CHAPTER XII
JACK, BENSON, EXPERT EXPLAINER
At the first word of command from the officer several of the cadet midshipmen who were near enough to an open doorway vanished through it.
As the officer strode through the group of startled young men a few more, left behind his back, made a silent disappearance.
There were left, however, as the officer looked about him, sixteen of the young men, all too plainly headed and led by Cadet Midshipman Merriam.
"Young gentlemen," said the officer, severely, "I regret to find so many of you engaged in hazing. It is doubly bad when your victims are men outside the corps. And, if I mistake not, these young gentlemen are here as temporary civilian instructors in submarine work."
Mr. Merriam and his comrades made no reply in words. Nor did their faces express much. They stood at attention, looking stolidly ahead of them, though their faces were turned toward the officer. It was not the place of any of them to speak unless the officer asked questions.
Severe as the hazing had been, however, Jack and Hal, at least, had taken it all in good part. Nor was Jack bound by any of the rules of etiquette that prevented the cadets from speaking.
"May I offer a word, sir?" asked Jack, wheeling upon the officer.
"You were one of the victims of a hazing, were you not?" demanded the officer, regarding Jack, keenly.
"Why, could you call it that, sir?" asked Jack, a look of innocent surprise settling on his face. "We called it a demonstration—an explanation."
"Demonstration? Explanation?" repeated the officer, astonished in his turn. "What do you mean, Mr.—er—"
"Benson," Jack supplied, quietly.
"I think you would better tell me a little more, Mr. Benson," pursued the unknown naval officer.
"Why, it was like this, sir," Jack continued. "My two friends—Hastings and Somers—and myself were talking about the West Point and Annapolis hazings, of which we had heard and read. We were talking about the subject when a cadet came along. I suggested to Somers that we ask the cadet about hazing. Well, sir, to make a long story short, some of the cadets undertook to show us just how hazing is—or used to be—done at Annapolis."
"Oh! Then it was all thoroughly goodnatured, all in the way of a joke, to show you something you wanted to know?" asked the naval officer, slowly.
"That's the way I took it," replied Jack. "So did Hastings and Somers.
We've enjoyed ourselves more than anyone else here has."
This was truth surely enough, for, in the last two minutes, not one of the cadet midshipmen present could have been accused of enjoying himself.
"Then what took place here, Mr. Benson, really took place at your request?" insisted the naval officer.
"It all answered the questions that we had been asking," Jack replied, promptly, though, it must be admitted, rather evasively.
"This is your understanding, too, Mr. Hastings?" demanded the officer.
"Surely," murmured Hal.
"You, Mr. Somers?"
"I—I haven't had so much fun since the gasoline engine blew up," protested Eph.
"We entered most heartily into the spirit of the thing," Jack hastened on to say, "and feel that we owe the deepest thanks to these young gentlemen of the Navy. Yet, if our desire to know more about the life—that is, the former life—of the Academy is to result in getting our entertainers into any trouble, we shall never cease regretting our unfortunate curiosity."
For some moments the naval officer regarded the three submarine boys, solemnly, in turn. From them he turned to look over the cadet midshipmen. The latter looked as stolid, and stood as rigidly at attention, as ever.
"Under this presentation of the matter," said the officer, after a long pause, "I am not prepared to say that there has been any violation of discipline. At least, no grave infraction. However, some of these young gentlemen are, I believe, absent from their quarters without leave. Mr. Merriam?"
"I have permission to be absent from my quarters between nine and ten, sir."
"Mr. Caldwell?"
"Absent from quarters without permission, sir."
So on down through the list the officer ran. Nine of the young men proved to have leave to be away from their quarters. The other seven did not have such permission. The names of these seven, therefore, were written down to be reported. The seven, too, were ordered at once back to their quarters.
Having issued his instructions, the naval officer turned and walked away. Jack and his comrades, too, left the scene.
Yet they had not gone far when they heard a low hail behind. Turning, they saw Cadet Midshipmen Merriam hastening toward them.
"Gentlemen," he said, earnestly, as he reached them, "it may not be best for me to be seen lingering here to talk with you. But my comrades wanted me to come after you and to say that we think you bricks. You carried that off finely, Mr. Benson. None of us will ever forget it."
