The Motor Boys Bound for Home; or, Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Wrecked Troopship

by Clarence Young

  CHAPTER XXV

  THE BOW GUN

  “This isn’t so bad,” remarked Jerry Hopkins.

  “Not half,” added Bob Baker. “That is,” he qualified, “when you thinkhow the professor and Judd here and I were situated a few hours ago.”

  “Right snug and comfortable, I calls it!” stated the sailor.

  As for Professor Snodgrass, attired in a warm but ill-fitting suitwhich had belonged to some member of the _Altaire’s_ force, he bentover his notes at the table in the cabin of the derelict, where thefour refugees were gathered. Night had fallen, signal lamps hadbeen hoisted to the wireless mastheads, and now, having finishedtheir supper, Jerry and his companions were below, “right snug andcomfortable,” as the old salt put it.

  They had found lanterns and lighted them to give a cheerful glow tothe cabin. The electric service was, of course, out of commission withthe engines stopped, but provision had been made for auxiliary oillighting, and it was no worse than conditions had been on all shipsbefore the electric light was discovered.

  “Do you think we ought to stand watch and watch all night?” asked Bob,looking at Jerry. “We might sight the _Sherman_ or some other vessel,you know.”

  “I don’t see what good it would do,” replied the tall lad. “If we didsight the _Sherman_ we couldn’t move toward her, and unless her engineshave been put in commission she couldn’t reach us. We could only driftalong and look at one another. And I don’t believe we’ll sight the_Sherman_.”

  “Do you mean she’s sunk?” asked Bob in a low voice, as he thought ofNed still, in all probability, left on board.

  “No, not exactly that,” Jerry answered. “She has too many watertightcompartments to sink unless she was blown all apart, and I don’tbelieve that has happened. But I think we must have gotten into twowidely separated ocean currents. One is carrying us one way and theother is taking the _Sherman_ along.”

  “That’s about the way of it,” chimed in Judd.

  “But what about seeing some other vessel?” asked Bob. “I mean one thatisn’t disabled and that could take us off.”

  “Well, of course, we might see one if we took turns standing watchthrough the night,” admitted Jerry. “But we have our distress signallamps set, and any vessel sighting them will put for us at once.”

  “Well, all right, if you think that there’s no use worrying,” Bobagreed. “I didn’t fancy standing a night trick myself, but if it had tobe done----”

  “I don’t think it’s necessary, boys,” said Judd. “As Jerry Hopkinssays, if any vessel sees our lights she’ll be bound to come close andinvestigate.”

  The experience through which the sailor had passed with Bob and theprofessor made him seem like an old friend, and Jerry and Bob were gladto have him call them by name, as though he had known them many years.In fact the nearness to a tragic end, which at one period confrontedthem all, seemed to squeeze a long time into a very few moments.

  “Well then all we’ve got to do,” suggested Bob, “is to stay here, sleepand eat----”

  “You haven’t forgotten the eats, Chunky!” laughed Jerry, and it was thefirst real merriment that had enlivened them since the accident.

  “I’m glad you’ve got plenty in the kitchen,” said Bob, joining in thelaugh at his own failing. “But what I meant was that we can’t really doanything, can we, to better ourselves any?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Jerry, looking at the sailor. “I did think ofhoisting some sort of sail, and now that you’re here maybe we can dothat. Then we ought to rig up some sort of sea anchor to keep us headon to the waves in case of a blow. Outside of that I don’t know that wecan do anything except to keep our distress signals flying.”

  “Some sort of sail would be good,” agreed Judd; “and a sea anchor canbe easy rigged up now that we have the life raft towing astern. There’sone trouble, though, about setting sail, provided we can do it.”

  “What’s the trouble?” asked Bob.

  “Well, if we get any steerageway on the craft at all, we may not beable to handle her.”

  “Why not?” demanded Bob. “Her rudder is still in place. I noticed itwhen we were making fast the life raft.”

  “Yes, her rudder is in place,” agreed the old salt, “and it only weighsseveral tons. It’s made to turn by steam, and with the engines deadthere isn’t any steam. I doubt if we could manage to steer by hand.”

  “There must be some provision for that,” asserted Jerry. “The steamsteering gear might go out of commission at any time--in fact, I’veoften read of that happening on vessels. And when it does happen don’tthey have to steer by hand?”

  “Yes,” admitted the sailor, “I suppose they do. We’ll have a look inthe morning and see what we can do. Just now I think we’d better alltake it easy.”

  “Sure!” agreed Jerry. “We’ve had a hard time. I only hope poor old Nedis as well off as we are just now.”

  “I fancy he’s better off in case he’s still on the transport, as hemust be,” said Bob.

  “He will be if he doesn’t fall too much under the influence of thatnincompoop, Dr. Hallet!” suddenly exclaimed Professor Snodgrass.

  Jerry and Bob started, looked at one another, and then at the littlescientist who was busy making notes about the queer crab and othercreatures he had found in the seaweed.

  “Who is this Dr. Hallet?” asked Jerry. “You spoke of him once before.Is he the little man I had the trouble with in the restaurant, and whotried to blow up the _Sherman_?”

