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[Illustration: “Ship ahoy! Look! She is almost on us!”
(See page 79)]
THE CRUISE OF THE TRAINING SHIP
Or
Clif Faraday’S Pluck
by
ENSIGN CLARKE FITCH, U. S. N.
Author of
“From Port to Port,” “Clif, the Naval Cadet,” “Bound
for Annapolis,” etc.
[Illustration: Logo]
Philadelphia
David McKay, Publisher
610 South Washington Square
Copyright, 1903
by Street & Smith
The Cruise of the Training Ship
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--Nanny in Trouble 7
II.--Clif On a Scout 15
III.--Turning the Tables 26
IV.--More Hazing 39
V.--Nanny Sends a Message 51
VI.--The Fight 60
VII.--A Hail in the Night 68
VIII.--The Mysterious Ship 80
IX.--A Fight On the Derelict 88
X.--Sail Drill at Sea 100
XI.--Talking It Over 107
XII.--Judson Receives a Setback 113
XIII.--Preparing for the Entertainment 119
XIV.--The Minstrel Show 126
XV.--The Night Drill 137
XVI.--Friends in Adversity 148
XVII.--A Welcome Find 163
XVIII.--Judson Greene’s Treachery 175
XIX.--The Mystery Solved 190
XX.--Diving for Rewards 205
XXI.--The Conspiracy 218
XXII.--And Then Silence! 226
XXIII.--“Cutter Ahoy!” 233
XXIV.--The Englishman With a “Haw!” 242
XXV.--Saving a King 248
XXVI.--Audience With a King 259
XXVII.--The Broken Tree Branch 266
XXVIII.--The Midnight Marauder 273
The Cruise of the Training Ship.
CHAPTER I.
NANNY IN TROUBLE.
“Handsomely there! Not so fast. One more pull and we’ve got----”
“Ow-w! Wow-w-w!”
“Blazes! Clap your hand over his mouth. Quick! The officer of the deck
will be down in a jiffy.”
“Murder! Let go, you little imp! Let go or I’ll----”
Thud! Smack!
“You will bite my finger, eh? Take that, you miserable plebe. I say,
Crane, just hold his head while I beat a reveille on his mug.”
“Wait a bit until we get him served and spliced, Dodge. He’s kicking
like a steering wheel in a nor’east gale. There, that’s it. Another
turn about his arms and we’ll have the rat dead to rights. Now, Mr.
Nanny Gote, how do you like it?”
The speaker, a tall, heavily-built youth in a naval cadet uniform,
grinned complacently into the upturned face of a youngster lying
stretched out upon the orlop deck of the Naval Academy practice ship
_Monongahela_.
The victim, for such his uncomfortable position and bound arms
proclaimed him to be, was much younger than his chief tormentor, and
was, moreover, slight and rather delicate in appearance.
His white face indicated his alarm, and he looked up pleadingly at the
group surrounding him. He could not speak, perforce, for a wad of spun
oakum filled the cavity of his mouth, fastened there by a tarry length
of rope.
“Nanny,” as he was called by his companions, was a member of the plebe
class at the United States Naval Academy. Those tormenting him were of
the third, or hazing, class at the same institute. There were six in
the group, and they represented about the most vicious element in their
class.
Crane, the ringleader, “had it in,” to use his own words, for all
plebes, and he had started out that night to haze a few just to keep
his hand in.
The _Monongahela_ was lying at anchor twenty miles below the academy,
from which she had sailed early that morning on the usual summer
practice cruise, as already related in another volume, entitled “Clif,
the Naval Cadet.”
Early the following morning the tug from the academy would take her in
tow again to complete the trip down the broad Chesapeake to the open
sea.
It was a few moments after three bells (nine-thirty o’clock) in the
night. The three classes of cadets making up the crew were supposed,
with the exception of a small anchor watch, to be reposing peacefully
in their hammocks.
Some were, and some were not.
When the watchful officer of the deck went his rounds after taps he
found all well, and the deck echoing to the more or less melodious
snoring of the occupants.
He was an officer shrewd in his generation. He had passed through the
academy himself, and he had made more than one practice cruise in the
old ships used for that purpose. And he remembered just such a night
when, in his second year, he had started on plebe hazing expeditions
with kindred spirits.
