Next morning he waked to hear Evans shaking the ashes out of the galley stove. The wind had moderated and the sky showed signs of clearing. After a plunge overboard and a good breakfast, Mortimer felt better than he had for months. Evans rowed him ashore in his dinghy in time to catch the train, and before they parted it was settled that Evans should go to Washington in a fortnight’s time and be enrolled as a radio gunner in the navy.
Evans took advantage of the northeast wind which was still blowing strong to make the run to New Bedford. With a single-reefed mainsail, for comfort in handling, as he was alone, he made the run through Wood’s Hole and across Buzzard’s Bay in six hours or so, and dropped anchor in New Bedford Harbor some time before sunset. As he sailed across the bay he pondered the problem confronting his friend.
“It’s strange,” he said to himself, “on what capricious things the great affairs of the world sometimes depend. But Sam will make good, even if he does seem to know less about the navy than I do. He’s able, he’s dead in earnest, and he’s open-minded; damn few secretaries have been more than that.”
He racked his brains to think how he could help his friend, and in his mind there grew the framework of a strong organization of engineering men so mobilized as to place at the disposal of the navy the efficient use of the best that science could offer.
At New Bedford he arranged to have his boat hauled out for the winter.
“I don’t expect to put her in commission next summer,” he said to the man at the shipyard; “you’d better be prepared to store her for a second winter.”
CHAPTER III
THE MOBILIZATION
Early in October, about four weeks after Mortimer’s sail around Cape Cod with Evans, the United States declared war against the Constantinople Coalition, otherwise known as “The Mediterranean Powers.”
Like a great conflagration, a new wave of idealism swept over the land. To every one was offered the opportunity to come forward and give the best that was in him, and few but accepted it gladly.
Washington became the scene of turmoil. Flocks of people poured in. The “swivel-chair warrior” reappeared in all his glory, and the “efficiency expert” added the finishing touch to the orgy of organization and reorganization in which the War Department became engulfed.