THE ADVENTURE CLUB WITH
THE FLEET
[Illustration: “War’s begun!” he announced breathlessly]
THE ADVENTURE CLUB
WITH THE FLEET
By
RALPH HENRY BARBOUR
AUTHOR OF “LEFT END EDWARDS,” “LEFT TACKLE THAYER,”
“THE ADVENTURE CLUB AFLOAT,” ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
EDWARD C. CASWELL
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I STEVE BRINGS THE NEWS 1
II JOE CHANGES HIS MIND 14
III AT THE TRAINING STATION 26
IV LAND HO! 41
V OVER THERE 55
VI THE U.S.S. WARREN 65
VII SEA DUTY 76
VIII WITH THE “SUICIDE FLEET” 91
IX BACKS TO THE WALL 107
X THE ALLIES TRIUMPH 121
XI THE ARMADA 131
XII “ALLO, SAMMEE!” 141
XIII THE WARREN’S FIRST KILL 152
XIV LETTERS FROM HOME 163
XV OVERBOARD! 174
XVI THE FLOATING MINE 185
XVII ABOARD THE SUNDSVALL 195
XVIII THE SIGNAL FROM THE FO’CSLE 208
XIX H.M.S. LINNET 219
XX THE BATTLE IN THE FOG 231
XXI THE ZEPPELIN RAID 244
XXII OLD FRIENDS COME ABOARD 256
XXIII ON BOARD THE 3-U-9 268
XXIV THE WARREN DROPS ANCHOR 288
ILLUSTRATIONS
“WAR’S BEGUN!” HE ANNOUNCED BREATHLESSLY
(Page 1) _Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
STEVE DARTED FORWARD AND SWUNG HIS FIST 118
ON SUCH A NIGHT A DESTROYER IS LITTLE BETTER THAN
A SLENDER STEEL CYLINDER FILLED WITH CLUTCHING
MEN IN GREY CANVAS LIFE-PRESERVERS 180
AN OFFICER SPRANG TO THE DECK WITH A WHITE FLAG
AND HELD IT FLUTTERING FROM OUTSTRETCHED ARMS 293
THE ADVENTURE CLUB
WITH THE FLEET
CHAPTER I
STEVE BRINGS THE NEWS
Steve Chapman turned from Chapel Street into the quieter thoroughfare,
metaphorically speaking, on two wheels, bounded up the steps of the
fourth house in the row, took the first flight of stairs on high, raced
along the corridor, skidded a bit at the last portal on the right and,
finally, setting all brakes, came to a standstill in the centre of the
floor, while, as the door swung back against the wall, every picture in
the study jarred askew.
“War’s begun!” he announced breathlessly. “President Wilson has signed!
We’re in it at last, Joe!”
Joe Ingersoll regarded his room-mate calmly across the desk, one
hand holding open the book he had been studying. “But why wreck the
premises?” he asked mildly. “What do you think you are? The German Army
in Belgium?”
Steve, subsiding against the back of the Morris chair, strove to regain
his breath and wither the other with a glance, a not particularly
successful effort. “You make me tired,” he declared. “Where’s your
patriotism, you block of wood? I nearly break my neck to get the joyful
news to you, and you sit there like――like――――”
“Calm yourself, Steven. I’ve known it for at least ten minutes. The
newsboys have been yelling their little hearts out around the corner
there. Let’s see the paper, though.”
“I’ve a good mind not to,” grumbled Steve. But he tossed the crumpled
“extra” to the desk and then hurried around to where he could look over
his chum’s shoulder. The New Haven paper had done itself proud in the
matter of type. Three lines of big, black block letters swept across
the upper half of the sheet, proclaiming:
WAR DECLARED AGAINST GERMANY
VOTE IN HOUSE IS 373 TO 50
PRESIDENT SIGNS DECLARATION
“Yes, we’re in it,” said Joe, laying the paper down, “and I’m
wondering――――”
“What?” asked the other, impatiently.
