CHAPTER VI.
IN TROUBLE ON FOREIGN SOIL From Hampton Roads the Battleship Squadron, with the midshipmen on board, sailed directly for Plymouth, England.
During most of the voyage over slow cruising speed was used.

By the time that England's coast was sighted the third-class middies found they knew much more about a battleship than they had believed to be possible at the start of the voyage.
They had served as firemen; they had mastered many of the electrical details of a battleship; they had received instruction and had "stood trick" by the engines; there had been some drill with the smaller, rapid-fire guns, and finally, they had learned at least the rudiments of "wig-wagging," as signaling by means of signal flags is termed.
It was just before the call to supper formation when England's coast loomed up.

Most of the midshipmen stood at the rail, watching eagerly for a better glimpse at the coast.
Some of the midshipmen, especially those who came from wealthier families, had been in England before entering the Naval Academy.

These fortunate ones were questioned eagerly by their comrades.
The battleships were well in sight of Eastern King Point when the midshipmen's call for supper formation sounded.

Feeling that they would much have preferred to wait for their supper, the young men hastened below.
After the line was formed it seemed to the impatient young men as though it had never taken so long to read the orders.
Yet there came one welcome order, to the effect that, immediately after the morning meal, all midshipmen might go to the pay officer and draw ten dollars, to be charged against their pay accounts.
"That ten dollars apiece looms up large David, little giant," murmured Dan Dalzell, while the evening meal was in progress.
"We ought to have a lot of fun on it," replied Darrin, who was looking forward with greatest eagerness to his first visit to any foreign soil.
"But how much shore leave are we to have ?" "Two days, the word is.