“Ow-w! Wow-w-w!”
“Blazes! Clap your hand over his mouth. Quick! The officer of the deck will be down in a jiffy.”
“Murder! Let go, you little imp1! Let go or I’ll——”
Thud! Smack2!
“You will bite my finger, eh? Take that, you miserable3 plebe. I say, Crane, just hold his head while I beat a reveille on his mug.”
“Wait a bit until we get him served and spliced4, Dodge5. He’s kicking like a steering6 wheel in a nor’east gale7. There, that’s it. Another turn about his arms and we’ll have the rat dead to rights. Now, Mr. Nanny Gote, how do you like it?”
The speaker, a tall, heavily-built youth in a naval8 cadet uniform, grinned complacently9 into the upturned face of a youngster lying stretched out upon the orlop deck of the Naval Academy practice ship Monongahela.
The victim, for such his uncomfortable position and bound arms proclaimed him to be, was much younger than his chief tormentor10, and was, moreover, slight and rather delicate in appearance.
His white face indicated his alarm, and he looked up pleadingly at the group surrounding him. He could not speak, perforce, for a wad of spun11 oakum filled the cavity of his mouth, fastened there by a tarry length of rope.
“Nanny,” as he was called by his companions, was a member of the plebe class at the United States Naval Academy. Those tormenting12 him were of the third, or hazing13, class at the same institute. There were six in the group, and they represented about the most vicious element in their class.
Crane, the ringleader, “had it in,” to use his own words, for all plebes, and he had started out that night to haze14 a few just to keep his hand in.
The Monongahela was lying at anchor twenty miles below the academy, from which she had sailed early that[Pg 9] morning on the usual summer practice cruise, as already related in another volume, entitled “Clif, the Naval Cadet.”
Early the following morning the tug15 from the academy would take her in tow again to complete the trip down the broad Chesapeake to the open sea.
It was a few moments after three bells (nine-thirty o’clock) in the night. The three classes of cadets making up the crew were supposed, with the exception of a small anchor watch, to be reposing16 peacefully in their hammocks.
Some were, and some were not.
When the watchful17 officer of the deck went his rounds after taps he found all well, and the deck echoing to the more or less melodious18 snoring of the occupants.
He was an officer shrewd in his generation. He had passed through the academy himself, and he had made more than one practice cruise in the old ships used for that purpose. And he remembered just such a night when, in his second year, he had started on plebe hazing expeditions with kindred spirits.
After leaving the berth19 deck he paused at the head of the ladder and listened. It seemed as if the chorus of snores below had slackened somewhat.
The officer chuckled20 and then quietly slipped down the steps again. He had no desire to catch any one in wrongdoing, but the memory of old cadet days was too strong to resist.
The berth deck lamps were burning brightly, but the major part of the great deck was in deep gloom.
Over in one corner where a jumble21 of hammocks made a haphazard22 patch of dark and light shades, several pairs of legs appeared underneath23 the swinging beds.
A low laugh came through the gloom, but it was speedily checked by a warning hiss24. Several hammocks stirred uneasily, then came a snap and a thud, the latter followed by a howl of alarm.
The officer discreetly25 withdrew, unseen.
As he stepped out on the spar deck he chuckled again, and said:
“By Jove! the plebes will get it hot and heavy to-night. Humph! It won’t do them a bit of harm. I was hazed26 and thousands before me. A little trouble makes a man of one. Let ’em go it.”
With this philosophical27 speech, addressed to the moon which beamed brightly overhead, he calmly walked aft, and the plebes, luckless and endangered, were left to their fate.
When Crane and his associates sallied forth28, they had one object in view, and that was to make it an exceedingly torrid night for a certain fresh “function” or plebe.
Hazing to them was a delicious and edifying29 sport at any time, but on this particular occasion they had extra inducements to spur them on.
That evening, just before pipe down, the ringleader passed the word to his cronies that he had something in the wind. Six choice spirits met in the starboard gangway and went into executive session.
“I guess you fellows know what we ought to do to-night,” began Crane, without further preliminary.
“Devil plebes?” spoke30 up a cadet from Georgia.
“Correct. It is not only our pleasure, but our bounden duty,” said Crane, pompously31. “It’s a duty we owe our country—er—I mean our shipmates and ourselves. You all know the present state of affairs and how the very foundation of the old academy is tottering32 to its fall. How every tradition has been shattered, every shred33 of cadet etiquette—er——”
“Shredded,” suggested a thin middy, with a deep voice.
“Don’t be funny, Maxwell,” growled34 Crane. “This is a serious business.”
“Then come down to business. Why don’t you say that it’s about time to haze the stuffing out of that gang in the new fourth and be done with it. What’s the use of getting off a lot of confounded rot and——”
Crane reached out and caught the speaker by the neck. He gave him a tug and a shove, but before the two could come to blows they were separated.
“If you fools want to scrap35, why don’t you go up in the fo’c’sle and have it out?” demanded one of the remaining four, in disgust. “Crane, take a tumble, and let’s arrange this evening’s sport. I, for one, say we ought to get up a scheme to teach that gang a lesson. There are only six of ’em, counting the Jap, and we ought to be able to handle them.”
“That’s right. And the first we must tackle is the freshest of the lot.”
“Clif Faraday?”
“Yes. Confound him, I wish Kelley had kept him ashore36. He’s got more nerve and downright gall37 than all the rest of the gally functions together. Come, Crane, what can you offer?”
“I’ve got a scheme, but I’ll tell it in my own way or not at all,” replied the big cadet, sulkily.
“Go ahead, then.”
“It’s this in a nutshell: We’ll yank Faraday and the rest down into the orlop deck and give ’em a coat of varnish38. There’s a whole pot down there, and paint, too. Then we’ll rig ’em out in spun yarn39 whiskers and set ’em adrift on the spar deck with some tin mess pans tied to their tails, that is, their ankles. It’ll be great sport.”
“Yes, and a tough job, too,” remarked the Georgian cadet.
“I’d like to know why?” exclaimed a sallow-faced youth. “He’s not so warm, this Faraday. He can be whipped.”
“Yes, but I’ve got five dollars which says you can’t do it, Morgan. Kelley could lay over you, and Faraday licked him.”
“Let’s quit talking,” growled Crane. “Pipe down will sound in a moment. Are you fellows satisfied with the scheme or not.”
The “fellows” were, and it was agreed to start the hazing as soon as possible after taps.
Presently the long, low notes of the last call sounded, echoing and winding40 through the rigging and hull41 in melancholy42 cadence43. There was a momentary44 bustle45, then quiet settled over the old frigate46.
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