The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-08-04

the ship. But he was game enough to look for . break somewhere and 90 he swam al the way underneath the lighter to the other side thereof. whore couple Of hands gave him . life out of the wet.
 Quite . number of former appren- tices are wearing the uniforms of war rant officers in our service because they were quick-thinking boys on critical occasions.
 One of them was extraordinarily handy with his knife one day when the ship o% board of which he was serving as apprentice had . swell chance to go to the bottom but for him. They were having heavy gun and coming tower practice. The skipper was do- ing some firing from his position In
 the coming tower by touching the
 electric button alongside of him. Tho apprentice was acting as the slippers
 messenger during that practice.
 Projectile and charge had been ram
 med into one of the six-inch guns on
 the main deck. Some confusion in or-
 ders came about. At any rats' the skip-
 per had his finger within couple or
 inches of the electric button ready 10
 press 1t and thus discharge the six
 inch gun, when the appentice was on
 the job. Standing just outside ths
 coming tower and having from that
 position view of the gun aoout 10
 be fired. the youngster observed that
 the breech of the sfx-inch gun nahn
 yet been closed, and there was me
 skipper on the very pin point of touch-
 ing the button that would fire the gun
 with the unlocked breech If the gun
 went of in that condition. there was
 the finest kind of a chance for the le-
 coil of the immense piece to drive the
 gun right through the ships bottom. The apprentice didn't nave -nuch
 time to think, but he didn't need nuch.
 He figured 1t all out in an instant that If he yelled at the skipper that 'he
 breach wasn't locked the audiences of the yell might SO startle the skip per that his finger would involuntarily come down on the button and thus dis- charge the gun. The boys ships knife with the big blade was in his leit mana shirt pocket hanging there by It's Ian yard. He had it out and the blade open in an incredibly short space Of time. and he made one cat-like dab with the sharp blade of the knife at the electric wire belonging to the but ton that led right alongside where the boy was standing by the coming tower. The blade cut tho wire Tn two a fraction of a second before nc breaking the electric connection and in likelihood preventing a tremendous calamity.
 The boy was only a~tyke and not very strong. and just as soon as he slashed the wire he fell forward on his face in a dead faint-an odd thing, | too. that. for a boy serving on man : o'war, and yet tho incident wasn't any ordinary one. The skipper raised his head the instant he touched the button and saw what had happened; the loose ends of the cut electric wire. l the prone boy, and all the rest of 1t. Then he darted out >Of the coming | tower and saw the breech of the big gun still unlocked. He understood it | all along before the boy was brought around to consciousness. That boy | had no sooner finished his days of ap- | prenticeship before he wore the war rant oflcers uniform of a gunner. Another apprentice who was there with an alert mind and got himself q warrant officers billet thereby lid a stunt in a magazine. They were breaking out ammunition. The ships dynamo was out of order. and so they were using closed lanterns for the Job. | A lantern that was being raised to the 1 deck by A cord fell in two-that Is, inc bottom of 1t fell out. The flame | of the wick didn't go out, however: | The business part of the lantern 1eu right alongside a big can of powder. | with the flaming wick resting right
 against the metal of the can It doesn't
 take long for an ammunition can to
 get heated through with a point Of | flame resting against its side. and this | was old-fashioned black powder. too and not the slow burning brown stun'
 It was a ticklish looking situation,
 and a lot of the old-timers around tne hatch. of the ma gazine turned chalky
 The apprentice boy took the situa, a,
 ton in at a glance. He scrambled down the hoisting chain like a monkey
 picked up the lantern, blew out the
 wick, grabbed the can of powder ana
 yelled for them to pull him up lie had the can of powder with its hot spot where the wick had rested against 1t in one hand when they hauled him to | the deck and he raced to an open port l in a log room and tossed the heated | can into the sea.
 That boy too. was reckoned to be
 good enough. when his apprenticeship | was over, to wear a blouse without any
 buttons to 1t, and they made him a
 gunner.