen, fellows!"</p> + +<p>Two strokes of a silvery bell rang out from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>some ship asleep in the +morning mist. It was five o'clock. From the decks of the battleship +sounded the bugles of the boatswain's mates, piping reveille and "all +hands."</p> + +<p>"Gee!" groaned Frenchy, "reg'lar duty again, fellows."</p> + +<p>"Don't croak," advised Whistler. "It's what we signed on for, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>The chaser, now riding an even keel in the more quiet waters of the +harbor, swept at slower speed to the side of the towering hull of the +<i>Kennebunk</i>. A sentinel at the starboard ladder, which was lowered, +hailed sharply. A moment later a deck officer came to the side.</p> + +<p>"S. P. Eight Hundred and Eighty-eight, ahoy!" he said.</p> + +<p>"Lieutenant Perkins in command," said that officer, standing in his +storm coat and boots on the wet deck. "With squad of seamen under Ensign +MacMasters for the <i>Kennebunk</i>."</p> + +<p>"Send them aboard, Lieutenant, if you please. We trip anchors in half an +hour. The tide is just at the turn."</p> + +<p>Mr. MacMasters was already lining up his men, and Seven Knott, with a +bandage on his head, was looking for stragglers. Some of the chaser's +crew shook hands with the boys assigned to the superdreadnaught before +they went up her side.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Good luck! If you get a chance, smash a Fritzie battleship for me!" +were some of the wishes that followed Whistler Morgan and his companions +aboard the superdreadnaught.</p> + +<p>The boys from Seacove and their companions reported to the chief +master-at-arms, while Mr. MacMasters made his report to the executive +officer.</p> + +<p>At first glance it was plainly to be seen by the newcomers that the +superdreadnaught had a full crew. Their squad made complete her +complement of men. She was ready to put to sea.</p> + +<p>Hammocks were already piped up and the smoking lamp was lit. The cooks +of the watch were serving coffee, and the newly arrived party had their +share, and grateful they were. Their experience aboard the submarine +patrol boat had been most chilling and uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>Immediately, the call for hauling over hammock cloths and stopping them +down was sounded. "Pipe sweepers" was the next command, and the decks +were thoroughly swept while the deck washers removed their shoes and +socks.</p> + +<p>"Wet down decks!" and the washers sprang for the coils of hose attached +to the fire hydrants. Every part of the decks was flushed with clean sea +water and swabs, or deck-mops, were used where necessary.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> + +<p>All this was a familiar routine to Whistler Morgan and his mates. Later +they would be assigned to their places in the watches and to their posts +at all deck drills.</p> + +<p>At the execution of morning orders at three bells, or half-past five, +the decks were cleared of all loiterers and the order passed to break +away the anchors. The steam gear was already in action. The derrick had +hoisted aboard the running steamer before the chaser had arrived with +the boys from Seacove and their companions, and it was now stowed in her +proper berth amidships. There was no other craft outboard, even the +captain's gig having been stowed preparatory to going to sea.</p> + +<p>Feathery smoke was rising from the funnels of the ship when Whistler and +his chums had come aboard. Now great gray masses of oily smoke ballooned +upward, drifting away to leeward before the gale. As soon as the anchors +were tripped the bows of the great ship swung seaward. She began to +forge ahead.</p> + +<p>The <i>Kennebunk</i> was a huge craft, indeed, being of thirty-two thousand +tons' displacement. She carried twelve 12 and 14-inch guns in her +turrets on the center line, while her torpedo battery of 5 and 6-inch +guns numbered twenty. The "all-big-gun" feature of our big battleships +be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>gan with the construction of the dreadnaught <i>Delaware</i>, in 1906.</p> + +<p>The <i>Kennebunk</i> was heavily armored on the waterline and barbettes. She +likewise had 5 to 8-inch armor along in wake of the berth-deck and +armored broadside gun positions.</p> + +<p>She had two steel cage masts and cofferdams along the unarmored portion +of her waterline to protect the ship from being flooded if pierced by a +shell between wind and water.</p> + +<p>All machinery necessary to the superdreadnaught while in action was +installed below the armored deck and behind the thick belt of armor at +the waterline. Her system of water-tight compartments was perfect, and +she had a complete double bottom.</p> + +<p>In addition to her offensive machinery, she had several underwater +torpedo tubes. Although she was supposed to be too heavy for great +speed, her coal carrying capacity was enormous, and she could travel on +the power of her oil engines alone in a pinch. Altogether, the +<i>Kennebunk</i> was the very latest result of battleship construction, and +was preëminently a "first line ship."</p> + +<p>But she had yet to prove herself.</p> + +<p>Her brief trial cruise had shown her to be safe and that she could be +handled by the minimum of men allowed on such a ship. Now with a full +crew and direct orders for a month or more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>ahead, she was going to sea +to make her initial record as a sea-fighter for Uncle Sam.</p> + +<p>Her commander's report would be made daily by wireless to Washington, +and the working out of the new superdreadnaught would be watched by +experts with the keenest anxiety.</p> + +<p>There were several points regarding the <i>Kennebunk's</i> construction +different from any craft that had ever been built for similar work +before; and if these matters did not prove satisfactory there would be +bitter criticism of the board in charge. This was no time, Congress +would say, for the trial of "new frills." The country was at war, and it +was believed that all our first line ships would soon be called into +action. Germany was believed to be in such desperate straits that it was +thought she would venture to send her fleet to sea after three and a +half years of hiding in the Kiel Canal.</p> + +<p>High hopes and some doubt went with the <i>Kennebunk</i> as she steamed out +of the harbor and into the storm. Not alone were her officers and crew +anxious to find out what she could do. The rulers of the United States +Navy were deeply concerned as well.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>AN UNEXPECTED TARGET</h3> + + +<p>At quarters for muster and inspection that day the four Navy boys from +Seacove were given their numbers and drill placements. These were, of +course, not permanent assignments. Changes would quickly be made after +the capabilities of the boys were established. Especially would this be +so in assignments of duty relating to the ship when in action.</p> + +<p>The four friends had Mr. MacMasters to say a good word for them. Their +record, too, aboard the <i>Colodia</i> and with the prize crew on the +captured German raider would be taken into consideration when permanent +appointments were made upon the <i>Kennebunk</i>.</p> + +<p>Hans Hertig immediately took his rightful position as boatswain's mate. +His rating was assured. But, after all, the apprentice seamen must prove +themselves before the officers of the superdreadnaught were likely to +give them much consideration.</p> + +<p>The act of particular courage that had brought Whistler Morgan into +prominence on the sub<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>marine chaser the night before would scarcely be +taken public notice of by Captain Trevor of the <i>Kennebunk</i> until it was +mentioned in orders from Washington. Ensign MacMasters, however, liked +the boy too well not to take the first opportunity offered him to relate +the happening on the S. P. 888 at officers' mess. After this it of +course quickly reached the captain's ears.</p> + +<p>Whistler and Torry immediately put in their claim for gunnery work. They +had studied faithfully and had had considerable training with the +secondary battery of the <i>Colodia</i>.</p> + +<p>"Of course, these huge guns of the <i>Kennebunk</i> mean something else +again," declared Ikey. "You fellers have been playin' with popguns yet. +If you get in a turret gun crew you've got to show 'em."</p> + +<p>"We'll do just that little thing," answered Torry rather boastfully.</p> + +<p>There was not likely to be practice with the big guns until the weather +changed. The <i>Kennebunk</i> roared on through the storm for all of that +day; but her hull was so huge that she scarcely rolled while she +remained under steam.</p> + +<p>Most target shooting is arranged for ordinarily fair weather. Not often +have battles at sea been fought in a storm. Besides, the <i>Kennebunk</i> +must run off the coast, beyond the approved steamship <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>lines, to a point +where she could be joined by a naval vessel dragging the target.</p> + +<p>There were lectures on gunnery that day to the gun captains, and the +boys off duty who were interested in the subject might listen to this +instruction. Phil Morgan and Torrance availed themselves of the +privilege.</p> + +<p>The two younger chums, Michael Donahue and Ikey Rosenmeyer, were not, it +must be confessed, so well employed. During this first day aboard the +<i>Kennebunk</i> there was bred between these youths a scheme which certainly +would not have met with the approval of the executive officer.</p> + +<p>In their quarters aboard the destroyer <i>Colodia</i> they would not have +been able to stow the junk they now secured away from the watchful eyes +of the master-at-arms. In the destroyer their ditty boxes had to hide +any private property the boys wanted to stow away.</p> + +<p>But a man could lose himself in the various decks of the +superdreadnaught. Even the officers' quarters were forward with the +crew's, the ship was so huge. There were unused rooms and compartments +for which Ikey and Frenchy did not know the names, or their uses.</p> + +<p>In one of these unoccupied compartments the two found a lot of lumber +and rubbish amid which were some joints of two-inch galvanized <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>pipe the +plumbers and pipe fitters had left when the ship was being furnished.</p> + +<p>"Gee, Ikey!" murmured the agile-minded Irish lad, "I've got an idea."</p> + +<p>"I bet you," returned Ikey. "You always have ideas. But is this one +worth anything?"</p> + +<p>"Listen here!" and Frenchy, with dancing eyes, whispered into his +friend's ear the details of the new-born scheme.</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi!" cried Ikey. "It is an idea, sure enough. But it is trouble you +are looking for."</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it. We needn't tell anybody—not even Whistler or Al. Gee! +it will be great."</p> + +<p>"Mebbe the old man won't say so." He was referring to Captain Trevor, +but in no disrespectful way. "Old Man" is rather a term of admiration +and affection applied to the commander of a ship.</p> + +<p>"Lots he'll be botherin' about what we do," sniffed Frenchy.</p> + +<p>Ikey was already enamored of his friend's plan. His objections were very +weak.</p> + +<p>"Ah, g'wan!" reiterated Frenchy. "You won't get into the brig for it, +that's sure. I'll do it alone. Only see that you keep your mouth shut +about it, if you won't help."</p> + +<p>But Ikey had no intention of seeing his friend have all the fun of the +thing. He stopped ob<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>jecting, and thereafter gave his hearty assistance +in the plot.</p> + +<p>At odd times during that day and the next the two rigged a weighted +platform into which could be fixed upright lengths of the two-inch pipe +they had found.</p> + +<p>Rigged to suit them at last, the two boys took their appliance to pieces +again and hid the parts away until a to-be-determined time. They were +planning to have a joke upon the whole ship's company; but they were +forced to wait for the appropriate moment in which to spring the +surprise.</p> + +<p>The third morning out revealed a clearing sky and subsiding waves; and +the regular ship's routine at sea was taken up.</p> + +<p>"Officers' call" was sounded five minutes before the "assembly" bugle +call at 9:15. At the later call men of the various divisions fall in +smartly at double time for muster in the respective parts of the ship. +The men are inspected at this time regarding the condition of their +clothing, length of hair, personal cleanliness, and whether or not they +are carefully shaved.</p> + +<p>This last requirement troubled the four friends from Seacove but little, +save that Whistler and Torry occasionally wore a little fuzz on their +cheeks, which Frenchy declared they lathered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>surreptitiously with +cream, then let the ship's cat lick it off.</p> + +<p>"If they had a real ship's cat on this iron pot," retorted Torry, "I +know who would most frequently have the attention of that. You need the +cat-o'-nine-tails right now, Frenchy."</p> + +<p>"Gee! ain't he bloodthirsty and savage?" whispered Michael, who dearly +loved to tease.</p> + +<p>The petty officers who personally inspected the men at this morning +review reported to the division officer, who in turn reported to the +executive officer of the ship, who is always the navigating officer.</p> + +<p>After the reports the physical drill, or setting-up exercises, is the +order. These calisthenics are similar to that drill in the army.</p> + +<p>It was on this third day that the boys were assigned to the watches and +to their divisions for the cruise. The ship's company is divided into +port and starboard watches, each watch being organized into divisions. +Each turret is manned by a division, numbered in rotation, beginning +with Number One from forward aft. To the delight of Philip Morgan and Al +Torrance they were both assigned to Number Two division, and would be +members of the crew of a big gun in the second turret.</p> + +<p>The broadside batteries were partly manned by marines, of whom there +were a large number <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>aboard the <i>Kennebunk</i>. These "soldiers of the sea" +had always interested Whistler and his friends.</p> + +<p>For convenience in making out station bills and the like, each man of a +division has a number assigned him by which he is known. Whistler and +Torry were given respectively Numbers 2111 and 2112. These numbers +showed that they were Numbers 11 and 12 of the first section of the +second division—the first figure for division, the second for section, +and the remainder the personal number of the man in his section.</p> + +<p>The watches, meaning the length of time into which the twenty-four hours +aboard ship is divided, are arranged on a naval vessel as in all +maritime affairs.</p> + +<p>The first watch is from 8:00 P. M. till midnight. The mid-watch, or +"graveyard watch," is from midnight till 4:00 A. M.; the morning watch +from 4:00 till 8:00 A. M.; the forenoon watch from 8:00 A. M. till +mid-day; the afternoon watch from noon till 4:00 P. M.; and the +dog-watches, each of which is but two hours long, are from 4:00 till +6:00 P. M. and from 6:00 till 8 P. M.</p> + +<p>The Seacove boys were already well trained in the general duties that +fell to their share, even though they had never cruised upon a +super<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>dreadnaught. Now they had the special duties of looking after the +guns in the turret to which they were attached. Gun drill would +hereafter occupy a part of their time each forenoon.</p> + +<p>As the weather cleared the lookouts all over the ship kept sharper watch +than they had before for any moving object on the sea. They had seen the +smoke of steamships and the sails of other vessels during the storm, but +had not spoken a single craft since leaving port.</p> + +<p>The <i>Kennebunk</i> frequently received and sent wireless messages; but the +messages were evidently unimportant for they caused no flurry of +excitement. The Seacove boys were expecting some news of submarines, or +the capture of the "mother ship," which they believed was cruising off +the coast to supply German U-boats with fuel. But no news of this kind +came to their ears.</p> + +<p>The big battleship was now nearing the point where they could expect to +meet the auxiliary naval vessel towing the target.</p> + +<p>"Pretty soft! Pretty soft!" said one chap in Whistler's gun crew +disgustedly. "Pretty soft for us! We fellows going out to target +practice, while those battleships already on the other side of this +periscope pond may be fighting the Fritzies off Heligoland."</p> + +<p>"We'll get a chance at a sub maybe," said another more hopefully.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No such luck," growled the first speaker. "We'll just about get shot at +with a torpedo from one of those pirates. We'd never have the good luck +to plant a shell in a U-boat where it would do the most good. No, sir!"</p> + +<p>There was so much that was new for the four boys from Seacove to learn +aboard the superdreadnaught that they did not worry much about getting +into immediate action. Target practice with the big guns would spell +excitement enough for the time being, they thought.