The Dreadnought Boys on Battle Practice

CHAPTER V.

TWO LADS WITH THE "RIGHT RING."

It seemed to Herc that he had been asleep but a short time when he awakened with a start and an uneasy feeling that he could not account for.

Gradually, however, as the semi-stupor that followed the opening of his eyes wore off and he became sensible of his surroundings, he was aware that something unusual seemed to be occurring on the ship. Shouts and the trampling of running feet were borne in to him, and his first sleepy impression was that it was morning.

Suddenly, however, he became aware that the shouts formed a certain definite cry.

What was it?

Herc straightened up as well as he could in his bunk and listened.

A thrill of horror shot through him, as, like a flash, he sensed the nature of the shouts that had aroused him.

"Fire! Fire! Fire!"

The terrifying cry echoed from bow to stern of the ship and Herc now recognized a fact which he had not in first sleepy stupor realized, and that was that their cabin was hazy with smoke, which was becoming momentarily thicker. The heat, also, was growing rapidly insupportable.

With one bound, the boy was on the floor, and shaking Ned by the shoulder.

"Ned, Ned, wake up!" he roared at the top of his voice.

"Aye, aye, sir!" came in a sleepy voice from Ned, who was dreaming that he was still back in the training school and that reveille had blown.

A minute later, however, Herc's shaking aroused him to his senses, and a few rapidly spoken words apprised him of the seriousness of the situation.

"Tumble into your clothes quick!" gasped Herc, as breathing in the smoke-filled room became every moment more difficult.

Ned needed no second telling. In a few seconds, thanks to their training, both boys were in their uniforms, and, grabbing up their suitcases, dashed out onto the decks.

The scene outside was one that might have turned cooler heads than theirs. The storm was still raging, and a white swirl enveloped the laboring ship, but the whiteness of the snow was tinged a fiery red with the reflections of towering flames that were by this time pouring from the engine-room hatch of the Rhode Island, and illuminating the night with their devouring splendor. Fire originating in a pile of oily waste against a wooden bulkhead had started the blaze.

Men and women in all stages of dress and undress rushed confusedly about the decks, praying, screaming, blaspheming and fighting.

In the emergency that had so suddenly arisen, the crew and officers of the ship seemed powerless to do anything. Instead of attempting to quiet the panic, they rushed about, apparently as maddened as the rest of the persons on the ship, by the dire peril that confronted them.

"The boats! The boats!" someone suddenly shouted, and a mad rush for the upper decks, on which the boats were swung, followed. Women were flung aside by cowardly men frenzied with terror.

"Here, I can't stand this!" shouted Ned, as, followed by Herc, he plunged toward the foot of the narrow stairway up which the frenzied passengers were fighting their way.

"Women and children first! Women and children first!" the Dreadnought Boy kept shouting, as he elbowed his way to the foot of the steps, closely trailed by Herc.

The roar of the flames was by this time deafening, drowning all other sounds. To add to the confusion, there now came pouring up from the lower regions of the ship a black and sooty crew – the firemen of the vessel. Maddened by fear and brutal by nature, the grimy stokers had little difficulty in shoving the weaker passengers aside and making their way to the foot of the stairway up which Ned and Herc were helping the women and children and keeping back the cowardly male passengers as best they could. They were not over gentle in doing this latter. It was no time for halfway measures.

Above them, the captain of the ship and two of his officers who had partially collected their wits, were directing the crew to lower the boats. The women and children were being placed in them as rapidly as possible as Ned and Herc passed them up.

"Can you hold them back?" the captain had shouted down to the boys a few minutes before, as he peered down at the struggling mass on the lower deck.

"We'll stick it out as long as we can," Ned had assured him, as he whirled a terrified male passenger about and sent him spinning backward whining pitifully that he "didn't want to die."

Suddenly Herc was confronted by a huge form, brandishing a steel spanner in a knotty fist.

It was one of the panic-stricken firemen.

"Let me by, kid!" bellowed this formidable antagonist.

