The Submarine Boys and the Middies Part 5

"For your best anchorage, sir," declared Captain Jack, after he had brought the gunboat slowly into the harbor, "you will do well to anchor with that main arc-light dead ahead, that shed over there on your starboard beam, and the front end of the submarine shed about four points off your port bow."

Mr. Mayhew slowly manuvred his craft, while men stood on the deck below, forward, prepared to heave the bow anchors.

"Go four points over to port, Mr. Trahern," instructed Mr. Mayhew. "Now, back the engines-steady!"

Jack Benson opened his mouth wide. Then, as he saw the way the "Hudson"

was backing, he suddenly called:

"Slow speed ahead, quick, sir!"

"You said-" began Mr. Mayhew.

Gr-r-r-r! The stern of the gunboat dug its way into a sand ledge, lifting the stern considerably.

"Slow speed ahead!" rasped Lieutenant Commander Mayhew, sharply.

But the gunboat could not be budged. She was stuck, stern on, fast in the sand-ledge.

"Benson!" uttered the lieutenant commander, bitterly, "I congratulate you.

You've succeeded in grounding a United States Naval vessel!"

CHAPTER III: "YOU MAY AS WELL LEAVE THE BRIDGE!"

There was so much of overwhelming censure in the naval officer's tone that Jack's spirit was stung to the quick.

"It's your mistake, sir," he retorted. "You didn't follow the course I advised. You swung the ship around to port, and-"

"Silence, now, if you please, while men are trying to get this vessel out of a sc.r.a.pe a boy got her into," commanded Mr. Mayhem, sternly.

Jack flushed, then bit his tongue. In another moment a pallor had succeeded the red in his face.

He was blamed for the disaster, and he was not really at fault.

Yet, under the rebuke he had just received, he did not feel it his place to retort further for the present.

Mr. Mayhew and Mr. Trahern conferred in low tones for a moment or two.

"You may as well leave the bridge, young man," resumed Mr. Mayhew, turning upon the submarine boy. "You are not likely to be of any use here."

As Jack, burning inwardly with indignation, though managing to keep outwardly calm, descended to the deck below, he caught sight of Hal Hastings, hovering near in the rowboat. Hal signaled to learn whether he should put in alongside to take off his chum, but Benson shook his head.

Over on the "Farnum" the yard's owner and Eph Somers watched wonderingly.

They understood, well enough, that the new, trim-looking gunboat was in trouble, but they did not know that Jack Benson was held at fault.

Down between decks the engines of the "Hudson" were toiling hard to run the craft off out of the sand. Then the machinery stopped. An engineer officer came up from below. He and Mr. Mayhew walked to the stern, while a seaman, accompanying them, heaved the lead, reading the soundings.

"We're stuck good and fast," remarked the engineer officer. "We can't drive off out of that sand for the reason that the propellers are buried in the grit. They'll hardly turn at all, and, when they do, they only churn the sand without driving us off."

"Confound that ignoramus of a boy!" muttered Mr. Mayhew, walking slowly forward. It was no pleasant situation for the lieutenant commander. Having run his vessel ash.o.r.e, he knew himself likely to be facing a naval board of inquiry.

Hal, finding that the sh.o.r.e boat was not wanted for the present, had rowed over to the "Farnum's" moorings. Now Jacob Farnum came alongside in the sh.o.r.e boat.

"May I speak with your watch officer?" he called.

"I am the commanding officer," Mr. Mayhew called down, in the cold, even, dulled voice of a man in trouble.

"I am Mr. Farnum, owner of the yard. May I come on board?"

"Be glad to have you," Lieutenant Commander Mayhew responded.

So Mr. Farnum went nimbly up over the side.

"May I ask what is the trouble here, sir?" asked the yard's owner.

"The trouble is," replied Mr. Mayhew, "that your enterprising boy pilot has run us aground-hard, tight and fast!"

Jacob Farnum glanced swiftly at his young captain. Jack shook his head briefly in dissent. Jacob Farnum, with full confidence in his young man, at once understood that there was more yet to be learned.

"Come up on the bridge, sir, if you will," requested the commander of the gunboat, who was a man of too good breeding to wish any dispute before the men of the crew. "You may come, too, Benson."

Jack followed the others, including the engineer officer of the "Hudson."

Yet Benson was clenching his hands, fighting a desperate battle to get full command over himself. It was hard-worse than hard-to be unjustly accused.

Jacob Farnum wished to keep on the pleasantest terms with these officers of the Navy. At the same time he was man enough to feel determined that Jack, whether right or wrong, should have a full chance to defend himself.

"I understand, sir," began Mr. Farnum, "that you attach some blame in this matter to young Benson?"

"Perhaps he is not to be blamed too much, on account of his extreme youth," responded Mr. Mayhew.

"Forget his youth altogether," urged Mr. Farnum. "Let us treat him as a man. I've always found him one, in judgment, knowledge and loyalty. Do you mind telling me, sir, in what way he erred in bringing you in here?"

"An error in giving his advice," replied Mr. Mayhew. "Or else it was ignorance of how to handle a craft as large as this gunboat. For my anchorage he told me-"

Here the lieutenant commander repeated the first part of Jack's directions correctly, but wound up with:

"He advised me to throw my wheel over four points to port."

"Pardon me, sir," Jack broke in, unable to keep still longer. "What I said, or intended to say, was to bring your vessel so that the forward end of the submarine shed over there would be four points off the port bow."

"What did you hear Mr. Benson say, Mr. Trahern?" demanded the gunboat's commander, turning to the ensign who had stood with him on the bridge.

"Why, sir, I understood the lad to say what he states that he said."