"Oh, it's in code," said Slim apologetically; "I didn't know that."
"DETAIL," the lieutenant announced, finding that word. "'Understand and am following sealed orders'. That's the North Dakota. She has coaled at sea and is now starting upon some mission known only to her commander and the naval authorities."
Almost as he finished speaking the Everett gave a lurch, her whistle was tooted two or three times, the engines started turning, and the big boat began to vibrate under the pressure.
There was a shout from the thousand or more who had crowded to the river's edge, responded to by the fifteen hundred khaki-clad young men who were lined up at every point of vantage along the vessel's side.
"And we're off, too," shouted Lieutenant Mackinson.
"Hurrah!" cried the three boys from Brighton in the same breath, as they double-quicked it behind the lieutenant to the upper deck.
The scene was one to inspire the most miserable slacker. Somewhere in the upper part of the yard a band was playing Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever." From the windows of the ordnance and other buildings at the lower end of the yard workmen hung forth, waving hats and handkerchiefs, and joining in the shouted well-wishes of those along the shore. The crews of every fighting craft in that part of the river sang out friendly advice to those aboard the transport, and two miles down the channel could be discerned the smoke from the stacks of the armed convoys that were to give the Everett safe passage to her destination.
Among those at the water's edge the boys could discern the big form of Sergeant Martin, and even as distance welded them in an indistinguishable mass, they could still see him, towering above the others, his hat describing wide circles through the air.
"So long, fellows; we'll meet you over there," shouted the men of the last vessel they passed.
As though by prearrangement the fifteen hundred men on the Everett began singing, "I'm Going Over," sang it to the end of the first verse, then stopped, and from a point well down the river could hear those they had passed taking up the second stanza.