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Michael Donahue and Ikey Rosenmeyer were having a secret all +to themselves that kept them breaking out in "the giggles" at +unseasonable times, so that the master-at-arms gave them two reprimands +within the twenty-four hours. Another would be likely to put their names +on the report—an incident that was always to be regretted.</p> + +<p>The battleship was steaming through a flattening sea at half speed. Word +had been passed from one of the masthead lookouts that smoke was +sighted. The executive officer said it was probably the auxiliary ship +with the target in tow. The report brought almost everybody who was free +to the open decks.</p> + +<p>But Frenchy and Ikey showed an unexplained lack of interest in this +incident. They remained below and, seizing their chance unobserved, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>slipped into the spare compartment on the lower deck in which the +lumber was stowed.</p> + +<p>Just abaft this compartment was an ash-chute. As the sea was now calm, +the ash-hoist had been at work that morning and the trap-door of the +chute had not been relocked. This door kicked open outboard, giving vent +upon the sea, the opening being about ten feet above the waterline of +the <i>Kennebunk</i>.</p> + +<p>The two chums were deeply engaged in the compartment for some time while +the crew and officers on deck watched the approach of the target boat. +The course of that and the battleship would bring the two within +speaking distance in an hour or less.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Ikey croaked a warning: "Hist! What's that, Frenchy?"</p> + +<p>"What's what?" puffed his friend, just then very much engaged in +fastening together two joints of pipe. "Don't try to scare a fellow. +Nobody's coming."</p> + +<p>"Listen!" commanded Ikey.</p> + +<p>Michael sat back on his heels, cocking his head to listen. It was no +footstep outside the compartment slide. It was not that kind of sound at +all. And it was faint—so faint indeed that perhaps the noises of the +storm since they had left port had quite smothered the queer sound.</p> + +<p>"A clock?" Frenchy suggested.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Funny sounding clock," whispered Ikey Rosenmeyer. "And where can it +be?"</p> + +<p>"Tick-<i>tock!</i> Tick-<i>tock!</i> Tick-<i>tock!</i>" The emphasis upon the second +division of the sound was unmistakable. It did not seem like any clock +the boys had ever heard.</p> + +<p>"That's never a ship's chronometer, you know, that," declared Frenchy.</p> + +<p>"What is it, then?" was his chum's worried demand.</p> + +<p>"Oh, bother! Don't care what it is," returned Frenchy. "Give us a hand +here, Ike. Want me to do all the work alone, do you?"</p> + +<p>Frenchy was really getting cross. There are plenty of noises of one kind +or another about a ship. One more noise he did not think mattered.</p> + +<p>But Ikey continued to raise his head now and then to listen to the +"tick-tock" sound. It puzzled him, and he determined to tell Whistler +about it.</p> + +<p>Their work was completed at length, and Frenchy crept out into the +passage to look about. There was nobody in this part of the ship save +themselves.</p> + +<p>The two mischievous youths tugged the result of their labor out to the +ash-chute. The time was propitious. The battleship and the auxiliary +were approaching each other and signals were being exchanged. Captain +Trevor was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>on the quarterdeck and word was passed that target practice +would immediately begin. In a moment Frenchy and Ikey darted out on deck +and joined their mates without being observed by the master-at-arms. +Whistler and Al Torrance were already hovering about their stations. If +the guns of Number Two turret got a chance, they hoped to have a hand in +the manipulation of them.</p> + +<p>Suddenly there came a hail from the masthead:</p> + +<p>"Q'deck-ahoy-sir!"</p> + +<p>The boy up there ran his cry altogether in his excitement. The +navigating officer replied.</p> + +<p>"Submarine astern, sir! Can see the periscope bobbing, sir!" was the +statement that changed the entire atmosphere of the battleship from that +of mere curiosity and interest to the wildest excitement.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>THE BIG GUN SPEAKS</h3> + + +<p>The thing the lookout had spied bobbing in the sea was not exactly in +the wake of the battleship, for those who rushed to the port rail could +see it quite well. It wabbled about in a most eccentric way, as though +the submarine attached to it had risen just as the <i>Kennebunk</i> passed +and had received the full force of her swell.</p> + +<p>"Jingo! that's a funny lookin' periscope," drawled one second-class +seaman, a new recruit, craning his long neck to see over the heads of +the group which Frenchy and Ikey had joined.</p> + +<p>"What did you think they'd look like?" demanded another.</p> + +<p>"Something like a smokestack with a curlycue on the end of it," was the +reply.</p> + +<p>Frenchy and Ikey were giggling immeasurably. The former said: "Isa Bopp +couldn't beat that, could he?"</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi!" sighed Ikey ecstatically. "A periscope like a smokestack!"</p> + +<p>But more than this new recruit aboard the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> <i>Kennebunk</i> began to doubt +the validity of the bobbing thing in the water astern. The big +battleship was being swerved to bring the port broadside to bear upon +the now distant object. The bugle rang for stations. The sudden activity +of the whole ship's company was inspiring.</p> + +<p>Of a sudden there came a hail from the other masthead where two lookouts +stood in the cage with glasses.</p> + +<p>"On deck, sir! Submarine just awash on the starboard quarter, sir!"</p> + +<p>The cry was in truth a startling one. Whistler and Torry, who had sprung +with their mates to the guns of the second turret, were on the starboard +side. A second submarine? Why, it seemed the ship was being surrounded +by these wasps of the sea.</p> + +<p>A sharp whistle sounded in the turret. The officer in charge sprang to +the tube.</p> + +<p>"Ready for deflection and range? Stand by!" was the order.</p> + +<p>"Aye, aye, sir!" responded the turret captain.</p> + +<p>Ammunition boxes appeared as though by magic and were broken open. Plugs +were swung back and the gun bores were examined. The starboard gun was +quickly charged. Whistler and Torry both worked on her. They stood back, +the gunner standing with his finger on the button of the trigger.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That submarine's going down!" gasped one watcher. "We'll lose her."</p> + +<p>The next moment the executive officer's report for deflection and range +came through the tube. Then: "Are you on?"</p> + +<p>"On, sir!"</p> + +<p>"Fire!"</p> + +<p>It seemed that almost instantaneously with the roar and recoil of the +huge gun the shell burst beside the sinking submarine. The explosion was +terrific; the whole hull of the undersea boat heaved up, exposing its +length for a few seconds. Then the sea-shark sank, going down like a +shot.</p> + +<p>"A hit! A hit!" yelled the men in turret two.</p> + +<p>A cheer burst from the throats of the whole ship's company. Those who +had not seen it, realized that the first gun fired in earnest by the +<i>Kennebunk</i> had reached its target.</p> + +<p>"The old ship's bound to have good luck!" shouted a boatswain. "This is +only the beginning! We'll sweep the seas of every Hun!"</p> + +<p>The officers did not try to quell the cheering. The satisfaction and +pride of all was something too fine to be quenched.</p> + +<p>The battleship swerved again and ran across the track of the sunken +U-boat. Bubbling up from the depths were blobs of black oil which lazily +spread and broke upon the sea's surface.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p> + +<p>The German submarine was done for. Her crew were buried with her at the +bottom of the sea. The cheering ceased when this fact was realized.</p> + +<p>"The poor square-heads!" muttered one fellow near Frenchy and Ikey +Rosenmeyer. "They couldn't help it, I s'pose. They say they are driven +into the subs. Aren't no volunteers called for."</p> + +<p>"Where's that other sub?" demanded another. "Has she sunk, too?"</p> + +<p>Frenchy and Ikey began to grin again. One of the boatswains said: "I bet +that warn't no submarine ship at all. She's a joke. There! We're going +to circle around and hunt her up."</p> + +<p>"Do you think the Fritzies set something afloat to fool us?" demanded +another man in surprise. "They're cute rascals, aren't they?"</p> + +<p>"Not very cute just now," returned somebody, dryly. "They're food for +the fishes."</p> + +<p>"Just the same, if we'd got our attention completely fixed upon this +here floating joker, the real sub might have sneaked up within range and +sent us a lover's note in the shape of a torpedo."</p> + +<p>Frenchy and Ikey began to look at each other with some worriment of +countenance. Later it was reported that the first "periscope" could not +be found. The two mischief-makers were greatly relieved.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Say! that wasn't any joke," Ikey whispered to the Irish lad. "Oi, oi! +S'pose they had grappled for it and brought it aboard and found +"<i>Kennebunk</i>" stamped on those iron belayin' pins we used for weights?"</p> + +<p>"Don't say a word!" urged Frenchy.</p> + +<p>"You bet I won't!" agreed Ikey. "Not even to Whistler and Al. We come +pretty near putting our foot in it that time, Frenchy."</p> + +<p>The Irish lad agreed warmly: "By St. Patrick's piper that played the +last snake out of Ireland!" he reiterated, "no more practical jokes, +Ikey. This is a lesson. And say!"</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>"I left my knife down there in that room. I've got to go down after it +before it's found and the master-at-arms asks questions."</p> + +<p>"All right. I'll go down and watch out for you," declared the loyal +Ikey.</p> + +<p>The target ship was being signaled again and she was coming back. At the +first alarm of a submarine in the vicinity she had started coastward.</p> + +<p>The wireless was snapping. Messages were being sent out announcing the +sinking of the <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'U-Boat'">U-boat</ins> and warning other craft, especially merchant +vessels, of the possibility of other undersea boats being in the +vicinity.</p> + +<p>It was proved, at least, that the Germans had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>sent more submarines to +this side of the ocean. The visit of the <i>Deutschland</i> and of U-53 to +America before the United States got into the war, had been in the +nature of a warning as to what the Hun could really do. Now perhaps a +squadron of U-boats was to be sent across to prey upon American shipping +or to shell helpless seaboard towns.</p> + +<p>The two younger Seacove boys, who had come so near committing a huge +piece of folly by their small practical joke, slipped down to the lower +deck again to recover Frenchy's knife. If it should be found by the +master-at-arms, or was handed to him, it would go into the lucky bag; +and then Frenchy would have to explain how he lost it in that unused +compartment of the ship if he wished to get back the knife again.</p> + +<p>Just as they got to the passage abaft the compartment in question, Ikey +uttered a warning "hist!" and drew Frenchy back. Somebody was coming out +of the room in which they built the dummy that had so fooled the ship's +company.</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" gasped Michael.</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi!" murmured Ikey, peering again, "It's Seven Knott."</p> + +<p>"Shucks! I'm not afraid of him," said Frenchy stepping forth into the +passage. The next moment he cried out: "What's the matter, Hansie?"</p> + +<p>The petty officer was plainly frightened. He <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>turned with rolling eyes +and a pasty countenance to the two boys.</p> + +<p>"What you seen?" demanded Ikey, likewise disturbed by the petty +officer's appearance.</p> + +<p>"No—nothin'," murmured the frightened Seven Knott. "But—but it's a +ghost."</p> + +<p>"What's a ghost?" demanded the boys together, and although they did not +believe in ghosts, they could not help being shaken a bit by Seven +Knott's earnestness.</p> + +<p>"It's what I heard," whispered the older man, still trembling.</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi!" exclaimed Ikey Rosenmeyer suddenly. "Was it a clock ticking?"</p> + +<p>"That's it! That's what it sounded like. But there's no clock there," +the boatswain's mate said. "I couldn't find anything. It's all about +you—in the air! I tell you it's a ghost, a ghost-clock. 'The death +watch.' They say you hear it on board a ship when she's doomed to sink. +Something bad is going to happen to the <i>Kennebunk</i>," finished Seven +Knott earnestly.</p> + +<p>"Crickey!" cried Frenchy under his breath. "Something bad just happened +to that German U-boat. Maybe this death watch you talk about was +counting out the submarine, not the battleship."</p> + +<p>But Hertig was not to be easily pacified. He was superstitious anyway. +He believed that he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>could not be drowned himself, for instance, because +he had been born with a caul over his face.</p> + +<p>Frenchy went into the room, presumably to listen for the "tick-tock" +sound; but actually to find his knife. He came out with the latter in +his pocket; but he also showed a rather pale face and he had not much to +say until Seven Knott went away.</p> + +<p>The latter crept away, plainly in great trouble of spirit. Ikey asked +his chum:</p> + +<p>"Did you hear it again?"</p> + +<p>"Ye-es," admitted Frenchy. "It does sound queer. What do you suppose it +can be?"</p> + +<p>"Don't know. Let's tell Whistler," said Ikey, who had a deal of +confidence in Morgan.</p> + +<p>"That's all right. But don't tell him anything about our being in that +room before. Remember, Ikey, we don't know a livin' thing about that +first periscope the lookouts spied."</p> + +<p>"Sure I won't tell," agreed the other. "It wasn't such a good joke after +all, was it, Frenchy?"</p> + +<p>And Frenchy agreed with a solemn nod of his head.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>AN ACCIDENT</h3> + + +<p>The <i>Kennebunk</i> shook throughout her structure at that moment and Ikey +darted for the between-decks ladder.</p> + +<p>"Another submarine!" he shouted. "Oi, oi!"</p> + +<p>"Hold on!" drawled Frenchy. "Nothing like it. There goes another. They +are at practice. The target's in range."</p> + +<p>The four Seacove boys had seen something of gun practice on the +destroyer <i>Colodia;</i> but the secondary batteries of the smaller vessel +made no such racket as did the big guns of the <i>Kennebunk</i>.</p> + +<p>The discharge of a turret gun aboard the superdreadnaught was an +important matter, and a costly one as well. The gun crews practiced all +the movements save the actual discharge of the guns every day. To burn +up several hundred pounds of powder and fire away the expensive +projectiles in rehearsal was a serious matter.</p> + +<p>The gun crew that had made a clean hit on the submarine with its first +shell, had already shown what value practice shooting was. The high +standard of the gunnery in our Navy pays for all it costs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> + +<p>These gunners had practiced at the schools and on other vessels before +being assigned to the superdreadnaught. No matter how much good powder +and shot had already been flung away in training that particular crew of +Turret Number Two, the sinking of the German submarine had paid for it +all.</p> + +<p>Whistler and Torry did not, of course, actually fire the gun. The gun +captain did that. But the exact team work of the crew had much to do +with the score of the gun in target practice; and the two friends did +their work commendably.</p> + +<p>There was a sharp lookout kept during target practice for other +submarines. The disappearance of the first periscope which had been +hailed from the masthead was the cause of much discussion. It was +generally believed that this first submarine had wisely made off when +its sister ship was so promptly sunk by the battleship.</p> + +<p>Frenchy and Ikey almost burst from their desire to tell what they knew +about the mystery. But they did not dare.</p> + +<p>It had been a lesson which the two mischief-loving boys would not easily +forget. While the whole ship's company was watching the imitation +periscope Frenchy and Ikey had slipped overboard through the ash-chute, +the real submarine might have torpedoed the <i>Kennebunk</i>.</p> + +<p>The score of each gun crew was transmitted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>to Washington by favor of +the auxiliary steamer which towed the target, and she disappeared +coastward just at sunset. The superdreadnaught was under orders to +proceed on a southerly course, and parallel with the coast, for some +considerable distance. She was doing outside patrol duty on this, her +first real cruise.