The Dreadnought Boys on Battle Practice

CHAPTER XXVII.

A STRANGE RETURN

"You say Seaman Strong made his way after the men you suspected, and that was the last you saw of him?"

Rear-Admiral Gibbons, Captain Dunham and several other officers were seated in a room on the lower floor of the hotel at which the banquet that had ended so disastrously for the inventor, Varian, had taken place.

Herc shifted uneasily on his feet. He felt alarmed before this glittering court of inquiry that had convened as soon as it became apparent that the absence of Henry Varian, discovered shortly before midnight, was no mere accident.

"Yes, sir," he replied to Captain Dunham, who had put the question.

"Can it be possible that the man Strong was in league with the miscreants? The circumstances seem very suspicious," put in the rear-admiral.

"I think, sir," said Captain Dunham, "that we shall find, when the mysterious affair is sifted, that young Strong acted the part of a United States sailor in the matter. I have kept a careful eye on him, and should be loath to believe him anything else than an upright, honest young fellow of uncommon capability."

"Good for you," thought Herc to himself.

"And what were you doing all this time?" inquired one of the officers of the embarrassed witness.

"Picking stickers out of myself, sir."

"What! Be careful, young man; this is no time for levity."

"Well, sir, I guess if you had fallen into a tack-tus bush you'd have been picking those vegetable tenpenny nails out of your system for a while, too," replied Herc in an aggrieved tone, while suspicious twitches appeared about the corners of the mouths of several of the assembly. Rear-Admiral Gibbons got up and gazed out of the window for a moment to conceal his smiles at the naïve rejoinder of the red-headed youth.

Suddenly he turned, with a sharp exclamation.

"Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "here comes the automobile, or one just like it, that those two precious rascals, the Pulsifers, used. I've seen it before. As it was the only one in Guantanamo, I remarked it especially."

The officers crowded to the window, and Herc would have joined them, but a marine barred his way.

"Get back, young feller," he warned, suggestively pointing his bayonet.

"Huh! I guess you never had a friend in trouble," grunted Herc, going back to his witness chair in high dudgeon.

But the auto, instead of coming up to the hotel, turned off two blocks below.

"Possibly I was mistaken," said the admiral. "Those two figures in it didn't look like the two scoundrels, but at the distance it is impossible to tell."

"In any event, sir, they cannot escape from Cuba," spoke up one of the officers. "Every port has been telegraphed. Their capture is almost certain."

This was indeed the case. An investigation of the garden had shown clear indications of the struggle that had taken place there the night before, and servants had been discovered who had seen the inventor issuing into the garden with the unsavory Pulsifers. The odor of chloroform still clinging to the grass decided the matter, and completed the chain of circumstantial evidence. Herc, too, had been able to supplement the mute testimony by his story of the convict film and the names of the conspirators. Already a launch full of marines had been sent to Boco del Toros to intercept the yacht Carl and Silas had mentioned in the lad's hearing.

This much having been done, a code message had been sent to the secretary of the navy, who had at once ordered every port in Cuba watched, and detailed secret service men in the United States to special duty to apprehend the Pulsifers if they attempted to land in America.

The examination of Herc, who was, of course, the principal witness, went on.

At its conclusion an officer of the Illinois begged permission to ask one more question.

"My man, did you or your friend talk over this step of his?"

"Not any more than I have told you, sir," rejoined Herc, somewhat puzzled.

"I submit, sir," remarked the officer, turning to the rear-admiral, "this looks somewhat as if the lad was in league with the Pulsifers. We know now, from what this lad has told us, that other members of the crew were disaffected; possibly Strong was bribed, too."

"You don't know Ned Strong, sir," spoke up Herc, "or – "

"Silence, sir!" thundered the officer.

"Huh!" grunted Herc, in a low tone, however.

"As I was saying, sir, the whole thing looks, as you said, suspicious. We know that the lad was recently placed in the forward turret of the Manhattan, and would have had an opportunity to examine the breechblock of the Varian gun. He might even have made rough drawings of it."

"What you say is plausible, Captain Stirling," nodded the rear-admiral gravely.

"I don't believe a word of it!" snapped Captain Dunham hotly. "I'll stake a good deal on that youngster's honesty, and – "

"You'll win!" came a crisp voice from the rear of the room.

The officers turned, amazed, and set up a shout of astonishment as they beheld, framed in the door which they had entered noiselessly, the figures of the inventor, and, standing, cap in hand, by his side, the Dreadnought Boy, the lad to whose pluck and resourcefulness the inventor largely owed his liberty.

