A HIT WITH CHAOSITE.
"General battle practice to-day," cried a bosn's mate, as he hastened
forward through the scrubbing stations the next morning.
Ned and Herc exchanged glances above their swabs.
At last they were to see what actual battle conditions were like. The
practice hitherto had been merely target practice and mine-laying--the
latter being dummies, of course. To-day, they had learned earlier, the
ships were to be "cleared for action" just as in actual service, and
steaming at eighteen knots, were to fire at the targets as they steamed
by as if they were repulsing a hostile fleet. No wonder the jackies
were on the tiptoe of expectation.
As for the two chums, they were in high spirits. Promotion loomed ahead
of Ned, and Herc wished him success with all the warmth of his generous
heart. Not a thought of envy entered his mind. He was as delighted as
Ned himself over the big chance that had come to the Dreadnought Boy.
Each of my readers can imagine for himself what the two boys had had
to say the evening before, when they had been reunited; and Ned had
to tell his adventures over and over again, till Herc advised him to
invest in a phonograph and talk his narrative into it for indefinite
reiteration. "Pills" had patched Ned's injured leg so deftly that
it hurt him hardly at all, and the doctor's suggestion that he go
on the "binnacle list," otherwise the sick roll, had met with Ned's
unqualified disapproval.
"I'm fit for duty. I want to do it, sir, if possible," he had said
quietly but firmly, when the doctor suggested that he rest up for a few
days.
The doctor, a veteran of thirty years' service, had thrown up his hands
in amazement.
"I've been in the navy for more years than you've seen, my boy, by a
long shot," he exclaimed, "and I never heard a seaman talk like that
before. Well, if you want to work, go ahead, and my blessing go with
you."
"I hope that young man is quite right in his head," the man of
medicine had muttered to himself, as he heard the door of his sanctum
closed by the first bluejacket he had ever met who was not anxious
to avail himself of the restful idleness afforded by being on the
"binnacle list."
Immediately after breakfast the _Manhattan_ was a scene of the
liveliest activity.
Rails came down and were stowed. Boats were lowered, ventilators
shipped, war nets rigged, and every object on the deck that was not an
absolute fixture vanished. The same thing occurred on other vessels of
the fleet, in obedience to the flagship's signalled order:
"Clear for action."
It was like stripping human fighters for a ring contest.
Bugles shrilly sang the order from ship to ship of the squadron. While
the smiling jackies bustled about on deck, stewards and orderlies below
were stowing pictures and bric-a-brac between mattresses and placing
all the ship's crockery and glassware in places where it was not in
danger of being jarred to fragments by the earthquake-like detonations
of the big guns.
In the meantime officers had invested themselves in their full-dress
uniforms with side arms, and an hour after the order had been first
transmitted the signal to "Up Anchor" fluttered out from the halliards
of the flagship.
Aboard the _Manhattan_ especially excitement ran at high tension, for
Mr. Varian himself had come aboard that morning in a shore boat, and
it was an open secret that the big twelve-inch gun, fitted with his
Chaosite breech--was to receive its first sea test.
The first sight that greeted the eyes of Herc and Ned, reporting for
duty in their turret as the squadron got under way beneath a pall
of black smoke, was the unveiling, so to speak, of the inventor's
masterpiece. Mr. Varian and Lieutenant Timmons, the ship's gunnery
officer in command of the turret, had their heads together over the
intricate piece of machinery as the two Dreadnought Boys entered
the steel-walled box, in which they were practically a part of the
machinery.
The inventor greeted them with a kindly nod. Perhaps the thought shot
into his mind that had it not been for the pluck and clear-headedness
of one of the Dreadnought Boys, he might not have been there.
"Is there any news, sir?" Ned asked respectfully, as soon as he got a
chance to speak to the inventor.
"No. The launch that was sent to intercept the Pulsifers' vessel has
not yet reported, but we may hear from her at any time now."
"Let us hope that the rascals haven't got a start and boarded some
passenger vessel at sea," put in Lieutenant Timmons.
As the officer joined in the conversation Ned saluted and went to
another part of the turret. It is not naval usage for an enlisted man
to converse with an officer, and Ned was far too well-trained a young
man-o'-warsman to break any rule, even the unwritten ones, which in the
navy are almost as numerous as the codified regulations.
The excitement under which all hands labored was, however, far too keen
to allow even the thoughts of the Pulsifers' capture to interfere with
present duty.
Especially was this the case on two of the vessels of the squadron--the
_Idaho_, the holder of the coveted meat-ball, and, as has been
mentioned, the _Manhattan_, every jackie on board of which vessel
longed with his whole soul to see the gunnery flag flying from the
Dreadnought's main.
