[CHAPTER XX.]
HERC—A LIVING TARGET.
To the keen disappointment of the boys, however, they found out the next day that they were not, as they had anticipated, to go together in the target officer's "wherry," as the small boat he used was called.
Ned was to accompany the officer—a young ensign named Rousseau—while Herc was to take his place as acting signalman in one of the two big whale boats that were detailed to attend to the targets. The man who ordinarily undertook this duty being assigned to the signal post in the "flying bridge" of the flagship.
Immediately after breakfast, the Manhattan, which was to have sole charge of the target-placing, lowered the three boats and one of her "steamers." The targets were set up on the floats already provided for them before the call for the first meal of the day sounded.
These targets were huge sheets of canvas twenty feet high and twenty-five feet broad, which were to be towed to a distance of a mile and a half from the battle-practice ground and anchored. Each was marked into squares by thin lines, with a big square of black in the center for a bull's-eye.
There were ten of them, and they were to be ranged in a line. The first test to be applied was firing by the flagship from anchorage. This was more to get the range than anything else. The real practice would come later, when the ships in column steamed past the targets, firing one after the other at designated marks. This was to be the real test of the fleet's gunnery, and one in which the men of the Idaho felt confident they would again shine preëminent.
The Manhattan's gun crews, on the contrary, felt just as sure of capturing the scarlet "meat ball," the trophy of the fleet.