CHAPTER IV
LOOKING DEATH IN THE FACE
We left Dan curled up in a bunk, wondering how long it would be before the schooner would go to the bottom.
"What's that?" exclaimed Dan, starting up from the narrow berth on which he was sitting.
He had heard a crash and felt a jar that was different from the shocks he had been experiencing for the last half hour.
Suddenly the Battleship Boy leaped from the berth, splashing into the water knee deep, as another shock, more violent than the other, set the doomed schooner trembling from stem to stern.
"Another mast has gone by the board," he groaned.
"Bang!"
The sound was accompanied by a ripping and rending of woodwork as if the vessel were being torn apart by some strange, wonderful power.
"I can't stand this any longer. I've got to go on deck and find out what is occurring, even if I am swept overboard. I'm not going to die down in this hole anyway. It's no way for a jackie in Uncle Sam's Navy to end his life. Tommy, you'll have to get along the best way you can. Good-bye if I do not see you again."
There was a note of regret in the Battleship Boy's tone, as his glance lingered half regretfully on the ugly face of the parrot.
"Lubber!" retorted the indignant parrot.
"I guess I am all you accuse me of being," answered Dan with a mirthless laugh.
Running up the companionway he crouched under the hatchway, listening in order to determine whether a wave were washing over the ship or just leaving the stern. Having decided on this, the lad quickly threw open the hatch and sprang out on deck.
A cold blast of salt spray smote him full in the face. Dan cleared his eyes and glanced about him inquiringly. He was able to see but little of deck or mast, but he felt quite sure that only one of the latter had been left standing.
There was a sudden angry flash off to port.
"Lightning," muttered Dan. "We're going to have a thunderstorm to add to my other troubles."
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the ship received a shock so sudden and violent as to throw the boy flat on his face on the deck.
"That's the time we were struck," he cried, springing up.
Indeed the "Oriole" had been struck, but not in the way that Dan Davis thought. Instead of being struck by lightning another projectile from the seven-inch gun had torn its way through the stricken schooner.
Dan never had been under fire; in fact, he never had taken part in target practice, so he knew little of what big-gun fire was like.
A beam from a searchlight smote his face.
"The 'Long Island'!" he fairly shouted. "They're coming back for me. Tom," he yelled, poking his head in through the hatchway, "they're coming after us. We shall yet be saved."
"Get out!" answered the parrot in a shrill screaming voice.
Dan dropped the hatchway, straightened up and shading his eyes as he gazed off across the waste of waters. Just then he caught sight of another of those sharp flashes that he had taken for lightning. This time he saw that the flash had come directly from the battleship itself. At the same instant he experienced another of those terrific shocks, this one sending him staggering to the rail.
The truth suddenly dawned upon him.
"They are shooting at me!" he gasped. "But why are they doing that terrible thing?"
Dan pondered over this for a full moment.
"I know," he cried. "They are trying to sink the schooner, to get her out of the way, so that no other ship will run into her in the darkness. Well, I certainly am in a fine fix. Not being able to drown myself in a respectable way, the ship has come to my help by shooting at me. I wonder what gun they are doing it with? It must be the twelve-inch, judging——"
"Bang! Crash!"
"There she goes again."
The schooner heeled until the lad was sure that she was going to turn turtle. The Battleship Boy felt a shiver running up and down his spine.
"If I had a light I might signal them and attract their attention. I don't believe they are able to pick me up with the searchlight. If they saw me they surely would not keep on shooting at me."
Dan hastened to the cabin below. There was not a lantern to be found so he grabbed up the cuddy lamp and ran to the deck with it. The instant he reached the deck the wind blew the light out.
The boy put the lamp down on the deck and crept over to the port rail which was the side nearest to the distant battleship.
Once more the seven-inch gun let go, the projectile going just a little high and cutting a gash in the deck as it went screaming over, losing itself in the sea off to starboard somewhere.
"About six feet nearer, and my name would have been Dennis," muttered the lad.
He remembered, afterwards, that he had not experienced any feeling of fear. The sensation of being under fire, and that with the knowledge that a battleship was trying to sink the vessel under him, filled him with awe and curiosity. Dan found himself wondering just how long it would take for the guns of the warship to put the schooner under. Had she not been loaded with lumber the schooner no doubt would have gone down under the first projectile that struck her.
"My, but those boys can shoot," he muttered with a feeling of pride. "Ah, that one went too high. Lower, lower!" fairly screamed the boy.
"Crash!"
"That's the time you did it," he shouted exultantly, picking himself up from the deck, his clothing torn, his body scratched from the splinters that the projectile had rained over him in a perfect shower. "A few more shots like that and you'll have her. But I'm glad there isn't any flag flying here. I'd have to take it down. I couldn't stand it to see them shooting at the Stars and Stripes."