"I repeat it, gentlemen," went on the inventor, for it was he who had voiced the interruption; "there isn't a finer, more capable or grittier lad in the service to-day than Ned Strong of the Manhattan."

"But, but – gentlemen, pray sit down – " began the rear-admiral. "Really this is most irregular."

He sat down resignedly as the officers pressed about the inventor and Ned. In a few moments order was restored, and the two newly escaped captives were telling their story.

"But how did you get back from the Sierra Madre Mountains so quickly?" asked Captain Dunham, who was familiar with Cuba and had recognized the location of the Pulsifers' hut from the inventor's description.

"Let Ned Strong tell that," smiled the inventor.

"Why, gentlemen, we – we borrowed Mr. Pulsifer's automobile," explained the Dreadnought Boy.

"Good for you!" burst out Herc, who had been dancing about in the background, hardly able to keep down his excitement. Of course, discipline did not permit his greeting Ned just then, and he had been on the point of exploding ever since his chum entered the room.

In the general excitement no one reproved the impulsive youth, who turned as red as a winter sunset when he realized what a sad breach of naval etiquette he had committed.

"Strong, stand forward," ordered Rear-Admiral Gibbons, as the inventor took up and concluded the story of how they had missed their road, but finally found their way into town, going first to a house occupied by some friends of Mr. Varian's before proceeding to the hotel. At the home of the inventor's friends they had got a wash and brush-up which both stood sadly in need of. Ned's leg, besides, had required dressing. It turned out to be, as he had guessed, only a flesh wound, but was sufficiently painful, though not dangerous in any way.

In obedience to his superior's command, the young seaman took two paces to the front and saluted, bringing his heels together with a smart click, despite the pain his wound gave him as he did so.

"Strong," went on the admiral, "you have done Mr. Varian and the United States Navy a great service. Had it not been for your quick, intelligent work, it might have been that the Pulsifers and the others implicated in this dastardly affair would have escaped. Mr. Varian might not have been with us this morning. I congratulate and thank you on behalf of the government and on behalf of the naval department and officers of this squadron."

Ned's lips moved. Somehow he couldn't speak. Herc's face, bisected by a broad grin, thrust itself forward among the officers till it appeared, like a whimsical moon, between the elbows of Captain Dunham and the rear-admiral.

"I shall see, Strong," went on the admiral, "that some signal notice is taken of your clever, plucky work. You are of the stuff of which real seamen are made and we want to encourage men like you in every way possible. And now, gentlemen, as we are not within hearing of Washington – or the papers – perhaps it might not be inconsistent with the occasion to give three cheers."

"Oh, those crazy Americanoes!" exclaimed the little yellow-faced Cubans, as three long, resounding naval cheers, with a zipping "tiger," rang through the stagnant tropic air and went booming over the water as far as the grim sea bulldogs of Uncle Sam, lying at anchor off the town.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A HIT WITH CHAOSITE

"General battle practice to-day," cried a bosn's mate, as he hastened forward through the scrubbing stations the next morning.

Ned and Herc exchanged glances above their swabs.

At last they were to see what actual battle conditions were like. The practice hitherto had been merely target practice and mine-laying – the latter being dummies, of course. To-day, they had learned earlier, the ships were to be "cleared for action" just as in actual service, and steaming at eighteen knots, were to fire at the targets as they steamed by as if they were repulsing a hostile fleet. No wonder the jackies were on the tiptoe of expectation.

As for the two chums, they were in high spirits. Promotion loomed ahead of Ned, and Herc wished him success with all the warmth of his generous heart. Not a thought of envy entered his mind. He was as delighted as Ned himself over the big chance that had come to the Dreadnought Boy.

Each of my readers can imagine for himself what the two boys had had to say the evening before, when they had been reunited; and Ned had to tell his adventures over and over again, till Herc advised him to invest in a phonograph and talk his narrative into it for indefinite reiteration. "Pills" had patched Ned's injured leg so deftly that it hurt him hardly at all, and the doctor's suggestion that he go on the "binnacle list," otherwise the sick roll, had met with Ned's unqualified disapproval.

"I'm fit for duty. I want to do it, sir, if possible," he had said quietly but firmly, when the doctor suggested that he rest up for a few days.

The doctor, a veteran of thirty years' service, had thrown up his hands in amazement.

"I've been in the navy for more years than you've seen, my boy, by a long shot," he exclaimed, "and I never heard a seaman talk like that before. Well, if you want to work, go ahead, and my blessing go with you."

"I hope that young man is quite right in his head," the man of medicine had muttered to himself, as he heard the door of his sanctum closed by the first bluejacket he had ever met who was not anxious to avail himself of the restful idleness afforded by being on the "binnacle list."

