The Submarine Boys for the Flag: Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam — John Shaqi
The Submarine Boys for the Flag: Deeding Their Lives to Uncle SamDurham, Victor G.
General
The Submarine Boys for the Flag: Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam
Durham, Victor G.
Submarines (Ships) -- Juvenile fiction
Then the tug went back over by the fort. Jack grew tired of waiting,
for it was some two hours ere the tug finally left the ordinance wharf
at Fort Craven.
It was warm out there, on the low, sandy cliffs, provided one got into
a position sheltered from the ocean winds. So Jack, in the weariness
of his waiting, threw himself down in a sheltered hollow.
Finding that the sun shone disagreeably in his eyes, the submarine boy
pulled his cap forward over his face.
Then, in the course of a very few minutes, the inevitable happened. Jack
Benson drifted off into sleep.
He awoke with a fearful start, for he had no idea how long he had slept.
Yanking out his watch and noting the time, the submarine boy concluded
that he had not been asleep more than twenty or thirty minutes.
"But I might just as easily have slept for hours," Benson reproached
himself. "Then what a hero I'd have felt. Asleep on post!"
At that moment Jack Benson heard a faraway whistle, across the bay.
Showing just the top of his head above a ridge of sand, Captain Jack
saw the Army tug just pulling out from the dock across the bay.
But Jack saw something else, too, in that brief instant.
A slim, soldierly-looking man of perhaps thirty, tall and of naturally
good carriage, was skulking along in front of the submarine boy, yet
hidden from the bay by a sand ridge.
Under one arm the stranger carried a draughtsman's board and a book. A
strap over one shoulder held a field-glass case.
"Where in blazes have I seen that chap before?" wondered Captain Jack
Benson, staring hard. "For I have seen him--somewhere. I'd declare
that under oath."
Figure, carnage and face all strangely haunted the submarine boy, who
crouched lower, watching.
"By the great turret gun! He's skulking for a reason!" muttered Benson.
"Is he spying on the mine-planting? I wonder? Yes! That must be his
work! Long-legs, I'll keep my eyes on you!"
The stranger hastened along for perhaps a quarter of a mile further.
Then he threw himself down on the sand, choosing a position in which he
could lie flat, his head fairly well hidden behind a low ridge of sand.
Unslinging the field-glass, the stranger brought it to his eyes, closely
watching the progress of the tug.
"Ha-ha!" muttered watchful Jack, who had followed, keeping behind
another sand ridge. "So, sir!"
The minutes passed, though Jack Benson was so absorbed in watching this
long stranger that the boy had but the vaguest notions of the flight of
time.
The tug had halted, now. A great crane at the bow swung around, and a
submarine mine hung poised in the air. Then, with a rattle of chains
not audible at the distance, the mine was slowly lowered until it
touched on bottom.
While this was going on, the long-legged stranger, wholly absorbed in
his own work, made some observations and some hurried calculations.
Then he pulled the drawing-board toward him, jotting down a point.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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