The _Beale_, like the other vessels of her class, of which the Navy
Department has built such numbers in recent years, was a long,
low, waspish-looking craft. She was painted dark “war color,” with
four squat funnels. On the foremost were three bands of yellow.
A superstructure raised itself forward. Aft and amidships were
business-like looking machine guns and torpedo-launching tubes.
Altogether she was as wicked a looking instrument of war as one could
imagine--well worthy of the sinister appellation--destroyer.
On the morning of the day on which she was to sail, Lieutenant Timmons,
former gunnery officer of the _Manhattan_, did not step on board his
speedy command till half an hour or so before sailing time. He found a
scene of intense bustle and activity awaiting him. Last stores were
being rushed on board, and the excitement that attends the last moments
before the casting off of any vessel, from a mud scow to a battleship,
was in the air.
From the _Beale’s_ four stacks columns of black smoke were pouring, and
white spurts of steam gushed from her escape pipes. She reminded one of
an impatient horse champing his bit,--the bit in this case being the
taut lines which held her to the navy yard wharf.
“Say, Herc, this is something like it,” observed Ned, as the two young
men stood on the forward deck and watched the eager preparations going
forward.
“Um, kind of like going to sea in a machine shop,” was Herc’s comment
as he gazed about him at the wilderness of steel and mechanical
contrivances. As Herc had said, the deck of a destroyer does not bear a
material difference from the metal wilderness of a machine shop.
“Wait till we get outside,” grinned Ned; “if there are any whitecaps
she’ll dance around like an empty bottle.”
“Woof!” grunted Herc, who still had a lively recollection of his first
day at sea on the _Manhattan_. If that mighty Dreadnought was tumbled
about like a plaything of the waves, what would happen to the little
_Beale_? Herc dared not think about it.
“Say,” observed Ned suddenly, “I wonder what that fellow wants?”
He indicated, as he spoke, a man who had just paced by them. He was a
stalwart figure, though rather thickset, and round his neck was a dirty
towel, proclaiming that he belonged in the fire-room regions.
“Oh, just some lubberly fireman. Why does he interest you particularly?”
“Why, he’s been past us two or three times since we’ve been standing
here, and each time he has given us the greatest sizing up. I thought
at first he might know us.”
At this moment the fireman turned, having reached the limit of the
superstructure, and came back toward them.
“Ever see him before?” asked Ned.
“Never,” rejoined Herc positively.
“Neither have I--of that I’m certain. I don’t like his looks much.”
“Well, thank goodness, we don’t come much in contact with that
collection of lubberly ash-hoisters to which he belongs,” grinned Herc.
As usual, the red-headed lad spoke rather louder than he had intended.
Just then a sudden lull came in the clatter and uproar of the last
moments, and Herc’s words were distinctly heard by the other. He
favored the two as he passed with a distinct scowl.
“There you go again, Herc,” reproved Ned. “That fellow heard what you
said.”
“Well, he _is_ one, isn’t he?” demanded the irrepressible youth. “An
ash-hoister, I mean.”
“That’s no reason to tell him so. Now you, for instance----”
A long blast from the _Beale’s_ siren interrupted him. Instantly
boatswain’s mates’ whistles shrilled about the steel decks, and men
scampered hither and thither, taking up their posts.
Ned and Herc hastened to theirs, while the orders to “Cast off” rang
out sharp and clear. Instantly, like big snakes, the hawsers squirmed
inboard, while steam winches rattled furiously. On the conning tower
stood the figure of Lieutenant Timmons, with Ensign Gerard, his second
in command, beside him.
“Ahead--slow!” he ordered.
A quartermaster shoved over the engine-room telegraph, and the steel
decks began to vibrate beneath the boys’ feet. A small navy tug had
hastily hitched on to the _Beale’s_ “whale-back” bow, and hauled it
round toward the river. Presently, however, this duty done, she, too,
cast off. Thus left to her own power, the low, black destroyer glided
out among the shipping on the East River, like a ferret slipping
through a rabbit warren.
“Hurray for going to sea on a sewing-machine!” grunted Herc
sardonically, as the business of casting off being over, the
Dreadnought Boys were free for a few minutes.
“Say, Ned,” he remarked suddenly, after an interval spent in watching
the busy shipping and the buildings along the shore, “I thought you
said this boat could beat anything of her class afloat?”
“So she can--twenty-nine knots,” rejoined Ned, briefly and
comprehensively.
“Hum! We’re crawling along like an old ferry boat.”
“Well,” laughed Ned, “it’s a good thing, too. If we made speed in this
crowded river, we might run into something.”
“And sink them?”
“No, hardly. Torpedo-boat destroyers aren’t built for that kind of
work. The skin of this craft isn’t much thicker than that of an orange.”
“Wow! Stop her!” exclaimed Herc.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’ve just remembered an important engagement ashore!”
“Too late now,” laughed Ned, as they steamed through Buttermilk Channel
and headed down the bay toward the Narrows. Brooklyn Bridge lay behind
them like a rainbow of steel.
“Say,” grunted Herc suddenly, as if the thought had just struck him,
“it wouldn’t do for us to hit anything, would it?”
“Well, I should say not,” laughed Ned. “It would be like an inflated
paper bag getting the impact of a good, healthy fist.
“Have you seen our quarters below?” inquired Ned, to change the subject.