“Whether to be glad or sorry,” ended Joe soberly.
“Sorry! Great Jumping Jehosophat! Do you mean that after all we’ve
stood for from those――those barbarians――――”
“I know, Steve, but war is serious business. Look what it has cost the
others already: millions of men and billions of money: and――――”
“Oh, forget the money part of it, Joe, for the love of Mike! Why,
that’s all I’ve been hearing for a year! ‘How much will it cost us?’
What’s money against human life and――and human liberty? And――――”
“And the war’s no nearer won than it was three years ago,” continued
Joe imperturbably. “You’ve got to think of the cost, Steve. I’m as keen
as you are for licking the hide off those Huns, but I can’t get up and
cheer about this. Not just this minute, anyhow. It will be a long, hard
grind, old man.”
“Maybe, but just you wait until we land a couple of millions of our
chaps over there! Wait till our ships get a whack at theirs! We may be
slow at starting, but, by the Lord Harry, when we do begin you’ll see
the fur fly!”
“I hope so, but it’s going to take time to get those two millions
together, Steve. And as for our Navy, it’ll be months before it is
ready to whack anybody. Don’t get it into your head that Germany’s
licked because a crowd of legislators in Washington have voted ‘yes’
on this war resolution and the President has written his name at the
bottom of it. We’re about as ready to make war on Germany as――as the
Freshman Nine is to lick the ’varsity!”
“It could do it in a minute if it had a decent first baseman,” replied
Steve, grinning. “Knocking the Army and Navy is fashionable, I know,
but I don’t believe either of ’em is as badly off as the ‘sob sisters’
tell us in the magazines. Why, if you believe all you read we haven’t
a regiment that isn’t shot to pieces or a ship that isn’t ready to be
scrapped. Piffle! Our Army’s as good as we need for a starter and our
Navy’s as good as the next fellow’s. And, what’s more, we’ve got the
money to build ’em both as big as we need ’em!”
“Who’s talking money now?” asked Joe, smiling. “Of course we’ll get an
army together after a while, and when we’ve got it it’ll be a real one.
I’ll bank on that. And when our Navy is ready to fight it’ll fight,
believe me! But it will take time and money and, I’m afraid, men before
either one is fit to start in. I guess all we can do for the next six
months is supply money and food to the Allies.”
“Meaning the other Allies,” corrected Steve. “Remember we’re one of ’em
now.”
“Yes, that’s so. We’re in it, too. It seems――funny, doesn’t it?”
“Funny? It seems mighty good! I say, Joe, this will make a difference
around here, won’t it?”
“Here in college? Well, I don’t know. Yes, I suppose there’ll be a lot
of fellows missing in the Fall.”
“In the Fall? I mean right now, old scout! I know a dozen fellows at
least who will be beating it in a few days. There’s Han, for instance.
He’s said all along that he’d enlist as soon as we entered the fracas.
I wish I’d done what he did and gone in for the Naval Reserve. He will
fall into a soft snap, I’ll bet. Maybe he will be a lieutenant or――or
something.”
“Admiral, likely,” said Joe dryly. “I wouldn’t worry about lost
opportunities, Steve. Next Summer will be plenty of time to start in.”
“Next Summer! Start in!” exclaimed the other, observing his companion
incredulously. “Where the dickens do you suppose I’ll be next Summer?”
“Where?”
“Well, not around these diggings, anyway. In the trenches, maybe.
Anyhow, in training camp. So will you.”
“Not likely. They’re going to draft them from twenty-one up, and as you
and I are only eighteen――――”
“Draft! Who’s going to wait for the draft? ‘Not I,’ said the Fly! Nor
you either, I hope.”
“Do you mean that you’re going to volunteer?” asked Joe.
“Surest thing you know,” answered Steve stoutly.
“You’re too young.”
“I’m eighteen, and I’ll be nineteen pretty soon. There are lots of
chaps in the Army no older than that.”
