"Stay under cover," Gregory commanded the crew. "Stand by if they try to board."
A flying bit of scrap-iron gashed his forehead and caused the blood to trickle over his eyes. He wiped it away with his hand and turned to observe the progress of the other vessels.
The engagement was now general. Mascola's boats were trying to smash their way through. But the V was as yet unbroken. That, he could tell by the solid formation of the boats in reserve. They had not found it necessary to separate.
The night was enlivened with the shrill cries of the aliens. Gregory noticed that there was congestion of lights on his left wing. He reflected suddenly that that was where the Curlew was stationed. And Dickie Lang was on the Curlew. Why had the girl persisted in her determination to take an active part in the conflict? Perhaps she might be already wounded. Hit by a piece of flying iron or a wine-bottle.
"How about it?" Howard's voice recalled him to his plan of battle.
Gregory looked hastily along his front line. "All right," he exclaimed. "Go to it."
The Pelican's whistle shrieked two shrill blasts in reply, the signal for every man at the wheel to go full ahead and put his respective craft hard over.
Mascola cursed volubly at the increasing jumble of his boats. They had already lost their way and were only tending to raise a further barrier to his entrance to the fleet. If he rammed, he must ram his own boats as well as those of the enemy. It flashed over his heated brain that the American had chosen a difficult position for him to break through. The narrowness of the sea-way prevented him from engaging them in mass formation. Then he became conscious of another fact as two sharp whistles sounded above the uproar. His lead boats were being crowded back against their fellows with a twisting movement which was carrying them in the direction of the reef. The channel had been too narrow to break through the solid wall of Diesels. A puff of wind from the southeast helped Mascola to make up his mind. Directing a summary withdrawal, he sped away toward the reef to pilot his boats again to safety from the dangerous shore.
Gregory directed the pivot movement of the cannery wedge until the last of the alien fleet had fled from the channel. In the first preliminary engagement, the enemy had been beaten back. At what cost he must find out at once. As he turned about to signal the Richard, a voice which he recognized as Hawkins', came to him from the darkness astern.