The scores stood even between the big guns of the two battleships now,
and the open secret that the morning practice was to be made, in large
part, with the Varian gun and explosive made the _Manhattan's_ jackies
fearful that they might lose, after all.
Jim Cooper, nervous and high-strung as ever, crouched in his seat
beside the big weapon as the charge was rammed home and the breech
slapped to on the heavy load of Chaosite, which the two Dreadnought
Boys beheld for the first time. It was a pinkish, crystalline-looking
substance, and its inventor claimed, as safe to handle as ordinary
clay, which it resembled in its plasticity. Just to show its
properties, before the charge was placed, the inventor picked up a
chunk of the explosive and compressed it in his hands. He moulded it
into several different shapes, and concluded the exhibition by throwing
it on the flooring of the turret with force enough to have detonated a
charge of dynamite.
"There is only one danger I apprehend from it," he had explained to
Lieutenant Timmons, "and that is in the event of a 'flareback.' But
under such conditions there is no powder made that is safe."
In reply to the officer's questions, the inventor explained that
Chaosite was a slow-burning explosive, and if the much-dreaded
flareback ever occurred in a gun in which it was being used, blazing
particles of the freed explosive would be scattered about the turret.
As Chaosite would only explode when confined, these particles would
glow like hot coals till they burned out. The deadly peril consisted in
the fact that the doors of the ammunition hoist opened directly into
the turret. There were safety shutters to the hoist, but in action the
reloading followed so fast on the firing of the guns that there was
little chance of the safety devices being used.
The shaft of the ammunition hoist led directly down to the ammunition
table below the water-line on which the explosive was piled, ready to
be shot upward on electric elevators. Alongside the ammunition tables
were the open doors of the ship's magazine. It does not require vivid
imagination to picture what would be the result of blazing particles of
a substance like Chaosite dropping down the hoist onto the powder and
explosives piled below. Quick and utter annihilation would follow. Not
a soul of the eight hundred odd crew and forty officers would stand
any but the smallest chance of salvation.
The Dreadnought Boys, as well as the rest of the crew in the turret,
were interested listeners to the conversation. All of them knew what
a flareback was. One had occurred on the _Georgia_ a year before,
costing two lives. It is usually caused by fragments of burning powder
being left in the chamber of the gun after a charge has been fired. An
electric blower is attached to the big guns of Uncle Sam's navy, which
is supposed to thoroughly clean the chamber after each discharge; but
it is not careless sailor-proof, and occasionally the newspapers bear
dreadful testimony to the result of a flareback, which occurs when the
new load is ignited by the left-over fragments of the old one.
But the talk between Mr. Varian and the officer was suddenly checked.
"Boom!"
The flagship had fired, and, as the glass brought to bear by Lieutenant
Timmons showed, had missed the first target.
At the distance of a mile and a half the targets, with their tiny
boats bobbing at a safe distance, looked extremely small. Shooting at
a potato on a fence post at twenty rods with a small rifle is easy
compared to the task before Uncle Sam's gunners.
"Now, Cooper, steady, my lad!"
Lieutenant Timmons' voice sounded strained and harsh as the gun pointer
squinted through his telescope and depressed his pointing lever ever so
little. Already the range had been signaled from the fire-control wells.
The _Manhattan_ was quivering to the speed of her engines, rushing her
stripped form past the targets at eighteen knots.
Every man of that gun crew was under as painful a tension as the
officer. As for the inventor, his face took on a deadly pallor as he
leaned against the rear wall of the turret. In a few moments now he
would know if his invention was a failure or a glorious success.
A tiny signal light--the message from the firing room glowed.
Cooper looked round. His wrinkled face was grotesquely knotted, like an
ape's, in his excitement. His hand shook, but there was a glitter in
his eyes that showed he meant to get that target.
"Brace yourselves, men!" warned the officer.
The boys stood as they had been taught, their knees slightly bent,
so as to be springy. As they got the last order they stuffed cotton
in their ears. Otherwise, the drums would have been shattered by the
discharge.
"All ready, sir," breathed Cooper.
"Fire!"
There was a sharp click from the electric firing switch and a tiny
spurt of bluish flame.
A shock like that of an earthquake followed. The mighty explosion
seemed to rend the turret.
It had not died out before the glasses of the gunnery officer, the
inventor and the gun-pointer were bearing on the distant target and the
boats scurrying toward it. From the bridge and the quarter deck similar
scrutiny was brought to bear.
Chaosite was almost smokeless, so their vision was not obscured, as
with the old-fashioned powder--even the so-called "smokeless" making
quite a smother.
"Hit, sir!" shot out Cooper dryly, as the signal man in the target boat
wig-wagged the news.
"Now let the _Idaho_ folks get busy!" cried the delighted gun crew.
The new explosive and the new gun had proven themselves one of the
biggest naval successes of many a day.