“Yes, general,” replied the old gunner, touching his forelock, while Larry also saluted. “We volunteered for this expedition.”
“You look all right, but—” General Lawton turned to Larry. “I’m afraid you are rather young for this sort of thing, my lad,” he went on.
“I hope not, sir,” cried Larry, quickly. “I’ve seen fighting before.”
“He was in the thickest of it when we knocked out Admiral Montojo, general,” interposed Luke. “You can trust him to do his full share, come what may.”
“Oh, if he was in that fight I guess he’ll be all 24 right,” responded General Lawton, with a grim sort of a smile. And he turned away to overlook the shipping of some ammunition on one of the tinclad gunboats which was to form part of the expedition.
The troops were speedily on the cascos, which were to be towed by several steam launches and escorted by three tinclads. Although Larry and his friends did not know it till several hours later, the destination was Santa Cruz, a pretty town, situated on a slight hill overlooking the placid waters of the Laguna de Bay. The general’s plan was to reach the lake by nightfall, and steal over the silent waters in the dark until the vicinity of Santa Cruz was gained, in hopes that the garrison might be caught “napping,” as it is called.
For the time being the sailors were separated one from another, each being put in charge of a casco, the shallow rowboats being joined together in strings of four to six each, and pulled along with many a jerk and twist by the puffing little launches, which at times came almost to a standstill.
“We won’t reach the lake by sunrise, and I know it,” remarked one of the soldiers to Larry, 25 who stood in the bow of the casco with an oar, ready to do whatever seemed best for the craft. “We’ve a good many miles to go yet.”
At that instant the casco ahead ran aground in the shallow river, and Larry had all he could do to keep his craft from running into it. As the two boats came stem to stern one of the soldiers in the craft ahead called out to those behind:—
“Say, Idaho, do you know where we are bound?”