"Listen here!" and Frenchy, with dancing eyes, whispered into his friend's ear the details of the new-born scheme.

"Oi, oi!" cried Ikey. "It is an idea, sure enough. But it is trouble you are looking for."

"Not a bit of it. We needn't tell anybody--not even Whistler or Al. Gee!

it will be great."

"Mebbe the old man won't say so." He was referring to Captain Trevor, but in no disrespectful way. "Old Man" is rather a term of admiration and affection applied to the commander of a ship.

"Lots he'll be botherin' about what we do," sniffed Frenchy.

Ikey was already enamored of his friend's plan. His objections were very weak.

"Ah, g'wan!" reiterated Frenchy. "You won't get into the brig for it, that's sure. I'll do it alone. Only see that you keep your mouth shut about it, if you won't help."

But Ikey had no intention of seeing his friend have all the fun of the thing. He stopped objecting, and thereafter gave his hearty a.s.sistance in the plot.

At odd times during that day and the next the two rigged a weighted platform into which could be fixed upright lengths of the two-inch pipe they had found.

Rigged to suit them at last, the two boys took their appliance to pieces again and hid the parts away until a to-be-determined time. They were planning to have a joke upon the whole ship's company; but they were forced to wait for the appropriate moment in which to spring the surprise.

The third morning out revealed a clearing sky and subsiding waves; and the regular ship's routine at sea was taken up.

"Officers' call" was sounded five minutes before the "a.s.sembly" bugle call at 9:15. At the later call men of the various divisions fall in smartly at double time for muster in the respective parts of the ship.

The men are inspected at this time regarding the condition of their clothing, length of hair, personal cleanliness, and whether or not they are carefully shaved.

This last requirement troubled the four friends from Seacove but little, save that Whistler and Torry occasionally wore a little fuzz on their cheeks, which Frenchy declared they lathered surrept.i.tiously with cream, then let the ship's cat lick it off.

"If they had a real ship's cat on this iron pot," retorted Torry, "I know who would most frequently have the attention of that. You need the cat-o'-nine-tails right now, Frenchy."

"Gee! ain't he bloodthirsty and savage?" whispered Michael, who dearly loved to tease.

The petty officers who personally inspected the men at this morning review reported to the division officer, who in turn reported to the executive officer of the ship, who is always the navigating officer.

After the reports the physical drill, or setting-up exercises, is the order. These calisthenics are similar to that drill in the army.

It was on this third day that the boys were a.s.signed to the watches and to their divisions for the cruise. The ship's company is divided into port and starboard watches, each watch being organized into divisions.

Each turret is manned by a division, numbered in rotation, beginning with Number One from forward aft. To the delight of Philip Morgan and Al Torrance they were both a.s.signed to Number Two division, and would be members of the crew of a big gun in the second turret.

The broadside batteries were partly manned by marines, of whom there were a large number aboard the _Kennebunk_. These "soldiers of the sea"

had always interested Whistler and his friends.

For convenience in making out station bills and the like, each man of a division has a number a.s.signed him by which he is known. Whistler and Torry were given respectively Numbers 2111 and 2112. These numbers showed that they were Numbers 11 and 12 of the first section of the second division--the first figure for division, the second for section, and the remainder the personal number of the man in his section.

The watches, meaning the length of time into which the twenty-four hours aboard ship is divided, are arranged on a naval vessel as in all maritime affairs.

The first watch is from 8:00 P. M. till midnight. The mid-watch, or "graveyard watch," is from midnight till 4:00 A. M.; the morning watch from 4:00 till 8:00 A. M.; the forenoon watch from 8:00 A. M. till mid-day; the afternoon watch from noon till 4:00 P. M.; and the dog-watches, each of which is but two hours long, are from 4:00 till 6:00 P. M. and from 6:00 till 8 P. M.

