Both boys instantly perceived that they were, indeed, as Ned put it, on board a craft “as lively as a floating bottle.” The steel floor, shining dimly under the few incandescents burning in the forecastle, seemed inclined at all sorts of angles at once.
“Say, this thing is a sea broncho!” complained Herc, trying in vain to thrust a leg into his trousers. Every time he thought he had succeeded a fresh lurch would send him flying across the floor. Ned got on a little better, but both boys were black and blue in numerous places by the time they caught on to the fact that their more seasoned shipmates were bracing themselves against the upright metal posts from which the hammocks were slung.
As they hastily dressed the boys could hear, every now and then, a terrific crash like a heavy burst of thunder. It was the weight of some big wave smashing against the whale-back bow. At such moments the destroyer quivered from stem to stern like a nervous racehorse.
Emerging on deck the boys found that the motion had not belied the wildness of the night. One of those summer gales that spring up along the Atlantic coast was howling in all its fury. The seas were running in black mountains. It seemed as if their great jaws must engulf the slender, needle-like craft, which, instead of riding them, dived clean through most of them. This was owing to her high speed, which, though it had, of course, been moderated when the blow came on, was still very fast.
Lieutenant Timmons’ orders were to get to his station as fast as possible, and he was surely doing it.
“A good thing we’ve got on oilskins!” exclaimed Ned, clinging to the rail as the destroyer bucked and plunged, and water slushed and swished along her decks.
Soon after, the midshipman whose duty it was, came to where the watch was crouching in the protection of the wing of the superstructure, and, while a quartermaster held his lantern, read off the roll.
“Now, keep away from the rail, boys,” he warned, “it’s going to blow harder yet, and we don’t want any one overboard.”
“Overboard,” commented Herc, as the young officer hurried back to the small “bridge” on the conning tower and sought the shelter of a weather cloth, “well, I should say not. It’s wet enough here.”
“Bad business, any one going overboard to-night,” put in the man in charge of the watch, a weather-beaten boatswain’s mate named Stanley. “That dinky boat would stand a good chance of being smashed like an eggshell.”