"You can see for yourself that there are several women to go yet," responded Herc calmly, although he felt anything but easy in his mind as the muscular giant glared at him with terror and vindictiveness mingling in his gaze. "Women first, that's the rule."

"What in blazes do I care about the women?" roared the fireman, behind whom were now ranged several of his companions. "Let me by, or – "

He flourished the spanner with a suggestive motion anything but agreeable to Herc.

The red-headed boy gazed over in the direction in which he had last seen Ned.

There was no hope for help from that quarter, as a glance showed him. Ned was holding back an excited man with long whiskers and of prosperous appearance, who was shouting as if he were a phonograph:

"A thousand dollars for a seat in the boats! A thousand – two thousand dollars for a seat in the boats!"

Suddenly, so suddenly that Herc had not time to guard against it, the stokers made a concerted rush for him.

"Ned! Ned!" shouted the boy, as he felt himself borne down by overwhelming numbers and trampled underfoot.

Ned heard the cry, and in two leaps was in the midst of the scuffle, dealing and receiving blows right and left.

"Do you call yourselves men?" he shouted indignantly, as the stokers fought their way forward in a grim phalanx which there was no resisting.

"It's deuce take the hindmost, and every man for himself now!" shouted a voice in the crowd, and the cowardly mob elbowed forward through the few women that still remained on the stairway and its approaches.

Ned and Herc, who had by this time struggled to his feet, fought desperately to stem the tide. So effective were their blows that for a time they actually succeeded in checking the advance.

"Oh, for a gun!" breathed Ned.

"A cannon!" amended Herc.

Above them they heard a cheer, signifying that the first boat had struck the water.

"Stick it out, Herc!" panted Ned, as he struggled with a grimy giant, who, thanks to his ignorance of wrestling and tackles, was easily hurled backward by his lighter opponent. But the fight was too uneven to be of long duration.

Step by step, fighting every inch of the way, the two boys were borne backward by the opposing mob. Ned's foot caught in the lower step of the stairway and he was toppled over backward.

A mighty onrush of the fugitives immediately followed, and Herc shared Ned's fate.

The thought that they had failed flashed bitterly through each Dreadnought Boy's mind as they were trampled and crushed by hurrying feet of the terrified firemen, whose van was followed by the badly scared male passengers. The screams of the women who were being ruthlessly thrust aside tingled maddeningly in the boys' ears as they strove to regain their feet.

Suddenly, above all the noise of the fugitives and the crackling of the flames as they ate through the bulkheads about the engine-room hatchway, the boys heard a sharp command.

It rang out as incisively as the report of a rifle, in a voice that seemed used to implicit obedience:

"I'll shoot the next man up that stairway!"

The rush came to halt for a brief second, and in that time the boys scrambled to their feet.

They soon perceived the cause of the interruption.

Not far from them, garbed in his shirt and trousers, just as he had rushed from his cabin on awaking, stood the man who had occupied the neighboring cabin to theirs.

The flames illumined the grim compression of his lips beneath his gray mustache. His eyes were narrowed to a determined angle.

In his hand he held a blue-steel navy revolver on which the glare of the conflagration played glisteningly.

"Come on, boys!" roared the stoker who had threatened Herc with the spanner. "It's just a bluff!"

At his words, the spell that had fallen on the frightened crowd for a second seemed to be broken, and the rush recommenced. The boys, with horrified eyes, saw the giant stoker snatch up a woman with a child in her arms and hurl her brutally back into the crowd, where she disappeared, lost in the vortex of struggling humanity.

"Crack!"

There was a spit of vicious blue flame from the revolver, followed by a yell of pain from the giant stoker.

The boys saw the spanner fall from his upraised hand and tumble with a clatter at his feet. His wrist, shot through by the gray-mustached man's unerring aim, hung limp at his side.

Like frightened sheep suddenly checked in a stampede, the white-faced crowd came to a halt and faced about at the new peril.

"That's to show you I mean business!" grated out the marksman, in a voice as cold as chilled steel. "Now let the women go first, and then the men may follow."

