The Battleship Boys' First Step Upward Part 15

"Hurt nothing!"

"I should say it did hurt. What are you trying to do--drill a hole all the way through my foot? I don't want any hash marks. I'll get along with just my natural skin, whether I have any luck or not. Give me that shoe."

"Say, fellows," spoke up a jackie. "I reckon Red-head had better have a pig's foot, eh!"

"You bet he had," chorused the others.

"And he won't do it of his own free will."

"So he says."

"Then it seems to be our solemn duty to take the job into our own hands, does it not, mates?"

"It is."

"All right, then. Seaman Hickey, do we get it straight that you defy the rules of our profession by refusing to wear the badge of that profession?"

"Call it what you want to. I'm not going to have any heathen rites performed over me, or my skin p.r.i.c.ked full of holes."

"Then, shipmate, you'll have to take your medicine. Jump on him, boys!"

Black and White, the two Hawaiians who had been standing by grinning, made a concerted rush for Hickey. He wheeled just as they threw themselves upon him. But the Pacific Islanders were reckoning without the cost.

"So that's the game, is it?" gritted Sam.

Grabbing Black by the collar and one leg, he pitched the fellow half way across the deck, standing the Hawaiian on his head. White followed. He, too, was sailing through the air before Black struck.

Both landed on the same spot, and instantly were fighting each other in their efforts to get clear.

But the admiring jackies had no time to spare. They would have liked nothing better than to have let that affair go on to a finish.

Instead, the whole crowd, fifteen or twenty of them, fell upon the red-haired boy, hand and foot. Sam went down in a heap. He was not angry, but he was giving these fellows all they wanted in their attempts to hold him down.

"Grab the foot!" shouted one.

The jackie did so, but was promptly knocked over by a kick on the nose, causing that member to bleed freely.

This time two sailors grasped the Battleship Boy's naked foot and straightened it out.

"Get your tools out, Needle. Here's your foot."

Despite their efforts, the foot was working back and forth so fast that Johnson was unable to do anything with it.

"Pa.s.s a rope around it. That's the way we used to rope cattle out west. That's the idea."

A line was pa.s.sed about Hickey's ankle and made fast to a stanchion.

"All right, Needle, drive the color in deep, so it won't wash out."

"Give him two pig's feet," suggested another. "He'll have better luck if you do."

"I'll trim the whole bunch of you for this," growled a voice from the bottom of the pile.

The jackies laughed loudly.

"Me fix him, me fix him," snarled Black, at that instant jumping into the pile, his face contorted with rage.

"You get out and mind your own business," advised one of the men. "You got yours; now run along and be good. Take your white friend along with you, while you are about it, or we'll paint both of you."

While this conversation was going on Johnson was plying his needle industriously, and under his hand Sam Hickey's foot was undergoing a great change. Little by little the outline of a pig's foot was appearing. The pig's foot was done in red, while the toe nails of the foot were in blue.

"There; you can let the broncho up now," announced Johnson, after putting the final touches to his artistic achievement.

The sailors piled off, while one of their number released the rope that held the foot. Sam struggled to a sitting posture, much the worse for wear, his hair standing up, his clothes soiled and disordered. But it was the foot that attracted his attention. He surveyed it dubiously, then his eyes wandered about the circle of laughing faces.

Sam grinned a sheepish grin.

"Fellows, you've insulted an officer and a gentleman, and I've got to get even with you--no; I'll have you before the mast, every one of you, so----"

All hands began grunting in imitation of a herd of pigs.

"I see I am not the only pig in the sty, after all," announced Seaman Hickey cuttingly, as he calmly began pulling on his shoe over the sore foot.

CHAPTER IX

LOWERING THE FLAG

"Colors! Fall in for colors!" shouted petty officers in different parts of the ship as the bugle blew its warning notes.

Sam Hickey limped into place with the gun squad, and awaited the order to march.

"Colors," means the formalities that are observed at sunset on shipboard, consisting of impressive ceremonies when the Stars and Strips are lowered from the after flagstaff. The ceremony of colors, however, is never observed when the ship is under motion, but only when the vessel is at anchor.

Just before the moment when the sun was to set, the different divisions, in charge of midshipmen and ensigns, were marched to the quarterdeck with measured step; then, facing toward amidships, they banked themselves on each side of the deck. Behind the jackies, next to the starboard and port rails, were the marines, carrying their rifles.

Grouped aft on the starboard side was the band, its members resplendent in white and gold uniforms.

Between these lines of color stood the captain and his executive officer, facing the Flag that was lazily fluttering in the soft evening breeze.

All was silence, the only sound being the water lapping the steel sides of the battleship.

"Attention!"

The bugle blew a few short notes. The Flag began creeping slowly down the after flagstaff, with every eye fixed on the ensign as it fluttered toward the deck.

Instantly upon the Flag's reaching the deck, the band broke forth into "The Star Spangled Banner." The hearts of the Battleship Boys swelled with patriotism, and the strains of the national anthem seemed to bring a deeper shade to the rows of tanned, manly faces lined up in solid ranks on the quarter-deck of the battleship "Long Island."