“You’ll have to go into the ranks then.”
“Of course I shall. I don’t expect to be made a General, you idiot! At
least, not right off. Do you mean to sit there and tell me that you
haven’t thought of enlisting, Joe?”
“I have thought of it often,” was the calm reply, “and I long ago
decided not to. There’s time enough. They’ll draft me when I’m old
enough――――”
“Why, you piker, the war will be over before that!”
“And, besides, I want to finish college. Oh, I don’t say that I won’t
enlist if things go badly. But there’s plenty to do here just now. You
don’t want Harvard to beat us in baseball, do you?” he ended, smiling.
“I don’t give a hang whether she does or not,” answered Steve
disgustedly. “I never heard such tommyrot in my life! Of course you’re
going into it, man! Every fellow that has a drop of red blood is! I’ll
bet you there won’t be a handful of the students left in a month! Why,
it’s dollars to doughnuts there won’t be enough fellows left in either
the Yale or Harvard freshman team by June to play! Take a tumble to
what’s up, Joe. Hang it, man, we’re at war!”
“I know, but it isn’t war of my making. And if I go into it before
I’m twenty-one it will be because I see the necessity of it and not
because I’m just excited, as you are, Steve. I don’t believe I’m more
of a coward than the average fellow, but I don’t care a whole lot about
filling a cosy little grave over in France just yet. There’s time
enough for that, Steve.”
“You sound like a bloomin’ pacifist,” snorted Steve. “Or a slacker. If
every fellow talked the way you talk――――”
“You’ll find a lot of fellows think that way if they don’t talk it. And
if you take my advice, Steve, you’ll sit tight and wait for college to
close. Then go to Plattsburg or somewhere and get a second lieutenancy.
Fellows like you don’t go in as privates.”
“Wait be blowed! Suppose the bloomin’ war was over by the time I got
a commission? I’d look an awful ass, wouldn’t I? Why, hang it, I’d be
kicking myself all the rest of my days if they settled the Kaiser’s
hash without my help! A fellow can go to college any old time, Joe,
but only about once in a hundred years does he get a chance to ‘horn
in’ in a big scrap like this! Besides, you’re dead wrong about this
private soldier business. It’s fellows like me who are privates, and
mighty good ones, too. No, sir, I’d rather be a doughboy right now and
get action than wait around for a second lieutenancy and miss the fun!”
“Well, don’t lose your shirt,” laughed Joe. “The war will wait a day or
two for you.”
“I’m not taking any chances on it,” growled Steve. “It would be just my
blessed luck if old Kaiser Bill threw up the sponge about the time I
started across. Look here, Joe, you aren’t in earnest about not going,
are you?”
Joe nodded. “Dead earnest,” he answered.
“That’s beastly,” grumbled the other. “I’ve been thinking right along
that you and I’d be together and have some dandy times.”
“You talk as though this war was a picnic,” objected Joe.
“I don’t mean to. I know it’s a pretty serious business, just as you
say it is. But a fellow can’t help being a bit excited about it, and
glad that he’s on hand to help out. It _is_ helping out, you know, Joe,
this enlisting, and that’s why I can’t get your point of view. The
country needs fighters, old man.”
“The country will have all it will need, Steve, without me. I’m no
soldier and never could be. I’d never have any stomach for poking
a bayonet through another man. I’d probably quit first and get
court-martialed. There are plenty of chaps who are cut out for the job.
Let them have the first whack at it.”
“That’s rotten!” declared Steve hotly. “Sitting back and letting the
other fellow do your work! If I felt that way I’d never acknowledge it.”
“Yes, you would, just as I do,” replied Joe, without affront. “Look at
it sensibly, Steve: forget for a minute that you’ve just heard about
war being on and are all excited. You know plaguey well that everyone
isn’t called on to go into the trenches. A lot of fellows want to go
for the excitement of the thing――――”
“It isn’t only excitement,” denied Steve warmly. “There’s――there’s such
a thing as patriotism, Joe!”