Immediately after breakfast the Manhattan was a scene of the liveliest activity.

Rails came down and were stowed. Boats were lowered, ventilators shipped, war nets rigged, and every object on the deck that was not an absolute fixture vanished. The same thing occurred on other vessels of the fleet, in obedience to the flagship's signalled order:

"Clear for action."

It was like stripping human fighters for a ring contest.

Bugles shrilly sang the order from ship to ship of the squadron. While the smiling jackies bustled about on deck, stewards and orderlies below were stowing pictures and bric-a-brac between mattresses and placing all the ship's crockery and glassware in places where it was not in danger of being jarred to fragments by the earthquake-like detonations of the big guns.

In the meantime officers had invested themselves in their full-dress uniforms with side arms, and an hour after the order had been first transmitted the signal to "Up Anchor" fluttered out from the halliards of the flagship.

Aboard the Manhattan especially excitement ran at high tension, for Mr. Varian himself had come aboard that morning in a shore boat, and it was an open secret that the big twelve-inch gun, fitted with his Chaosite breech – was to receive its first sea test.

The first sight that greeted the eyes of Herc and Ned, reporting for duty in their turret as the squadron got under way beneath a pall of black smoke, was the unveiling, so to speak, of the inventor's masterpiece. Mr. Varian and Lieutenant Timmons, the ship's gunnery officer in command of the turret, had their heads together over the intricate piece of machinery as the two Dreadnought Boys entered the steel-walled box, in which they were practically a part of the machinery.

The inventor greeted them with a kindly nod. Perhaps the thought shot into his mind that had it not been for the pluck and clear-headedness of one of the Dreadnought Boys, he might not have been there.

"Is there any news, sir?" Ned asked respectfully, as soon as he got a chance to speak to the inventor.

"No. The launch that was sent to intercept the Pulsifers' vessel has not yet reported, but we may hear from her at any time now."

"Let us hope that the rascals haven't got a start and boarded some passenger vessel at sea," put in Lieutenant Timmons.

As the officer joined in the conversation Ned saluted and went to another part of the turret. It is not naval usage for an enlisted man to converse with an officer, and Ned was far too well-trained a young man-o'-warsman to break any rule, even the unwritten ones, which in the navy are almost as numerous as the codified regulations.

The excitement under which all hands labored was, however, far too keen to allow even the thoughts of the Pulsifers' capture to interfere with present duty.

Especially was this the case on two of the vessels of the squadron – the Idaho, the holder of the coveted meat-ball, and, as has been mentioned, the Manhattan, every jackie on board of which vessel longed with his whole soul to see the gunnery flag flying from the Dreadnought's main.

The scores stood even between the big guns of the two battleships now, and the open secret that the morning practice was to be made, in large part, with the Varian gun and explosive made the Manhattan's jackies fearful that they might lose, after all.

Jim Cooper, nervous and high-strung as ever, crouched in his seat beside the big weapon as the charge was rammed home and the breech slapped to on the heavy load of Chaosite, which the two Dreadnought Boys beheld for the first time. It was a pinkish, crystalline-looking substance, and its inventor claimed, as safe to handle as ordinary clay, which it resembled in its plasticity. Just to show its properties, before the charge was placed, the inventor picked up a chunk of the explosive and compressed it in his hands. He moulded it into several different shapes, and concluded the exhibition by throwing it on the flooring of the turret with force enough to have detonated a charge of dynamite.

"There is only one danger I apprehend from it," he had explained to Lieutenant Timmons, "and that is in the event of a 'flareback.' But under such conditions there is no powder made that is safe."

In reply to the officer's questions, the inventor explained that Chaosite was a slow-burning explosive, and if the much-dreaded flareback ever occurred in a gun in which it was being used, blazing particles of the freed explosive would be scattered about the turret. As Chaosite would only explode when confined, these particles would glow like hot coals till they burned out. The deadly peril consisted in the fact that the doors of the ammunition hoist opened directly into the turret. There were safety shutters to the hoist, but in action the reloading followed so fast on the firing of the guns that there was little chance of the safety devices being used.

The shaft of the ammunition hoist led directly down to the ammunition table below the water-line on which the explosive was piled, ready to be shot upward on electric elevators. Alongside the ammunition tables were the open doors of the ship's magazine. It does not require vivid imagination to picture what would be the result of blazing particles of a substance like Chaosite dropping down the hoist onto the powder and explosives piled below. Quick and utter annihilation would follow. Not a soul of the eight hundred odd crew and forty officers would stand any but the smallest chance of salvation.

