"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.
"I guess you don't know much about Noo Yawk," he said in a sneering
tone, "or you'd have known that in the Subway it's 'first come, first
served.'"
"Is that so?" inquired Ned, keeping down his anger, while Herc was
dancing about in the narrow space he could find in the aisle of the
crowded car. The red-headed lad was biting his nails and scratching his
head in a manner that boded a storm as surely as black clouds portend
thunder.
"That being the case," Ned went on in a cool voice, "it's about time
that the Subway learned a few manners. We gave those seats up for those
two ladies, and not for you. Are you going to vacate them?"
"Aw, run along and roll your hoop!" sneered the younger newspaper
reader, with an affectation of great languor. "You drunken sailors
make me tired."
A brown hand shot out as the words left his lips, and the beefy one
found himself propelled by the shoulder into the center of the car
faster than he had had occasion to move for a long time.
At the same instant Herc, to his huge delight, perceived the signal for
action and sailed in on his man. In another second the two beefy ones,
dazed by the suddenness of it all, stood side by side in the center of
the car, while Ned courteously aided the two ladies to the seats from
which the interlopers had been so suddenly wrenched.
"This is an outrage!" bellowed the red-faced men in concert, as they
found their voices. "Such a thing has never happened before."
"That's a pity," observed Ned contemptuously, while the delighted Herc
whispered in a stage undertone:
"Mine came out like a soft, white worm out of a hickory nut."
"Conductor! conductor!" howled the man to whom Ned had given such a
rough and ready lesson in manners, "come here and do your duty. We've
been assaulted."
The conductor pushed his way through the crowded aisle, assuming an air
of great importance.
"What's all this? What's all this?" he shouted.
"These two rowdy sailors deprived us of our seats," sputtered one of
the red-faced men.
"Did you fellows do what he says?" demanded the conductor importantly.
"Sure they did. They pulled the gentlemen right out of them," piped up
a voice in the background of the crowd--that of the ferret-faced youth.
"Gentlemen!" snorted Herc. "We'd call 'em hogs up our way!"
"We got up to give our seats to those two ladies, and are very sorry
to have caused them this embarrassment," volunteered Ned. "But to see
these two overfed fellows slip into the seats before we had hardly
risen from them got our dander riz, and we undertook to put them out."
"Conductor, you will call a special policeman at the next station,"
shouted the man that Ned had hauled to his feet. "I'll make a charge
against these desperate ruffians. They need a lesson."
Ned and Herc exchanged alarmed glances.
It might ruin their naval careers if, on the eve of joining their
ship, they were to undergo the disgrace of an arrest.
"Better think it over," advised the conductor, who seemed disposed to
make peace, and as he slipped by the boys, to regain his platform as
the train slackened speed, he whispered:
"You'd best make a sneak, boys; that fellow is Dave Pulsifer, the big
gun man, and the other's his brother. He's got lots of influence, and
he means to make trouble for you."
Little as either of the Dreadnought Boys relished the idea of running
away from trouble, yet the advice seemed good. They both knew enough of
the law's delays to realize that, in the event of their being arrested
on the red-faced man's charge, they would be liable to be held for some
time before they could have chance of explaining the circumstances of
the case to a magistrate.
As the train rolled into the Seventy-second Street station, therefore,
they adroitly slipped by their friend, the conductor, and, as soon as
he opened the door, shot out onto the platform.
The red-faced men, crying loudly for a special policeman, were in
the act of following them, when--quite by accident, it seemed--the
conductor's foot got in the way, and the first of the pair of worthies
fell headlong over it, and his companion, who was pressing hard on his
heels, piled on top of him.
By the time they had extricated themselves, during which period the
crowd of passengers behind them, who were also anxious to alight, went
almost crazy at having to wait a few seconds, the two lads were far
down the sidewalks of Seventy-second Street. After a few minutes' brisk
walk they reached the snow-covered slopes of Riverside Drive.
"Pulsifer! I know that name," Ned mused, as they hurried along. "I have
it!" he exclaimed suddenly. "He's Dave Pulsifer, of Pulsifer Bros., the
fellows who make guns in America and sell them to foreign governments."