</p> + +<p>Men and officers were first of all expected to get used to each other +and to the ship. This familiarity could only come about through drills +and practice work in every branch. The men must have confidence in their +officers, and the officers know their men thoroughly before the +commander could feel that he had a smoothly working ship's company.</p> + +<p>The excitement caused by the first blow struck at the enemy and the +successful target practice that followed would not soon wear off. And +both incidents helped the morale of the crew.</p> + +<p>Almost every enlisted man showed delight in his face. Only Hans Hertig +displayed a woful countenance. The solemnity of the boatswain's mate +attracted even Ensign MacMasters' attention.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you, Hans?" he demanded of the petty officer.</p> + +<p>It was difficult to get any explanation out of Seven Knott; but finally +the tale of the ghostly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> "clock" on the lower deck was blurted out by +the superstitious petty officer.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, a ghost?" growled the ensign. "Don't let me hear of +your repeating such nonsense, Hertig. Let me tell you it will interfere +with your advance in rating if you do circulate the story. I'll take the +matter up with Captain Trevor if I hear anything more about it."</p> + +<p>But it was impossible to stop the circulation of such a story on +shipboard. Rumor flies from deck to deck on wings. A hint of the strange +noise below decks made others besides Seven Knott investigate. Many +declared they heard the "tick-tock" sound.</p> + +<p>There never was a crew at sea yet in which some of its members were not +superstitious. Seven Knott was not the only one troubled by the ghostly +clock. Stories of haunted ships became common among certain groups of +seamen and marines during the hours off duty.</p> + +<p>To most of the boys and enlisted men it was all a huge joke; +nevertheless there were enough of the crew really superstitious for the +tale of the clock-ticking sound to interfere with the general morale of +the ship's company.</p> + +<p>The chief master-at-arms finally made what he deemed a thorough +investigation of the report. But it was evident that he had made up his +mind <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>to counteract the influence of the strange sound upon the men by +denying its existence.</p> + +<p>This, of course, did no good at all. The men, or, at least, some of +them, could hear the "tick-<i>tock!</i> tick-<i>tock!</i> tick-<i>tock!</i>" for +themselves. Those who wandered into the room where the lumber was stowed +were strongly impressed by the unexplained sounds. By and by the men as +a rule fought shy of entering that part of the ship.</p> + +<p>When Whistler was told by Frenchy and Ikey that they had first heard the +"ghost-clock" after the subsiding of the storm, he declared it to be +nonsense, pure and simple.</p> + +<p>"Don't you fellows forget the scare we all got aboard the <i>Graf von +Posen</i> over that old lead coffin in her hold? I should think you would +know better than to circulate such yarns about the ship," he declared in +some heat.</p> + +<p>"We didn't say a word about it," Frenchy denied. "Only to you and Torry. +Seven Knott started the row, not us."</p> + +<p>"And he ought to be keelhauled for it," growled Torry.</p> + +<p>Nothing would satisfy Frenchy and Ikey, however, until Phil and Al went +down with them to listen to the strange sound themselves. It was there, +all right. When their ears became used to the steady thumping of the +engines, they were able to distinguish the clock-like noise.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's some trick," declared Torrance, with conviction. "Sure you chaps +haven't started a joke on us?"</p> + +<p>"No joke!" denied Ikey.</p> + +<p>"We've sworn off practical jokes," joined in Frenchy earnestly.</p> + +<p>"Huh! what's the matter with you?" sniffed Torry suspiciously. "Why this +eleventh-hour conversion?"</p> + +<p>But the two smaller fellows refused to be "drawn." They merely +reiterated that they knew nothing about the cause of the ghostly sound. +The four overhauled all the stowed tackle and lumber in the compartment, +but found nothing but a locked carpenter's chest that was too heavy to +move. And the noise did not seem to come from that.</p> + +<p>"It's in the air—it's all about us," declared Whistler seriously. "I +doubt if the source of the noise is in this room at all; it is somewhere +near and by some freak of acoustics the sound is heard more plainly in +this place."</p> + +<p>"You can try to explain it as you will," returned Torry. "It's mighty +mysterious."</p> + +<p>"'Mysterious' is no name for it," said Frenchy. "It'll be more than that +before all's said and done. By St. Patrick's piper that played the last +snake out of Ireland! some of these garbies are getting blue around the +gills already."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Laugh at them," commanded Whistler. "We're Americans. We ought not to +have a superstitious bone in our bodies."</p> + +<p>"Arrah!" grunted Frenchy. "I don't know rightly that it's me bones that +are superstitious. But that 'tick-tock' gives me the creeps, just the +same."</p> + +<p>In a week the bulk of the <i>Kennebunk's</i> crew were keeping strictly away +from the compartment on the lower deck from which came the strange +sound. In addition, a run of small accidents broke out which seemed to +the minds of many of the crew to assure that the ship was doomed to bad +luck.</p> + +<p>"The ship is haunted," continued to be whispered from division to +division. The sternness of the petty officers could not halt the +spreading feeling.</p> + +<p>"How about our very first gun sinking a submarine?" demanded Philip +Morgan of one group.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that was just a chance," was the reply.</p> + +<p>"Hump!" said Whistler with disgust. "I have an idea the old <i>Kennebunk</i> +is going to be blessed with similar chances."</p> + +<p>There followed, however, a really serious accident. A pipe in the boiler +room burst, and several men were scalded, one so badly that the ship's +surgeons declared he must be transported to a shore hospital as soon as +possible.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + +<p>The operation of skin grafting could not be performed successfully on +shipboard, and nothing else would save the unfortunate victim of the +accident from having a terribly disfigured face.</p> + +<p>Many of the man's shipmates would gladly have aided by giving patches of +healthy skin for the benefit of the patient; but the operation was too +delicate to be undertaken on the battleship, and the healing of the +unfortunate man would be too tedious.</p> + +<p>After communicating with the Navy Department by wireless, Captain Trevor +decided to send the steam runner into Hampton Roads with the injured +man, while the battleship continued her southerly course in compliance +with her orders.</p> + +<p>The steam-screw tender of the <i>Kennebunk</i> was a good sized craft and +perfectly seaworthy. They were too far from shore to trust a motor boat; +and to use one of the big whaleboats under sail would take too long.</p> + +<p>The derrick swung the big boat overside, and she was lowered into the +sea as lightly as though she were a featherweight. Meanwhile Ensign +MacMasters was assigned to her command and he had the privilege of +picking his crew to suit himself.</p> + +<p>The steamer mounted a gun forward and one aft. To the delight of Phil +and Al, the ensign chose them as members of the gun crews.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> + +<p>Immediately Frenchy and Ikey clamored to be taken, too. Ensign +MacMasters without doubt displayed favoritism at this time. He +acquiesced in the desires of the two younger boys from Seacove.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you would pine away and refuse your chow if you were +separated from Morgan and Torrance," the ensign said laughingly. "Get +your hammock-rolls and go aboard. I'll fix it with the executive +officer."</p> + +<p>So, when the steamer started from the towering side of the battleship, +the four Navy boys were members of her crew, and likely to experience a +variety of adventures.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>BLOWN UP</h3> + + +<p>The change from the huge <i>Kennebunk</i> to the comparatively tiny steamer +was great indeed; and for the first few hours of the run shoreward the +boys were afraid they would be ill. There was a heavy swell on, and the +tender rode up the hill of each roller, and slid down the other side, +dizzily.</p> + +<p>They were two hundred miles off shore and three hundred from Hampton +Roads. The time occupied in the journey could not be much less than +three days and two nights. She was much slower than the motor boats; but +she sailed much more safely, and the injured man could be made more +comfortable on deck under the awning.</p> + +<p>The poor fellow complained a good deal about having had his voyage cut +short.</p> + +<p>"No chance for me to get a crack at the Huns," he repeated again and +<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'agan'">again</ins>.</p> + +<p>The boys from Seacove tried to comfort him. Ensign MacMasters told him +that he had done his share, even if his fate was not so brilliant as +that of men shot down in battle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I wouldn't mind being shot for my country," said the poor fellow. "But +I hate like a dog to be boiled for it! There ain't nothing heroic in +this, Ensign."</p> + +<p>The cruise of the steamer was not unattended with peril. They were +confident that German U-boats were beginning to infest the sea bordering +on the Atlantic coast of the United States. One might pop up at any time +and take a shot at the tender.</p> + +<p>A sharp lookout was kept, and the gun crews scarcely slept. Every sail +or streamer of smoke created excitement on board.</p> + +<p>But the first night passed in safety and the day broke charmingly. The +steamer was kept at top speed. Everything was going smoothly when, about +midforenoon, they sighted a strange vessel hull down and somewhat to the +northeast of their course.</p> + +<p>It was rather hazy, and the strange craft was at some distance. Her +course was not one to bring her very near that of the battleship's +steamer.</p> + +<p>She did not appear to be more than two hundred feet long, and the +concurrence of opinion was that she was some small tramp freight boat +and was laden heavily. She had a high bow, rail all around, and, as far +as could be seen, she flew no flag at all.</p> + +<p>"Some old tub taking a chance with a rich <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>cargo," suggested the warrant +officer, as Ensign MacMasters' second in command. "Why, at the present +time, freight rates are so high and wages so much advanced, that +shipowners can find skippers and crews willing to take regular sieves to +sea!"</p> + +<p>"She looks peculiar," Mr. MacMasters said. "If it wasn't for Grant, +here, being in such pain, poor fellow, I'd throw a shell at her and hold +her up. But we've got our orders to hasten to the Roads and return again +to the <i>Kennebunk</i> as soon as possible."</p> + +<p>Therefore the strange craft was allowed to pass unchallenged. Later they +had reason to believe that they had made a small mistake regarding the +unknown vessel, yet they had made no mistake in allowing her to go +unmolested.</p> + +<p>In time they raised the Capes of Virginia, and a few hours later steamed +into the dock at Fortress Monroe. Grant, the injured fireman from the +<i>Kennebunk</i>, was taken ashore and sent to the marine hospital.</p> + +<p>Ensign MacMasters had his full orders from the commander of the +battleship; but he had a wireless message relayed to the <i>Kennebunk</i> +stating his arrival. The wireless instrument aboard the steamer was of +too narrow a radius to reach the superdreadnaught in her present +position.</p> + +<p>Orders were soon repeated for the auxiliary <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>craft to make for the +battleship again, and laying the course for Ensign MacMasters to follow. +There were storm signals flying; but the steamer was to keep near the +shore until she got around Hatteras. It was presumed that she would find +the <i>Kennebunk</i> within a week at the most, and the tender was well +provisioned and took on extra fuel at the dock.</p> + +<p>She went to sea without the boys having had an hour of shore leave; but +they did not mind that. The fun of running on the steamer was all right; +but they were getting eager now to return to the superdreadnaught.</p> + +<p>They ran out between the Capes into what the warrant officer called "a +Liverpool particular," meaning a fog almost thick enough to cut with a +cheese-knife.</p> + +<p>Every once in a while the nose of a steel-gray ship, small or large, +poked through the mist, and her growling siren warned the smaller craft +to get out of the way.</p> + +<p>These patrol boats were very plentiful off the Virginia Capes at that +time. A mine-laying enemy submarine would have small chance getting into +Hampton Roads.</p> + +<p>But that such a craft was in the vicinity the crew of the <i>Kennebunk's</i> +tender learned was the fact within a few hours. Their course was +southerly, and almost in sight of the coast in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>clear weather. But they +broke out of the fog bank the next morning to see dead ahead two boats, +each pulled by four pair of oars, wearily approaching the course of the +coastwise steamships.</p> + +<p>"I smell a U-boat about!" declared Ensign MacMasters, when he had +directed the steamer's course to be changed to run down to the +row-boats.</p> + +<p>He was right. The boats contained the crew of the schooner <i>Hattie May</i>, +out of Baltimore, which had been shelled and sunk twenty-four hours +before by a German undersea craft.</p> + +<p>And the report of the wearied crew included a description of the +submarine. She was camouflaged by a high bow and a rail all around, as +well as by a canvas smokestack to make her look like a tramp freighter.</p> + +<p>"The craft we raised going into the Roads!" ejaculated the warrant +officer. "It's her, for a penny!"</p> + +<p>"No argument," growled Ensign MacMasters. "We fell down that time. +Although we might have had our hands full if we had tackled her with our +two small guns."</p> + +<p>It seemed that the disguised undersea boat mounted four guns on her +deck, but she was a slow sailer. She had moved up close to the schooner +before showing her teeth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then she dropped two shells near the <i>Hattie May</i> to show the skipper +that she had the range of his schooner. He had to surrender, and the +U-boat moved up and gave him and his crew ten minutes to get into the +boats. Then they sank the <i>Hattie May</i> by hanging bombs over her sides +and exploding them simultaneously by an electric arrangement.</p> + +<p>The skipper of the schooner was taken aboard the U-boat and said he was +shown all over the ship. The German captain seemed to be inordinately +proud of his craft and what she could do.</p> + +<p>"She's got torpedoes, but she don't use 'em because they are expensive," +said the skipper. "They are saved for a last resort. But she is a mine +layer, for I saw two wells and saw the mines, too. She has been out five +weeks and is numbered U-Two Hundred Fifty."</p> + +<p>"Two hundred fifty!" gasped Whistler to his chums, who were hanging over +the rail to listen to this report. "What do you know about that?"</p> + +<p>"That's the very number that man Blake used in the restaurant, talking +with the skipper of the oil tender, wasn't it?" asked Frenchy of the +quick memory.</p> + +<p>"You mean Franz Linder, the German spy!" ejaculated Torry, with +emphasis. "He spoke of this very sub."</p> + +<p>"You bet!" agreed Ikey.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p> + +<p>The steamer's wireless operator was sending out an S O S call and a +destroyer quickly answered. The steamer remained by the two boats from +the sunken schooner until the fast-flying naval vessel appeared in the +west.</p> + +<p>After that the boys on the steamer kept their eyes open for sight of the +camouflaged U-boat. As the boat picked up speed again and kept to her +course. Whistler Morgan and his mates discussed the matter with much +excitement.</p> + +<p>"Do you s'pose Mr. MacMasters will let us shell the Hun?" demanded +Frenchy eagerly.</p> + +<p>"She'll more likely shell us," declared Torry, inclined to be +pessimistic.</p> + +<p>"I bet we can run away from her," cried Ikey Rosenmeyer.</p> + +<p>"Say! this tender is no sub chaser. In a race with the S. P. 888, for +instance, she wouldn't have a chance."</p> + +<p>"Aw, well," Frenchy broke in, "that U-boat will not have a speed of over +fourteen knots on the surface. We can do better than that."</p> + +<p>"But if she sneaks up on us as that other one did on the <i>Kennebunk</i>," +Whistler observed, "we might easily be potted."</p> + +<p>"Right-o!" declared Torry. "Whichever way you put it, I don't want to +see that U-boat till we're aboard the <i>Kennebunk</i> again—if ever."</p> + +<p>After leaving the crew of the <i>Hattie May</i> to be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>picked up by the +destroyer, the tender continued to run parallel with the coast. Land was +seldom wholly out of sight, for Mr. MacMasters had orders as to his +course, expecting to meet the superdreadnaught on that vessel's return +from the south.