The Dreadnought Boys on Battle Practice

by John Henry Goldfrap

  CHAPTER VII.

  "WE ARE PART OF THE FLEET."

  After some little difficulty the boys ascertained that the _Manhattan_lay up the North River, off the foot of Seventy-second Street andRiverside Drive. They could go to Seventy-second Street in a subwayexpress, they were informed, and then walk across to the boat landing,where they would be almost sure to find a launch from the bigDreadnought waiting to take off the shore-leave men.

  "Say!" gasped Herc, as the two, having descended into the "tube" andseated themselves in the lighted car, were whirled northward throughpitch darkness toward their destination, "how far does this hole in theground go?"

  "Almost as far as Yonkers, I guess," replied Ned; "or so I've heard.Don't you like it?"

  "Not much," rejoined Herc; "it's like trying to talk in a boilerfactory."

  The two boys had their suitcases tightly clutched between their knees,but nevertheless, when they reached the Grand Central station, theinrush of passengers, tumbling and pushing like mad to get seats, sweptthe lads' possessions before them as if the two pieces of baggage hadbeen chaff in a high wind.

  "Hey! come back with those gripsacks!" yelled Herc indignantly, seizingthe arm of a puny-looking lad who was stumbling forward over thered-headed lad's particular possession. "Haven't you any manners?"

  The town-bred lad turned a sharp, ferret-eyed face on the young sailor.

  "Say, greenie, where do you come from, Painted Post or far Cohoes'where the wind flower blows'? Just keep an eye on your own junk, orelse hire an express wagon."

  The indignant Herc stooped to rescue his suitcase, and by the time heraised a red and angry face, the sharp-faced lad had gone.

  "Good thing he did get out of the way, or I'd have fetched him a clipon the ear!" grumbled Herc, as he resumed his seat by Ned, who had bythis time retrieved his property also.

  "No use losing your temper," counseled Ned; "just keep cool. Hullo,there is an old lady and a younger one standing up over there. The oldone looks feeble. I'm going to give them these seats. Come on and getup."

  "All right," muttered Herc, "but I don't see any one else doing so.See, all the men are seated and the women all seem to be standing up.What's the use of being different to the others? We'll only get staredat."

  "All the more reason that we should be polite. The first duty of asailor is to be kind and courteous to those weaker than himself,"rejoined Ned in an undertone, as the boys rose to their feet.

  With a courteous bow, Ned approached the ladies and motioned behind himto where he supposed two seats were vacant.

  "Will you avail yourself of our places, madam?" he said, addressing theolder lady and removing his navy cap.

  Herc, with an awkward grin, also uncovered his red thatch and made asweeping motion behind him with his big hand.

  "Thank you very much, sir," rejoined the elderly lady, "my daughterand myself would be very glad to accept your kindness, but others seemalready to have availed themselves of it."

  "What's that?" cried Ned, wheeling, with a red face, and clapping hiseyes on the seats they had just vacated.

  Sure enough, as the elderly lady had said, they were occupied.

  Two stout, red-faced men, with well-rounded stomachs and fingerscovered with diamonds, lolled at their ease in the just vacated seats,reading their papers. They had slipped into the places while the boyswere requesting the two ladies to take them.

  "Well, what do you know about that?" sputtered Herc indignantly. "Theyjust sneaked into those seats like skunks into a wood pile."

  "They'll come out of them a lot more easily," breathed Ned grimly, ashe took in the situation.

  Bending forward, he addressed the interlopers courteously enough, whilethose around who had witnessed the scene looked on curiously. It is notoften that a subway passenger has the courage to resent any slight,however marked. From the compression of Ned's lips and the determinedflash in his eyes, however, it was evident that he had no intention ofallowing the two beefy newspaper readers to enjoy their stolen seatsundisturbed.

  "I beg your pardon," said Ned. "Perhaps you are not aware that myfriend and I vacated those seats to allow these ladies to be seated."

  One of the red-faced ones, slightly older, it seemed, than the other,looked up with a bovine stare in his heavily rimmed eyes.

  He stared at the Dreadnought Boys much as if they had been some strangevisitors from another planet.

  "I guess you don't know much about Noo Yawk," he said in a sneeringtone, "or you'd have known that in the Subway it's 'first come, firstserved.'"

