"Full speed, skipper!" The telegraph clinked, and they moved ahead, slowly gathering way. Then the Reserve-man turned, facing aft.
"Let her go, George," he said, raising his voice. The trawler fussed ahead like a self-important hen that has laid an egg. There was a violent upheaval in the water astern, and a column of foam and wreckage leaped into the air with a deafening roar.
The Reserve Lieutenant pulled a knife out of his pocket, and, bending down, thoughtfully added another nick to a long row of notches in the wooden beam of the trawler's fore hatch.
CHAPTER XIII
SPELL-O!
Lettigne sat on the edge of his sea-chest contemplating a large fragment of a German shell which he held on his knees.
"Will someone tell me where I am going to pack this interesting relic of my blood-stained past?" he enquired of the flat at large.
The after cabin-flat had all the appearances of the interior of a homestead in imminent danger of occupation by an enemy. In front of each open chest stood a Midshipman feverishly cramming boots and garments into already bulging portmanteaux and kit-bags. The deck was littered with rejected collars, pyjamas and underwear; golf-clubs, cricket-bats and fishing-rods lay about in chaotic confusion.
"Will someone tell me where I'm going to pack anything?" replied Malison, delving into the inmost recesses of his chest. "Fancy being told to pack and get away on leave and given an hour to do it in! It isn't decent. It always takes me a week to find my gear."
"Well, you'd better buck up," interposed the Senior Midshipman. "The boat leaves in ten minutes."