</p> + +<p>The fog in which they had run out from the Capes was the forerunner of a +storm which increased as the day advanced. The gale was behind them, +however, so there was no fear of the tender being cast ashore.</p> + +<p>The sea around Cape Hatteras is notoriously rough in a gale, and the +outlook was not promising when they sighted Hatteras Light that evening. +Seaworthy as the steamer was, she pitched terrifically in the seas that +threatened now to <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'overwhelmn'">overwhelm</ins> her.</p> + +<p>There was a pale and watery moon that evening, with wind-driven clouds +scurrying across its face and quenching its light every few minutes. The +steamer pitched so that her propeller was frequently entirely out of the +sea.</p> + +<p>Phil Morgan, in his watch on deck, thought the situation was as nasty as +any he had experienced since joining the Navy. With every hatch and door +battened to keep the seas from flooding her, they ran on, making +scarcely five knots an hour. Now and then they were completely +overwhelmed with the seas; and always the craft <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>plunged and kicked as +though she actually had to fight for supremacy with each wave.</p> + +<p>As the bitter night crept on they wore around the Cape, and then, when +it seemed safe to do so, Ensign MacMasters ordered the helm shifted and +they edged farther in toward the land.</p> + +<p>In time the out-thrust of the coast partly sheltered them and the +steamer ran into more quiet waters. But the gale still held, and from +the same quarter.</p> + +<p>They sighted only smacks and other small fry, including some few +coastwise steamers whose routes hugged the land. Surely they might +expect safety from submarines so far inshore, for this coast is +treacherous.</p> + +<p>Another day and night passed. The wireless operator had thus far failed +to raise the <i>Kennebunk</i>, although he called every hour.</p> + +<p>Mr. MacMasters and the warrant officer studied the chart anxiously. +There were shallow waters hereabout, and although the steamer demanded +little depth, there were bights between the reefs that were dangerous.</p> + +<p>At daybreak of the fourth day out they were in the track of Charleston +craft and quite near to a string of islands. There was plenty of water +between the two outer islands. The passage was, indeed, a popular +channel for both steam and sailing vessels.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> + +<p>The <i>Kennebunk's</i> tender was half way through this gut when suddenly, +and without warning, it seemed as though the bow of the craft hit +squarely upon a rock.</p> + +<p>She stopped with an awful shock, seemed to rebound, and then the forward +part rose on a wave that shot it into the air. The explosion that +followed was muffled; but the sea about the doomed craft fairly boiled.</p> + +<p>"We're sinking! All hands on deck!" shouted the warrant officer.</p> + +<p>The boatswain's mate piped his shrillest. Those below swarmed upon the +already settling deck. It was plain at once that the steamer had but a +few moments to live.</p> + +<p>"A mine!" declared Ensign MacMasters. "That is what did it! That Hun +mine-sower has been this way!"</p> + +<p>The men and boys went to quarters coolly. They had been drilling every +day on the steamer just as though they were aboard the <i>Kennebunk</i>.</p> + +<p>There was both a liferaft and a tight yawl aboard. These were got over +into the comparatively quiet sea, water and an emergency ration-cask put +aboard each, and Mr. MacMasters brought his instruments and papers, +taking his place in the stern of the boat. The latter had a small +engine, and there was a hawser with which she might tow the raft.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<p>Meanwhile the wireless operator had been calling for help. He got a +reply from a land station, but none from any sister naval ship. However, +they were so near land that it did not seem that this mattered.</p> + +<p>"Let her go, boy!" shouted the ensign to the operator. "Come on! She's +going down."</p> + +<p>They pulled away just in time, and got the little engine to kicking as +the wrecked auxiliary craft of the <i>Kennebunk</i> sank stern foremost under +the sea. As she went down her bows rose out of the water and the +castaways saw the great wound torn in two of her water-tight +compartments by the mine.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>MORE TROUBLE</h3> + + +<p>Philip Morgan and Al Torrance both were in the yawl, and were assigned +to pull oars if the engine went dead from any cause. The two younger +Seacove boys were taken by the warrant officer, Mr. Mudge, aboard the +buoyant raft.</p> + +<p>"Well, old man," muttered Torry in his mate's ear, "this is a new +experience. We've never been shipwrecked before."</p> + +<p>Ikey on the raft was bewailing the loss of some of his duffle. "Oi, oi! +And a nice new black silk neckerchief, too! Oi, oi! All for the fishes +yet."</p> + +<p>Mr. MacMasters laughed, and did not order the boys to cease talking as a +sterner officer might have done.</p> + +<p>"We may as well take it cheerfully," he said. "I'm thankful there's +nobody lost. And there can be no blame attached to any of us because of +the loss of the boat."</p> + +<p>"Ah, that's all right," grumbled the warrant officer on the raft. "But +think of those miserable Huns, sneaking away in here and dropping <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>a +mine in a channel where nothing but small craft dare sail."</p> + +<p>"Excursion steamers from Charleston use this channel," Mr. MacMasters +said. "I know it to be a fact."</p> + +<p>"Ah! That's the Hun of it," repeated the second. "To sink a craft having +aboard a lot of innocent and helpless folk out on a pleasure excursion +would be just his delight."</p> + +<p>First of all the two officers had looked over their charts and decided +on the course to pursue. Charleston was not the nearest port.</p> + +<p>The barometer was falling again and there was every promise of more bad +weather. It was decided to make for a small town behind the islands, and +instead of continuing through the channel where the <i>Kennebunk's</i> +auxiliary steamer had been mined, it seemed better to take advantage of +the tide and run back to the open sea.</p> + +<p>There they proposed to skirt along the outer beaches of the islands +until they reached another passage marked on the <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'sharts'">charts</ins> as being the +entrance to the sheltered harbor of the port in question. The distance +was about ten miles.</p> + +<p>There was no danger from reefs in this direction, and if they had to +beach the boat and the raft the shores of the islands would seem to +offer safe landings. They were yet to learn different.</p> + +<p>Yet the decision was wise as far as the two <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>officers could be expected +to know without a special knowledge of the conditions. What mainly they +failed to apprehend was the swiftness with which the new storm was +approaching.</p> + +<p>The little yawl chugged away cheerfully and drew the life raft out of +the channel. No other craft had been in sight when the <i>Kennebunk's</i> +auxiliary steamer was blown up, and therefore none had come to their +assistance.</p> + +<p>The local fishermen and navigators of small craft appreciated the coming +of this second storm on the heels of the first. It would probably pounce +upon the coast with suddenness, so the <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'finshing'">fishing</ins> boats had already run for +cover.</p> + +<p>The yawl and raft got out into the open sea safely, and Mr. MacMasters +steered for the harbor in which they expected to take refuge.</p> + +<p>The first island was long and narrow—a mere windrow of rock and sand +breaking the force of the sea. The huge combers coursing up its strand +broke twenty feet high and offered nothing but utter destruction to any +small craft that attempted a landing.</p> + +<p>"That is no welcome coast," Mr. MacMasters said. "I wonder if we +shouldn't have gone behind the islands after all, in spite of the +reefs."</p> + +<p>But it was too late to change their plans now. The first strait that +opened between the islands was a mass of white water.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + +<p>The raft was clumsy, and the yawl could make but slow headway. Suddenly +the wind fell; but with its falling the sea began to rise.</p> + +<p>"What does it look like to you, Mr. Mudge?" Ensign MacMasters asked the +officer on the raft.</p> + +<p>"More trouble. The wind's going to spring on us from a new quarter," +was the reply. "See yonder!"</p> + +<p>Away to the northwest a cloud seemed rolling upon the very surface of +the sea it was so low. At its foot, at least, the sea sprang up in a +foamy line to meet the pallid cloud. There was a moaning in the air, but +distant.</p> + +<p>"That's going to hit us hard!" cried Mr. MacMasters. "It's more than an +ordinary gale."</p> + +<p>"That's what it is, sir," admitted Mudge.</p> + +<p>"Wish we were ashore!" shouted the ensign.</p> + +<p>"Any chance, that you see?"</p> + +<p>They were off the coast of the second island now. That was heavily +wooded and the shore was more broken. But it seemed as inhospitable as +that of the one of wider beach.</p> + +<p>The newly risen gale was yet a long way from them, the low moaning of +the tempest seemed distant.</p> + +<p>The swell beneath the yawl's keel suddenly heaved into a gigantic wave +upon the summit of which the boat was lifted like a chip in a +mill-stream.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> + +<p>Some of the crew shouted aloud, in both amazement and fear. The +propeller raced madly; then the engine stopped—dead.</p> + +<p>"Out oars! Look alive, men!" was the ensign's command.</p> + +<p>The clumsy raft tugged at the end of her hawse. The yawl went over the +top of the wave and began to coast dizzily down the descent.</p> + +<p>The rope which held it to its tow cut through the swell. It tautened—it +snapped!</p> + +<p>The loose end whipped the length of the yawl viciously and threw two of +the crew flat into the boat's bottom.</p> + +<p>The oars were out. Ensign MacMasters yelled an order to pull. Philip +Morgan and Al Torrance found themselves throwing their entire strength +against the oars.</p> + +<p>The raft rose staggeringly upon the huge wave behind the boat. Mr. Mudge +had a steering oar out; but the raft wabbled on the summit of the swell +as though drunken. They saw the castaways upon the raft cowering +helplessly.</p> + +<p>Then like a shot the white wave rode down upon them with the pallid +storm-cloud overhead. The yawl was headed into the gale and the oarsmen +pulled like mad.</p> + +<p>Mr. MacMasters yelled at them. They did their very best. The sleet +whipped their shoulders like a thousand-lashed knout. The darkness <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>of +the tempest shut down upon them and the raft was instantly lost to +sight.</p> + +<p>"Frenchy! Ikey!" Whistler Morgan gasped, and Torry heard him.</p> + +<p>But they could do nothing to aid their chums. Duty in any case held them +to their work. They pulled with the very last ounce of strength they +possessed.</p> + +<p>The yawl's head was kept to the wind and sea; but it was doubtful if she +made any progress.</p> + +<p>"Pull, men! Pull!" shouted the ensign again and again.</p> + +<p>He inspired them, and perhaps their straining at the oars did keep the +yawl from overturning at that time. Yet such ultimate fate for it seemed +unavoidable. The wind and sea lashed it so furiously that Whistler told +himself he would not have been surprised if the boat and crew were +driven completely under the surface.</p> + +<p>He had seen a good bit of bad weather before this; but nothing like what +they suffered at this time. The warring elements fairly bruised their +bodies. Sometimes the boys felt themselves pounded so viciously between +the shoulders that they could scarcely draw their breaths.</p> + +<p>Now and then, above the tumult of the tempest, the ensign's voice +encouraged them. Whistler, sitting three yards away, could not see the +officer at all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then, with the unexpectedness that is the greatest danger of these +off-shore gales, the wind changed once more. It snapped around in a +moment to due west. The cross seas lashed the yawl impetuously.</p> + +<p>Whistler heard an oar snap. The man behind him fell upon his back in the +bottom of the yawl. His broken oar entangled with Whistler's, and the +latter lost stroke.</p> + +<p>There was a yell from the ensign. Whistler heard Al Torrance shriek. The +next moment the yawl rolled completely over, and he was struggling in +the sea and in the pitchy darkness underneath the overturned boat!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>COINCIDENCE</h3> + + +<p>Whistler kept cool in his mind. As far as his body went, that was icy.</p> + +<p>He knew that, after all, he was personally in less danger than those who +had been thrown far from the boat. He could hear nothing of what went on +outside; the rolling and plunging of the overturned yawl continued.</p> + +<p>Where had Torry gone? And the ensign, and the other members of the +yawl's crew? Once Whistler had spent a long time in the sea, drifting +about on a hatchcover; having been saved from that perilous adventure, +he was not likely easily to give up hope now.</p> + +<p>There was air enough under the overturned yawl, and he knew her +water-tight compartments would keep her afloat indefinitely. But there +might be work for him to do outside.</p> + +<p>He might help the other members of the shipwrecked crew. Therefore he +filled his lungs with air and dived under the side of the yawl.</p> + +<p>Just as he came out into the open sea he collided with another person +coming down. They <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>seized each others' hands and rose to the surface.</p> + +<p>It was Torry! When they popped up and expelled the air from their lungs +and blinked the water from their eyes, each boy instantly recognized the +other.</p> + +<p>"Crickey!" coughed Torrance. "I thought we'd lost you."</p> + +<p>"Are you all right?" demanded Morgan.</p> + +<p>"Just as all right as a fellow can be when he—he can't walk ashore," +chattered Torry.</p> + +<p>"Here's the yawl!" cried Whistler. "Where's Mr. MacMasters? And Rosy and +Slim? And the others?"</p> + +<p>But when his eyes were well cleared of the water he beheld the entire +crew of the yawl, including Ensign MacMasters, perched along the yawl's +keel like a string of very much bedrabbled crows on a rail fence.</p> + +<p>Strangely enough the gale seemed to have lulled for the time. Having +done its worst to them, it gave the unfortunate castaways a breathing +spell.</p> + +<p>With the aid of their mates, Whistler Morgan and Torry were able to +reach the keel of the overturned boat. There they perched, too, and, +chattering in the cold wind, tried to look about them.</p> + +<p>Where was the raft? This question, first and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>foremost in Whistler's +mind, troubled him intensely. It was impossible to see far across the +tossing sea; but he was sure that the life raft was nowhere within the +range of their vision.</p> + +<p>"Poor Frenchy and Ikey!" groaned Whistler.</p> + +<p>"That raft can't sink," urged Torry in his ear.</p> + +<p>"But they could easily be torn off it by the waves."</p> + +<p>"Don't look at it in that way. They may be better off than we are," +returned his chum.</p> + +<p>"What's that yonder?" shouted Slim suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Land!" Mr. MacMasters cried.</p> + +<p>"And a lot of good that'll do us," growled Slim. "We'll be dumped +ashore, maybe, like a ton of trap-rock."</p> + +<p>The sodden boat was drifting steadily toward the island. The surf +thundered against its ramparts most threateningly. But the outlook did +not seem so serious as that upon the other island they had passed.</p> + +<p>Ensign MacMasters, after some fishing, secured the loose end of the +broken hawser. With the help of those nearest to him he hauled this out +of the water. Then, by his advice, they all lashed themselves to the +long rope with their belts or neckerchiefs.</p> + +<p>"No matter what happens, we want to hang together," he declared. "No one +man can fight this sea alone."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> + +<p>His cheerfulness and optimism raised their spirits. At least they hung +on to their insecure refuge with much ardor, and not uncheerfully waited +to be cast upon the strand.</p> + +<p>A great swell suddenly caught the yawl and drove it shoreward. Mr. +MacMasters uttered a warning shout and waved his hand in a gesture of +command. They all cast loose from the keel, and the boat was carried +high upon the breast of the breaker.</p> + +<p>Still fastened together by the rope, the castaways were tumbled over and +over in the surf. The yawl was east upon the strand with dreadful force +and if they had continued to cling to it their chances of being +seriously injured would have been great indeed.