The Seacove boys were already well trained in the general duties that fell to their share, even though they had never cruised upon a superdreadnaught. Now they had the special duties of looking after the guns in the turret to which they were attached. Gun drill would hereafter occupy a part of their time each forenoon.

As the weather cleared the lookouts all over the ship kept sharper watch than they had before for any moving object on the sea. They had seen the smoke of steamships and the sails of other vessels during the storm, but had not spoken a single craft since leaving port.

The _Kennebunk_ frequently received and sent wireless messages; but the messages were evidently unimportant for they caused no flurry of excitement. The Seacove boys were expecting some news of submarines, or the capture of the "mother ship," which they believed was cruising off the coast to supply German U-boats with fuel. But no news of this kind came to their ears.

The big battleship was now nearing the point where they could expect to meet the auxiliary naval vessel towing the target.

"Pretty soft! Pretty soft!" said one chap in Whistler's gun crew disgustedly. "Pretty soft for us! We fellows going out to target practice, while those battleships already on the other side of this periscope pond may be fighting the Fritzies off Heligoland."

"We'll get a chance at a sub maybe," said another more hopefully.

"No such luck," growled the first speaker. "We'll just about get shot at with a torpedo from one of those pirates. We'd never have the good luck to plant a sh.e.l.l in a U-boat where it would do the most good. No, sir!"

There was so much that was new for the four boys from Seacove to learn aboard the superdreadnaught that they did not worry much about getting into immediate action. Target practice with the big guns would spell excitement enough for the time being, they thought.

Meanwhile Michael Donahue and Ikey Rosenmeyer were having a secret all to themselves that kept them breaking out in "the giggles" at unseasonable times, so that the master-at-arms gave them two reprimands within the twenty-four hours. Another would be likely to put their names on the report--an incident that was always to be regretted.

The battleship was steaming through a flattening sea at half speed. Word had been pa.s.sed from one of the masthead lookouts that smoke was sighted. The executive officer said it was probably the auxiliary ship with the target in tow. The report brought almost everybody who was free to the open decks.

But Frenchy and Ikey showed an unexplained lack of interest in this incident. They remained below and, seizing their chance un.o.bserved, slipped into the spare compartment on the lower deck in which the lumber was stowed.

Just abaft this compartment was an ash-chute. As the sea was now calm, the ash-hoist had been at work that morning and the trap-door of the chute had not been relocked. This door kicked open outboard, giving vent upon the sea, the opening being about ten feet above the waterline of the _Kennebunk_.

The two chums were deeply engaged in the compartment for some time while the crew and officers on deck watched the approach of the target boat.

The course of that and the battleship would bring the two within speaking distance in an hour or less.

Suddenly Ikey croaked a warning: "Hist! What's that, Frenchy?"

"What's what?" puffed his friend, just then very much engaged in fastening together two joints of pipe. "Don't try to scare a fellow.

n.o.body's coming."

"Listen!" commanded Ikey.

Michael sat back on his heels, c.o.c.king his head to listen. It was no footstep outside the compartment slide. It was not that kind of sound at all. And it was faint--so faint indeed that perhaps the noises of the storm since they had left port had quite smothered the queer sound.

"A clock?" Frenchy suggested.

"Funny sounding clock," whispered Ikey Rosenmeyer. "And where can it be?"

"Tick-_tock_! Tick-_tock_! Tick-_tock_!" The emphasis upon the second division of the sound was unmistakable. It did not seem like any clock the boys had ever heard.

"That's never a ship's chronometer, you know, that," declared Frenchy.

"What is it, then?" was his chum's worried demand.

"Oh, bother! Don't care what it is," returned Frenchy. "Give us a hand here, Ike. Want me to do all the work alone, do you?"

Frenchy was really getting cross. There are plenty of noises of one kind or another about a ship. One more noise he did not think mattered.

But Ikey continued to raise his head now and then to listen to the "tick-tock" sound. It puzzled him, and he determined to tell Whistler about it.