The Dreadnought Boys, as well as the rest of the crew in the turret, were interested listeners to the conversation. All of them knew what a flareback was. One had occurred on the Georgia a year before, costing two lives. It is usually caused by fragments of burning powder being left in the chamber of the gun after a charge has been fired. An electric blower is attached to the big guns of Uncle Sam's navy, which is supposed to thoroughly clean the chamber after each discharge; but it is not careless sailor-proof, and occasionally the newspapers bear dreadful testimony to the result of a flareback, which occurs when the new load is ignited by the left-over fragments of the old one.

But the talk between Mr. Varian and the officer was suddenly checked.

"Boom!"

The flagship had fired, and, as the glass brought to bear by Lieutenant Timmons showed, had missed the first target.

At the distance of a mile and a half the targets, with their tiny boats bobbing at a safe distance, looked extremely small. Shooting at a potato on a fence post at twenty rods with a small rifle is easy compared to the task before Uncle Sam's gunners.

"Now, Cooper, steady, my lad!"

Lieutenant Timmons' voice sounded strained and harsh as the gun pointer squinted through his telescope and depressed his pointing lever ever so little. Already the range had been signaled from the fire-control wells.

The Manhattan was quivering to the speed of her engines, rushing her stripped form past the targets at eighteen knots.

Every man of that gun crew was under as painful a tension as the officer. As for the inventor, his face took on a deadly pallor as he leaned against the rear wall of the turret. In a few moments now he would know if his invention was a failure or a glorious success.

A tiny signal light – the message from the firing room glowed.

Cooper looked round. His wrinkled face was grotesquely knotted, like an ape's, in his excitement. His hand shook, but there was a glitter in his eyes that showed he meant to get that target.

"Brace yourselves, men!" warned the officer.

The boys stood as they had been taught, their knees slightly bent, so as to be springy. As they got the last order they stuffed cotton in their ears. Otherwise, the drums would have been shattered by the discharge.

"All ready, sir," breathed Cooper.

"Fire!"

There was a sharp click from the electric firing switch and a tiny spurt of bluish flame.

A shock like that of an earthquake followed. The mighty explosion seemed to rend the turret.

It had not died out before the glasses of the gunnery officer, the inventor and the gun-pointer were bearing on the distant target and the boats scurrying toward it. From the bridge and the quarter deck similar scrutiny was brought to bear.

Chaosite was almost smokeless, so their vision was not obscured, as with the old-fashioned powder – even the so-called "smokeless" making quite a smother.

"Hit, sir!" shot out Cooper dryly, as the signal man in the target boat wig-wagged the news.

"Now let the Idaho folks get busy!" cried the delighted gun crew.

The new explosive and the new gun had proven themselves one of the biggest naval successes of many a day.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE STUFF A JACKIE'S MADE OF

Hastily the gunnery officer scribbled a note and handed it to Herc.

"Here, my man, take this to Captain Dunham," he said, thrusting the paper into Herc's hand.

The red-headed boy was off like a flash, and a second later the captain, who had already witnessed the signaling of the successful hit, was reading the details of the wonderful results achieved with the new gun.

He detained Herc several minutes while he asked him numerous questions about the handling of the gun, all of which the boy answered so intelligently as to bring nods of approbation from the group of officers surrounding the commander of the Manhattan on the vessel's flying bridge.

By the time Herc started back for the turret, the Manhattan was close upon the second target.

"I've got to hurry," thought the boy, quickening his pace.

But before he had more than reached the midship section of the Dreadnought another mighty shock set her stout frame aquiver, and Herc knew another shot had been fired.

"Another hit!" he heard a shout go up an instant later. "We've got the Idaho folks lashed to the mast. They missed the first target."

But even as the cry reverberated along the decks there came another sound that struck terror to the heart of the Dreadnought Boy.

It was a heavy, smothered explosion that seemed to come from within the turret itself. At the same instant great clouds of yellow-colored smoke began to roll from the top ventilators.

"It's a flareback!" Herc heard old Tom shout. "Heaven help the poor souls in there!"

A flareback!

What the words meant Herc knew only too well. In the poisonous fumes of the burning Chaosite, vomited backward from the big gun's breech, there was quick, sure death.

Suddenly the small door in the barbette of the turret opened, and four half-crazed, reeling men staggered out, bearing a limp form of a fifth. It was Jim Cooper, the gun-pointer, they carried. Blackened and almost unrecognizable as the men were, the look of blank horror on their faces burned itself into Herc's mind.