HERC--A LIVING TARGET.
To the keen disappointment of the boys, however, they found out the
next day that they were not, as they had anticipated, to go together in
the target officer's "wherry," as the small boat he used was called.
Ned was to accompany the officer--a young ensign named Rousseau--while
Herc was to take his place as acting signalman in one of the two big
whale boats that were detailed to attend to the targets. The man who
ordinarily undertook this duty being assigned to the signal post in the
"flying bridge" of the flagship.
Immediately after breakfast, the _Manhattan_, which was to have sole
charge of the target-placing, lowered the three boats and one of her
"steamers." The targets were set up on the floats already provided for
them before the call for the first meal of the day sounded.
These targets were huge sheets of canvas twenty feet high and
twenty-five feet broad, which were to be towed to a distance of a mile
and a half from the battle-practice ground and anchored. Each was
marked into squares by thin lines, with a big square of black in the
center for a bull's-eye.
There were ten of them, and they were to be ranged in a line. The first
test to be applied was firing by the flagship from anchorage. This
was more to get the range than anything else. The real practice would
come later, when the ships in column steamed past the targets, firing
one after the other at designated marks. This was to be the real test
of the fleet's gunnery, and one in which the men of the _Idaho_ felt
confident they would again shine preëminent.
The _Manhattan's_ gun crews, on the contrary, felt just as sure of
capturing the scarlet "meat ball," the trophy of the fleet.
The _Manhattan's_ steamer lay, with a full head of power, alongside
the man-o'-war as Ned and Herc, with their signal flags, emerged from
their quarters forward with the rest of the men assigned to placing the
targets.
The targets, as has been said, had already been set in place on the big
collapsible scows which had been towed out from the shore during the
night. Nothing remained but to tow them out and place them.
The range would then be picked up as soon as Ned wig-wagged the
ensign's signal to the flagship that all was ready. For this purpose,
the commanders of the different vessels had been summoned by signal to
appear on the _Connecticut_ that morning and take part in a "counsel of
war" in the rear-admiral's cabin.
As Ned clambered down the sea ladder after the ensign and took his
place in the little boat he was to occupy, he saw, with a start
of surprise, that among Herc's companions in the whaleboat were
Carl Schultz, the black-browed Silas, and Kennell. He felt further
misgivings as he took notice of the black glances Kennell cast at the
unconscious Herc, who was far too engrossed in the excitement of his
first real duty to pay any attention to his shipmates.
Rapidly the boats were towed out to the spot selected for placing the
first target, and Ned, with a telescope to his eye, anxiously watched
the flagship for the signal to stop.
At last he spied the expected flags fluttering up on the halliards and
notified the ensign.
"Make it so," rejoined that officer, and Ned rapidly "wig-wagged" that
the signal had been seen and would be carried out. Herc, at the same
moment, was standing in the stern of the whaleboat, doing the same
thing.
The first target anchored, the "steamer" towed her convoy to
the next position, which was indicated by a signal from the
flagship as the first had been. One after another the targets were
anchored in position, and at last, about an hour before eight
bells--noon--everything was ready for the range testing, and the signal
recalling the steamer fluttered from the flagship.
The whaleboat on which Herc was stationed was in command of a petty
officer, as was the other small craft. The only commissioned officer
assigned to the comparatively unimportant duty of target placing
was, therefore, the ensign in the wherry in which Ned was posted as
signalman. In this boat there was but one oarsman; however, he seemed
to be plenty for the craft, which was a light one and rowed easily.
One after another a final inspection was made of the targets, and after
a thorough overhauling, all was pronounced ready for the tests to
begin.
To ascertain if all was in order, the ensign had his boat rowed up to
each of the targets in turn. Ned, at his side, sent the signal that
each was O. K. successively back to the flagship as they were examined.
"Rather awkward, sir, if they were to fire at a target while we were
standing on the scow," remarked Ned, as they stood on the undulating
platform supporting the last screen of canvas.
"Well, rather, Strong," laughed the ensign. "I imagine our earthly
troubles would be over very shortly."
"But if the shell passed above us, sir?" asked Ned respectfully, as he
wanted to accumulate all the knowledge he could of gunnery.
"The air currents generated by the high velocity of the shell would
sweep anything within even ten feet of it to destruction," rejoined
the ensign learnedly. "Of course," he added laughingly, "nobody has
ever tested it, but I should imagine that the gases generated by such a
projectile would poison anything that happened to be in the vicinity as
it passed."
Ned nodded thoughtfully.
As they regained the wherry he gazed about him.
The sea stretched sparklingly blue under the tropic skies as far as the
eye could reach.
Right ahead of them was extended the line of snowy targets, seeming
huge enough at such close range, small as they appeared to the
battleships a mile and a quarter off. In spite of the beauty of
the scene and the glorious crispness of the sea air, Ned felt an
oppression, the cause of which he himself would have found difficult to
determine.
"If I was superstitious, I should say that I had a premon--a premon----
Oh, I forget the word! But, anyhow, that I had a 'hunch' that something
was going to happen," mused Ned to himself.
But it was no time for musing.
