The North Pacific. Willis Boyd Allen
routine of navy life. The Legs is privileged to take matters into his own hands, up forward, when occasion demands. If necessity arises for him to knock a man down, it is the business of Legs to know how to do it with science and despatch.
The master-at-arms of an American war-ship is always a man who has seen many years of service in the navy, and passed through most of the inferior ratings of the enlisted men. He is a man whose blue-jacket experience has taught him every trick of the naval sailor, every phase of forecastle life. Hiram could neither be cajoled nor outwitted. He was stern with evil-doers, but was the most popular man forward, in the Osprey.
At dawn Jimmy Legs's duties begin, when the men turn out to clean ship. The chief boatswain's mate is nominally the "boss" of the job, but it is Legs who sees that the men do not growl or quarrel at their work, as sleepy men will at such an hour and task.
Mess gear for breakfast is piped. The men rush to the tables. A bluejacket with shoes on steps on the foot of the bluejacket who is shoeless. Biff-bang! The Legs may be 'way aft on the poop watching the after-guard sweepers at their work; but he is a man of instinct. In a dozen bounds he is at the scene of the scrap.
"Chuck it! The Legs!" is the word there. The scrappers break away, and when the Legs shows up they are seated side by side at their mess table, quietly taking morning coffee.
It is the business of Jimmy Legs to make a tour of inspection through the ship just before "morning quarters." The ship is then supposed to be in shape for the commanding officer's approval, and the men's wearing-gear all stowed away in ditty bags. It never is. There is always to be found a shirt hastily thrown here, a shoe lying loose there, a neckerchief and lanyard hanging over a ditty-box. This gear the Legs gathers in impartially, no matter to whom it belongs, and thrusts into the "Lucky Bag" (which is generally known by a far more opprobrious epithet), which he keeps for that purpose.
The only way the owner of the gear may get it back is by reporting himself at the mast, that is, to the commanding officer, for remissness in stowing gear, which means, generally, a lopping off of liberty privileges. Every month the contents of the bag of gear thus accumulated are sold aboard at auction to the highest bidder among the jackies.
Finally, there is hardly a day in port that the Legs is not sent ashore along toward noon to hunt up derelicts. These are liberty-breakers carousing in town regardless of the fact that their services aboard are needed, and that punishment awaits them when they return for overstaying their leaves. Jimmy Legs is called for by the commander and gets a list of the men to be returned.
Into the steam-cutter hops Legs, and away he goes after the derelicts. He generally returns with them. He may be gone for some hours, or for a day, but when he comes off to the ship, in shore boat or cutter, he has the men he went after along with him.
So much for Jimmy Legs, whose never-ending and varied duties Hiram Deering, a grizzled old man-o'-warsman, performed most admirably on the Osprey.
The two men were pulled apart and the others had hardly gathered up their scattered ditty-bags and personal belongings when a commotion was observed among the officers on the bridge. They were gazing through their glasses at a puff of smoke on the north-western horizon. In the course of fifteen minutes it had grown to a small-sized cloud.
"She must have legs, to overhaul us in this way," observed Ensign Dobson, with his binocular at his eyes. "How much were we making at the last log, quartermaster?"
"Fifteen strong, sir."
"Then that fellow's doing a good twenty," added the officer. "Can you make him out, Mr. Liddon?"
"It looks to me like a 'destroyer,'" replied the other, readjusting the lenses of his glass. "It's a rather small, black craft, walking up on us hand over fist."
"Bo'sun!" called Dobson to a man who stood near on the lower deck.
"Yes, sir!"
"Set the ensign."
"Aye, aye, sir!"
"There goes his flag!" said Dobson, excitedly.
"I can't make out what it is, but we'll soon know. Shall I slow down a bit, sir?" he asked the lieutenant-commander, who had joined the other officers on the bridge.
"Not yet," said Rexdale. "We can't afford to tie up for every fellow that wants to speak us. Let him come up. He'll signal his business soon, if he's really after us."
The stranger approached rapidly, and could now be seen with the naked eye, as was attested by the watch on deck lining the bulwarks. There was no apprehension, as the United States had no enemies afloat; still the appearance, so far out at sea, of an unknown vessel bearing down swiftly on the Osprey, was enough to attract the lively attention of forecastle as well as cabin.
The kitten episode was quite forgotten, as the men thronged to the rail.
"Ah," exclaimed a brawny Irishman, waving his bare arm in the direction of the stranger, "w'ot a pity it ain't war-toimes now! Sure it's a lovely bit av a foight we'd be lookin' for, wid that smoker!"
"War nothin'!" retorted the old gunner. "I'm willin' to keep me arms and legs on fur a while longer. What's the use o' bein' shot to pieces, anyway!"
"Why don't he h'ist his ens'n?" growled another of the crew. "Manners is manners, I say."
"It is h'isted," said Scupp, "only ye can't see it, 'cos it blows straight out forrard on this west wind he's comin' afore. The officers up there'll soon be makin' it out, I reckon."
But the uniformed group on the bridge had no such easy task. They scrutinised the flag again and again, without success.
"I can't make the thing out," said Dobson, lowering the glasses, "can you, Mr. Liddon?"
"Can't say I can. It blew out once, and looked like nothing I ever saw before – a sort of twenty-legged spider in the centre. It's like nothing I ever saw in these waters. If we were on the Asiatic coast – "
"Who has the sharpest eyes among the men, quartermaster?" enquired the commander.
"I rather think, sir, them Japs can see the farthest."
"Orderly," ordered Rexdale, beckoning to a marine on duty, "find one of the cabin stewards and send him to the bridge at once."
Hardly a minute elapsed before Oto glided gracefully up the ladder and saluted.
"Take these glasses and see if you can make out that fellow's ensign," said Rexdale.
Oto lifted the binocular to his slanting eyes and picking up the approaching steamer gave it a swift glance. A moment sufficed. Then he returned the glasses to the commander, his face alight.
"Japanese, sir," he said simply. "That the flag of Japanese navy."
Dobson so far forgot his dignity as to slap his thigh.
"That's so!" he exclaimed. "I remember it well enough now. What on earth can a Jap torpedo destroyer want in these waters?"
"We shall soon find out – where's that boy? Gone already? Of course it excites him to see a part of his own navy so near. Stand by for signals, Mr. Dobson. Have your man ready, and get out your book." Dave's eyes were again scrutinising the approaching vessel as he gave the orders.
When the stranger was within about half a mile she rounded to a course parallel with that of the Osprey, showing her long, vicious hull, black and low in the water; and slowed down to keep from running away from the American ship. Presently a line of small flags fluttered up to her masthead.
Dobson examined them closely through the glass, then turned to his signal-book. "One – three – seven – five – here she is – the Kiku– that's Jap for Chrysanthemum, isn't it? Run up the answering pennant, signalman. Then haul it down and set our number."
The introduction having thus been politely performed, the Kiku, first answering the Osprey's number, hoisted another line of flags.
"H'm, they have our signals pat," muttered Dobson, turning the leaves of his book. "Here it is, Captain. 'Wish to communicate. Have message for – ' for whom I wonder? Answer, signalman. There goes the second half of the signal: 'man on board your ship.' Well, that's