</p> + +<p>Lightly the men and boys lashed to the rope were tossed by the +surf—rolling over and over, but still clinging to each other and to the +hawser. Mr. MacMasters at one end and Whistler Morgan at the other +managed to obtain a footing on the sand despite the undertow.</p> + +<p>They threw themselves upon the beach and clung "tooth and toenail" when +the breaker receded. Slim was completely exhausted; but before another +comber rolled in those who were strong managed to drag the weaker ones +out of the reach of the undertow.</p> + +<p>There was only a fitful light on sea and shore.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> The castaways lay in a +panting group, looking at each other dripping with brine, and very +miserable.</p> + +<p>"Begorra!" exclaimed Irish Jemmy at last, "I broke me poipe. Lend me a +cigareet, will you, Rosy?"</p> + +<p>Rosy gravely reached into his blouse and brought forth a little package +filled with tobacco pulp.</p> + +<p>"You're welcome, Jemmy," he said gravely. "Help yourself."</p> + +<p>"Begorra!" growled the Irishman, "ye might have kept thim dry."</p> + +<p>"That's a good word!" exclaimed Mr. MacMasters, briskly, struggling to +rise. "We all need to get dry. I have matches in a bottle in my pocket, +and the bottle didn't get broken. Come on and find some dry wood. We'll +have a fire. We may have to camp out here till morning."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. MacMasters!" urged Whistler, who was loosening himself likewise +from the rope. "Let us look for the fellows who were on the raft first."</p> + +<p>"Shout for them," advised the ensign. "But don't worry if they do not +answer at once. This is a big piece of land, this island."</p> + +<p>Whistler and Torry shouted loudly; but after fifteen minutes they were +hoarse, and the wind seemed to blow their voices back into their teeth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Save your breath to cool your porridge," advised Jemmy. "You're wastin' +it. If ye shout from now till doomsday ye won't bring them back if +they're drowned. And if they are all right we'll find them safe and +sound."</p> + +<p>That was sensible; but it did not make Phil and Al any the less anxious +regarding Frenchy and Ikey. The younger lads had always been in their +care, and the situation looked serious.</p> + +<p>Whistler and Torry knew they were expected to help gather wood, and so +they gave up shouting and followed Rosy and the others toward the +forest. The whole island, as far as they had seen, was forest-covered.</p> + +<p>There had been a heavy fall of rain that day, and to find dry fuel was +not an easy task. While they were thus engaged the two boys came upon an +opening in the trees. In the dusk it seemed that the opening was the +beginning of a well-tramped path, leading inland.</p> + +<p>Whistler called to Mr. MacMasters to show him this sign of human +occupancy of their refuge. Before the ensign arrived at the spot Torry +made a second discovery.</p> + +<p>"Look who's here!" called the boy in a low voice. "Here's a Man Friday, +sure enough!"</p> + +<p>There was a light approaching through the forest path. It was a torch, +and before long the wavering brand revealed a strange figure—no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> Man +Friday but, as Whistler whispered, a Woman Friday!</p> + +<p>She was a peculiar looking being, indeed, dressed in a single loose +flowing garment, which covered her from neck to ankles. She was +barefooted and bareheaded, her iron-gray hair tossed about her +weather-beaten face in wild elflocks.</p> + +<p>Her eyes were as brilliant as coals. Either she was not right in her +mind or she assumed that manner. At first she merely glowered at the two +boys and the Navy officer, and said nothing in reply to the latter's +queries.</p> + +<p>Her hands and fingers were gnarled from hard work. She looked as tough +as bale wire, to quote Torry.</p> + +<p>When she finally spoke her voice was as deep and coarse as a man's. She +said:</p> + +<p>"You-uns was blowed up in yon channel. And you lost your boat, ain't +you?"</p> + +<p>"Crickey!" gasped Torry to Whistler. "She's a German—a German with a +southern accent! What do you know about that?"</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Mr. MacMasters was interrogating her to some purpose.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen others of our party?" he asked. "There were fourteen men +and boys on a raft."</p> + +<p>"Ain't seen no stranger befo' to-day, but you-uns," she declared. Her +eyes seemed as lidless as a snake's. They did not blink at all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then how did you know that our steamer was blown up?" the ensign +queried.</p> + +<p>"Old Mag knows a heap other folks don't know," croaked the woman.</p> + +<p>The rest of the party came up and heard this statement. Jemmy gave her +one look and crossed his fingers.</p> + +<p>"She's a witch, and the banshees do her bidding," he whispered hoarsely.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mr. MacMasters, much puzzled, "is there any place where we +can get dry—and get some food?"</p> + +<p>"I'll take you all to my cabin," she said. "That's what I come for."</p> + +<p>She turned around abruptly and strode back along the path. There seemed +nothing for the castaways to do but to follow her. But they certainly +did discuss the queer woman in whispers while they kept on her trail.</p> + +<p>"She's a witch sure enough," repeated Jemmy. "Sure you kin see that easy +from the cut of her jib. The ensign had better have no doin's with her. +Maybe she'll charm the whole of us with her evil eye."</p> + +<p>The island was half a mile or more across. It was almost dark by the +time the party of castaways with their strange leader came out upon the +other shore.</p> + +<p>Here the sound between the islands and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>mainland was +mist-enshrouded, and it was evident that a nasty night had shut down. +Whistler and Torry were terribly anxious about their friends who had +been on the life raft.</p> + +<p>However, they could not start off alone to hunt for Michael Donahue and +Ikey Rosenmeyer. They were just as much under Mr. MacMasters' orders +ashore as they were at sea.</p> + +<p>They had confidence in the ensign's judgment, too. They believed he +would make a search for the rest of their party just as soon as it was +practicable.</p> + +<p>The cabin to which the woman led them was a large log hut of only one +room, but with a number of bunks, built in two tiers, along the walls. +At one end was an open hearth and chimney and arrangements for cooking. +A long table and some rough-hewn benches were in the middle of the open +space.</p> + +<p>It was more like a barracks than a home; and from the ancient and fishy +smell about the place, the party from the battleship was sure that it +had not long since housed fishermen and their nets.</p> + +<p>Mr. MacMasters and most of the others turned in at once for a nap; but +Whistler Morgan was much too anxious to sleep. The old woman who called +herself "Mag" went to work at once to prepare a meal, and the boy +offered to help her.</p> + +<p>He peeled the vegetables and cut corn from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>the cob for a sort of +Brunswick stew which she prepared. Mag put into it a rabbit, a pair of +squirrels and a guinea fowl, the neck of which she wrung and then +skinned and cleaned in a most skilful manner.</p> + +<p>While she was thus engaged she talked to Whistler. The boy noted, as his +chum had, that she arranged her spoken sentences much as Germans do who +are not well drilled in English. Yet she had the southern drawl and +accent.</p> + +<p>"I know whar yo' boys come from," she advanced almost at once. "Yo' are +from the <i>Kennebunk</i> battleship—and she's a fur ways from here."</p> + +<p>"You have seen the rest of our crowd, then!" cried Whistler earnestly, +"haven't you, Missus?"</p> + +<p>"No, no!" the old hag said, wagging her head. "Old Mag sees strange +sights and knows more'n most folks. Oh, yes! Your little steamboat was +blowed up by a big bomb in yon channel."</p> + +<p>"It was blown up by a Hun mine," declared Whistler bitterly.</p> + +<p>The old woman's eyes flashed at him threateningly. "What yo' mean by +'Hun'? Them that put that bomb there is just as good as yo' folks. I +ain't got no use fo' Yankees yet."</p> + +<p>"You don't call yourself a Southerner, do you?" asked the boy curiously.</p> + +<p>"What am I then?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You're German. At least, your folks were," Whistler declared with +conviction.</p> + +<p>The woman scowled at him and said nothing more. When Whistler had +finished helping her he moved his chair back from the fireplace, for the +heat from the live coals was intense. He saw a scrap of torn paper upon +the earth floor, near his foot.</p> + +<p>His suspicions had been aroused now and he covered the paper with his +foot until he could get a chance to pick it up without the old woman +observing him. Having secured it he moved still farther back to the +table. There was a smoky hanging-lamp over the board which gave him +light enough to see by. Secretly he examined the torn paper.</p> + +<p>It seemed to be part of a letter, and was closely written on both sides +of the scrap. On one side was the beginning of the missive, and after a +minute Whistler realized that it was written in German script.</p> + +<p>At the head of the letter was a line that not alone amazed, but startled +the boy. Coincidence often has a long arm, and in this case the adage +proved true. The letter was addressed to</p> + +<p>"<i>Herr Franz Linder.</i>"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>THE WITCH'S WARNING</h3> + + +<p>Whistler had been assured when he attended the session in the sheriff's +office at home, before joining the crew of the <i>Kennebunk</i>, that the +enemy alien named Franz Linder, who was supposed to have blown up the +Elmvale dam, was an influential member of that band of spies that were +doing so much harm in the United States.</p> + +<p>It was surprising to find this scrap of a letter addressed to the spy in +this island cabin off the coast of North Carolina. Yet it smacked of no +improbability.</p> + +<p>Whistler had heard the spy tell the skipper of the oil carrier, the +<i>Sarah Coville</i>, that his work was done in that vicinity. Linder, or +Blake as he was known at Elmvale, had naturally got well away from the +neighborhood of the dam after it was blown up.</p> + +<p>That he was on this island at the present time was not so likely; but +that he had been here, and in this cabin, was very possible. Perhaps had +the castaways from the wrecked yawl arrived a few hours before at the +cabin of Mag they might have seen the German spy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> + +<p>The old woman who tried to make Whistler believe she possessed second +sight, or some gift quite as uncanny, was in league with or had some +knowledge of Franz Linder. The boy was confident on this point.</p> + +<p>She was of German descent at least, and she showed bitterness toward +"the Yankees." However, she proved herself to be a hospitable hostess. +It was her southern, not her Teutonic, training probably that led to +this.</p> + +<p>Whistler could not read German, and he did not know that any member of +his party could do so. Nevertheless, he crumpled the bit of paper in his +hand and thrust it into his pocket, biding his time until he could show +it to Mr. MacMasters.</p> + +<p>It was ten o'clock before the stew was ready to be dished up. The aroma +of it awakened the hungry men.</p> + +<p>"This must be heaven, for it smells like mother's cooking!" declared +Slim. "Oh, yum, yum! Oh, boy!"</p> + +<p>"The old lady ain't no angel," put in Jemmy; "but she sure can cook."</p> + +<p>"And angels can't, I guess," added Torrance, grinning.</p> + +<p>"Say, boy!" grinned Rosy, "didn't you ever eat angel cake?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p> + +<p>Whistler found his chance to speak to Mr. MacMasters when the others +crowded around the table. Mag put the steaming kettle of stew in the +middle of the bare board and ladled it out into brown earthen bowls.</p> + +<p>"See what I found on the floor here, Mr. MacMasters," Whistler said +quietly, and thrusting the paper into the ensign's hand. "Don't let the +old woman see it, sir."</p> + +<p>Mr. MacMasters was cautious. He held the paper under the edge of the +table and saw almost instantly what the communication was and to whom it +was addressed.</p> + +<p>"That's the name of that spy you boys say blew up the Elmvale dam, and +was out on that oil tender we chased in the submarine patrol boat, isn't +it?" whispered the ensign. "I declare! Did you find it here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. You see, the edge of the paper is browned. The whole letter +was probably thrown into the fire on the hearth and this piece failed to +be destroyed."</p> + +<p>"You've hit it right, I fancy," agreed the officer. "Something queer +about this old woman and about this place."</p> + +<p>"She knows we are from the <i>Kennebunk</i>, too. How should she know so much +if she wasn't in with the spies?"</p> + +<p>"And she knew too much about the steamer <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>being mined in the channel +over there," muttered Mr. MacMasters.</p> + +<p>"It looks as if we were watched by the spies and that she is in cahoots +with them," Whistler suggested.</p> + +<p>"Humph! Maybe. You can't read this letter, I suppose, Morgan?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir. None of us boys read German. Not even Ikey, although he +understands the language quick enough when it is spoken. And poor Ikey +isn't here!"</p> + +<p>"Don't worry about that," advised Mr. MacMasters. Then: "I do not think +any of the men can translate German. Of course there is probably nothing +on this paper of present moment to us.</p> + +<p>"What we should do first is to find the rest of our crowd and get off +this island. The <i>Kennebunk</i> will be coming back up the coast and we'll +miss her altogether."</p> + +<p>"I hope the other boys are safe," sighed Whistler anxiously.</p> + +<p>"I hope they have as good a refuge and are treated as kindly as we are. +But we can't make a search of the island in the dark. Besides, they may +not have landed on this island at all. There are other beaches quite as +hospitable as this one proved, I have no doubt."</p> + +<p>Whistler and Torry helped the old woman <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>clear up and wash the bowls and +spoons after supper. She sat in the chimney corner and puffed away +slowly at a short-stemmed and very black pipe.</p> + +<p>The seamen were rather afraid of Mag, Jemmy especially. He carefully +crossed his fingers whenever she chanced to glance in his direction.</p> + +<p>Mr. MacMasters went outside to assure himself that nothing could be done +toward searching for the rest of the crew of the auxiliary steamer +before daybreak. It was as dark as Erebus without, and the gale still +blew strongly off shore.</p> + +<p>The ensign politely asked the strange old woman what arrangements they +should make for the night.</p> + +<p>"We don't wish to turn you out of your bed, you know, Ma'am," he said.</p> + +<p>She waved him away, the pipe in her hand. "Tumble into yo' bunks," she +ordered. "Old Mag doesn't sleep—hasn't slept for more years than +you-uns are bo'n already. That is why she knows more than others—yes! +The spirits of the night come and whisper to her while she stays awake."</p> + +<p>"Arrah! D'ye hear that now?" whispered Irish Jemmy hoarsely. "'Tis as +much as our lives are worth to stay here."</p> + +<p>Superstitious as he was, Jemmy was afraid to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>leave the cabin alone. +Most of the castaways were glad to retire to the berths again and, +blessed with full stomachs, it was not a great while before they fell +asleep.</p> + +<p>The two Seacove boys finished helping the old woman.</p> + +<p>"You are a pair of good boys," she said after looking at them for some +time and muttering to herself the while. "Why don't you run away? I'll +get you off the island yet, befo' that officer man wakes up."</p> + +<p>"Why, Mother! we don't want to run away," Torry told her, laughing. "We +belong to one of the Navy's crack superdreadnaughts."</p> + +<p>"Aye, I know. The <i>Kennebunk</i>," said Mag, nodding gloomily.</p> + +<p>"Sure," Torry rejoined. "We want to see some fighting."</p> + +<p>"'Tis not fighting you-uns'll see," croaked the woman. "Old Mag tells +you, and she knows. Yo' fine, big ship will go down in the midst of the +seas and her crew with her. Better yo' luck if it happens befo' yo' git +back to her already."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean that?" Whistler cried.</p> + +<p>"I'm a-tellin' yo' so," said the queer old woman. "Old Mag knows mo' +than other folks. Oh, yes! She'll sink. Better yo' boys stay ashore."</p> + +<p>"What do you know about 'the witch's warning'?" whispered Torry to +Whistler. "She <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>thinks she's got second sight. Knows more than anybody +else. She's like one of the Seven Sutherland Sisters—she prophesies."</p> + +<p>"Shucks!" chuckled Whistler in the same cautious tone, "they weren't +prophetesses; they sold hair restorer."</p> + +<p>But to himself Whistler muttered:</p> + +<p>"Maybe she does know more than we do. But how does she know it? There's +something awfully queer about this whole business."