  "Is that so?" inquired Ned, keeping down his anger, while Herc wasdancing about in the narrow space he could find in the aisle of thecrowded car. The red-headed lad was biting his nails and scratching hishead in a manner that boded a storm as surely as black clouds portendthunder.

  "That being the case," Ned went on in a cool voice, "it's about timethat the Subway learned a few manners. We gave those seats up for thosetwo ladies, and not for you. Are you going to vacate them?"

  "Aw, run along and roll your hoop!" sneered the younger newspaperreader, with an affectation of great languor. "You drunken sailorsmake me tired."

  A brown hand shot out as the words left his lips, and the beefy onefound himself propelled by the shoulder into the center of the carfaster than he had had occasion to move for a long time.

  At the same instant Herc, to his huge delight, perceived the signal foraction and sailed in on his man. In another second the two beefy ones,dazed by the suddenness of it all, stood side by side in the center ofthe car, while Ned courteously aided the two ladies to the seats fromwhich the interlopers had been so suddenly wrenched.

  "This is an outrage!" bellowed the red-faced men in concert, as theyfound their voices. "Such a thing has never happened before."

  "That's a pity," observed Ned contemptuously, while the delighted Hercwhispered in a stage undertone:

  "Mine came out like a soft, white worm out of a hickory nut."

  "Conductor! conductor!" howled the man to whom Ned had given such arough and ready lesson in manners, "come here and do your duty. We'vebeen assaulted."

  The conductor pushed his way through the crowded aisle, assuming an airof great importance.

  "What's all this? What's all this?" he shouted.

  "These two rowdy sailors deprived us of our seats," sputtered one ofthe red-faced men.

  "Did you fellows do what he says?" demanded the conductor importantly.

  "Sure they did. They pulled the gentlemen right out of them," piped upa voice in the background of the crowd--that of the ferret-faced youth.

  "Gentlemen!" snorted Herc. "We'd call 'em hogs up our way!"

  "We got up to give our seats to those two ladies, and are very sorryto have caused them this embarrassment," volunteered Ned. "But to seethese two overfed fellows slip into the seats before we had hardlyrisen from them got our dander riz, and we undertook to put them out."

  "Conductor, you will call a special policeman at the next station,"shouted the man that Ned had hauled to his feet. "I'll make a chargeagainst these desperate ruffians. They need a lesson."

  Ned and Herc exchanged alarmed glances.

  It might ruin their naval careers if, on the eve of joining theirship, they were to undergo the disgrace of an arrest.

  "Better think it over," advised the conductor, who seemed disposed tomake peace, and as he slipped by the boys, to regain his platform asthe train slackened speed, he whispered:

  "You'd best make a sneak, boys; that fellow is Dave Pulsifer, the biggun man, and the other's his brother. He's got lots of influence, andhe means to make trouble for you."

  Little as either of the Dreadnought Boys relished the idea of runningaway from trouble, yet the advice seemed good. They both knew enough ofthe law's delays to realize that, in the event of their being arrestedon the red-faced man's charge, they would be liable to be held for sometime before they could have chance of explaining the circumstances ofthe case to a magistrate.


  As the train rolled into the Seventy-second Street station, therefore,they adroitly slipped by their friend, the conductor, and, as soon ashe opened the door, shot out onto the platform.

  The red-faced men, crying loudly for a special policeman, were inthe act of following them, when--quite by accident, it seemed--theconductor's foot got in the way, and the first of the pair of worthiesfell headlong over it, and his companion, who was pressing hard on hisheels, piled on top of him.

  By the time they had extricated themselves, during which period thecrowd of passengers behind them, who were also anxious to alight, wentalmost crazy at having to wait a few seconds, the two lads were fardown the sidewalks of Seventy-second Street. After a few minutes' briskwalk they reached the snow-covered slopes of Riverside Drive.

  "Pulsifer! I know that name," Ned mused, as they hurried along. "I haveit!" he exclaimed suddenly. "He's Dave Pulsifer, of Pulsifer Bros., thefellows who make guns in America and sell them to foreign governments."

  "I'll bet those two were the brothers, then," suggested Herc. "Theylooked like two ugly pups of the same homely litter."

