Shooting For Justice by G. Tilman (top 100 novels txt) 📗

“Ship? Isn’t a train cheaper and faster?” she asked.

“No doubt. But it will be a Navy ship, so it will be fun and free.”

She instructed Pope in the operation of the telephone. Several hours later, he made his first call. It was to the Navy building. He asked for Captain Foster.

“May I ask who is calling?” the man at the other end asked.

“Provost Marshal Pope.”

“Captain Foster is in a meeting with several admirals, sir. He left me a message for you. You will travel to New York on a Navy ship. It will depart from Washington Navy Yard at noon tomorrow. Look for the USS Miantonomoh BM-5. It is a 263-foot ocean- going monitor attack ship.” He spelled out the hard to pronounce name slowly.

Pope wrote this in the notebook and tore the page off. He was excited. He knew this would be a fast ship and interesting ride to Brooklyn Navy Yard.

“Do you know how long it takes to get from the Navy building where you are to the Washington Navy Yard by cab?” he asked.

“Stand by for a minute, sir. I will ask.” The man returned momentarily and advised to allow for thirty minutes to get to the Navy Yard and find the ship. It was one of only three docked at the yard, so would not be difficult to find.

“I wish I could go!” Sarah said, looking over his shoulder as he wrote.

“I wish you could, also,” Pope said, “but it would be too hard to explain. These people don’t know you are also a detective. We probably ought to keep them in the dark.”

He left in plenty of time at ten o’clock the next morning. Just in case, he carried a small satchel with toiletries, a clean shirt and the Bowie knife.

Pope walked around the dock area and found the ship. Compared to wooden sailing ships, it looked modern and fast. He asked for Captain Foster. Foster appeared moments later and welcomed him aboard. He introduced Pope to the ship’s captain.

“This monitor is a fast, ocean going attack and escort ship. It has a top speed of over ten knots. It’s two hundred sixty-three feet long and draws fourteen and a half feet. The ship has a single steam engine turning two screws. It is the newest ship in the Navy at this time.

“Once underway, it will take us twenty-four hours Navy Yard to Navy Yard. We have small officer quarter staterooms reserved for you and Captain Foster. Meals, which are quite good, will be called by bells. I am sure Captain Foster will tap on your hatch at the appropriate time to eat.”

“Thank you, Captain. My only other experience has been on a ferry across San Francisco Bay. I look forward to this and am honored to ride on the newest and fastest ship in the Navy,” Pope said.

Pope and Foster watched as the last of the coal was run down the chute into the ship’s coal bunker. As coal was consumed to build steam power during a trip, it had to be moved closer to the boiler in case a burst of power to catch or evade another ship or render aid to a vessel in distress was required.

“Does the ship have small arms in addition to the eight big guns I see?” Pope asked Foster.

“Yes, there is a small arms locker below with rifles, revolvers, cutlasses and knives. The ship was built in 1876, but just commissioned last year. It will do coastal patrol initially. The patrol will include boarding other ships at sea. It would move in and launch the small steam launch you see on the port, or left deck. An officer and enlisted boarding team, fully armed, will board a vessel to inspect and maybe make arrests.”

“I must admit, I find all of this fascinating,” Pope said.

The coal shuttle was moved away from the ship. Pope could feel the engine build steam power. Finally, the order to cast off lines came.

The captain sounded the whistle one blast and Pope felt the four-thousand-ton vessel begin to back away from the berth.

The starboard propeller was reversed, and the port propeller simultaneously moved. The result, one pulling and one pushing, caused the big vessel to spin almost in its own length.

The captain straightened her out, and she began to idle out of the Navy Yard at slightly above clutch speed. They maintained the speed of a brisk walk out of the Anacostia River into the Potomac and headed south.

South of Alexandria, Foster pointed Washington’s Mount Vernon out to Pope. As the Potomac widened, they sped up to about seven knots.

The ship entered the Chesapeake Bay for several hours. At Cape Charles, they entered the Atlantic Ocean and turned north.

The captain set a course ranging five to twenty miles off the coastline as he made his way past the oceanside of the Eastern Shore.

Foster looked at his watch and said, “We should return to our rooms and prepare for four bells. They will signify our dinner seating as officers at six o’clock. Duty officers and one third of the crew will eat at the next two half hour increments. I will put on a dressier uniform. You will be perfectly fine in your business suit,” Foster said.

“I take it from what you said we will reach the Brooklyn Navy Yard around noon tomorrow?” Pope asked and got an affirmative response.

Dinner was as good as virtually any restaurant Pope had eaten in outside of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco and the Cheyenne Club on his last case in Wyoming.

The officers adjourned to a small lounge and had cigars and either brandy, wine, or whiskey. Pope followed Foster back to their rooms through a maze of passageways with doors which could be readily sealed like vaults and several ladder wells.

“I hope the damned thing doesn’t run into anything. I would never find my way back to the deck in time to