CHAPTER XX.
HERC--A LIVING TARGET.
To the keen disappointment of the boys, however, they found out thenext day that they were not, as they had anticipated, to go together inthe target officer's "wherry," as the small boat he used was called.
Ned was to accompany the officer--a young ensign named Rousseau--whileHerc was to take his place as acting signalman in one of the two bigwhale boats that were detailed to attend to the targets. The man whoordinarily undertook this duty being assigned to the signal post in the"flying bridge" of the flagship.
Immediately after breakfast, the _Manhattan_, which was to have solecharge of the target-placing, lowered the three boats and one of her"steamers." The targets were set up on the floats already provided forthem before the call for the first meal of the day sounded.
These targets were huge sheets of canvas twenty feet high andtwenty-five feet broad, which were to be towed to a distance of a mileand a half from the battle-practice ground and anchored. Each wasmarked into squares by thin lines, with a big square of black in thecenter for a bull's-eye.
There were ten of them, and they were to be ranged in a line. The firsttest to be applied was firing by the flagship from anchorage. Thiswas more to get the range than anything else. The real practice wouldcome later, when the ships in column steamed past the targets, firingone after the other at designated marks. This was to be the real testof the fleet's gunnery, and one in which the men of the _Idaho_ feltconfident they would again shine preeminent.
The _Manhattan's_ gun crews, on the contrary, felt just as sure ofcapturing the scarlet "meat ball," the trophy of the fleet.
The _Manhattan's_ steamer lay, with a full head of power, alongsidethe man-o'-war as Ned and Herc, with their signal flags, emerged fromtheir quarters forward with the rest of the men assigned to placing thetargets.
The targets, as has been said, had already been set in place on the bigcollapsible scows which had been towed out from the shore during thenight. Nothing remained but to tow them out and place them.
The range would then be picked up as soon as Ned wig-wagged theensign's signal to the flagship that all was ready. For this purpose,the commanders of the different vessels had been summoned by signal toappear on the _Connecticut_ that morning and take part in a "counsel ofwar" in the rear-admiral's cabin.
As Ned clambered down the sea ladder after the ensign and took hisplace in the little boat he was to occupy, he saw, with a startof surprise, that among Herc's companions in the whaleboat wereCarl Schultz, the black-browed Silas, and Kennell. He felt furthermisgivings as he took notice of the black glances Kennell cast at theunconscious Herc, who was far too engrossed in the excitement of hisfirst real duty to pay any attention to his shipmates.
Rapidly the boats were towed out to the spot selected for placing thefirst target, and Ned, with a telescope to his eye, anxiously watchedthe flagship for the signal to stop.
At last he spied the expected flags fluttering up on the halliards andnotified the ensign.
"Make it so," rejoined that officer, and Ned rapidly "wig-wagged" thatthe signal had been seen and would be carried out. Herc, at the samemoment, was standing in the stern of the whaleboat, doing the samething.
The first target anchored, the "steamer" towed her convoy tothe next position, which was indicated by a signal from theflagship as the first had been. One after another the targets wereanchored in position, and at last, about an hour before eightbells--noon--everything was ready for the range testing, and the signalrecalling the steamer fluttered from the flagship.
The whaleboat on which Herc was stationed was in command of a pettyofficer, as was the other small craft. The only commissioned officerassigned to the comparatively unimportant duty of target placingwas, therefore, the ensign in the wherry in which Ned was posted assignalman. In this boat there was but one oarsman; however, he seemedto be plenty for the craft, which was a light one and rowed easily.
One after another a final inspection was made of the targets, and aftera thorough overhauling, all was pronounced ready for the tests tobegin.
To ascertain if all was in order, the ensign had his boat rowed up toeach of the targets in turn. Ned, at his side, sent the signal thateach was O. K. successively back to the flagship as they were examined.
"Rather awkward, sir, if they were to fire at a target while we werestanding on the scow," remarked Ned, as they stood on the undulatingplatform supporting the last screen of canvas.
"Well, rather, Strong," laughed the ensign. "I imagine our earthlytroubles would be over very shortly."
"But if the shell passed above us, sir?" asked Ned respectfully, as hewanted to accumulate all the knowledge he could of gunnery.
"The air currents generated by the high velocity of the shell wouldsweep anything within even ten feet of it to destruction," rejoinedthe ensign learnedly. "Of course," he added laughingly, "nobody hasever tested it, but I should imagine that the gases generated by such aprojectile would poison anything that happened to be in the vicinity asit passed."
Ned nodded thoughtfully.
As they regained the wherry he gazed about him.
The sea stretched sparklingly blue under the tropic skies as far as theeye could reach.
Right ahead of them was extended the line of snowy targets, seeminghuge enough at such close range, small as they appeared to thebattleships a mile and a quarter off. In spite of the beauty ofthe scene and the glorious crispness of the sea air, Ned felt anoppression, the cause of which he himself would have found difficult todetermine.
"If I was superstitious, I should say that I had a premon--a premon----Oh, I forget the word! But, anyhow, that I had a 'hunch' that somethingwas going to happen," mused Ned to himself.
