The Dreadnought Boys on Battle Practice Read online

  CHAPTER V.

  TWO LADS WITH THE "RIGHT RING."

  It seemed to Herc that he had been asleep but a short time when heawakened with a start and an uneasy feeling that he could not accountfor.

  Gradually, however, as the semi-stupor that followed the opening ofhis eyes wore off and he became sensible of his surroundings, he wasaware that something unusual seemed to be occurring on the ship. Shoutsand the trampling of running feet were borne in to him, and his firstsleepy impression was that it was morning.

  Suddenly, however, he became aware that the shouts formed a certaindefinite cry.

  What was it?

  Herc straightened up as well as he could in his bunk and listened.

  A thrill of horror shot through him, as, like a flash, he sensed thenature of the shouts that had aroused him.

  "Fire! Fire! Fire!"

  The terrifying cry echoed from bow to stern of the ship and Herc nowrecognized a fact which he had not in first sleepy stupor realized,and that was that their cabin was hazy with smoke, which was becomingmomentarily thicker. The heat, also, was growing rapidly insupportable.

  With one bound, the boy was on the floor, and shaking Ned by theshoulder.

  "Ned, Ned, wake up!" he roared at the top of his voice.

  "Aye, aye, sir!" came in a sleepy voice from Ned, who was dreaming thathe was still back in the training school and that reveille had blown.

  A minute later, however, Herc's shaking aroused him to his senses,and a few rapidly spoken words apprised him of the seriousness of thesituation.

  "Tumble into your clothes quick!" gasped Herc, as breathing in thesmoke-filled room became every moment more difficult.

  Ned needed no second telling. In a few seconds, thanks to theirtraining, both boys were in their uniforms, and, grabbing up theirsuitcases, dashed out onto the decks.

  The scene outside was one that might have turned cooler heads thantheirs. The storm was still raging, and a white swirl enveloped thelaboring ship, but the whiteness of the snow was tinged a fiery redwith the reflections of towering flames that were by this time pouringfrom the engine-room hatch of the _Rhode Island_, and illuminating thenight with their devouring splendor. Fire originating in a pile of oilywaste against a wooden bulkhead had started the blaze.

  Men and women in all stages of dress and undress rushed confusedlyabout the decks, praying, screaming, blaspheming and fighting.

  In the emergency that had so suddenly arisen, the crew and officersof the ship seemed powerless to do anything. Instead of attempting toquiet the panic, they rushed about, apparently as maddened as the restof the persons on the ship, by the dire peril that confronted them.

  "The boats! The boats!" someone suddenly shouted, and a mad rush forthe upper decks, on which the boats were swung, followed. Women wereflung aside by cowardly men frenzied with terror.

  "Here, I can't stand this!" shouted Ned, as, followed by Herc, heplunged toward the foot of the narrow stairway up which the frenziedpassengers were fighting their way.

  "Women and children first! Women and children first!" the DreadnoughtBoy kept shouting, as he elbowed his way to the foot of the steps,closely trailed by Herc.

  The roar of the flames was by this time deafening, drowning all othersounds. To add to the confusion, there now came pouring up from thelower regions of the ship a black and sooty crew--the firemen of thevessel. Maddened by fear and brutal by nature, the grimy stokers hadlittle difficulty in shoving the weaker passengers aside and makingtheir way to the foot of the stairway up which Ned and Herc werehelping the women and children and keeping back the cowardly malepassengers as best they could. They were not over gentle in doing thislatter. It was no time for halfway measures.

  Above them, the captain of the ship and two of his officers who hadpartially collected their wits, were directing the crew to lower theboats. The women and children were being placed in them as rapidly aspossible as Ned and Herc passed them up.

  "Can you hold them back?" the captain had shouted down to the boys afew minutes before, as he peered down at the struggling mass on thelower deck.

  "We'll stick it out as long as we can," Ned had assured him, as hewhirled a terrified male passenger about and sent him spinning backwardwhining pitifully that he "didn't want to die."

  Suddenly Herc was confronted by a huge form, brandishing a steelspanner in a knotty fist.

  It was one of the panic-stricken firemen.

  "Let me by, kid!" bellowed this formidable antagonist.

  "You can see for yourself that there are several women to go yet,"responded Herc calmly, although he felt anything but easy in his mindas the muscular giant glared at him with terror and vindictivenessmingling in his gaze. "Women first, that's the rule."

  "What in blazes do I care about the women?" roared the fireman, behindwhom were now ranged several of his companions. "Let me by, or----"

  He flourished the spanner with a suggestive motion anything butagreeable to Herc.

  The red-headed boy gazed over in the direction in which he had lastseen Ned.

  There was no hope for help from that quarter, as a glance showedhim. Ned was holding back an excited man with long whiskers and ofprosperous appearance, who was shouting as if he were a phonograph:

  "A thousand dollars for a seat in the boats! A thousand--two thousanddollars for a seat in the boats!"

  Suddenly, so suddenly that Herc had not time to guard against it, thestokers made a concerted rush for him.

  "Ned! Ned!" shouted the boy, as he felt himself borne down byoverwhelming numbers and trampled underfoot.

  Ned heard the cry, and in two leaps was in the midst of the scuffle,dealing and receiving blows right and left.

