“Tell Commander Anderson to load all of the big guns with a full charge of black powder only, and fire them all off at the same time.
“And, Lawrence,” he advised his friend, “when you hear a bell ringing, stand on your toes, open your mouth, stick your fingers in your ears, and if you’ve never been in Hell before, prepare yourself for a shock.”
Hardly had he gotten the words out of his mouth, when bells began ringing all over the ship. In just exactly one minute, Lawrence thought he had been blown into bits, as he was lifted and thrown from side to side against the steel walls of the passage. The noise was so great that his ears seemed unable to record it, and it was made known to him by the air pressure which seemed to be crushing him to death. The rush of air down his throat was choking him, while his very insides seemed to be turning over and over in their effort to escape. A dizziness and nausea followed, and he had to lean against his friend, trying to catch his breath in the thick, black smoke with which they were enveloped.
“This is Hell all right,” he managed to gasp.
“That is the worst you will ever get,” said Edestone. “It was noise that I was after, and black powder makes it. Your experience would not have been half so bad had the guns been loaded or had I used smokeless.”
The ship which had trembled from stem to stern under the tremendous concussion was floating now as quietly as a toy balloon, while the wind was rolling up and pushing before it a great cloud of smoke which obscured the sky. On all sides there was perfect stillness, broken only now and again by the last explosion of gas caught in the cylinders of the Taubes by the sudden stoppage of the engines. The airmen were volplaning to earth as fast and as silently as they could.
“Well, that ought to hold them for a while,” commented Lawrence in a tone which showed that he was almost himself again.
“And make them a little bit more amenable to reason in the morning,” added Edestone, and he laughed, for action with him always drove away the blue devils.
“With that settled, too, we will just have time before turning in, to inspect my quarters,” he continued. “Tomorrow I will introduce you to ‘Specs’ and Captain Lee, and you can go with them at eleven o’clock on their tour of official inspection. They will show you the fire drill, the life-balloon drill, the gun drill, the kitchen, and the cows. But now I want you to see a different side of the ship. We will look at my quarters, then at my guest rooms, and finally at my royal suite or state apartments as I call them.”
He then took Lawrence through room after room, which were arranged in the form of a horseshoe, starting on the port side with his breakfast room, and working around to the starboard side with its opening toward the stern of the ship.