“Call it patriotism, then. I won’t say it isn’t that with a good many.
Anyway, why not let those who want to fight go and fight and let those
who don’t want to, stay at home until the first lot find the job too
big for them? Seems to me that’s perfectly fair and perfectly sensible.
Maybe there’s something wrong with me, Steve, but I’d throw a fit if I
had to shoot a man or run a bayonet into him.”
“I don’t suppose any fellow would find much fun in it,” agreed Steve,
frowning, “but when you think of――of the _Lusitania_ and of how the
Germans have shelled defenceless women and children in life-boats
and――oh, hang it, Joe, shooting’s too good for them!”
“I suppose it comes back to the old question of whether it is right to
commit murder in revenge for murder.”
“Murder! War isn’t murder! You’re a crazy pacifist!”
“I guess I am――sort of. At least, it goes against the grain with me,
Steve, to shoot a man named Smith because a man named Jones who
happens to be of the same nationality as Smith has killed one of my
countrymen. Oh, I dare say my reasoning’s all wrong, but that’s the way
I feel about it.”
“You bet your reasoning’s wrong! It’s punk! You want to do less
reasoning, Joe. That’s the trouble with you, anyway: you have to mull
things over instead of stripping off your sweater and diving in. There
are times, old scout, when a fellow’s heart is a lot better guide than
his brain!”
“Well, suppose heart and brain are agreed?” asked Joe, smiling. “Mine
are. My heart tells me it won’t stand for killing folks and my brain
tells me to keep out of it as long as I can. I know this doesn’t sound
heroic, Steve, but I guess I wasn’t cut out for a hero. I’ll do my
share behind the trenches gladly, but I don’t want to either shoot or
be shot at.”
“You’re talking absolute drivel,” grumbled the other. “If every fellow
wanted to stay behind the trenches――――”
“But they don’t. That’s the point I’m trying to make. There are lots of
them who are crazy to get into the trenches. Let them. I’m not. So let
me stay back.”
“If I didn’t know you I’d think you were yellow,” said Steve
disgustedly.
“But you do know me and you know that I’m not,” responded Joe equably.
“I don’t think it’s cowardice, although I know mighty well that my
knees would knock together and I’d be sort of sick inside me if I had
to crawl out of a trench and walk into machine-gun fire. But I hope I’d
keep going. No, I don’t believe it’s exactly cowardice, Steve. I don’t
know what it is. I just know that I don’t want to fight, not a little
bit.”
“What gets me is that you’re a natural-born scrapper,” said Steve,
plainly puzzled. “You fight harder than any chap I know in a game.”
“War isn’t a game. Perhaps that explains it,” answered Joe doubtfully.
There was silence for a long minute. Then Steve exclaimed:
“It doesn’t, though. You don’t see things in the right way, Joe. This
war isn’t just――just a war of revenge. We’re not going after Germany
because she killed our men and women and children and blew up some of
our shipping. There’s a heap more than that in it, Joe. We are fighting
for a principle, for Liberty and――and Civilisation. We’re going into it
because if we don’t go into it Belgium and France and England and maybe
the whole world will become just a rotten mess of German Imperialism.
We’re fighting for World Freedom, Joe. This war’s a――a righteous war,
I tell you! Can’t you see that? And if you do see it can there be any
question of your duty and my duty? I’m not much of a spieler, and
maybe I don’t get it over, but if you felt the way I feel about this
thing you wouldn’t sit there and talk about the Freshman Nine and――and
letting the other fellow do the job for you! If I could――――”
Steve’s eloquence was suddenly interrupted. Footsteps sounded in the
corridor outside and, as he turned inquiringly, a figure appeared
in the doorway, the figure of a big, rangy youth of nineteen with a
good-looking, good-natured face who, hands in pockets, surveyed the
scene with a gravely quizzical smile.
“Go on, Steve,” said the newcomer encouragingly. “You’re in fine voice.”