  The boys gave the matter little more thought, though had they realizedhow intimately the Pulsifers were to be associated with their furthercareer, they might have considered their encounter more seriously.

  "Look, Herc, look!" cried Ned, as they came in sight of the river.

  From the slight eminence on which they stood, the boys commanded amagnificent spectacle.

  Up and down the majestic stream, as far as the eye could reach, thegrim, slaty-hued forms of Uncle Sam's sea bulldogs swung at anchor.

  From the funnels of some smoke was lazily floating, while others laylike sleeping monsters on the surface of the dark river.

  Looking northward, the boys saw only a maze of cage masts--looking notunlike narrow waste-paper baskets turned upside down--and great darkhulls. Here and there a gaily-colored bit of bunting, which as yetmeant little to the boys, fluttered from a masthead or from the signalhalliards. Between the ships and the shore constantly darted lightgasoline boats, or swift launches with big gray hoods over them.

  "Just think, Herc, _we_ are a part of all that!" breathed Nedreverently almost, indicating the formidable array of fighting craftwith a wave of his hand.

  "Gee! I feel about as big as an ant," whispered Herc, even hisirrepressible nature overawed at the sight. "How in the world arewe--little, insignificant specks--ever going to distinguish ourselvesin all that big array of fighting ships and fighting men?"

  "We must do our best, Herc," rejoined Ned simply. "And now let's begetting down to that landing place. I think I see some man-o'-warlaunches landing there. Maybe we will be lucky enough to find one ofthe _Manhattan's_ boats."

  As they started down an inclined road which led through the park andacross the railroad tracks at its foot, they were accosted by a heartyvoice just astern of them.

  "Hullo, there, shipmates!" it hailed. "Where away?"

  The Dreadnought Boys wheeled, and found themselves facing anelderly man, somewhat inclined to stoutness, but whose grizzled andweather-beaten face bore the true trademarks of an old man-o'-war Jackupon it.

  "Why, you're from the _Manhattan_!" cried Ned, as his eyes fell onthe other's name band, on which the name of the new Dreadnought wasembroidered in gilt thread.

  "Aye, aye, my hearties," was the rejoinder in a voice cracked withmuch shouting in heavy weather in all climes, "and you are a pair ofrookies--land-lubbers, eh?"

  "Well, I guess you might call us that," responded Ned, not bestpleased at this free and easy mode of address, but judging it bestto be as amiable as possible. "Can you tell us how to get aboardthe _Manhattan_? We've just left the Naval Training School and areappointed to her."

  "Get your rating?"

  "Sure--ordinary seamen."

  "That's good. Come on with me, boys, and I'll put you aboard ship shapeand comfortable. It's a cold day when old Tom Marlin can't look out fora pair of greenies."

  Piloted by their companion, the two boys soon arrived at the landingplace, which was already crowded with sailors whose shore leave hadexpired.

  "Which is the _Manhattan_?" asked Sam, gazing with eyes that were stillawestruck at the immense vessels that lay out in the river and appearedseveral sizes too large for their mooring places.

  "Right yonder, Bricktop," rejoined old Tom, pointing off to a vesselwhich, large as were the other battleships, seemed by her huge sizealmost to dwarf them. "That's the old hooker. The last output of yourold Uncle Sam. Right in the next berth to her is the _Idaho_."

  "What's that red flag, with a black ball in the center, floating fromthe _Idaho's_ main?" inquired Ned, much interested.

  "That? Oh, that's the meat-ball!" laughed old Tom.

  "The meat-ball?" echoed the boys, much astonished.

  "A sort of dinner flag, I suppose?" asked Herc, who was beginning tofeel hungry.

  "Not much, my lad," laughed the old sailor. "That's the gunnery pennantfor the vessel making the best score at the targets. The _Idaho_ wonthat off the Virginia capes on our last battle practice cruise. All thefleet's after it now, but if we have our way, the old _Manhattan_ willbe flying it after we get through peppering the marks off Guantanamo."

  Each of the Dreadnought Boys found himself making up his mind, as oldTom spoke, that if it depended on them, the _Manhattan_ would be thebattleship to fly the coveted "meat-ball" when next the fleet madeport.