Kennedy had been busy, while the rest of us had been standing stunned. Suddenly another light-bomb ricocheted over the water.
“Keep on sending them, one by one,” he ordered the student, who had returned. “We’ll need all the light we can get.”
Over the shadowy waves we could now see the fine line of foam left by the destroyer as it shot ahead swiftly.
Events were now moving faster than I can tell them. Kennedy glanced about. On the opposite side of the float some one of the visitors from the cottages to the dance at the Casino had left a trim hardwood speedboat. Without waiting to inquire whose it was, Craig leaped into it and spun the engine.
“The submarine ear has warned us,” he shouted, beckoning to Burke and myself. “Even if we cannot save the yacht, we may save their lives! Come on!”
We were off in an instant and the race was on—one of the most exciting I have ever been in—a race between this speedy motor-boat and a telautomatic torpedo to see which might get to the yacht first. Though we knew that the telautomaton had had such a start before it was discovered that we could not beat it, still there was always the hope that its mechanism might slow down or break down.
Failing to get there first, there was always a chance of our being in at the rescue.
In the penetrating light of the flare-bombs, as we approached closer the spot in which Watkins was now dropping them regularly, we could see the telautomaton, speeding ahead on its mission of death, its wake like the path of a great man-eating fish. What would happen if it struck I could well imagine.
Each of us did what he could to speed the motor. For this was a race with the most terrible engine yet devised by American inventive genius.