Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 11, 1925 — page 26: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

5 [Ra eeoy Re tee Care CARY oF 9h Vs s ~} : rye NG Sey a aN ty < y ? Aly 4 % shed Lie a! LA » > Sue Ph 6 ita gay 180 He should report the incident to the officer of the deck, who would probably have to call the ordnance officer to unlock the magazine. Before that could be done the executive officer would be on the job, and, as fire drill was his hobby the ship doubt- less would be drummed to quarters, the guard turned out and the crew brought up with all apparatus. Following which, the next morning, would come official inquiry, with probable disclo- sure of the horrid facts. A cigarette smoked on duty by an honor marine! Demerits! Never again the captain’s orderly! Perhaps the loss of a stripe! In this serious dilemma Serpel strove to extend himself enough to see through the scuttle, an aperture about ten inches high and twenty inches wide in the top panel of the door. He could not quite see in; much less wriggle in, as he was only too eager to do. At this moment, on his way to his ham- mock laced in repose above the breech of the seven-inch gun, came Cyrus, ready to retire for the night. Serpel’s eye feil on him and he saw a way of relief. This lad was six inches shorter and sixty pounds lighter than himself. “This way, yeoman,” he called softly, and Cyrus responded. In a moment of desperation and anguish Serpel confided what had happened. “ If I lift you up to that scuttle,” he concluded, ‘can’t you look in and make sure the stump is out?” “Why not?” Cyrus cheerily accepted this perilous evasion of strict duty, namely, to report, but of which he was ignorant. Though no one ever tells a beginner in the service all the things he must and must not do, ignorance is never admitted as a plea of not guilty when caught in infraction. Cyrus climbed up Serpel’s back and thrust his head and shoulders through the scuttle. The marine handed him a flash- light and he cast its beams into the maga- zine. Across the room were piles of brass shell casings, on the right were smooth rows of shells, on the left piles of powder bags, and in the center were a few emptied bags. Square in the middle of them had fallen the lighted tobacco. It had ignited and fraz- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. zled yarn from one of the bags, which was smoldering along calmly, but surely eating a way toward the center of the pile. It might burn there for hours and perhaps go out eventually, but the merest breeze might fan it into a flame. Cyrus did not stop to report to Serpel what he had seen. Already his shoulders were through the scuttle. He felt he could get his hips through, too. Then he could drop on his hands to the deck. He wriggled on, inch by inch, while outside the marine, in nervous excitation, was praying no of- ficer would come that way. Presently Cyrus’s heels disappeared. To Serpel it seemed hours, but it was probably only a minute or two before Cyrus’s head appeared and he called, softly, “It’s out. Stand below now and give me a lift.” One stamp of his foot.had settled the glowing” yarn. A few minutes later he was in his ham- mock, waving aside as of no consequence Serpel’s protestations of undying gratitude, and assuring the marine no one would ever know from him that a burning cigarette had been permitted to blow through the scuttle of the powder magazine. To his buddy, Marine Reverdy, however, Serpel confided: “ He’s the smartest, - gamest, quickest thing on the old Kansas. It was as nifty a trick as what Mons Mons- sen did on the Missouri—goin’ head-on into a burnin’ magazine—and Monssen got a Congressional order and ten a month for life. I feel like a houn’ dawg about it—yet if I write ’er up in report both of us ’s likely to get demerits.” ‘““ Keep yore mouf shet then,” was the opinion of Marine Reverdy. Cyrus, evidently, thought nothing of it. Perhaps, however, he was encouraged by the successful secrecy of the exploit of the magazine, which rendered him a hero in the eyes of two marines, though he did not actually know that, to extend the scope of his adventures. For instance, there was the sixteen-inch turret, focal point of his dreams, center of his desires. He saw it every day, and many times each day. For it the ship had been built, to emplace it properly these thirty odd thousand tons of steel had been as- ‘S EComicboo . Ven . ’ CO