"It wasn't much to do," smiled Jack, pleasantly.
"It was quick-witted of you, and generous too, sir," rejoined Mr. Merriam, finding it now very easy to employ the "sir." "Probably you agree with us that no great crime was committed, anyway. But, just the same, hazing is under a heavy ban these days. If you hadn't saved the day as you did, sir, all of our cadet party might have been dismissed the Service. Those absent from quarters without leave will get only a few demerits apiece. We have that much to thank you for, sir, and we do. All our thanks, remember. Good night, sir."
"My courage was down in my boots for a while," confessed Hal Hastings, as the three chums continued their walk back to the Basin.
"When?" demanded Eph, grimly. "When your boots—and the rest of you—were so high up in the air over the blanket?"
"No; when the cadets were caught at it," replied Hal.
"Say, Jack," demanded Eph, "do you ever give much thought to the future life?"
"Meaning the life in the next world?" questioned Benson.
"Yes."
"I sometimes give a good deal of thought to it," Jack confessed.
"Then where do you expect to go, when the time comes?"
"Why?"
"After the whoppers you told that officer?"
"I didn't tell him even a single tiny fib," protested Jack, indignantly.
"Oh, you George Washington!" choked Eph Somers.
"Well, I didn't," insisted Jack. "Now, just stop and think. Weren't we all three discussing hazing?"
"Yes."
"Then that part of what I told the officer was straight. Now, Eph, when we saw that first cadet come along, didn't I suggest to you to ask him about hazing?"
"Ye-es," admitted Somers, thoughtfully.
"Then, didn't the cadet midshipmen offer to show us all about hazing pranks, and didn't they do it?"
"Well, rather," muttered Eph.
"Now, young man, that's all I told the officer, except that we enjoyed our entertainment greatly."
"Did we enjoy it, though?" demanded Eph Somers, bridling up.
"I did," replied Jack, "and I spoke for myself. I enjoyed it as I would enjoy almost any new experience."
"So did I," added Hal, warmly. "It was rough—mighty rough—but now
I know what an Annapolis hazing is like, and I'm glad I do."
"Well, I want to tell you I didn't enjoy it," blazed Eph. "It was a mighty cheeky—"
"Then why did you let the officer imagine you enjoyed it?" taunted Jack.
While Hal put in, slyly:
"Eph, you're too quick to talk about others fibbing. From the evidence just put in, it's evident that you're the only one of the three who fibbed any. Won't you please walk on the ether side of the road? I never did like to travel with liars."
"Oh, you go to Jericho!" flared Eph. But, as he walked along, he blinked a good deal, and did some hard thinking.
"I'll tell you," broke out Jack, suddenly, "who thanks us even more than the cadets them selves do."
"Who?" queried Hal.
"That officer who caught the crowd at it."
"Do you think he cared?"
"Of course he did," said Jack, positively.
"He'd rather have gone hungry for a couple of days than have to report that bunch for hazing."
"Then why was he so infernally stiff with the young men?"
"He had to be; that's the answer. That officer, like every other officer of the Navy detailed here, is sworn to do his full duty. So he has to enforce the regulations. But don't you suppose, fellows, that officer was hazed, and did some hazing on his own account, when he was a cadet midshipman here years ago? Of course! And that's why the officer didn't question us any more closely than he did. He was afraid he might stumble on something that would oblige him to report the whole crowd for hazing. He didn't want to do it. That officer, I'm certain, knew that, if he questioned us too closely, he'd find a lot more beneath the surface that he simply didn't want to dig up."
"Would you have told the truth, if he had questioned you searchingly, and pinned you right down?" demanded Eph Somers.
"Of course I would," Jack replied, soberly. "I'm no liar. But I feel deeply grateful to that officer for not being keener."
Before nine o'clock the next morning news of the night's doings back of barracks had spread through the entire corps of cadet midshipmen.
With these young men of the Navy there was but one opinion of the submarine boys—that they were trumps, wholly of the right sort.
As a result, Jack, Hal and Eph had hundreds of new friends among those who will officer the Navy of the morrow.
Not so bad, even just as a stroke of business!