"Close breech! FIRE!"
The two commands seemed to be merged into one, so rapidly did they come. The boys and the rest of the crew sprang to the back of the turret and crouched low, as did the others as the command was given.
The gun pointer came last of all, springing backward like an acrobat. As he did so there was a sharp click. The lieutenant in command had thrown the switch that ignited the priming spark. The mighty charge had been touched off—in imagination.
The lieutenant looked at his watch, which he had held on his open palm while the crew worked.
"Twenty-five seconds! Good work," he announced. "Do as well as that at battle practice, men, and we shall beat the Idaho to rags—on speed, at all events."
"And on targets, too," grimly remarked Cooper, wiping his nervous hands with a bundle of waste.
This was the final practice of the afternoon, and the rest of the time was devoted to familiarizing the two young recruits with their duties about the turret.
Both were quick pupils and had already studied something of gunnery at the Newport Training School, so that in a short time they thoroughly understood the theory of firing the big guns.
With quick eyes both lads had noticed that the other twelve-inch gun—the Varian projectile hurler—had not been unhooded, and its grim breech was swathed mysteriously in waterproof coverings. It was in the breech that lay the complicated mechanism which made it possible to handle the terrific explosive power of Chaosite—at least, so the inventor hoped.
As a final lesson, the boys were instructed in the elementary theory of gun pointing, a much too technical subject to enter into here.