The Battleship Boys at Sea Part 19

Once outside, Sam turned a bronzed, freckled face toward his companion.

"We are the people-the real people-aren't we, Dan?" he questioned, with a sly wink.

"We are," answered Dan soberly.

The heads of the Battleship Boys were in a whirl of expectancy for the rest of the day. The afternoon hours dragged slowly along, but at last the evening mess was over, and they quickly gathered their dunnage, starting for the New York boat with light and happy hearts.

Each boy had nearly fifty dollars in his pockets as the result of his three months' service at the Training Station. This money, however, they had decided to deposit with the paymaster of the 'Long Island' as soon as possible after arriving on board.

The next morning Dan and Sam were up just as the Fall River Line boat was about to pa.s.s under the Brooklyn bridge.

"Look!" cried Dan. "Do you recognize that yellow building over there?"

"Can't say that I do. What building is it?"

"It is the recruiting station where you and I joined the service three months ago. And now, just think of it, we are jackies. Everybody knows we are jackies as soon as they look at our handsome uniforms."

"Yes," breathed Sam, "and there's the very Flag under which we enlisted."

Instinctively the Battleship Boys removed their caps and came to attention, in which position they stood until the towering Sound steamer had swept on and began rounding the Battery.

CHAPTER XI-ON BOARD A BATTLESHIP

"Small boat with two enlisted men approaching, sir," called out the deck watch of the big battleship "Long Island."

"What ship?" answered the officer of the deck.

"I don't know, sir. Can't make them out exactly."

The small boat, manned by a perspiring boatman, was creeping nearer and nearer to the huge, drab-colored man-of-war, whose towering sides and huge masts dwarfed everything else about it.

The small boat pulled up to the starboard or right side of the ship, and drifted in.

"Boat, ahoy!" called down the quartermaster, making a megaphone of his hands. "What do you want?"

"We want to come aboard, sir?" answered Dan, rising in the fragile skiff and saluting.

"Who are you?"

"Recruits from the Newport Training Station, a.s.signed to this ship."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "We Want to Come Aboard, Sir!"]

"Then you ought to know better than to try to board a man-o'-war on the starboard side. Get around to the port side where you belong."

"Aye, aye, sir," answered Dan, touching his cap.

"How are you going to know which is the port side of these tubs?"

muttered Sam, shading his eyes from the sun and gazing at the ship. "I'm blest if both ends don't look alike to me."

"Then you must be losing your eyesight, Sam. Don't you see how the quarter-deck is cut away astern, while the bow stands high out of the water? Then there's the Flag astern. You'll never see the colors up forward."

"I can't see everything at once, and you must remember that this is the first time I ever saw a real battleship close enough to touch it."

The ship was at anchor, and some distance out in the stream. A swaying rope ladder hung from the lower boom on the port side, reaching down to within some four feet of the water's edge.

The river was choppy that morning, and the little boat bobbed perilously. The boys were used to this, however, and gave no thought to it.

"Will you please pa.s.s a line over here for our dunnage?" called Dan.

"Pa.s.s the landlubbers a clothes line," shouted a voice from the forecastle.

A line, coiled, suddenly shot down from above. Sam chanced to be standing up in the boat at that moment. The line hit him fairly on the top of his red head, flattening him on the bottom of the skiff.

A shout went up from the forecastle.

"You lubbers!" bellowed Sam, scrambling to his feet, nearly upsetting the skiff in his efforts to get his eyes on the man who was responsible for knocking him down. "I'd duck you if I had you down here."

"Yes, you would!" came back the prompt answer.

"Yes, I would."

"Come up here and try it, red-head! We've got some shower baths up in the forecastle."

"Don't answer him, Sam," cautioned Dan. "There is an officer watching us, and we do not want him to think we are a couple of rowdies."

"Well, we aren't, are we?" demanded Sam indignantly.

"Certainly not. All the more reason why we should act like gentlemen."

Sam grumbled some unintelligible reply.

"Are you going first, Dan?"

"It makes no difference."

Dan grasped the swaying rope ladder, known as a "Jacob's ladder," and ran up with agility.

"My, the little man must have made a voyage to Africa and taken lessons from the monkeys," jeered a voice.

"It isn't necessary to go to Africa to find specimens of that animal,"

answered Dan, reaching the lower boom, along which he ran lightly, sprang over the rail and planted his feet on the deck. His first duty was to turn his face toward the stern of the ship and salute the Flag.

By this time Hickey was on his way up the ladder, and in a moment more he awkwardly measured his length on the deck, having caught his toe in the rope railing in scaling it.