Half of the class passed the examination. When one considers that no studying at night was allowed, that an officer made the rounds after lights were supposed to be out, and that at the sound of his footsteps the delinquent who was burning the midnight oil would be obliged to tumble into bed with his clothes on, throwing the wet towel which bound his head into the corner of the room, feigning sleep while a candle was passed across his face, one can understand why more young men of that class did not graduate at the end of the three-years’ limit.
SCOUTING IN THE ENEMY’S COUNTRY
There are many other gallant navy men of whom the public has not heard, but two more will suffice. Within a week after the declaration of war two young ensigns, Ward and Buck, the former in the Bureau of Navigation and the latter at the Naval Academy, disappeared from the face of the earth. So completely did they destroy all traces of themselves that for all the Bureau of Navigation or their relatives seemed to know they might have ceased to exist.
Speculation was rife concerning them, but nothing could be learned of their duties, the impression being, even among Navy Department officials, that they were installing a system of coast-signals in New England. Ward, it appears, disguised himself as an Englishman, and went straight into the heart of the enemy’s country, making his headquarters at Cadiz, the principal Spanish naval station, and from there sending the Navy Department continuous and accurate reports of the fighting strength and actual movements of the Spanish fleet.
He was under suspicion, but watched his time, and succeeded in getting away to Porto Rico. There he was arrested as a suspicious character and spy. He managed, it is supposed through the British representatives, to obtain his release, and, escaping from San Juan, cabled the department a full account of the state of defences there and the movements of Cervera’s fleet. While Ward was in Porto Rico, Buck was following Camara’s fleet in the Mediterranean, keeping watch on its movements, and sending daily reports of its condition, armament, and plans.
We do not know what is in the hearts of men. We do not know whether the men who did the creditable things during the war did them in spite of themselves, or whether in the glory of action and adventure they took their lives into their hands gladly, fearlessly, for their country. We do know that there were hundreds ready and willing to court danger and death for a useful end who for lack of opportunity could not.
HEROES OF THE DEEP
All the long winter the “Polly J.” had slept snugly in Gloucester Harbor, rigging unrove and everything snug aloft that the wind could freeze or the ice could chafe. Careful eyes had watched her as she swung at her moorings, and rugged hands had gripped the familiar gear as the skipper or some of the men had made their periodical visits. But however gray and desolate she loomed, with her topmasts housed and the black lines of ratline and stay across the brightening sky, nothing could hide the saucy cut-under of the bow and the long, free sweep of the rail.
The afternoon sun of March melted the snow on the south slopes of the fish-sheds, and great gray-and-green patches came out here and there against the endless white.