The Stazy did not, however, run far outside. The high and rocky headland that marked the entrance to Reef Harbor came into view before they had more than dropped the hazy outline of Beach Plum Point astern.
But until they rounded the promontory and entered the narrow inlet to Reef Harbor the town and the summer colony was entirely invisible.
“If a German sub should stick its nose in here,” sighed Helen, “it would make everybody ashore get up and dust. Don’t you think so?”
“Is it the custom to do so when the enemy, he arrive?” asked Colonel Marchand, to whom the idiomatic speech of the Yankee was still a puzzle.
“Sure!” replied Tom, grinning. “Sure, Henri! These New England women would clean house, no matter what catastrophe arrived.”
“Oh, don’t suggest such horrid possibilities,” cried Jennie. “And they are only fooling you, Henri.”
“Look yonder!” exclaimed Captain Tom, waving an instructive hand. “Behold! Let the Kaiser’s underseas boat come. That little tin lizzie of the sea is ready for it. Depth bombs and all!”
The grim looking drab submarine chaser lay at the nearest dock, the faint spiral of smoke rising from her stack proclaiming that she was ready for immediate work. There was a tower, too, on the highest point on the headland from which a continual watch was kept above the town.
“O-o-oh!” gurgled Jennie, snuggling up to Henri. “Suppose one of those German subs shelled the movie camp back there on Beach Plum Point!”
“They would likely spoil a perfectly good picture, then,” said Helen practically. “Think of Ruthie’s ‘Seaside Idyl!’.