The whaleboats were beginning to back away to safe quarters before the
firing commenced. At the ensign's command, the wherry followed them.
"Give them the signal to go ahead, Strong!" ordered the ensign sharply
at length, as they lay bobbing at some distance from the targets. The
bronzed arms of the oarsman were motionless and his eyes were fixed
intently on the far-off line of battleships.
Ned stood erect in the stern of the plunging wherry. Awkward as the
motion would have been to a landsman, to the Dreadnought Boy it was
hardly noticeable.
His brown arms dipped and rose, and with their motion the red signal
flag cut arcs against the blue sky.
Far off, on the bridge of the flagship, the lookout, gazing through his
telescope, reported to the anxious group of officers that all was ready.
Rapidly the word was passed to the port twelve-inch turret, it having
been decided to use the big guns on test work.
Boom!
The report followed a flash of red flame. The battleship trembled to
her keel plates as the sound reverberated.
The shell sped screeching through the air.
"Phsiw-is-s-s-s-s-s-s-s!"
Straight for the end target it sped, and a second later the lookout,
reading off Ned's wig-wagging signals, announced in a curt voice:
"Bull's-eye, sir."
A little chorus of congratulation followed among the officers.
"That's the stuff!" murmured the ensigns and middies.
"Excellent work," was the comment of their more dignified senior
officers.
"Signal whaleboat Number One to replace canvas," ordered the ensign,
and Ned promptly transmitted the signal to the boat in which Herc was
signalman. The red-headed lad answered his chum's signal promptly, and
in a minute the double-ender was scooting through the water on its
errand.
The work of placing fresh canvas on the target did not consume long,
and in a short time Herc, standing in the stern of the whaler,
wig-wagged back to Ned that all was ready.
"Number One whaleboat signals 'all ready,' sir," announced Ned.
"Very well. Order them to pull away," said the ensign.
Ned transmitted the order, and the men who had been holding the boat to
the scow by their boathooks cast off hastily.
Ned's attention was instantly turned to the ensign, awaiting fresh
orders. Had it not been for that, he would have seen something
transpiring on the whaleboat which would have filled him with rage.
Kennell it was who had charge of the stern boathook. His station
was on the small grating astern of the petty officer's seat. On this
grating Herc, too, was standing. As the boat was shoved off, Herc felt
his feet suddenly twitched from under him, and the next minute he
toppled headlong into the sea.
The crew of the boat, bending to their oars at top speed--for
they knew that the deadly projectile would soon be winging toward
them--apparently did not see what had occurred, and bent over their
oars without a thought of Herc's peril. Kennell, with an evil grin on
his hard features, clambered back into the boat with the look on his
face of a man who has done a good day's work.
At the speed at which the whaleboat was urged through the water, it
was out of earshot by the time Herc rose to the surface. Indeed, the
unexpected immersion had resulted in his swallowing so much water that
he was unable to shout.
Blowing a stream of water from his lips, he struck out for the nearest
target, the one which had just been replaced.
"I'll just camp there till they see me," he thought.
A few strokes brought him alongside the float once more, and he
scrambled up its wet sides, not without some difficulty. In fact,
when he gained the flat upper surface of the target's support he was
breathing heavily.
The sea, too, had risen since they had rowed out, and one of those
sudden squalls that are so common in the tropics was whirling in from
seaward. Herc did not see this, however--the mighty screen of canvas
behind him veiled it from the boy's view.
The men in the boats had, however, spied the approaching bad weather,
and orders were given to get up spray hoods in the bows of the craft.
"Well," thought Herc, "I'm being rocked in the cradle of the deep
with a vengeance. However, I get a little rest from that eternal
wig-wagging. That's one comfort."
Suddenly a thought struck him that sent a cold shiver down his spine.
In his new-found security he had given no thought to a peril that now
loomed imminent.
He was seated on the float at which the flagship was firing.
At any moment they might send another shot toward it, and then what
would happen?
"I'll signal them," thought Herc; but even as the thought entered his
mind he recollected that as he had gone overboard the flags had gone
with him.
He was marooned on a floating target, with every prospect of having a
twelve-inch shell come shrieking toward him at any moment.
Suddenly Herc saw a string of flags hoisted on the flagship.
Instinctively he knew what they meant.
Ned, his cousin and chum, had signaled that all was ready, and the
_Connecticut_ was about to open fire!
Situated far to the rear of the target as they were, Herc knew that
those in the boats had not sighted him, and unless he was missed from
the Number One whaleboat, his doom was sealed. He could have screamed
aloud with real terror at the peril of his situation.
At almost the same instant his burning eyes saw a burst of flame
suddenly flash from the side of the battleship. Herc's brain reeled.
Already he could hear the scream of the shell, and in fancy saw his
dismembered body flung in torn fragments before it.
"Phsiwis-is-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s!"
The projectile shrieked nearer and nearer and passed like a thunderbolt
through the target, ripping it from top to bottom with a vicious hiss.
It plunged into the sea far beyond, ricocheting from wave to wave for
two miles or more.
But the float was empty of life.
Herc had vanished.