The next shot tore away a large section of the rail on the port side, and seemed at the same time to have twisted the ship about.
But Dan was clinging to a stanchion, which fact saved him from being again thrown to the deck.
"I guess they must have decided to cease firing," he said. "I hope they haven't given it up. I know I shall be disappointed. How I wish I were at that gun! Wouldn't it be fun! I believe I could shoot as straight as they do. But——"
Dan did not finish the sentence. There came a report more terrific than those that had preceded it. The stanchion to which the lad bad been clinging suddenly doubled over, striking him on the head, felling him to the deck. The schooner lurched heavily, and, settling over on her starboard side, slipped slowly down a great sloping hill of water into a deep hollow of the sea. But Dan Davis lay still. The blow on his head had been a cruel one, the iron stanchion having been struck by a projectile from one of the seven-inch guns and bent double.
The first gray streaks of the dawn were shooting up from the angry sea when Dan opened his eyes again. His first sensation was that of choking. He was, indeed, choking, for the deck on which he lay was a river of salt water. The lad, in falling, had become wedged between the rails, this being the only thing that had kept him from being washed overboard.
The lad's first thought was that he was drowning. Soon, however, he managed to get his eyes open sufficiently to examine his surroundings.
There was gray, turbulent water wherever the eye roamed, a waste of foaming sea, here and there heaping itself into great dark piles that seemed to tower higher than the masts of a ship.
"It's a wonder I'm alive," exclaimed the Battleship Boy, as he began extricating himself from his uncomfortable position. "The sea is not nearly so high as it was last night, and this old craft is still on its legs. That is the most surprising thing about the whole business."
Dan got to his feet, but he was very unsteady. His first business was to look over the ship and make up his mind how badly she had been hurt by the fire of the battleship. Wreck and ruin greeted him on every hand. The decks were a mass of tangled wreckage, broken masts, twisted stanchions and knotted ropes. In several places the decks were ripped wide open, the lumber beneath them split and torn into shreds.
Peering over the side, the lad discovered a jagged hole in the hull, through which the water rushed with every roll of the ship.
The "Oriole" was lying well over on her side, threatening every instant to complete the job by turning over entirely. Dan surveyed the ship with critical eyes.
"I see now what has saved me. It is the lumber. The schooner was so far down in the sea, too, that the shots from the battleship could do her little serious damage. I wonder why they ceased firing. They must have thought we were sinking. Well, anyway, I'm still afloat, I wish I could see the sun so I could guess where I am."
Dan consulted the compass critically, learning that the battered hulk was headed southeast. He tried the steering wheel, making the discovery that the ship's rudder had not been torn off. He uttered an exclamation.
"I wonder if I could do it?" he muttered. "The land lies somewhere to the southwest. I know we are not far from the coast, for we sighted a lighthouse yesterday afternoon."
The stump of a mast was still standing, the stick having broken off about thirty feet from the deck.
Dan, after a moment's reflection, ran below. Wading about in the cuddy and storeroom in water up to his armpits, he found that of which he was in search. He staggered to the deck, dragging a jib sail after him. It was no slight effort to carry the heavy canvas, but the lad accomplished it.
Now his purpose became evident. After great exertion he managed to climb the slippery mast, carrying a block and tackle with him. The roll of the ship made his task doubly difficult, but Dan pluckily held on, weak and lame as he was. He knew no such word as "fail." When he set about a certain task he did so with perfect confidence in himself. He knew he should succeed.
"There. I'm not a half-bad sailor, after all," he cried, dropping to the deck.
His next duty was to carry a rope from the sail that he had fastened to the stump of the mast, back to the steering wheel, first having passed the rope through tackle that he had made secure to a stanchion. Taking it all in all, he had accomplished something that would have been a credit to a much more experienced seaman.
But Dan had not quite finished with his preparations. He was eyeing the heavy mast that lay lengthwise of the deck, amidst a tangled mass of ropes and stays.
Procuring an axe from the deck house he cut the mast free; then, rigging some tackle, he worked with the stick until at last he had dumped it over the stern into the sea. Before doing so, however, he had made fast a line to it, securing the line at the stern of the schooner before launching the spar. The "Oriole" steadied considerably under the influence of the dragging spar.
"Now, for the experiment!" cried Dan almost joyously. "I don't know, but perhaps the minute I get some wind in the sail the whole outfit will turn turtle. At least, that will be better than waiting for the ship to do so of her own accord."
He drew the sail taut, after a long, comprehensive glance over the deck, at the same time crowding the wheel over to port. Then followed a minute of anxious suspense. The sail slowly filled, the shattered bow gradually swung about. With a "splash, splash, splash!" the battered hulk of the wrecked, shot-riddled "Oriole" began to move.
"Hip, hip, hurrah!" shouted Dan Davis. "Right side up with care! Now, if we don't get any worse weather, we'll land somewhere, even if it's on the rocks."
