"That is just six weeks off."
"Exactly, and it means that four months' work must be accomplished in that time. We can't do it," and Andy Greggs shook his head doubtfully.
He was a tall, well-built fellow of eighteen, with blue eyes and curly brown hair. He was a machinist, employed in the great Standard Shipyard of Bridgeport.
"We can do it and we will," answered Oscar Pelham decidedly. "We can work nights."
"It won't be enough."
"Then the firm will have to double the force."
"Where are you going to get the men?"
"Advertise for them—hunt for them—take them from other shipyards if necessary. If Uncle Sam wants those ships he is going to have them. But a war against the world! It's enough to stagger a fellow, Andy."
"So it is, Oscar, but it was bound to come, sooner or later. Foreign nations have been watching the United States with great envy since we whipped the Spaniards and gathered in Porto Rico and the Philippines, and when Cuba became a new state and Canada broke loose from England, I reckon they thought we were getting too big for our boots."
"No, the real trouble started in China," was the answer from Oscar Pelham. "England, France, Germany, Russia and Japan wanted to carve up poor China to suit themselves during the Yellow War of 1925 and Uncle Sam wouldn't allow it. Then South Africa tried for liberty again, and that put England's nose out of joint worse than ever when we helped the Boers to freedom. Then came the old quarrel about that money Turkey is owing us, and when we turned the Turkish kingdom inside out in 1928 that set all the rest of Europe in a rage."