Under that menacing weapon, of whose efficiency they had just received so convincing a proof, the men sullenly stood aside and passed up the half-dozen women or so who had not had an opportunity to take advantage of the boys' plucky stand.

From the bridge above, the captain of the Rhode Island hailed them.

"Six boats are away! Let the rest come!"

"Steady, steady!" came the sharp, commanding voice of the man with the pistol once more, as the score of men left began to scramble up the stairway. "One at a time! Take it easy!"

Under his authoritative voice the rush changed like magic to an orderly retreat, and in a few minutes a seventh boat was loaded with frightened passengers and lowered onto the heaving sea.

"Well, I guess we can go now, Herc," remarked Ned, turning to his companion.

"Yes, it's getting as warm here as it is in the smoke house at home in July," agreed Herc, as he carefully picked up his suitcase, which was somewhat battered by the recent knocking about it had gone through. After Ned had likewise recovered his piece of baggage, the two boys began the ascent of the stairway. For the moment they had quite forgotten the presence of the gray-mustached man, of whom, as we know, Herc stood in some awe on account of the inscription he had espied on the former's suitcase.

Now, however, the stranger was at the boys' sides. They saluted instinctively.

"I was a witness of your plucky conduct," he exclaimed warmly, "and I am glad to see that I was not to be disappointed in the estimate I had formed of both your characters. I shall keep a sharp lookout over your future careers as seamen in the navy."

It was a moment when ordinary barriers seemed to be let down, and Herc, in a hesitating tone, asked, as they gained the boat deck:

"Are you in the navy, too, sir, may we ask?"

"You may, my boy," was the hearty response. "I am Captain Dunham of the Manhattan."

"You're all right, sir," sputtered Herc, in his enthusiasm entirely forgetting the respect due to an officer.

The next minute, with cheeks even more crimson than the flames and his exertions had painted them, the farmer boy plunged forward into the confusion of the boat deck, much embarrassed at his impulsive breach of discipline.

CHAPTER VI.

A COWARD'S BLOW

Thanks to the boys' defense of the stairway, and the cool-headed commander's prompt action in quelling the onrush of the stokers, the boys found that there was plenty of room in the two boats that still remained to be lowered. Haste, however, was a matter of necessity, as the flames by this time had devoured the bulkheads and were sweeping forward, driven by the high wind.

The captain of the Rhode Island had recovered his wits, and the loading of the boats went on rapidly. In its company were enrolled the cowardly stokers, at whom the boys could not gaze without a feeling of disgust.

"Are not you boys going in that boat?" said a voice at their elbow, as the davits were swung out and the remainder of the crew prepared to lower it.

"No, sir; as navy men," said Ned, proudly dwelling on the "men," "we prefer to wait till the last boat to leave the ship."

"That's right," agreed the commander approvingly.

He hastened off and assumed the control of the few maneuvres to be carried out before the Rhode Island was ready to be abandoned. The captain of the Rhode Island had recognized Captain Dunham, and was anxiously trying to aid him; but the naval commander treated the other with some contempt, doubtless inspired by the latter's abject failure to quell the panic in its inception or handle it when it broke.

The boys now had time to gaze about them.

The glare of the burning ship lit up the surrounding water with a weird radiance, in which they could see the loaded boats, already lowered, tossing helplessly, the crowds on each being so great that the sailors could not use their oars.

"Say, Ned, suppose the boiler busts!" suddenly exclaimed the cheerful Herc, as the last boat was swung out.

"No use thinking of such possibilities," rejoined Ned decisively.

"Well, I can't help it," protested Herc indignantly. "I remember when that thresher blew up to grandpa's. I guess this would be something like that, eh, Ned?"

"Only more so," was the dry reply.

Suddenly the notification that all was ready for the lowering of the last boat rang out.

As this one was to be the final lifeboat to leave the ship, it was put overside before any one boarded it. The officers of the Rhode Island, the six members of the crew remaining, the boys and Commander Dunham getting into it by sliding down the falls.