  “Blow up the troopship!” cried the professor. “Why, I never heard ofthat!”

  “Didn’t you know that her engines were disabled by an explosion?” askedBob.

  The professor shook his head.

  “I didn’t pay much attention to what was going on,” he said. “I had alot of notes to transcribe in my books, having made them only hastilyon scraps of paper. All I recall is that we stopped for something orother, and I supposed we were waiting for passengers, or for somereason like that.”

  “Waiting for passengers in the middle of the ocean,” murmured Bob.Jerry signaled his chum to refrain from making comments, and then thetall lad fired a volley of questions at the professor.

  “Who is this Dr. Hallet?” Jerry asked. “Why is he such an enemy ofyours? and why was he kept under guard in his cabin? Afterward theguard was withdrawn and we saw you in there, though perhaps you didn’tsee us. And what does it all mean, anyhow? Why will Ned be likely toget into trouble if he is left under the influence of this man? Don’tyou think you’d better explain?”

  The professor appeared to be considering this. And it seemed to requireas much mental effort on his part as though he were deciding the mostabstruse of abstract questions.

  “Yes,” he finally admitted, “I think I had better explain matters toyou. I didn’t think you were so interested. And as for you havingtrouble with this--this--well, I won’t say what I think of him--but asfor you having had trouble with Dr. Hallet, Jerry, I know nothing ofthat. I only know I’ve had plenty of trouble.”

  “He’s a long time getting down to facts,” thought Bob. “I wonder whatit all means?”

  “To begin at the beginning,” resumed the professor, after apparentlycasting his mind back into the past, “the trouble between Dr. Halletand me started when we were rivals in the pursuit of----”

  The silence that pervaded the cabin, save for the low voice of thelittle bald-headed scientist, was suddenly broken by a dull rumblingsound, and a slight vibration seemed to go through the whole length ofthe derelict. To the boys, used to water navigation as they were, thesound and the feeling meant but one thing.

  “We’ve bumped into something or something has bumped into us!” criedBob.

  “Or else we’ve rubbed up against the dock,” added Jerry.

  “No dock out here in mid-ocean!” exclaimed the sailor. “But we surehave struck something. Not hard though, that’s one good thing.Otherwise we’d have a hole stove in us.”

  “We�
�d better see what it is,” said Jerry, preparing to go up on deck.

  The others agreed with him, even Professor Snodgrass putting away hispapers and following the two boys and the old sailor.

  As they mounted to the deck the bumping sounds kept up, and the tremorsand vibrations continued to be felt throughout the _Altaire_.

  “It’s just as if we were among a lot of ice cakes,” said Bob. “I hopewe don’t ram an iceberg.”

  “Hardly that in this latitude,” said Jerry. “Though some years they arefound farther south than others.”

  As they emerged on the deck, coming as they did from the lighted cabin,at first they could observe nothing. But gradually their eyes becameaccustomed to the darkness and they could see to move about.

  “It’s on both sides!” exclaimed Bob.

  “And it isn’t ice, either!” added Judd. “I know the smell of ice, andyou can always feel a chill in the air. It isn’t a big berg, that’ssure, and small cakes wouldn’t last long in these warm waters.”

  “But what is it?” asked Bob.

  Jerry ran below and brought up a lantern which had on a powerfulreflector. It was a light set on the wall in the cabin and designed tothrow the rays in one spot. It was a sort of oil-power searchlight.

  Holding this, Jerry advanced to the rail and directed the rays of lightover the side and down to the water. What he saw caused him to utter acry of surprise and fear, in which the others joined.

  “Whales!” shouted Jerry. “We’re in the midst of a school of whales!”

  “You’re right!” agreed the sailor. “We’ve run right into them, orthey’ve surrounded us, and it’s the bumping of their big heads againstthe sides that made the sounds.”

  “Is there any danger?” asked Bob.

  “There may be, if they take a notion to ram us all at once,” the sailorsaid. “Of course there isn’t the same danger to a ship like this thatthere would be to a small boat. But if they start to ram, and loosensome of the side plates below the water line so that we begin toleak--well, there’s no way of pumping the sea out.”

  “Whales?” exclaimed Professor Snodgrass. “How interesting! I wish Dr.Hallet were here now!”

  He did not specify whether it was so that the doctor might view thenatural phenomenon or so that the professor’s rival might be annoyedand distressed by the visit of the sea monsters.

  “What had we better do?” asked Bob.

  “Do? Why don’t do anything!” said Jerry. “If we let ’em alone they mayswim off, just as they swam up.”

  As he spoke there came a more violent concussion to the vessel, and sheseemed to heel over slightly.

  “That was an old residenter who rammed us!” exclaimed Bob. “A few moreblows like that, and we’ll start to leaking. If we only had a handgrenade or two or a bomb gun! Look, they’re clustering thicker thanever right in front of us!”

  Indeed, by the rays of the lamp the sea was observed to be churned tofoam by the milling of the huge creatures.

  Again came a fearful blow on the ship’s quarter, and then Jerry cried:

  “The bow gun! The bow gun! We can train that on ’em and shoot! That’sthe way to get rid of the whales! Use the bow gun!”