“Have I? I should say so. Not much like the old _Manhattan’s_
forecastle. There isn’t room to swing a cat without scraping its
whiskers off.”
“No, in craft of this kind everything is sacrificed to engine space.
Speed is the thing.”
“Well, I guess you’ll soon see some. Wait till we get out of the
Ambrose Channel and turn our nose southward.”
“Can’t come too swift for me,” confidently asserted Herc.
The conversation of the two young men was interrupted at this moment
by a boatswain’s mate. He ordered them forward to attend to some
brasswork.
“Same old chores to be done even aboard a destroyer,” sighed Herc.
It may be said here that both Ned and Herc had practically received
their rating as boatswain’s mates, but, owing to red tape, they had
not received their appointments when the time came for sailing on the
_Beale_. The destroyer carried a picked crew for the special service
on which she was going, and Ned and Herc, to their huge delight, had
been recommended by Captain Dunham for duty. Their present commander,
Lieutenant Timmons, was the officer whom Ned had saved when the turret
on the _Manhattan_ was filled with the deadly gases and flames of the
flare-back.
“Never mind,” Ned comforted, as the two boys went forward to get their
rags and “brass dope,” “we’ll get our rating before this cruise is
over.”
“Hooray! Then we’ll be giving orders, not taking them. Won’t I give
some chaps I know a working-up,” grinned Herc.
“So far as obeying is concerned, the rear-admiral himself has to follow
orders,” reminded Ned.
“Yes, but not so pesky many as we have to now,” Herc retorted.
The destroyer was soon well out into the heavy Atlantic swell. Dimly
on the starboard hand could be seen the low-lying coast of New Jersey.
During the afternoon the wind freshened, and the sun sank in a heavy
bank of hard, greasy-looking clouds.
“Wind, sure as fate,” remarked a boatswain’s mate, as he gazed at them.
Before supper the men were given their watches, and other routine
duty assigned. It was the first time that either of the boys had
seen Lieutenant Timmons since Ned had so bravely rescued him. Naval
etiquette, however, forbade his giving either of the boys more than a
crisp nod and a short:
“Well, my lads,” as he made his first tour of inspection.
Ned and Herc were both on duty in the watch that came on after
midnight. They turned in, therefore, with several of their mates
shortly after the evening meal. Both slept soundly, being, by this
time, too accustomed to the noises of a laboring ship to pay any
attention to the uproar. They were awakened at eight bells, midnight,
however, by the shrill cries of:
“Turn out there, the starboard watch! Come on, tumble out there!”
Both boys instantly perceived that they were, indeed, as Ned put it,
on board a craft “as lively as a floating bottle.” The steel floor,
shining dimly under the few incandescents burning in the forecastle,
seemed inclined at all sorts of angles at once.
“Say, this thing is a sea broncho!” complained Herc, trying in vain to
thrust a leg into his trousers. Every time he thought he had succeeded
a fresh lurch would send him flying across the floor. Ned got on a
little better, but both boys were black and blue in numerous places by
the time they caught on to the fact that their more seasoned shipmates
were bracing themselves against the upright metal posts from which the
hammocks were slung.
As they hastily dressed the boys could hear, every now and then, a
terrific crash like a heavy burst of thunder. It was the weight of
some big wave smashing against the whale-back bow. At such moments the
destroyer quivered from stem to stern like a nervous racehorse.
Emerging on deck the boys found that the motion had not belied the
wildness of the night. One of those summer gales that spring up along
the Atlantic coast was howling in all its fury. The seas were running
in black mountains. It seemed as if their great jaws must engulf the
slender, needle-like craft, which, instead of riding them, dived clean
through most of them. This was owing to her high speed, which, though
it had, of course, been moderated when the blow came on, was still very
fast.
Lieutenant Timmons’ orders were to get to his station as fast as
possible, and he was surely doing it.
“A good thing we’ve got on oilskins!” exclaimed Ned, clinging to the
rail as the destroyer bucked and plunged, and water slushed and swished
along her decks.
Soon after, the midshipman whose duty it was, came to where the watch
was crouching in the protection of the wing of the superstructure, and,
while a quartermaster held his lantern, read off the roll.
“Now, keep away from the rail, boys,” he warned, “it’s going to blow
harder yet, and we don’t want any one overboard.”
“Overboard,” commented Herc, as the young officer hurried back to the
small “bridge” on the conning tower and sought the shelter of a weather
cloth, “well, I should say not. It’s wet enough here.”
“Bad business, any one going overboard to-night,” put in the man in
charge of the watch, a weather-beaten boatswain’s mate named Stanley.
“That dinky boat would stand a good chance of being smashed like an
eggshell.”
“How about the illuminating buoy?” inquired Ned.
“Oh, that’s slung aft, with a hand watching it, of course. But even
that wouldn’t be much use on such a night.”
Chatting thus, the shivering, wet watch managed to pass the time. At
frequent intervals Ned peered into the inky blackness. Against the
pitchy background he could see ragged clouds of lighter shade being
ripped viciously past overhead by the gale.
“If this wind ever hit the farm, gran’pa wouldn’t have a roof over his
head in the morning,” shouted Herc in his comrade’s ear.
Ned was about to reply in a similar vein when a sudden cry rang above
the uproar of the laboring destroyer and the howling of the wind.
It was a shout that chilled the blood of every man in that group--the
most terrible cry that can be heard at sea on such a night.
“Man overboard!”