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>THE EXPLANATION</h3> + + +<p>Although Whistler was quite sure "Old Mag," as she called herself, +possessed no powers of divination, he knew she did have certain +knowledge that he considered she had no moral right to have.</p> + +<p>Here she was, an ignorant old creature living on a well nigh uninhabited +island off an isolated coast, with some mysterious means of information +upon subjects that she should know nothing about.</p> + +<p>She claimed not to have seen the other party of castaways; yet she knew +at once that Mr. MacMasters and his companions were from a craft that +had been blown up miles away from her cabin, and completely out of sight +and hearing of this island.</p> + +<p>Whistler did not believe any fishing boat, or other craft, had brought +this information to Mag. There had been no vessel in sight when the +<i>Kennebunk's</i> tender was blown up by the floating mine.</p> + +<p>The scrap of a letter addressed to "Herr Franz<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> Linder" he had found in +the cabin connected the old crone, in Whistler's mind, with the German +spy system. She was of Teutonic extraction herself.</p> + +<p>Clearly the old woman was trying to befool her visitors. She probably +possessed some local celebrity as a witch or wise woman.</p> + +<p>Whistler, however, was not ready to believe her any wiser than her +neighbors.</p> + +<p>He thought out the matter back to the time the auxiliary steamer was +blown up in the channel between the islands. The wireless operator sent +out S O S messages till the very last. Small as the radius of the +instrument was, a station along the adjacent coast would surely pick up +the cry for help.</p> + +<p>It was an important thought, but he had no time that evening to mention +it to Mr. MacMasters. He and Torry shared one of the wide and fishy +smelling bunks together, and they did not wake up until it was broad +daylight.</p> + +<p>There was a heavy smell of rank, boiling coffee in the air. Bacon was +sizzling over the fire and a huge corn pone was baking on a plank before +the coals. Mag did not propose to starve her guests, that was sure.</p> + +<p>The sun had burst through the clouds and the gale had ceased. The surf +still thundered upon the outer shores of the island; but the sound, upon +which the cabin fronted, was smooth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>and sparkling. It was a pretty view +from the cabin door.</p> + +<p>And almost at once, when Whistler and his chum ran out of the cabin to +look about, they saw a number of familiar figures approaching along the +rock-strewn shore. These newcomers were as shabby and bedraggled as +themselves, and it was easy to identify them.</p> + +<p>"Here they come!" yelled Torry, and rushed toward the approaching party.</p> + +<p>Whistler was not behind him; but when they reached the refugees they +discovered that Mr. MacMasters was already with them. The ensign had +been up since before dawn and had searched out Mr. Mudge and his +companions at the other end of the island.</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi!" wailed Ikey Rosenmeyer, meeting the older boys. "Such a time! +I swallowed enough salt water to make me a pickled herring yet!" Ikey +could not get away from memories of the delicatessen shop.</p> + +<p>"By St. Patrick's piper that played the last snake out of Ireland!" was +Frenchy Donahue's complaint, "it was holdin' a wake over you two +fellers, we was, all the night long."</p> + +<p>"Where did you put in the night, anyway?" asked Whistler.</p> + +<p>"Say! we didn't have no more home than a rabbit," cried Ikey.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p> + +<p>"After we got ashore," began Frenchy, when Torry interrupted to ask:</p> + +<p>"How did you do that? Give us the particulars."</p> + +<p>"Why, when you fellers went off and left us without sayin' 'by your +leave,' even——"</p> + +<p>"What's that?" growled Whistler. "You know that hawser snapped."</p> + +<p>"Just the same you parted company from us mighty brusk," grinned +Frenchy. "We drifted in with the tide. Mr. Mudge took a line ashore—Oh, +boy! he's some swimmer. So we followed him along the line, hand over +hand——"</p> + +<p>"And head under water," grunted Ikey. "Oi, oi!"</p> + +<p>"Aw, Ike would kick if you was hangin' him," scoffed Frenchy, "unless +you tied his feet. We all got out of the water safe, and that's enough. +The wind and the rain beat us so that we went up into the woods for +shelter. And then we found a clearing and in it a cabin."</p> + +<p>"Ah-ha!" ejaculated Whistler. "Another cabin like this one?"</p> + +<p>"Not on your life!" said Frenchy.</p> + +<p>"No," added Ikey. "Nothing like it."</p> + +<p>"It was a little cabin without any windows, and the door was padlocked. +We couldn't get into it; but we camped there in the clearing all night. +I'm as soggy right now as a sponge."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There was a flagstaff sticking out of the roof of the cabin," Ikey +observed. "And somebody must have thought a deal of whatever's in the +shack, by the size of the padlock on the door."</p> + +<p>There was a call to breakfast from the cabin just then. Whistler slipped +aside and caught Mr. MacMasters' attention.</p> + +<p>"Something mysterious, Morgan?" asked the ensign, observing Whistler's +expression of countenance.</p> + +<p>The young fellow briefly related what the old woman had said to him and +Torry the night before, and then told the officer of the suspicions that +her words had aroused in his mind.</p> + +<p>In addition, he told Mr. MacMasters what Frenchy and Ikey had said about +the locked cabin in the woods. Whistler put great stress upon this +matter.</p> + +<p>"Why, I did not see the cabin myself, although Mudge mentioned it," said +the ensign. "I met them marching out of the woods up along the shore +yonder."</p> + +<p>"Can't we find that cabin and have a look at it?" urged Whistler +earnestly.</p> + +<p>"But we can't get into it."</p> + +<p>"No, sir. But we can see it. I have an idea."</p> + +<p>"I presume you have, Morgan," returned the ensign, smiling grimly. "And +I have a glimmer of an idea myself."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> + +<p>When the men trooped in to breakfast the officer and Whistler Morgan +stole away. The old woman was too busy just then to notice their +absence.</p> + +<p>In half an hour they found the place where the warrant officer and his +companions had broken through the jungle. They retraced their course and +soon came to the clearing in the wood.</p> + +<p>It was a secret place, indeed. The cabin was ten feet square, built of +heavy logs, and as Whistler had been told, had no window openings. The +door of heavy planks was fastened by a huge hasp held in place by the +padlock mentioned so particularly by Ikey Rosenmeyer.</p> + +<p>"I guess we can't get into it without tools," said the ensign.</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose so, sir. But see that pole on top of the cabin? That +had the upperworks of a wireless attached to it, I'm sure. The bolts are +still up there. It is no flagpole."</p> + +<p>"Right again, Morgan," agreed Mr. MacMasters.</p> + +<p>"And that piece of a letter to Linder," the boy eagerly reminded him. +"Don't you think with me, sir, that the old woman is linked up with the +German spy system?"</p> + +<p>"It seems reasonable. At least, I shall make a report as soon as we get +away from the island. And the old woman should be watched, too."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Indeed she should!" cried Whistler. "What do you suppose she meant, Mr. +MacMasters, about our <i>Kennebunk</i> being sunk?"</p> + +<p>"The speech was fathered by the wish, perhaps."</p> + +<p>"But she seemed so certain—so assured," murmured Whistler.</p> + +<p>He was not satisfied by this explanation of Mr. MacMasters, and was +silent all the way back to Mag's cabin. They came in sight of the place +just as the men poured out of the cabin in great excitement.</p> + +<p>"What do you suppose is the matter with them now?" demanded the ensign.</p> + +<p>But he spied the cause of the excitement as soon as Whistler did. +Crossing the sound was a swift revenue cutter, and one of the seamen, +under direction from Mr. Mudge, leaped upon a bowlder and began to +signal, semaphore fashion.</p> + +<p>The signals were returned and the cutter swung in shoreward and soon +dropped a boat for the castaways. The shipwrecked seamen from the +<i>Kennebunk</i> swarmed down to the strand.</p> + +<p>Mr. MacMasters whispered to Whistler that they would have their +breakfast aboard the Coast Guard boat. Then he went to the scowling old +woman who, after all, had been a most hospitable hostess. Some of the +sailors had given her money in small sums; but the ensign forced her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>to +accept an amount that he thought generous payment for what she had done +for them, and Mag seemed to agree.</p> + +<p>"Yo' Yankees air free-handed already," she drawled. "But that won't save +you, Mr. Officer, from the trouble that's heaped up for you-uns."</p> + +<p>"What is the nature of this trouble?" asked the ensign curiously.</p> + +<p>"Death an' destruction," said the old woman. "Death and destruction. Yo' +fine big ship, the <i>Kennebunk</i> ship, will be blowed sky-high. It's a +comin'! Mark Old Mag's prophecy, Mr. Officer."</p> + +<p>"We shall all have to go on and do our duty just the same, Mag," said +Mr. MacMasters, seriously. "And if a sailor does his duty, he's done his +all. The rest is in God's hands."</p> + +<p>"Don't blaspheme, Mr. Yankee!" warned the old woman. "The Lawd ain't +studyin' 'bout he'pin' you-uns none. He's on the other side already."</p> + +<p>The boat from the cutter had to return a second time before all the +castaways were transferred to the revenue vessel. Whistler went in the +last boat with Ensign MacMasters.</p> + +<p>When they were on the cutter's deck the young fellow heard Mr. +MacMasters ask at once about the character of the old woman, and of any +other people who might belong on the island.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They're under suspicion," the commander of the cutter said briefly. +"The Department has its eye on them. On that old woman, too."</p> + +<p>Mr. MacMasters asked if anything was known about the small cabin back in +the forest. The revenue officer listened eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Ah-ha! That is something of moment, Ensign. I shall surely be glad to +hear all about that. But we must be brisk. Do you know that your Captain +Trevor is combing the sea and the coast with wireless messages for you?"</p> + +<p>"He must have heard that we lost our steamer."</p> + +<p>"That was relayed last night to the <i>Kennebunk</i>, I believe. The Huns are +sowing many mines in these waters. There is a flock of U-boat chasers +and destroyers out after the German submarines.</p> + +<p>"But there is something else of moment in the wind," added the revenue +officer. "The <i>Kennebunk</i>," he added, mysteriously, "will not be long in +these waters."</p> + +<p>"No?"</p> + +<p>"It is expected that there will be a great naval movement on the other +side. The report of the <i>Kennebunk's</i> manoeuvres, and her gun record, is +said to be so good that she may be sent across."</p> + +<p>Whistler, standing by, could scarcely suppress a cry of delight.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What do you think of that, Morgan?" the ensign cried. Then to the +revenue officer: "After this cruise, I suppose you mean, sir?"</p> + +<p>"She may be sent on the jump—and within a few hours. I have orders to +take you to sea at once and find the <i>Kennebunk</i>. Our operator is +sending out feeler messages for the battleship right now."</p> + +<p>"Then you will do nothing toward looking into this nest of +trouble-makers on the island—if there is such—immediately?"</p> + +<p>"Not until we return."</p> + +<p>"And then," said Mr. MacMasters seriously, "if you do stir up these +snakes, look for a fellow named Franz Linder. He is wanted in Elmvale, +up there in New England, for blowing up a dam, destroying munition +factories and drowning twelve innocent people. We'll be glad, Morgan +here, and I, to hear about the capture of that scoundrel."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>THE RACE</h3> + + +<p>The revenue cutter was a speedy craft, and by midforenoon she was far +outside the string of islands near which the crew of the <i>Kennebunk's</i> +steamer under Ensign MacMasters had experienced so many adventures.</p> + +<p>The wireless operator picked up the superdreadnaught at last. She was +two hundred miles away, and when she gave her course to the cutter the +boys noticed that it occasioned a deal of excitement upon the +quarterdeck.</p> + +<p>Unless the message is spread on the notice-board by the door of the +wireless room, the members of the crew of any vessel are not likely to +know what is going on in the air. The operator, like the usual telegraph +operator, is bound to secrecy.</p> + +<p>"There's something up besides the blue peter, just as sure as you're a +foot high, Whistler," Al Torrance declared eagerly. "I'd give a punched +nickel to know just what it is."</p> + +<p>Having nothing to occupy their time on the cutter, the four Navy boys +naturally gave their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>attention to rumor and gossip. They believed the +<i>Kennebunk</i> was no longer headed up the coast; but where she was going +was a question.</p> + +<p>"Crickey!" groaned Al, "if she gets into any muss without our being +aboard, I'll be a sore one."</p> + +<p>"They wouldn't be so mean," wailed Ikey, "as to have a fight without us +being in it. Oi, oi! Oi, oi!"</p> + +<p>"Nothing but subs to fight over here, kid, if any," the older boy said. +"Stop your keening."</p> + +<p>"Say, how do we know where the big fight will be pulled off?" demanded +<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Frency'">Frenchy</ins> excitedly.</p> + +<p>"What big fight?" queried Whistler, unpuckering his lips.</p> + +<p>"The one they've been talking about for months. You know, everybody's +said the Huns would come out some time. They're bound to give us a +chance at their Navy."</p> + +<p>"Aw, they won't! Will they, Whistler?" asked Ikey.</p> + +<p>"I don't really believe so myself," Torry said, shaking his head. "No +such luck."</p> + +<p>"I believe the <i>Kennebunk</i> has got new orders," Whistler rejoined +thoughtfully. "Whether or not they are for her to sail for the other +side, I don't know. I heard a hint about it when we came aboard the +cutter."</p> + +<p>"Crickey! Let 'em hit it up, then," urged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> Torry. "If this little old +tub doesn't go fast enough I'll jump overboard and swim!"</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi! Not me!" objected Ikey Rosenmeyer. "I've soaked in enough salt +water. I don't feel as though I should really need a bath again before I +get to be twenty-one yet."</p> + +<p>"Tough on your messmates, Ikey," observed Whistler. "Do think better of +such a rash decision."</p> + +<p>The four boys from Seacove were not alone in being anxious regarding the +<i>Kennebunk</i> and their chance of overtaking her. Every man of the crew of +the wrecked auxiliary steamer desired to get aboard the superdreadnaught +if there was to be any fresh excitement.</p> + +<p>Whistler's chums urged him to waylay Ensign MacMasters for information.</p> + +<p>"G'wan, Whistler!" begged Frenchy. "You and him's just like brothers. +Ask him if the old <i>Kennebunk</i> is running away from us, or if it's all +bunk?" and he grinned at his pun.</p> + +<p>"Of course she's not running away," Whistler returned.</p> + +<p>"Just the same this cutter is sprinting like all get out," put in Torry. +"Be a good fellow, Whistler. Ask Mr. MacMasters what it means."</p> + +<p>His chum did not feel that he could do this. There is, after all, a gulf +between the quarterdeck and the forecastle. But Whistler put him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>self in +the ensign's way and, saluting smartly, asked a question:</p> + +<p>"Beg pardon, sir! Did you find anybody aboard who could translate that +torn letter I picked up in the old witch's cabin?"</p> + +<p>"That letter addressed to Franz Linder? No, Morgan; there is nobody +aboard the cutter who is familiar with German. But the moment we reach +the <i>Kennebunk</i> I will put it into Captain Trevor's hands—never fear."</p> + +<p>"Shall we really catch the battleship, sir?" asked Whistler eagerly.</p> + +<p>"We've got to, Morgan;" declared Mr. MacMasters. "As you boys say, +'there is something doing' and we must be in it."</p> + +<p>"But the battleship has changed her course, has she not, sir?"</p> + +<p>"She has received new orders; but we will meet her on this course, I +have no doubt. Cheer up, my boy," and the ensign laughed. "You may yet +help work the big guns in a real battle."</p> + +<p>So it was actually a race. The cutter must reach a certain point in the +open ocean to meet the superdreadnaught; if they missed her, in all +probability the party from the <i>Kennebunk</i> would have to be returned to +port and be assigned to some other duty for the time being.