  "Do you call yourselves men?" he shouted indignantly, as the stokersfought their way forward in a grim phalanx which there was no resisting.

  "It's deuce take the hindmost, and every man for himself now!" shouteda voice in the crowd, and the cowardly mob elbowed forward through thefew women that still remained on the stairway and its approaches.

  Ned and Herc, who had by this time struggled to his feet, foughtdesperately to stem the tide. So effective were their blows that for atime they actually succeeded in checking the advance.

  "Oh, for a gun!" breathed Ned.

  "A cannon!" amended Herc.

  Above them they heard a cheer, signifying that the first boat hadstruck the water.

  "Stick it out, Herc!" panted Ned, as he struggled with a grimy giant,who, thanks to his ignorance of wrestling and tackles, was easilyhurled backward by his lighter opponent. But the fight was too unevento be of long duration.

  Step by step, fighting every inch of the way, the two boys were bornebackward by the opposing mob. Ned's foot caught in the lower step ofthe stairway and he was toppled over backward.

  A mighty onrush of the fugitives immediately followed, and Herc sharedNed's fate.

  The thought that they had failed flashed bitterly through eachDreadnought Boy's mind as they were trampled and crushed by hurryingfeet of the terrified firemen, whose van was followed by the badlyscared male passengers. The screams of the women who were beingruthlessly thrust aside tingled maddeningly in the boys' ears as theystrove to regain their feet.

  Suddenly, above all the noise of the fugitives and the crackling ofthe flames as they ate through the bulkheads about the engine-roomhatchway, the boys heard a sharp command.

  It rang out as incisively as the report of a rifle, in a voice thatseemed used to implicit obedience:

  "I'll shoot the next man up that stairway!"

  The rush came to halt for a brief second, and in that time the boysscrambled to their feet.

  They soon perceived the cause of the interruption.

  Not far from them, garbed in his shirt and trousers, just as he hadrushed from his cabin on awaking, stood the man who had occupied theneighboring cabin to theirs.

  The flames illumined the grim compression of his lips beneath his graymustache. His eyes were narrowed to a determined
angle.

  In his hand he held a blue-steel navy revolver on which the glare ofthe conflagration played glisteningly.

  "Come on, boys!" roared the stoker who had threatened Herc with thespanner. "It's just a bluff!"

  "That's to show you I _mean business_!"]

  At his words, the spell that had fallen on the frightened crowd for asecond seemed to be broken, and the rush recommenced. The boys, withhorrified eyes, saw the giant stoker snatch up a woman with a childin her arms and hurl her brutally back into the crowd, where shedisappeared, lost in the vortex of struggling humanity.

  "Crack!"

  There was a spit of vicious blue flame from the revolver, followed by ayell of pain from the giant stoker.

  The boys saw the spanner fall from his upraised hand and tumble witha clatter at his feet. His wrist, shot through by the gray-mustachedman's unerring aim, hung limp at his side.

  Like frightened sheep suddenly checked in a stampede, the white-facedcrowd came to a halt and faced about at the new peril.

  "That's to show you _I mean business_!" grated out the marksman, in avoice as cold as chilled steel. "Now let the women go first, and thenthe men may follow."

  Under that menacing weapon, of whose efficiency they had just receivedso convincing a proof, the men sullenly stood aside and passed up thehalf-dozen women or so who had not had an opportunity to take advantageof the boys' plucky stand.

  From the bridge above, the captain of the _Rhode Island_ hailed them.

  "Six boats are away! Let the rest come!"

  "Steady, steady!" came the sharp, commanding voice of the man with thepistol once more, as the score of men left began to scramble up thestairway. "One at a time! Take it easy!"

  Under his authoritative voice the rush changed like magic to an orderlyretreat, and in a few minutes a seventh boat was loaded with frightenedpassengers and lowered onto the heaving sea.

  "Well, I guess we can go now, Herc," remarked Ned, turning to hiscompanion.

  "Yes, it's getting as warm here as it is in the smoke house at home inJuly," agreed Herc, as he carefully picked up his suitcase, which wassomewhat battered by the recent knocking about it had gone through.After Ned had likewise recovered his piece of baggage, the two boysbegan the ascent of the stairway. For the moment they had quiteforgotten the presence of the gray-mustached man, of whom, as we know,Herc stood in some awe on account of the inscription he had espied onthe former's suitcase.

  Now, however, the stranger was at the boys' sides. They salutedinstinctively.

  "I was a witness of your plucky conduct," he exclaimed warmly, "and Iam glad to see that I was not to be disappointed in the estimate I hadformed of both your characters. I shall keep a sharp lookout over yourfuture careers as seamen in the navy."

  It was a moment when ordinary barriers seemed to be let down, and Herc,in a hesitating tone, asked, as they gained the boat deck:

  "Are you in the navy, too, sir, may we ask?"

  "You may, my boy," was the hearty response. "I am Captain Dunham of the_Manhattan_."

  "You're all right, sir," sputtered Herc, in his enthusiasm entirelyforgetting the respect due to an officer.

  The next minute, with cheeks even more crimson than the flames and hisexertions had painted them, the farmer boy plunged forward into theconfusion of the boat deck, much embarrassed at his impulsive breach ofdiscipline.