After leaving the berth deck he paused at the head of the ladder and
listened. It seemed as if the chorus of snores below had slackened
somewhat.
The officer chuckled and then quietly slipped down the steps again. He
had no desire to catch any one in wrongdoing, but the memory of old
cadet days was too strong to resist.
The berth deck lamps were burning brightly, but the major part of the
great deck was in deep gloom.
Over in one corner where a jumble of hammocks made a haphazard patch of
dark and light shades, several pairs of legs appeared underneath the
swinging beds.
A low laugh came through the gloom, but it was speedily checked by a
warning hiss. Several hammocks stirred uneasily, then came a snap and a
thud, the latter followed by a howl of alarm.
The officer discreetly withdrew, unseen.
As he stepped out on the spar deck he chuckled again, and said:
“By Jove! the plebes will get it hot and heavy to-night. Humph! It
won’t do them a bit of harm. I was hazed and thousands before me. A
little trouble makes a man of one. Let ’em go it.”
With this philosophical speech, addressed to the moon which beamed
brightly overhead, he calmly walked aft, and the plebes, luckless and
endangered, were left to their fate.
When Crane and his associates sallied forth, they had one object in
view, and that was to make it an exceedingly torrid night for a certain
fresh “function” or plebe.
Hazing to them was a delicious and edifying sport at any time, but on
this particular occasion they had extra inducements to spur them on.
That evening, just before pipe down, the ringleader passed the word to
his cronies that he had something in the wind. Six choice spirits met
in the starboard gangway and went into executive session.
“I guess you fellows know what we ought to do to-night,” began Crane,
without further preliminary.
“Devil plebes?” spoke up a cadet from Georgia.
“Correct. It is not only our pleasure, but our bounden duty,” said
Crane, pompously. “It’s a duty we owe our country--er--I mean our
shipmates and ourselves. You all know the present state of affairs
and how the very foundation of the old academy is tottering to its
fall. How every tradition has been shattered, every shred of cadet
etiquette--er----”
“Shredded,” suggested a thin middy, with a deep voice.
“Don’t be funny, Maxwell,” growled Crane. “This is a serious business.”
“Then come down to business. Why don’t you say that it’s about time to
haze the stuffing out of that gang in the new fourth and be done with
it. What’s the use of getting off a lot of confounded rot and----”
Crane reached out and caught the speaker by the neck. He gave him a tug
and a shove, but before the two could come to blows they were separated.
“If you fools want to scrap, why don’t you go up in the fo’c’sle and
have it out?” demanded one of the remaining four, in disgust. “Crane,
take a tumble, and let’s arrange this evening’s sport. I, for one, say
we ought to get up a scheme to teach that gang a lesson. There are only
six of ’em, counting the Jap, and we ought to be able to handle them.”
“That’s right. And the first we must tackle is the freshest of the lot.”
“Clif Faraday?”
“Yes. Confound him, I wish Kelley had kept him ashore. He’s got more
nerve and downright gall than all the rest of the gally functions
together. Come, Crane, what can you offer?”
“I’ve got a scheme, but I’ll tell it in my own way or not at all,”
replied the big cadet, sulkily.
“Go ahead, then.”
“It’s this in a nutshell: We’ll yank Faraday and the rest down into the
orlop deck and give ’em a coat of varnish. There’s a whole pot down
there, and paint, too. Then we’ll rig ’em out in spun yarn whiskers and
set ’em adrift on the spar deck with some tin mess pans tied to their
tails, that is, their ankles. It’ll be great sport.”
“Yes, and a tough job, too,” remarked the Georgian cadet.
“I’d like to know why?” exclaimed a sallow-faced youth. “He’s not so
warm, this Faraday. He can be whipped.”
“Yes, but I’ve got five dollars which says you can’t do it, Morgan.
Kelley could lay over you, and Faraday licked him.”
“Let’s quit talking,” growled Crane. “Pipe down will sound in a moment.
Are you fellows satisfied with the scheme or not.”
The “fellows” were, and it was agreed to start the hazing as soon as
possible after taps.
Presently the long, low notes of the last call sounded, echoing and
winding through the rigging and hull in melancholy cadence. There was a
momentary bustle, then quiet settled over the old frigate.