</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi!" groaned Ikey when he heard Whistler's report. "I never did +have any luck. If <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>they had delicatessen shops on board ships, I'd be +made to police the pickle barrels yet."</p> + +<p>The day did not pass without some additional excitement. The cutter +passed and signaled several Government vessels; but toward evening the +lookout picked up the smoke of a small destroyer ahead which, within the +next half hour, acted very strangely, indeed.</p> + +<p>She seemed to be steaming in circles, and as the cutter raced nearer +those circles narrowed. Then her guns began to pop.</p> + +<p>The cutter's crew and their guests became much excited. Surely the gun +crews of the destroyer were not at target practice. Yet they seemed to +have found a target in the middle of that circle the destroyer was +furrowing through the sea.</p> + +<p>At last they saw an answering shot fired from the midst of the circle. +The destroyer was traveling at top speed and her own guns continued to +keep up a wicked cannonading of the central object.</p> + +<p>"A Hun submarine!" shouted somebody. "They're circling it, and they are +going to get it, too!"</p> + +<p>"If it is a submarine why doesn't she sink?" demanded Torry the +sceptical.</p> + +<p>"I see why," Whistler said. "If the U-boat <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>goes down the destroyer will +dart in and drag depth bombs. Then—good-<i>night!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Wow, wow!" cried Frenchy. "She's so fast she can cut circles around the +U-boat, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Sure as you live!" said Torry. "My! that's a pretty fight. If that +destroyer was the old <i>Colodia</i>, and we were only aboard of her! What +fun!"</p> + +<p>The destroyer was narrowing her circles; the U-boat was in a pocket, and +unless the Hun put a lucky shell into the destroyer's engines, she +seemed doomed to capture or destruction.</p> + +<p>The cutter raced nearer. Her course would take her directly into the +circle of battle unless her helm was changed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h3>UNDER SPECIAL ORDERS</h3> + + +<p>It was like bombarding a whale with bomb lances. One after another the +shells from the destroyer's guns shrieked over the sea to fall around +the more sluggishly manoeuvring U-boat.</p> + +<p>The captain of the submarine handled his craft with skill; but his +gunners were poor marksmen. They kept both the U-boat's deckguns +smoking; but the shots went wild.</p> + +<p>Torpedoes could not be used against the destroyer, for the latter was +steaming too swiftly. Around and around she went, and each time she +finished a lap the circle had narrowed.</p> + +<p>The spectators on the revenue cutter were highly interested. They +climbed upon the upperworks and cheered and yelled in their excitement. +At last a shell from the destroyer dropped fairly upon the deck of the +U-boat, just abaft the conning tower.</p> + +<p>The submarine rocked, dipped, and seemed about to sink. The helm of the +destroyer was changed instantly and she shot straight for her quarry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> + +<p>"She'll sink her! She's going down!" yelled Al Torrance, clinging to a +stay beside Whistler, as the cutter bobbed through the rather choppy +seas.</p> + +<p>But the Germans had no desire for a glorious death. Up went the white +flag, and the men on her deck put up their hands, signifying that they +had surrendered. Probably they were already crying "<i>Kamerad!</i>"</p> + +<p>The destroyer did not even drop a boat to send aboard a crew. She +steamed right up beside the submarine, put out a ladder for her captain, +and then sent a hawser aboard for the German crew to fasten. She would +tow her prize to port without risking any of her own crew aboard the +wabbly undersea boat.</p> + +<p>When the cutter drew near, her ship's company cheered and jeered the +bluejackets on the destroyer with good-natured enthusiasm. The destroyer +was then steaming away with the U-boat in tow.</p> + +<p>"Something's fouled your patent log!" yelled one seaman aboard the +cutter.</p> + +<p>"Hey, there, garby!" shouted another. "What's that the cat brought in?"</p> + +<p>The crew of the destroyer, evidently mightily swelled with pride, +refused to reply to these scoffing remarks.</p> + +<p>As long as the twilight held the cutter steamed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>into the east and +south. By dark the destroyer and her tow were out of sight. The cutter +began to burn occasional lights. Then the wireless chattered again.</p> + +<p>"Hurrah, boys!" whispered Whistler to his three mates. "I believe the +<i>Kennebunk</i> is near."</p> + +<p>Nor was he mistaken in this supposition. The night was dark, the stars +were overcast, merely a fitful light played upon the surface of the sea.</p> + +<p>The horizon ahead was quite indistinguishable from the water itself. But +at last a faint glowing point appeared upon it. Ensign MacMasters and +the commander of the cutter showed excitement as they watched this spot +through their night glasses.</p> + +<p>"Is it a star?" asked Frenchy.</p> + +<p>"A star your grandmother!" snorted Torry. "That's a ship."</p> + +<p>"A big steamship under forced draft," added Whistler. "And I believe it +is the <i>Kennebunk</i>."</p> + +<p>It was the glow above her smokestacks that they saw. Within half an hour +the fact that a huge steam craft was storming across the cutter's course +could not be doubted.</p> + +<p>Mr. MacMasters gave some sharp orders to his men. The latter had nothing +with them but the water-shrunk garments they stood in; so it took but a +moment for Mr. Mudge to line them up properly along the rail.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> + +<p>The great battleship began to slow down when the cutter was at least +three miles from her. Otherwise she would have passed, and the revenue +craft would have been a long time catching up.</p> + +<p>The cutter was run in to the side of the towering hull of the +superdreadnaught. The port ladder was down. A number of the watch on +deck were strung along the rail, and the officers did not forbid their +cheering the members of the wrecked tender's crew.</p> + +<p>"Welcome home again, Mr. MacMasters!" was the greeting of the officer of +the watch as the ensign led his party up the ladder.</p> + +<p>"And mighty glad we are to get here," declared Ensign MacMasters.</p> + +<p>The boys and men scrambled aboard and bade good-bye cheerfully though +gratefully to the cutter's crew. The latter craft turned on her heel and +shot away toward the distant coast.</p> + +<p>Already the huge battleship was under way again. She was running with +few lights. And where she was running was a question that even the +members of the crew the boys put the question to could not answer.</p> + +<p>It was generally known that Captain Trevor had received orders by +wireless that had changed the plan of the cruise entirely. Instead of +run<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>ning back up the Atlantic coast, they had put to sea.</p> + +<p>It was the next day before the <i>Kennebunk's</i> company in general knew +that she was bound first for the Azores. That meant a European cruise, +without a doubt. All the "old timers" were agreed upon that.</p> + +<p>It was finally rumored about the ship that the report of the +<i>Kennebunk's</i> cruise to the southward, and the score of her gun crews at +target practice, together with her good luck in sinking a German +submarine with the first shot ever fired from her guns, had so impressed +the Department that she was to join the European squadron under Admiral +Sims at once.</p> + +<p>"There's a chance for you boys to see some real action," declared one of +the masters-at-arms. "If the Hun comes out of Kiel, we'll be there to +say 'How-do!' to him."</p> + +<p>The boys who had been absent from the battleship for so long found, +however, that the spiritual atmosphere of the crew was not much changed. +There were still a lot of "croakers" as Torry called them.</p> + +<p>"They are ghost-ridden, as sure as you're born, Whistler," Torry +declared. "Somebody has heard that clock ticking again. It doesn't seem +to be at work all the time. Just now and then. 'The death watch' they +call it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Stop it!" ordered Whistler. "The less said the soonest mended about +such things aboard ship. We boys don't believe such foolishness, do we?"</p> + +<p>"How about the old witch's prophecy?" asked Torry wickedly. "Suppose we +should tell these garbies about them?"</p> + +<p>"Don't you dare!" cried Whistler.</p> + +<p>That very morning, after sick call, he was ordered to appear before +Captain Trevor in the commander's office, and there found assembled +Ensign MacMasters and several of the other officers of the ship with the +commander.</p> + +<p>"Morgan," said Captain Trevor, "let me hear about your finding of this +paper Mr. MacMasters has brought to our attention. There seems to be +something of moment in it in reference to the <i>Kennebunk</i>."</p> + +<p>Ensign MacMasters put a translation of the torn letter into the young +fellow's hand. The letter had been so mutilated that it was impossible; +to make any exact translation of it. But here were extracts that stood +out plainly:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>. . . success of your water-wheel bomb. +Congratulations.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>. . . from Headquarters an order to</i> . . .</p> + +<p>"<i>. . . If it equals your former . . .</i></p> + +<p>"<i>. . . clockwork arrangement that may raise <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>your +name as an inventor to the nth power. The Ken—— +. . .</i></p> + +<p>"<i>. . . shall hear of her destruction at the time +appointed.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>. . . for the German Fatherland.</i>"</p></div> + +<p>"I am told that you, Morgan, have some knowledge of the dastardly work +of this spy, Franz Linder. Is it so?" asked Captain Trevor suggestively.</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir!" cried the young fellow, in excitement, "I believe I know what +is referred to here by Linder's correspondent, as 'the water-wheel +bomb.' That is what he blew up the Elmvale dam with!"</p> + +<p>"Do you think, from what the woman on the island said, that there is +some plot afoot against the <i>Kennebunk?</i>" went on the commander.</p> + +<p>"It's referred to right here!" declared the excited Whistler. "This +'clockwork' thing. Oh, Mr. MacMasters!" he added, turning abruptly to +the ensign. "You know some of the crew, before we left to carry poor +Grant to the hospital, were bothering about a sound they had heard on +the lower deck? Remember Seven Knott's ghost?"</p> + +<p>"Right!" declared the ensign. "I had forgotten it, Captain Trevor," he +added. "Something about a clock ticking."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I have heard it myself," Whistler said eagerly. "And the boys say they +have been hearing it, off and on, while we were gone."</p> + +<p>"Do you two mean to intimate that there is a time bomb, or some such +infernal machine, aboard this ship?" demanded Captain Trevor, in +contemptuous amazement.</p> + +<p>"Look at this, sir," urged Whistler so earnestly that he forgot his +station. "'<i>. . . clockwork arrangement that may raise your name as an +inventor to the nth power.</i>' That certainly means something. And that +noise below does sound something like a clock."</p> + +<p>"It seems ridiculous," stated the commander of the <i>Kennebunk</i>. "And yet +we must not refuse to believe that the secret agents of Germany are at +work in the most impossible places. If they could sink this great, new +vessel in mid-ocean! Mr. Smith," to his first lieutenant, "have that +part of the ship searched. Find out what causes the sound which has been +heard before you make your report. We'll investigate this matter to the +very bottom."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h3>TICK-TOCK! TICK-TOCK!</h3> + + +<p>The superdreadnaught was so huge a ship, and the divisions of the crew +were so busily engaged in drills and other work, that few, indeed, knew +that the "ghost of the <i>Kennebunk</i>" was being investigated by the +officers.</p> + +<p>The ship was storming along her course through the sea at a pace which +fairly made her structure shake. Had one been able to be out upon the +sea on another ship and watch her pass, her speed would have been +impressive, indeed.</p> + +<p>Routine work went on, and the bulk of the ship's company knew nothing +about that little party of searchers at work deep down in the ship. +Whistler was one of those assigned to find the cause of the "tick-tock" +noise, and it was he who finally suggested the spot where the mechanism +which caused the sound might be found.</p> + +<p>The party had searched the lumber room and the compartments on both +sides, that above, and the one directly beneath the room in question. +Nothing was discovered save that the sound <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>seemed clearer in the lumber +room than elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Overhauling the stuff stowed there did no good. They seemed no nearer to +the sound. And as the latter was not continuous it was the more +puzzling.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think we ought to open that chest, sir?" asked Whistler of +the warrant officer who had immediate charge of the work.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't seem to come from that box," objected the man.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't seem to come from anywhere exactly," Whistler said. "It is +sort of ventriloquial. One time it seems to be from one direction, then +from another. But that chest hasn't been open——"</p> + +<p>"Whose is it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, sir."</p> + +<p>"Who does know?" the warrant officer asked.</p> + +<p>But nobody seemed able to answer that query. The searchers gathered +about the chest that had been pulled out of the heap of rubbish. It was +ironbound and made of heavy planking.</p> + +<p>"It gets me!" murmured the officer.</p> + +<p>Just then the sound started again: "Tick-<i>tock!</i> Tick-<i>tock!</i> +Tick-<i>tock!</i>"</p> + +<p>"It don't come from that box!" declared one man.</p> + +<p>Whistler stooped and put his hand on the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>cover. "Wait!" he said +suddenly. "Just feel this, sir."</p> + +<p>"What do you feel?"</p> + +<p>"There is vibration here. And it isn't the vibration of the ship's +engines, either."</p> + +<p>The warrant officer rested his hand upon the chest. He looked more +puzzled than ever.</p> + +<p>"Get something and break the lock!" he commanded.</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute, sir!" cried Whistler. "If there should be some infernal +machine in that box we must take care in opening it. Maybe the carpenter +can pick the lock."</p> + +<p>"Good idea," agreed the officer.</p> + +<p>The carpenter's mate was sent for. He came with a bunch of spare keys +and a pick-lock. The latter had to be used skilfully before the lock of +the chest was sprung.</p> + +<p>Then the warrant officer suddenly experienced an accession of caution. +He refused to have the cover of the chest lifted until the chest itself +was carried carefully out upon the open deck.</p> + +<p>No sound came from the chest now, if that had been the locality of the +tick-tock noise. The vibration could be felt just the same.</p> + +<p>The men were ordered to stand back and the warrant officer courageously +lifted the lid of the chest. Nothing happened.</p> + +<p>There was an empty tray in the top of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>odd chest. That, too, was +cautiously lifted out.</p> + +<p>There came suddenly a faint buzzing from the interior that startled +everybody near. Then followed the ticking sound, which lasted at least a +full minute.</p> + +<p>The warrant officer jerked away a layer of pasteboard that hid what was +under the tray. Several grim cylinders lay side by side in the chest's +bottom. They were connected by wires with a mechanism that hummed like +the purring of a well-piled motor.</p> + +<p>"Clockwork!" exclaimed the carpenter's mate, bending over the chest. +"That's what she is. Ah! It reverses itself. See that spring—winding +tighter and tighter? Why, it's almost perpetual motion! Some inventor +that fellow!"</p> + +<p>"What fellow?" growled the warrant officer.</p> + +<p>"Whoever built this."</p> + +<p>"Can you stop it without exploding those cylinders?"</p> + +<p>"Great Scott! Do you s'pose that's dynamite under there?"</p> + +<p>"Or T N T."</p> + +<p>The petty officer thrust an iron bar suddenly into the heart of the +complicated machine. Something snapped. The mechanism stopped.</p> + +<p>"Great heavens, man!" gasped the warrant officer, "suppose you had set +it off?"</p> + +<p>"No. Couldn't be done till the spring here <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>was wound up to the +top-notch. This machine was arranged to run for weeks. Some ingenious +arrangement, take it from me!"</p> + +<p>The discovery and destruction of the infernal machine, and a big one at +that, relieved the tension of feeling aboard the warship. As Frenchy +Donahue remarked:</p> + +<p>"It's bad enough to have a banshee <i>tick-tocking</i> around the place; but +that tidy little bunch of cylinders would have made a lot more noise if +they had been exploded."