But it was no time for musing.
The whaleboats were beginning to back away to safe quarters before thefiring commenced. At the ensign's command, the wherry followed them.
"Give them the signal to go ahead, Strong!" ordered the ensign sharplyat length, as they lay bobbing at some distance from the targets. Thebronzed arms of the oarsman were motionless and his eyes were fixedintently on the far-off line of battleships.
Ned stood erect in the stern of the plunging wherry. Awkward as themotion would have been to a landsman, to the Dreadnought Boy it washardly noticeable.
His brown arms dipped and rose, and with their motion the red signalflag cut arcs against the blue sky.
Far off, on the bridge of the flagship, the lookout, gazing through histelescope, reported to the anxious group of officers that all was ready.
Rapidly the word was passed to the port twelve-inch turret, it havingbeen decided to use the big guns on test work.
Boom!
The report followed a flash of red flame. The battleship trembled toher keel plates as the sound reverberated.
The shell sped screeching through the air.
"Phsiw-is-s-s-s-s-s-s-s!"
Straight for the end target it sped, and a second later the lookout,reading off Ned's wig-wagging signals, announced in a curt voice:
"Bull's-eye, sir."
A little chorus of congratulation followed among the officers.
"That's the stuff!" murmured the ensigns and middies.
"Excellent work," was the comment of their more dignified seniorofficers.
"Signal whaleboat Number One to replace canvas," ordered the ensign,and Ned promptly transmitted the signal to the boat in which Herc wassignalman. The red-headed lad answered his chum's signal promptly, andin a minute the double-ender was scooting through the water on itserrand.
The work of placing fresh canvas on the target did not consume long,and in a short time Herc, standing in the stern of the whaler,wig-wagged back to Ned that all was ready.
"Number One whaleboat signals 'all ready,' sir," announced Ned.
"Very well. Order them to pull away," said the ensign.
Ned transmitted the order, and the men who had been holding the boat tothe scow by their boathooks cast off h
astily.
Ned's attention was instantly turned to the ensign, awaiting freshorders. Had it not been for that, he would have seen somethingtranspiring on the whaleboat which would have filled him with rage.
Kennell it was who had charge of the stern boathook. His stationwas on the small grating astern of the petty officer's seat. On thisgrating Herc, too, was standing. As the boat was shoved off, Herc felthis feet suddenly twitched from under him, and the next minute hetoppled headlong into the sea.
The crew of the boat, bending to their oars at top speed--forthey knew that the deadly projectile would soon be winging towardthem--apparently did not see what had occurred, and bent over theiroars without a thought of Herc's peril. Kennell, with an evil grin onhis hard features, clambered back into the boat with the look on hisface of a man who has done a good day's work.
At the speed at which the whaleboat was urged through the water, itwas out of earshot by the time Herc rose to the surface. Indeed, theunexpected immersion had resulted in his swallowing so much water thathe was unable to shout.
Blowing a stream of water from his lips, he struck out for the nearesttarget, the one which had just been replaced.
"I'll just camp there till they see me," he thought.
A few strokes brought him alongside the float once more, and hescrambled up its wet sides, not without some difficulty. In fact,when he gained the flat upper surface of the target's support he wasbreathing heavily.
The sea, too, had risen since they had rowed out, and one of thosesudden squalls that are so common in the tropics was whirling in fromseaward. Herc did not see this, however--the mighty screen of canvasbehind him veiled it from the boy's view.
The men in the boats had, however, spied the approaching bad weather,and orders were given to get up spray hoods in the bows of the craft.
"Well," thought Herc, "I'm being rocked in the cradle of the deepwith a vengeance. However, I get a little rest from that eternalwig-wagging. That's one comfort."
Suddenly a thought struck him that sent a cold shiver down his spine.
In his new-found security he had given no thought to a peril that nowloomed imminent.
He was seated on the float at which the flagship was firing.
At any moment they might send another shot toward it, and then whatwould happen?
"I'll signal them," thought Herc; but even as the thought entered hismind he recollected that as he had gone overboard the flags had gonewith him.
He was marooned on a floating target, with every prospect of having atwelve-inch shell come shrieking toward him at any moment.
Suddenly Herc saw a string of flags hoisted on the flagship.Instinctively he knew what they meant.
Ned, his cousin and chum, had signaled that all was ready, and the_Connecticut_ was about to open fire!
Situated far to the rear of the target as they were, Herc knew thatthose in the boats had not sighted him, and unless he was missed fromthe Number One whaleboat, his doom was sealed. He could have screamedaloud with real terror at the peril of his situation.
At almost the same instant his burning eyes saw a burst of flamesuddenly flash from the side of the battleship. Herc's brain reeled.Already he could hear the scream of the shell, and in fancy saw hisdismembered body flung in torn fragments before it.
"Phsiwis-is-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s!"
The projectile shrieked nearer and nearer and passed like a thunderboltthrough the target, ripping it from top to bottom with a vicious hiss.It plunged into the sea far beyond, ricocheting from wave to wave fortwo miles or more.
But the float was empty of life.
Herc had vanished.