"I'll bet those two were the brothers, then," suggested Herc. "They
looked like two ugly pups of the same homely litter."
The boys gave the matter little more thought, though had they realized
how intimately the Pulsifers were to be associated with their further
career, they might have considered their encounter more seriously.
"Look, Herc, look!" cried Ned, as they came in sight of the river.
From the slight eminence on which they stood, the boys commanded a
magnificent spectacle.
Up and down the majestic stream, as far as the eye could reach, the
grim, slaty-hued forms of Uncle Sam's sea bulldogs swung at anchor.
From the funnels of some smoke was lazily floating, while others lay
like sleeping monsters on the surface of the dark river.
Looking northward, the boys saw only a maze of cage masts--looking not
unlike narrow waste-paper baskets turned upside down--and great dark
hulls. Here and there a gaily-colored bit of bunting, which as yet
meant little to the boys, fluttered from a masthead or from the signal
halliards. Between the ships and the shore constantly darted light
gasoline boats, or swift launches with big gray hoods over them.
"Just think, Herc, _we_ are a part of all that!" breathed Ned
reverently almost, indicating the formidable array of fighting craft
with a wave of his hand.
"Gee! I feel about as big as an ant," whispered Herc, even his
irrepressible nature overawed at the sight. "How in the world are
we--little, insignificant specks--ever going to distinguish ourselves
in all that big array of fighting ships and fighting men?"
"We must do our best, Herc," rejoined Ned simply. "And now let's be
getting down to that landing place. I think I see some man-o'-war
launches landing there. Maybe we will be lucky enough to find one of
the _Manhattan's_ boats."
As they started down an inclined road which led through the park and
across the railroad tracks at its foot, they were accosted by a hearty
voice just astern of them.
"Hullo, there, shipmates!" it hailed. "Where away?"
The Dreadnought Boys wheeled, and found themselves facing an
elderly man, somewhat inclined to stoutness, but whose grizzled and
weather-beaten face bore the true trademarks of an old man-o'-war Jack
upon it.
"Why, you're from the _Manhattan_!" cried Ned, as his eyes fell on
the other's name band, on which the name of the new Dreadnought was
embroidered in gilt thread.
"Aye, aye, my hearties," was the rejoinder in a voice cracked with
much shouting in heavy weather in all climes, "and you are a pair of
rookies--land-lubbers, eh?"
"Well, I guess you might call us that," responded Ned, not best
pleased at this free and easy mode of address, but judging it best
to be as amiable as possible. "Can you tell us how to get aboard
the _Manhattan_? We've just left the Naval Training School and are
appointed to her."
"Get your rating?"
"Sure--ordinary seamen."
"That's good. Come on with me, boys, and I'll put you aboard ship shape
and comfortable. It's a cold day when old Tom Marlin can't look out for
a pair of greenies."
Piloted by their companion, the two boys soon arrived at the landing
place, which was already crowded with sailors whose shore leave had
expired.
"Which is the _Manhattan_?" asked Sam, gazing with eyes that were still
awestruck at the immense vessels that lay out in the river and appeared
several sizes too large for their mooring places.
"Right yonder, Bricktop," rejoined old Tom, pointing off to a vessel
which, large as were the other battleships, seemed by her huge size
almost to dwarf them. "That's the old hooker. The last output of your
old Uncle Sam. Right in the next berth to her is the _Idaho_."
"What's that red flag, with a black ball in the center, floating from
the _Idaho's_ main?" inquired Ned, much interested.
"That? Oh, that's the meat-ball!" laughed old Tom.
"The meat-ball?" echoed the boys, much astonished.
"A sort of dinner flag, I suppose?" asked Herc, who was beginning to
feel hungry.
"Not much, my lad," laughed the old sailor. "That's the gunnery pennant
for the vessel making the best score at the targets. The _Idaho_ won
that off the Virginia capes on our last battle practice cruise. All the
fleet's after it now, but if we have our way, the old _Manhattan_ will
be flying it after we get through peppering the marks off Guantanamo."
Each of the Dreadnought Boys found himself making up his mind, as old
Tom spoke, that if it depended on them, the _Manhattan_ would be the
battleship to fly the coveted "meat-ball" when next the fleet made
port.