“Motu,” says I, “I guess those old warriors of your’n never had a better general than Mark Tidd.”
He just grinned.
Now the enemy was ready to attack again. They boarded their man-of-war and pushed off, and a funny-looking ship they had. Of course the rowers couldn’t see where they were going, and so somebody had to stand up to direct them. The Man took the job of being pilot, so we had something to shoot at from the beginning.
This time there was no chance of damaging the motive power, but we could make the pilot wish he had a periscope. It was lucky for us they didn’t have a submarine.
They came on steady and sure until they got in range. Then they kept on just as steady, only we kept The Man hopping. By the time they got within a hundred feet we had him ducking his head behind the armor plate and only sticking it up to take a peek every little while. The result of that was that the boat did quite a considerable bit of zigzagging.
However, they kept coming, and at last they were near enough so Mark Tidd could get a shot at them from his station above. He shot fast and often, and I expect those Japs wished their leader had put a roof on their shelter.
But, no matter how straight and how fast he could shoot, one boy couldn’t hold off the boat with a sling. Besides, it was difficult shooting. So, in a couple of minutes they got dangerously near to shore.
“P-p-pike-poles!” yelled Mark.
Motu and Plunk were ready. They jabbed their spikes into the bow of the boat and pushed. The boat stopped sudden and swung sideways. Plunk let go and ran along till he could spear the boat near the stern, and there they held her. The Japs tried to row, but Binney and I grabbed our lances with the boxing-glove pads on the end and poked at their paddles so they couldn’t do a thing.
The Man yelled something in Japanese, and the rowers pulled in their oars. In a second one of them stood up suddenly and smashed at Plunk’s pike-pole with his oar-blade. He might have hit if it hadn’t been for Mark and Binney. Both of them smacked him good with pebbles and he ducked. The best part of it was that he dropped his oar. Before they could do anything to recover it Mark yelled to me to get it, which I did with my pike. It was the first trophy of the war, and something to brag about like real soldiers do when they report they’ve captured so many of the enemy’s cannon, or some such thing.