Peggy and Jimmy had many things to speak of. The boy was delighted to hear that Aunt Marion was in England, too. As for Peggy, she listened in rapt attention to the whole story: of how Jimmy had discovered Stork on board the "Harlech," and how the villainous ship's carpenter had accused the boy of being a German spy. Crouch related his experiences at the top of his voice, working himself up into such a state of excitement that he waved his arms about him like a maniac, and from time to time laid hold of Jimmy by the shoulders and shook the boy violently, as if he desired to satisfy himself that the whole thing was not a dream.
He described the attack of the "Dresden," and the havoc that had been wrought by the guns of the German cruiser. He produced a note-book and pencil, and wrote out the mysterious message--the riddle that Jimmy had solved. And then, he told the girl how the ship had been sighted by the U93; and when he spoke of Jimmy's gallantry in saving the "Harlech" from destruction, Peggy felt a thrill of pride that she counted as her best and truest friend one who had rendered such signal service to his country. Somehow or other, in the stuffy New York office, she had never looked upon Jimmy Burke in the light of a hero; he had been just a boy, with whom she had been wont to revel in the joys of forbidden office "picnics," making cocoa and cooking sausages upon the stove.
Hitherto, the girl's life had been somewhat circumscribed; and Crouch's story seemed to her too wonderful to be true. If the saving of the "Harlech" was an incident that caused her pulses to throb and the blood to fly to her face, all that had happened at the empty flat in the Edgware Road was fantastic and mysterious. It resembled an episode from the "New Arabian Nights."
She listened in breathless eagerness to the description of the "Marigold," and to how the "Kitty McQuaire" had sighted the enemy's battle-cruiser squadron, steaming north-westward for the Tyne. The sinking of the fishing-smack, the crew rescued by the "Mondavia" at the eleventh hour, the re-appearance of the dreaded U93, and the hurricane of shells hurled from the "Blücher's" guns--all this was the very essence of adventure. And then Crouch, with becoming modesty, told how he had rammed the submarine, and sent her to the bottom, speaking of the whole episode in much the same manner as he mentioned the loss of his favourite pipe.
When Peggy heard of the sufferings they had endured and the mental torture they had gone through when adrift upon the raft, she was filled with two emotions: a great wonder that human men could face such terrors and survive, a feeling of thankfulness to the great God Who watches over all, Who holds in wonderful subjection life and death, victory and defeat.
The story of the North Sea fight rang throughout the British Empire, from Melbourne to Vancouver, from the Orkneys to the Cape. It mattered little what the Germans had to say, whether or not they believed that the "Lion" and the "Tiger" had been sent beneath the waves; the fact remained that all Britons were assured that, should the German High Seas Fleet desire to put matters to the test, should the great battleships that were rusting in the Kiel Canal come forth upon the open sea, the Grand Fleet of Britain was prepared to meet them. Until that time, raids might take place, by aeroplanes and Zeppelins; but, as far as any grand invasion was concerned, the shores of England were--as they have been in the past--inviolable and secure.
A winter afternoon was far advanced, and the streets shrouded in gloomy darkness, when Crouch and his companions arrived in London. They went first to the head-offices of Jason, Stileman and May; then to Scotland Yard where they found Superintendent-detective Etheridge, who accompanied them to the Admiralty, where once again they were questioned and congratulated by Commander Fells.
All that happened in those few days in London can be told in a dozen lines.
Commander Fells had not spoken rashly when he promised that the Admiralty would not forget the services that Crouch and his young friend had rendered to the Allied cause. The firm of Jason, Stileman and May rewarded the boy handsomely for saving the "Harlech." Jimmy--who a few weeks ago had been a pauper in New York--found himself the possessor of a banking account such as he had never dreamed of. For days he carried his cheque-book about with him, as if it were a kind of passport--as, indeed, a cheque-book is.
The boy was given the choice of a commission in the Royal Naval Division or one of the Service battalions of the new army. He now wears a khaki uniform and a Sam Browne belt, and is burnt to the colour of tan by many months in the sun; and on each shoulder-strap and on the lapels of his jacket is the grenade crest and the title badges of the Royal Wessex Fusiliers.