Dan decided upon the course that he would follow if he could, and, watching the compass, held the "Oriole" to that course as closely as possible.
All during that day the sea continued gray and angry, the clouds hung low and the sea gulls swept screaming by him, bound for still water. Dan remained steadfast to his vigil, watching sea and sky and sail with keen, observant eyes. He could not tell how fast he was traveling, but so long as the schooner was under motion he did not care particularly. There was no sight of land, but still he might be within three or four miles of the coast and yet be unable to sight it, for the "Oriole" was low in the water.
Now and then, as the schooner rose on a swell, he would catch sight of a wisp of smoke on the far-off horizon, showing that steamers were working their way up or down the coast.
Dan began to feel faint and hungry. He decided to look for food. Lashing the wheel he went below and began his search in the dark, water-logged interior of the ship.
"Git out!" shrieked the parrot.
"I'm going to, just as soon as I find a cracker."
The parrot shrieked with rage, which caused the Battleship Boy to laugh almost happily.
After some searching about the lad came upon a tin case of hard tack that had not been water-soaked. A piece of this he gave to the parrot, the rest being stuffed into his own pockets. Then Dan returned to his wheel.
It was late that afternoon when the lad caught sight of something ahead in the distance that attracted his attention instantly. He sprang up to the broken rail, and, supporting himself by a twisted stanchion, peered into the midst of the spray.
"Land ho!" he shouted. "I think I see a light house."
Dan danced about the deck gleefully, for a moment, then grabbed the wheel.
"Gid-dap! You're a slow old poke," he jeered.
After a time he was able to make out the beacon more clearly.
"Somehow, that light house looks familiar to me," he muttered. "I know I have seen it before. Why, of course; I know where I am now. Hurrah! We're headed for the Delaware Breakwater. If I keep on in this way I'll be in Philadelphia—in the course of time," he added with a broad grin.
As Dan Davis and his derelict craft drew nearer and nearer he discovered something else that caused him to gaze fixedly. What he saw was the towering cage masts of a battleship.
"Saved!" cried the Battleship Boy. "And it's the 'Long Island.' I know it is. Won't they be surprised to see me, though? They must have gone in there to get out of the gale."
The lad was swelling with pride. He had accomplished a great feat, and he knew it.
By this time glasses from the warship were being leveled at the strange craft that was to be seen floundering through the sea, headed for the harbor where the battleship was at anchor. The officer of the deck sent word to the captain, who was below, and the captain, after one look at the wreck approaching, sent for the executive officer.
"What do you make of her, Mr. Coates?" he questioned.
The executive officer took a long, searching look at the schooner, then turned wonderingly toward his superior.
"It's our schooner 'Oriole,' unless I am greatly mistaken, sir."
"You don't mean it?"
"I may be mistaken, but it looks very much like her."
"But we smashed the hulk of the 'Oriole,' Mr. Coates. We saw her go under."
"If we did she has pulled herself together and come back from Davy Jones's Locker to a certainty. There's a man at the wheel, sir. I believe that is Seaman Davis."
"Send a boat's crew out to meet her at once."
A cutter was quickly launched. By this time the rails of the battleship were crowded with jackies. The word had been passed around that the strange craft was none other than the schooner that officers and crew supposed they had broken to pieces in the gale the night before.
Officers, through their glasses, saw the cutter run alongside the schooner. Then, with the lone mariner on board, they began the return trip to the battleship. The cutter came alongside, a few minutes later, and Seaman Daniel Davis ran up the sea ladder, leaped through the rope railing and came to attention before the commander of the battleship.
The instant his salute was returned, Dan ran to the port side of the after deck, where stood a child, clinging to its mother's hand.
"Young lady," he said, "I've brought your parrot to you. But I must say he has about the worst disposition of any parrot that I ever knew."
Dan handed the parrot over to the eager hands of the child.
"Lubber!" shrieked the parrot, making a vicious grab for the Battleship Boy's hand.
The jackies of the "Long Island" set up a mighty cheer that was heard far off on the mainland, wafted there by the quarter gale that was still blowing. At the same time one by one the officers strode forward, grasping the hand of the plucky lad, showering him with congratulations. Dan Davis had performed a feat that would be talked of on shore as well as on the high seas for a long time to come.
"Ord'ly," called the captain sharply.
"Aye, aye, sir."
"Tell the master-at-arms to see to it that Seaman Davis gets a warm meal, the best that the ship affords, and at once. Davis, you will draw a suit of clothes from the canteen at my expense. Yours are ruined. After that you will turn in and stay there till to-morrow morning."
Dan saluted gravely.
As the hulk of the "Oriole" would be dangerous to navigation, she was towed within the Delaware Breakwater and delivered to the proper authorities, and the passengers and crew of the ill-starred schooner went ashore.