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As he bundled down the ladder, he caught a glimpse of the old Commander, braced against the bulwarks, and spitting into his hands. The boy dropped into hell. Down there was no order. All was howling chaos. Each gun-captain fought his own gun, regardless of the rest. Billows of smoke drifted to and fro; shadowy forms flitted; guns bounded and bellowed; here and there a red glare lit the fog.
"Stop this racket," gasped a voice, querulous and tearful. "I ain't well." A stump flapped in his face. A ghost, sitting up against the side close by, began to titter. "Once I was mother's darling. Mightn't think it to see me now." A shot, screeching past the boy's nose, took his breath away. He staggered back, and brought up against a gun-captain, his shoulders to the breech of the gun.
There was a nineteen-year-old lad who, when I knew him two years before, was doing boy's work in the Collier bookbindery. Now he was a gun-captain standing handy to his little pet and trying not to look too proud when he peeked up toward where I was. The foretop reported smoke on the horizon ahead. That would be on the Luckenbach. And where she was the U-boat was.
And another piece of news traveled as fast and as far the whereabouts of Finnegan. Mr. Clarkson had incidentally informed his gun-captain, who told the gun-crew; and from them the news went down the hoist and spread. Men swore louder over this; for though they did not want Finnegan around and in the way, they did not want him to die.
Not only are there all the various ranks of commissioned officers in the line, medical corps, pay corps, marine corps, etc., but there are ten kinds of warrant officers besides; while in the enlisted personnel there are ninety-one different "ratings" in the navy, and thirteen in the marine corps, besides temporary ratings, such as gun-pointer, gun-trainer, gun-captain, etc.
Bradley passed the order down into the ship and a moment later the gun-crew clambered up the narrow ladder and at my direction trained their piece upon the slow-moving Swede. "Fire a shot across her bow," I instructed the gun-captain. Accept it from me, it didn't take that Swede long to see the error of his way and get the red and white pennant signifying "I understand" to the masthead.
The mitrailleuses pointed down the road we were headed on, and the Belgian gun-captain told us they were going to clean things up as soon as their own scouts drew fire and the first Teuton helmet appeared above the crest. Naturally we were ordered back.
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