</p> + +<p>But the matter was serious. The captain took the opportunity to lecture +the entire ship's company regarding foolish rumors and gossip.</p> + +<p>"If there is anything strange comes under your notice, report it +properly," he said. "Don't camouflage it with a lot of superstitious +nonsense so that the officer you report to must disbelieve the yarn. +There never was a strange occurrence yet that could not be explained."</p> + +<p>"How does he explain Jonah being swallowed by the whale?" whispered +Frenchy.</p> + +<p>"He doesn't have to explain it," retorted Torry. "If you don't believe a +whale can swallow a man, jump down the throat of the next one you see."</p> + +<p>As a whole, the crew of the <i>Kennebunk</i> were not inclined to consider +the incident of the infernal machine carelessly. A serious impression +was made upon them all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the mysterious prospect of what was ahead of them shortly smothered +the matter of the peril escaped. There might be greater perils ahead.</p> + +<p>The superdreadnaught halted but for an hour at a port of the Azores. +This was to send mail ashore. Then she picked up speed again and +traveled north.</p> + +<p>She passed convoys of merchant vessels guarded by French, British and +American destroyers. The <i>Kennebunk</i> exchanged signals with several +cruisers of the United States Navy as well.</p> + +<p>Drill at the guns went on daily. Once they spied and shelled a German +submarine, but she escaped. This incident greatly enraged the crew of +the gun that missed her. It was not the gun to the crew of which +Whistler and Torry belonged.</p> + +<p>"Can't expect to get the Hun every time," was the soothing remark of one +of the division captains.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" asked somebody else. "That's what we are here for, isn't it? +I don't believe Uncle Sam wants excuses."</p> + +<p>The standard the men set themselves in our Navy is higher than their +officers require.</p> + +<p>The boys from Seacove, as well as Hans <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>Hertig and Mr. MacMasters, kept +a sharp lookout for their beloved <i>Colodia</i>. But they were fated not to +meet the destroyer until the great event which had brought the +superdreadnaught into European waters.</p> + +<p>The <i>Kennebunk</i> steamed into a certain roadstead one evening where lay +more huge battleships, cruisers and smaller armored vessels than +Whistler and his mates had ever seen before. They flew the flags of +three nations, and they were prepared to move <i>en masse</i> upon the enemy +at the briefest notice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<h3>IN THE THICK OF THE FIGHT</h3> + + +<p>The methods of strategy by which the German Navy, or a large part of it, +was tolled out of its impregnable hiding place the Navy boys did not +learn till long afterwards. But Phil, at least, half realized that the +German High Command believed that the way to shelling the British coast +by her great naval guns was at last opened.</p> + +<p>The Allied fleet moved on a certain day and at a certain hour, and with +the open sea as its destination. It was a calm and utterly peaceful sea +through which the <i>Kennebunk</i> sailed with her sister ships.</p> + +<p>The high bow of the superdreadnaught crashed through the seething +waters. Her lookouts traced the course of each tiny blot upon the +distant sea-line.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, out of the north, appeared a scout cruiser, her funnels +vomiting volumes of dense smoke that flattened down oilily upon the sea +in her wake. Her stern guns spat viciously at some craft of low +visibility which followed her.</p> + +<p>Immediately everybody aboard the <i>Kennebunk</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> forgot the other ships of +the squadron. The enemy was in sight, and the work would be cut out for +every man aboard the superdreadnaught.</p> + +<p>The cruiser came leaping toward the fleet, her signal flags fluttering +messages. A gun boomed on the flagship. Bugles shrilled from every deck +of the <i>Kennebunk</i>.</p> + +<p>Messages were wigwagged from ship to ship. But aboard the <i>Kennebunk</i> +there was just one order that interested every one.</p> + +<p>"Clear decks for action!"</p> + +<p>The divisions responded to the notes of the bugle with a snappiness that +delighted the officers on the bridge. As they had gone through the +manoeuvres a thousand times in practice, so now they faced the enemy +with the same precision.</p> + +<p>Ventilators, life-lines, parts of the superstructure and deck woodwork +came down and were stowed in their proper place. Boats dropped from +their davits, were hurriedly lashed together, their plugs pulled, and +left to sink, riding attached to sea anchors formed of their own spars +and oars. "Cleared for action!" when reported to the commander meant +exactly that! Not a superfluous object in the way of the activities of a +fighting crew.</p> + +<p>"Battle stations!"</p> + +<p>The four friends from Seacove knew exactly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>where they were to be all +through the battle—if they lived. Whistler knew that he was to stand in +the corridor of the handling-room for Turret Number Two, until he was +called to relieve some wounded or exhausted member of his gun crew. His +immediate order was to "stand by."</p> + +<p>Every other individual aboard the <i>Kennebunk</i> had his station, from the +firemen shoveling tons of coal into the fiery maws of the furnaces to +keep the indicator needles of the steam-gages at a certain figure, to +the range-finders high up in the fighting-tops, bending over their +apparatus.</p> + +<p>In the turrets the officers fitted telephone receivers to their heads. +The gunners, literally "stripped for action" to their waists, their +glistening, supple bodies as alert as panthers, crouched over the +enormous guns.</p> + +<p>Up from the sea appeared the great fighting machines of the enemy. They +could not run away this time. Inveigled into range of the Allied ships, +the Hun must fight at last!</p> + +<p>A word spoken into a telephone from the conning tower to one of the +fighting tops! Then, an instant later, to Turret Number One! A roar that +shook the ship and seemed to shake the very heavens, while the flash of +the fourteen-inch rifle blinded for a second the spectators!</p> + +<p>A cheer rose from all parts of the ship, even <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>before the tops signaled +a hit. After that the men fought the ship in silence.</p> + +<p>Alone in the corridor, Whistler Morgan felt that it would be easier to +be on active duty in this time of stress. Yet he had been taught that +his station was quite as important as that of any other man or boy +aboard.</p> + +<p>Through the half open door of the handling room he heard other men +loading powder bags and shells upon the electric ammunition hoist that +led to the turret above.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the whole ship staggered. A deafening explosion, different from +that of the guns, shocked him. An enemy shell had burst aboard the +<i>Kennebunk!</i></p> + +<p>"Relief!"</p> + +<p>Whistler sprang through the corridor and up to the gun deck. Was the +call for him?</p> + +<p>He stopped to look at a perspiring gun crew. They worked the gun with +the precision of automatons. Wherever the shell had burst it had not +interfered with the firing of the huge guns of Number Two Turret.</p> + +<p>Another enemy shell burst inboard of the <i>Kennebunk</i>. There was a hail +of bits of steel and flying wreckage. Whistler stood squarely on his +feet and began to breathe again.</p> + +<p>If he was afraid he did not know it!</p> + +<p>One of his mates fell back from position. It <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>was not Torry, as Whistler +immediately saw. The man's shoulder dripped blood from a raking wound. +Had it been Torry, Phil knew he would still have stepped forward, just +as he was doing, and have calmly taken the place of the wounded man.</p> + +<p>"Keep it up, boys!" grinned the wounded one. "I'll be back soon's the +doc gives this the once over."</p> + +<p>The work went on. Shell, powder, breech! Ready all! A moment while the +captain's finger trembled on the trigger button. Then the hiss of air as +the breech swung open, yawning for another charge.</p> + +<p>The thousand-pound shell, hurtling through the smoke-filled air, found +the vitals of the <i>Kennebunk's</i> immediate enemy. It scarcely shocked +Whistler when he peered out to see that vast mountain of steel burst +open amidships. She sank in seconds, and the <i>Kennebunk</i> steamed on to +attack a second monster of the deep.</p> + +<p>The battle continued. Moments seemed longer than minutes; minutes +dragged by like hours. The wonder of it all was that so much damage +could be done in so short a time.</p> + +<p>Ships that had cost months of labor to build settled and disappeared +beneath the surface in a few minutes. And their crews? Best not talk +about them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p> + +<p>History will relate in detail and with exactness, the story of this +fight. The superdreadnaught, so shortly off the ways, endured her +baptism of fire, coming through the battle scarred but victorious. Alone +she sank two of the enemy.</p> + +<p>Her own casualty list was small. But it was some hours after the battle +before Philip Morgan made sure that his three friends were safe. Repairs +and other necessary work took up the attention of the crew until long +past nightfall, although the battle itself had lasted just under two +hours.</p> + +<p>Then Phil found Al first, for they had fought in the same turret. They +went to look for the younger boys, and came across an agile little chap +with his head done up in bandages, working with a deck-washing crew aft +of Turret Number Three, which had been wrecked by a Hun shell.</p> + +<p>"It's Ikey!" shouted Torry. "What's the matter with your head, Ikey?"</p> + +<p>"Don't say a word," said Ikey, shaking his bandaged head. "The doc used +all the gauze he had left aboard after binding those up that was really +hurt."</p> + +<p>"But you've got some kind of a wound, haven't you?" demanded Whistler.</p> + +<p>"Oi, oi! I ought to have, eh? But it's only that boil I had coming on +the back of my neck.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> You remember? Somehow the head got knocked off of +it and it was bleeding. So the doc grabbed me and bandaged me like +this," he added in a much disgusted tone.</p> + +<p>It was Michael Donahue who proudly showed himself later with his arm in +a sling. He had actually got a piece of shell through the flesh below +his elbow. The others were inclined to scorn his wound as they did +Ikey's boil.</p> + +<p>"That'll do for you fellers," said Frenchy proudly. "By St. Patrick's +piper that played the last snake out of Ireland! I've shed me blood for +Uncle Sam! That is something you garbies haven't done. And, oh, +goodness! Ain't I hungry—just!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Because of the repairs necessary to the <i>Kennebunk</i> she was ordered +home; but to the delight of the four Navy boys they, with Hertig and Mr. +MacMasters, were not to go with her.</p> + +<p>The <i>Colodia</i> was now one of the destroyer fleet chasing German +submarines in the Bay of Biscay. They were ordered to meet the destroyer +at a certain English port and would rejoin their old comrades and +continue their training under Lieutenant Commander Lang.</p> + +<p>Much as they disliked leaving their comrades on the superdreadnaught, +active service, and of a new kind, was ahead of them, as will be related +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>in the next volume of this "Navy Boys Series."</p> + +<p>"We can't kick," declared Torry. "We got into the Navy to work, not to +loaf. We've seen a good deal of service, and of several different kinds. +But there is always something new to learn."</p> + +<p>"Sure!" agreed Ikey. "I've wrote my papa and mama that although I ain't +an admiral yet, I'll be something or other before I get home."</p> + +<p>"True for you!" exclaimed Frenchy. "But just what you'll be is hard +telling, Ikey. Even that old witch of the island couldn't foretell your +finish, I bet."</p> + +<p>"That reminds me," said Whistler. "Mr. MacMasters told me he read in an +American paper that he just got hold of that they have arrested Franz +Linder, the spy. He will be tried for blowing up the Elmvale dam. And I +guess we had something to do to getting evidence that will convict him. +The ensign says we will have to give our testimony about the infernal +machine before Captain Trevor before the superdreadnaught leaves this +port for home."</p> + +<p>"Say!" said Torry with energy, "hasn't this been a great old cruise?"</p> + +<p>And his three mates emphatically agreed.</p> + + +<h2>THE END</h2> + + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> +<div class='bbox'><h2>The Young Reporter<br /> +Series</h2> + +<h3>By HOWARD R. GARIS</h3> + +<div class='center'>12mo. cloth, illustrated and with full colored jacket</div> + +<p>Fascinating stories of great mysteries and extreme perils—the life of a +daring young reporter for a metropolitan daily, written by one who was +himself a reporter for sixteen years.</p> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="The Young Reporter Series"> +<tr><td align='left'>THE YOUNG REPORTER AT THE BIG FLOOD</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or the Perils of News Gathering</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><br />THE YOUNG REPORTER AND THE LAND SWINDLERS</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or The Queer Adventures in a Great City</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><br />THE YOUNG REPORTER AND THE MISSING MILLIONAIRE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or A Strange Disappearance</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><br />THE YOUNG REPORTER AND THE BANK MYSTERY</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or Stirring Doings in Wall Street</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><br />THE YOUNG REPORTER AND THE STOLEN BOY</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or A Chase on the Great Lakes</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><br />THE YOUNG REPORTER AT THE BATTLE FRONT</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or a War Correspondent's Double Mission</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<div class="center"><br /><big>GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY</big><br /> +Publishers New York +</div></div><p><br /><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p> + + +<div class='bbox'> +<h2>Joe Strong Series</h2> + +<div class="center">12mo. cloth, colored jacket and illustrated</div> + +<p>Vance Barnum is a real treasure when it comes to telling about how +magicians do their weird tricks, how the circus acrobats pull off their +various stunts, how the "fishman" remains under water so long, how the +mid-air performers loop the loop and how the slackwire fellow keeps from +tumbling. He has been through it all and he writes freely for the boys +from his vast experience. They are real stories bound to hold their +audiences breathlessly.</p> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="The Joe Strong Series"> +<tr><td align='left'>JOE STRONG, THE BOY WIZARD</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or Mysteries of Magic Exposed</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><br />JOE STRONG ON THE TRAPEZE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><br />JOE STRONG, THE BOY FISH</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or Marvellous Doings in a Big Tank</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><br />JOE STRONG ON THE HIGH WIRE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or A Motorcycle of the Air</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><br />JOE STRONG AND HIS WINGS OF STEEL</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or A Young Acrobat in the Clouds</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><br />JOE STRONG AND HIS BOX OF MYSTERY</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or The Ten Thousand Dollar Prize Trick</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><br />JOE STRONG, THE BOY FIRE-EATER</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Or The Most Dangerous Performance on Record</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<div class="center"><br /><big>GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY</big><br /> +Publishers New York +</div></div> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> + +<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3> + +<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired.</p> + +<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. +Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p> +</div> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NAVY BOYS BEHIND THE BIG GUNS***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 17967-h.txt or 17967-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/9/6/17967">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/9/6/17967</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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