Prince or Chauffeur? Part 25

"Don't bother about that, please. I shall have to run over to the island when I come back from The Crags, to prepare the way. Take a taxicab and be at the Navy Landing--no, that would n't be wise; some one might see you. Go to the New York Yacht Club station and I, or Johnson, my second, will be there in the _D'Estang_'s launch. We are the outer boat in the slips and you can come aboard over the stern without any one seeing you. Don't be a minute later than seven-thirty o'clock--that is," he added, "if you are serious about making the trip."

"Serious!" exclaimed Sara.

"Oh, we are serious," said Anne, "and Mr. Armitage--you 're awfully good!"

A tall, grave, young ensign met the two excited girls at the hour designated and shot them across the bay to the torpedo boat slips in silence.

"He 's a nice-looking boy," whispered Sara. "But I wonder,--he does n't seem altogether to approve."

Anne, who had been studying the officer, smiled easily.

"That isn't it; he's embarra.s.sed. For heaven's sake, Sara, don't try to make me feel _de trop_ at this stage."

The young man _was_ embarra.s.sed; Anne had diagnosed correctly. And it was with great relief that he turned them over to Armitage, who led them to a hatch and thence down a straight iron ladder to the wardroom.

Anne watched the precise steward adjusting a centrepiece of flowers upon the mess table and then glanced around the apartment, which was lined with rifles, cutla.s.ses, and revolvers in holsters.

"How interesting, Mr. Armitage," she said. "Do you recall the last time we were in a cabin together?" smiling. "How absurd it was!"

"Wasn't it," laughed Armitage. He left the wardroom and returned in a few minutes with two officers' long, blue overcoats and caps.

"These are your disguises. I 'll send an orderly down to take you up to the bridge when we get well under way--"

"Do we really have to wear these?" Sara viewed the overcoats with mock concern.

"Must," laughed Armitage. "It is going to be cold and it looks like rain. I 'd tuck my hair up under the caps as much as possible if I were you. Damp salt air is bad for hair."

"You mean you wish us to look like men," a.s.serted Sara.

"I merely want you to be appropriate to the picture."

Sara looked at him mischievously.

"Why not the entire uniform, then?"

"Sara!" cried Anne, as Jack ducked out of the door.

"Anne," Sara placed her hand on Anne's arm, "are you interested in Jack Armitage?"

The girl looked at the dark burning cheeks of the handsome full-blooming young woman in front of her.

"Don't be silly, Sara."

"I 'm not silly," said Mrs. Van Valkenberg, half humorously. "I really want to know."

"Why?"

"Why, because if you 're not, I want you to keep in the background.

For I think I 'd--rather like to--enlist in the Navy."

Anne could not tell why, but Sara had succeeded in irritating her.

CHAPTER XVII

THE NIGHT ATTACK

As a smart young seaman escorted the two young women to the bridge and placed them beside the six-pounder gun, the two destroyers, _Jefferson_ and _D'Estang_ and the torpedo boats _Barclay, Rogers, Bagley, Philip,_ and _Dyer_ were sweeping between Fort Adams and Rose Island in echelon formation. Long columns of gray-black smoke pouring from the funnels, mingled with the heavy haze of the August evening. There was a bobble of a sea on and as the _Jefferson_ signalled for the vessels to come up into line, the scene presented by the grim, but lithe torpedo boats, each hurrying across the waves to its appointed position, rolling in the sea hollows and pitching clouds of spray over grimy bows, appealed suggestively to Miss Wellington, who stood with her hand tightly clenched in Sara's. Huge blue-black clouds, with slivery shafts showing through the rents the wind had made, banked the western horizon, and out to seaward the yellow Brenton Reef light vessel rolled desolate on the surge.

"Is n't it beautiful," murmured Anne, half to herself. "It is so different from being on the _Mayfair_, is n't it?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Is n't it beautiful," murmured Anne. "So different from being on the _Mayfair_, is n't it?"]

Sara nodded.

"So much more fun," she replied. "Much more thrilling."

As a matter of fact, the atmosphere of expectancy filled the vessel.

Armitage, concerned with the navigation of the ship, his cap reversed to keep the wind from getting under the peak and lifting it into the sea, had neglected them utterly, and the junior had not withdrawn his head from the chart booth for half an hour.

Time and again Jack's face swept past, unseeing them, toward the quartermaster with hands on the wheel, at the rear of the bridge, crying crisply:

"Helm to port."

And the quartermaster replied as he twisted the wheel:

"Helm to port, sir."

Then--

"Ease your helm!"

"Ease your helm, sir."

The dark had fallen now. Ahead the Point Judith acetylene buoy sent its rays toward them. When they came abreast of it, it was pitch black and the white light on Watch Hill was made out to the southeastward.

Suddenly from the _Jefferson's_ deck a series of red and white lights began to wink and blink. Answering signals twinkled over a mile of water and the boats stopped their engines, rolling like logs on the waters.

Armitage walked over to Anne and Sara, who, in their coats and caps, looked not unlike officers themselves.

"How do you like it?"

"Oh, it is terribly interesting!" said Anne. "What are you going to do now?"

"Wait for the battleships, I imagine," said Armitage. "We don't really torpedo them," he added. "The object is to get as close as possible without being observed. They try to locate us with searchlights. As soon as they see us they put the light on us and fire a red star.

After that star is fired the discovered boat must steam full speed for the quarry for one minute and then fire a green star and turn on her lights. The distance from the battleship to the boat is measured and if we are within torpedo range, two thousand yards, the torpedo boat wins. If the distance is greater, we are technically out of action--the battleship wins."

"How interesting!" Anne gazed at Armitage admiringly. "And that is what you would do in real warfare then--rush into the very face of the battleship's firing in the effort to blow her up?"