At last they were all on board, and the order was given to shove off. No time was lost in doing this, as the Rhode Island was by this time a mass of flames in her forepart, and it seemed impossible that she could float much longer.

"Do you anticipate being picked up shortly, captain?" asked the boys' friend of the commander of the Rhode Island.

"Why, I don't expect that we'll have to drift about very long," was the reply. "You see, the Sound is well traveled, and some ship must have seen the flare of the fire."

It was bitterly cold in the storm-swept waters of the Sound, but the boys checked any tendency they might have felt to complain by thinking of the plight of the women and children in the other boats.

It is doubtful as the newspapers at the time pointed out, that there would have been no fatalities attendant on the wreck of the Rhode Island, if but a little less than half an hour after they had cast adrift from the ill-fated steamer, the Kentucky, of the Joy Line, had not hove in sight. By this time the Rhode Island had burned to the water's edge, and sank with a noisy roar.

The Kentucky bore down with all speed on the drifting boatloads of half-frozen men and women, and within an hour every one of the passengers had been picked up and given warm food and drink and attention.

As the Kentucky, having performed her rescue work, pursued her way to New York, the boys mingled with the excited crowd of the saved that thronged her lighted saloon.

While they walked about, overhearing interesting scraps of conversation relating to the rescues of several of the passengers, they were startled by a sudden cry in a woman's voice:

"There he is! There he is, the coward!"

There was a rush to the part of the saloon from whence the cry had proceeded. Every one was naturally anxious to ascertain what could have caused it. The boys were among the curious persons who joined the throng.

They saw a slight, pale-faced woman pointing indignantly to a tall youth who was slinking away through the crowd, trying evidently to conceal himself from the woman's scorn.

"What is the matter, madam?" somebody asked the excited woman.

"Why, I was in the first rush for the stairway," explained the woman, "before those brave young men there – " It was the boys' turn to try to slink away. "Before those brave young men there kept back the cowardly fellows who were trying to trample past us. That man yonder, who has just slunk away, dealt me this blow in the face," she pointed to a livid weal on her cheek, "and knocked me down."

A roar of indignation went up as she related the craven conduct of the youth the boys had observed slink off. Some of the more excitable passengers shouted that they wanted to organize a party to find him and deal him out summary punishment. Cooler counsel prevailed, however, and the rest of the night was passed in as comfortable a manner as was possible on the overcrowded ship.

When the Kentucky arrived at her dock on the East River, below the Brooklyn Bridge, she was met by big crowds, among whom were many reporters, the wireless stations along the Sound having been notified by the Kentucky of the disaster that had overtaken the Rhode Island.

The boys, laughingly turning aside the assiduous young men of the press, were making their way ashore, when Herc suddenly caught hold of Ned's arm.

"Look there!" he exclaimed.

Ned looked, and saw Hank Harkins standing in the midst of a throng of reporters, to whom he was evidently giving a "big story."

"I took the woman in my arms," the boys heard him say, as they paused, "and made my way to the upper deck with her."

"You saved her?" asked a young reporter, holding a long pencil poised above a very large new notebook.

"Yes, I saved her, and then – " Hank was continuing, when his jaw suddenly dropped, and he shook as if he was about to have a fit.

Then, without another word to the amazed reporters, he shouldered his way through their ranks and dashed off down the gangplank in the direction of the land.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Herc. "I'll remember Hank's look when he met our eyes as long as I live. He looked like a dying duck in a thunderstorm!"

"I guess we headed off his thrilling narrative, all right," commented Ned, echoing Herc's merriment.

"And for a good reason, too," went on Herc. "I recognized Hank as he slunk away from that woman last night. He was the coward who struck her and disgraced his uniform."

"I'm glad his overcoat covered it," rejoined Ned.

At this juncture one of the reporters, who had noticed that both the lads wore Uncle Sam's uniforms, hurried up to them.

"Can you tell us what was the matter with that fellow?" he demanded. "He was just in the middle of giving us a good story, when he suddenly hurried off as if he had been shot. Is he a reliable chap, do you know?"

