Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns Part 32

"How does he explain Jonah being swallowed by the whale?" whispered Frenchy.

"He doesn't have to explain it," retorted Torry. "If you don't believe a whale can swallow a man, jump down the throat of the next one you see."

As a whole, the crew of the _Kennebunk_ were not inclined to consider the incident of the infernal machine carelessly. A serious impression was made upon them all.

But the mysterious prospect of what was ahead of them shortly smothered the matter of the peril escaped. There might be greater perils ahead.

The superdreadnaught halted but for an hour at a port of the Azores.

This was to send mail ash.o.r.e. Then she picked up speed again and traveled north.

She pa.s.sed convoys of merchant vessels guarded by French, British and American destroyers. The _Kennebunk_ exchanged signals with several cruisers of the United States Navy as well.

Drill at the guns went on daily. Once they spied and sh.e.l.led a German submarine, but she escaped. This incident greatly enraged the crew of the gun that missed her. It was not the gun to the crew of which Whistler and Torry belonged.

"Can't expect to get the Hun every time," was the soothing remark of one of the division captains.

"Why not?" asked somebody else. "That's what we are here for, isn't it?

I don't believe Uncle Sam wants excuses."

The standard the men set themselves in our Navy is higher than their officers require.

The boys from Seacove, as well as Hans Hertig and Mr. MacMasters, kept a sharp lookout for their beloved _Colodia_. But they were fated not to meet the destroyer until the great event which had brought the superdreadnaught into European waters.

The _Kennebunk_ steamed into a certain roadstead one evening where lay more huge battles.h.i.+ps, cruisers and smaller armored vessels than Whistler and his mates had ever seen before. They flew the flags of three nations, and they were prepared to move _en ma.s.se_ upon the enemy at the briefest notice.

CHAPTER XXV

IN THE THICK OF THE FIGHT

The methods of strategy by which the German Navy, or a large part of it, was tolled out of its impregnable hiding place the Navy boys did not learn till long afterwards. But Phil, at least, half realized that the German High Command believed that the way to sh.e.l.ling the British coast by her great naval guns was at last opened.

The Allied fleet moved on a certain day and at a certain hour, and with the open sea as its destination. It was a calm and utterly peaceful sea through which the _Kennebunk_ sailed with her sister s.h.i.+ps.

The high bow of the superdreadnaught crashed through the seething waters. Her lookouts traced the course of each tiny blot upon the distant sea-line.

Suddenly, out of the north, appeared a scout cruiser, her funnels vomiting volumes of dense smoke that flattened down oilily upon the sea in her wake. Her stern guns spat viciously at some craft of low visibility which followed her.

Immediately everybody aboard the _Kennebunk_ forgot the other s.h.i.+ps of the squadron. The enemy was in sight, and the work would be cut out for every man aboard the superdreadnaught.

The cruiser came leaping toward the fleet, her signal flags fluttering messages. A gun boomed on the flags.h.i.+p. Bugles shrilled from every deck of the _Kennebunk_.

Messages were wigwagged from s.h.i.+p to s.h.i.+p. But aboard the _Kennebunk_ there was just one order that interested every one.

"Clear decks for action!"

The divisions responded to the notes of the bugle with a snappiness that delighted the officers on the bridge. As they had gone through the manoeuvres a thousand times in practice, so now they faced the enemy with the same precision.

Ventilators, life-lines, parts of the superstructure and deck woodwork came down and were stowed in their proper place. Boats dropped from their davits, were hurriedly lashed together, their plugs pulled, and left to sink, riding attached to sea anchors formed of their own spars and oars. "Cleared for action!" when reported to the commander meant exactly that! Not a superfluous object in the way of the activities of a fighting crew.

"Battle stations!"

The four friends from Seacove knew exactly where they were to be all through the battle--if they lived. Whistler knew that he was to stand in the corridor of the handling-room for Turret Number Two, until he was called to relieve some wounded or exhausted member of his gun crew. His immediate order was to "stand by."

Every other individual aboard the _Kennebunk_ had his station, from the firemen shoveling tons of coal into the fiery maws of the furnaces to keep the indicator needles of the steam-gages at a certain figure, to the range-finders high up in the fighting-tops, bending over their apparatus.

In the turrets the officers fitted telephone receivers to their heads.

The gunners, literally "stripped for action" to their waists, their glistening, supple bodies as alert as panthers, crouched over the enormous guns.

Up from the sea appeared the great fighting machines of the enemy. They could not run away this time. Inveigled into range of the Allied s.h.i.+ps, the Hun must fight at last!

A word spoken into a telephone from the conning tower to one of the fighting tops! Then, an instant later, to Turret Number One! A roar that shook the s.h.i.+p and seemed to shake the very heavens, while the flash of the fourteen-inch rifle blinded for a second the spectators!

A cheer rose from all parts of the s.h.i.+p, even before the tops signaled a hit. After that the men fought the s.h.i.+p in silence.

Alone in the corridor, Whistler Morgan felt that it would be easier to be on active duty in this time of stress. Yet he had been taught that his station was quite as important as that of any other man or boy aboard.

Through the half open door of the handling room he heard other men loading powder bags and sh.e.l.ls upon the electric ammunition hoist that led to the turret above.

Suddenly the whole s.h.i.+p staggered. A deafening explosion, different from that of the guns, shocked him. An enemy sh.e.l.l had burst aboard the _Kennebunk_!

"Relief!"

Whistler sprang through the corridor and up to the gun deck. Was the call for him?

He stopped to look at a perspiring gun crew. They worked the gun with the precision of automatons. Wherever the sh.e.l.l had burst it had not interfered with the firing of the huge guns of Number Two Turret.

Another enemy sh.e.l.l burst inboard of the _Kennebunk_. There was a hail of bits of steel and flying wreckage. Whistler stood squarely on his feet and began to breathe again.

If he was afraid he did not know it!

One of his mates fell back from position. It was not Torry, as Whistler immediately saw. The man's shoulder dripped blood from a raking wound.

Had it been Torry, Phil knew he would still have stepped forward, just as he was doing, and have calmly taken the place of the wounded man.

"Keep it up, boys!" grinned the wounded one. "I'll be back soon's the doc gives this the once over."

The work went on. Sh.e.l.l, powder, breech! Ready all! A moment while the captain's finger trembled on the trigger b.u.t.ton. Then the hiss of air as the breech swung open, yawning for another charge.

The thousand-pound sh.e.l.l, hurtling through the smoke-filled air, found the vitals of the _Kennebunk's_ immediate enemy. It scarcely shocked Whistler when he peered out to see that vast mountain of steel burst open amids.h.i.+ps. She sank in seconds, and the _Kennebunk_ steamed on to attack a second monster of the deep.

The battle continued. Moments seemed longer than minutes; minutes dragged by like hours. The wonder of it all was that so much damage could be done in so short a time.

s.h.i.+ps that had cost months of labor to build settled and disappeared beneath the surface in a few minutes. And their crews? Best not talk about them.

History will relate in detail and with exactness, the story of this fight. The superdreadnaught, so shortly off the ways, endured her baptism of fire, coming through the battle scarred but victorious. Alone she sank two of the enemy.