For one brief moment we of the after port stood as if turned to stone, then every man ran to his quarters and stood ready to do his duty. With a cry, our second captain sprang to the firing lanyard. Before he could grasp it, however, the officer of the division was at his side.
"Stop!" he exclaimed authoritatively.
The interruption was fortunate, for, just then, a swerve of the oncoming torpedo boat revealed a small flag flying from the taffrail staff. It was the American ensign.
The reaction was great. Forgetting discipline, we crowded about the port and laughed and cheered like a lot of schoolboys. Potter, in his joy and evident relief, sent his canvas cap sailing through the air. A rebuke, not very stern, however, came from the lieutenant in charge of the division, and we shuffled back to our stations.
"Cricky! what a sell," exclaimed the second rifleman, grinning. "I was sure we had a big job on our hands this time. I"m rather glad it is one of our fellows after all."
"I"m not," spoke up young Potter, bl.u.s.teringly. "What did we come out here for, hey? I say it"s a confounded shame. We might have had a chance to send one of the Spaniards to the bottom."
"It may be a Dago after all," suggested "Bill," glancing from the port.
"The flag doesn"t mean anything. They might be flying Old Glory as a _ruse de guerre_. By George! That craft looks just like the "Pluton.""
We, who were watching, saw Potter"s face lengthen. He peered nervously at the rapidly approaching torpedo boat, and then tried to laugh unconcernedly.
"You can"t "string" me," he retorted. "That"s one of your Uncle Samuel"s boats all right. See! they are going to hail us."
A bell clanged in the engine room, then the throbbing of the machinery slackened to a slow pulsation. The rudder chains rattled in their fair-leaders, and presently we were steaming along, with the torpedo craft a score of yards off our midships.
On the forward deck of the latter stood two officers clad in the uniform of the commissioned service. One placed a speaking trumpet to his lips and called out:
"Cruiser ahoy! Is that the "Yankee"?"
"You have made a good guess," shouted Captain Brownson. "What boat is that?"
""Talbot" from Newport. Any news? Sighted you and thought we would speak you."
Our commander a.s.sured them that we were in search of news ourselves. The "Talbot"s" officers saluted and then waved a farewell.
The narrow, low-lying craft spun about in almost her own length, a series of quick puffs of dense black smoke came from the funnels, and then the haze swallowed up the whole fabric.
We were left to take our discomfiture with what philosophy we could muster. When "secure" was sounded we left our guns with a sense of great danger averted and a feeling of relief.
CHAPTER VI.
WE BECOME COAL HEAVERS.
The little strip of North American coast between Delaware Breakwater and Block Island is very interesting, and, in places, beautiful. The long beaches and bare sand dunes have a solemn beauty all their own.
Though the boys on the "Yankee" took in and appreciated the loveliness of this bit of coast, they were getting rather familiar with it and somewhat bored. They longed for "pastures new."
Summer had almost begun, but still the fog and rain held sway. The ship crept through the night like a big gray ghost--dark, swift, and, except in the densest fogs, silent. Pea-coats were an absolute necessity, and woolen gloves would have been a great comfort. All this in the blooming, beautiful month of May!
One bleak morning the starboard watch was on duty. We of the port watch had turned in at four (or, according to ship"s time, eight bells). We were glad to be between decks, and got under way for the land of Nod without delay. It seemed as if we had been asleep but a few minutes, when "Scully," chief boatswain"s mate, came down the gun deck gangway, shouting loud enough to be heard a mile away: "All hands, up all hammocks;" then, as the disposition to get up was not very evident, "Show a leg there; ham and eggs for breakfast." This last was a little pleasantry that never materialized into the much-coveted and long abstained from delicacy.
The hammocks were lashed up and stowed away in the "nettings," as the lattice-like receptacles are called, leaving the deck clear for the work of the day.
Mess gear for the "watch below" had just been piped, and we were glad; even the thought of burnt oatmeal and coffee without milk was pleasant to us.
The ports were closed and the gun deck was dark and dismal. The fog oozed in through every crack and cranny, and all was very unpleasant.
Of a sudden there was a sharp reverberation that sounded so much like the report of a big gun that all hands jumped.
The course of the ship was changed, and the jingle bell sounded. The "Yankee" forged on at full speed in the direction from which the sound had come.
We all stood in expectant att.i.tudes, listening for another report. We had about made up our minds that our ears had deceived us, when another explosion, louder and nearer than the first, reached us.
On we rushed--toward what we knew not--through a fog so thick that the water could be seen but dimly from the spar deck.
The suspense was hard to bear, and the desire to do something almost irresistible. The men unconsciously took their regular stations for action, the guns" crews gathered round their guns, the powder divisions in the neighborhood of the ammunition hoists.
"I wish Potter was here," said "Stump." "I rather think he would be white around the gills. This sort of business would give him a bad case of "cold feet.""
"Oh, he had "cold feet" a few days after we left New York, and wrote to his friends to get his discharge," said "Bill." "Got it and quit two weeks after we left New York, the duffer," added "Hay."
The "Yankee" still steamed on into the bank of fog.
"Cupid," the ship"s bugler, began to play the call for general quarters, but was stopped by a sharp command from the bridge.
What was it all about? Was it to be tragedy or farce?
Then Scully came down the starboard gangway, a broad smile on his ruddy face.
A clamoring group gathered round him instantly. "What is it?" "Is the "old man" playing a joke on us?" "Do you suppose Cervera has got over to this side?" "Scully," overwhelmed with questions, put up his hands protestingly.
"No, no; none of those things," said he. "What do you suppose we have been doing for the last twenty minutes?"
We confessed we did not know.
"Chasing thunder claps--nothing more nor less than thunder claps! And we"ll see nothing worse on this coast," he added sententiously, as soon as he could get his breath.
The wind rose, and while it blew away the fog in part, it kicked up a nasty sea, in which the "Yankee" wallowed for hours, waiting for the fog to clear enough to make the channel and enter New York harbor. It seemed we had been heading for New York, and we did not know it. It was not the custom aboard that hooker to give the men any information.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE "YANKEE" DROPPED HER ANCHOR OFF TOMPKINSVILLE"]
When we learned for sure that we were bound for New York, our joy was beyond measure.
Sh.o.r.e leave was the chief topic of conversation. And every man not on duty went down into his black bag, fished out his clean blues, and set to work sewing on watch marks and cap ribbons. For Jack must be neat and clean when he goes ash.o.r.e.
The mud-hook was dropped in the bay off Tompkinsville, Thursday, May 26th, seventeen days after we left the navy yard. It seemed seventeen months.
An "anchor watch" of sixteen men was set for the night, and most of us turned in early to enjoy the first good sleep for many weary days.
All hands were turned out at five o"clock. We woke to find a big coal barge on either side of the ship.
After breakfast the order "turn to" was given. "All hands coal ship, starboard watch on the starboard lighter, port watch on the port lighter." From seven o"clock in the morning till twelve o"clock that night, the crew of the "Yankee"--aforetime lawyers, physicians, literary men, brokers, merchants, students, and clerks--men who had never done any harder work than play football, or row in a sh.e.l.l--coaled ship without any rest, other than the three half hours at meal times. About the hardest, dirtiest work a man could do.