"Well, I wouldn't believe all he told you," grinned Herc, as the Dreadnought Boys hurried ashore, to cross New York and join their ship.

CHAPTER VII.

"WE ARE PART OF THE FLEET."

After some little difficulty the boys ascertained that the Manhattan lay up the North River, off the foot of Seventy-second Street and Riverside Drive. They could go to Seventy-second Street in a subway express, they were informed, and then walk across to the boat landing, where they would be almost sure to find a launch from the big Dreadnought waiting to take off the shore-leave men.

"Say!" gasped Herc, as the two, having descended into the "tube" and seated themselves in the lighted car, were whirled northward through pitch darkness toward their destination, "how far does this hole in the ground go?"

"Almost as far as Yonkers, I guess," replied Ned; "or so I've heard. Don't you like it?"

"Not much," rejoined Herc; "it's like trying to talk in a boiler factory."

The two boys had their suitcases tightly clutched between their knees, but nevertheless, when they reached the Grand Central station, the inrush of passengers, tumbling and pushing like mad to get seats, swept the lads' possessions before them as if the two pieces of baggage had been chaff in a high wind.

"Hey! come back with those gripsacks!" yelled Herc indignantly, seizing the arm of a puny-looking lad who was stumbling forward over the red-headed lad's particular possession. "Haven't you any manners?"

The town-bred lad turned a sharp, ferret-eyed face on the young sailor.

"Say, greenie, where do you come from, Painted Post or far Cohoes 'where the wind flower blows'? Just keep an eye on your own junk, or else hire an express wagon."

The indignant Herc stooped to rescue his suitcase, and by the time he raised a red and angry face, the sharp-faced lad had gone.

"Good thing he did get out of the way, or I'd have fetched him a clip on the ear!" grumbled Herc, as he resumed his seat by Ned, who had by this time retrieved his property also.

"No use losing your temper," counseled Ned; "just keep cool. Hullo, there is an old lady and a younger one standing up over there. The old one looks feeble. I'm going to give them these seats. Come on and get up."

"All right," muttered Herc, "but I don't see any one else doing so. See, all the men are seated and the women all seem to be standing up. What's the use of being different to the others? We'll only get stared at."

"All the more reason that we should be polite. The first duty of a sailor is to be kind and courteous to those weaker than himself," rejoined Ned in an undertone, as the boys rose to their feet.

With a courteous bow, Ned approached the ladies and motioned behind him to where he supposed two seats were vacant.

"Will you avail yourself of our places, madam?" he said, addressing the older lady and removing his navy cap.

Herc, with an awkward grin, also uncovered his red thatch and made a sweeping motion behind him with his big hand.

"Thank you very much, sir," rejoined the elderly lady, "my daughter and myself would be very glad to accept your kindness, but others seem already to have availed themselves of it."

"What's that?" cried Ned, wheeling, with a red face, and clapping his eyes on the seats they had just vacated.

Sure enough, as the elderly lady had said, they were occupied.

Two stout, red-faced men, with well-rounded stomachs and fingers covered with diamonds, lolled at their ease in the just vacated seats, reading their papers. They had slipped into the places while the boys were requesting the two ladies to take them.

"Well, what do you know about that?" sputtered Herc indignantly. "They just sneaked into those seats like skunks into a wood pile."

"They'll come out of them a lot more easily," breathed Ned grimly, as he took in the situation.

Bending forward, he addressed the interlopers courteously enough, while those around who had witnessed the scene looked on curiously. It is not often that a subway passenger has the courage to resent any slight, however marked. From the compression of Ned's lips and the determined flash in his eyes, however, it was evident that he had no intention of allowing the two beefy newspaper readers to enjoy their stolen seats undisturbed.

"I beg your pardon," said Ned. "Perhaps you are not aware that my friend and I vacated those seats to allow these ladies to be seated."

One of the red-faced ones, slightly older, it seemed, than the other, looked up with a bovine stare in his heavily rimmed eyes.

He stared at the Dreadnought Boys much as if they had been some strange visitors from another planet.