“Are we going to eat, and when!” interrupted Ned, breaking in on what Bob had started to say.
“As you were! As you were!” growled the stout lad. “I wasn’t going to say that at all. What I mean is: ‘What’s going to happen to us? Shall we have to stay cooped up on board when there’s peace and plenty and room to move about on shore?’”
“Not to mention Marie, of le restaurant de la palma or something like that,” mocked Jerry.
“That’s right—keep on picking at me!” mourned Bob. “But you guys’ll be just as glad as I shall be to get off this tub if she isn’t moving toward the U. S. A.”
“Guess you’re right,” assented Jerry. “It isn’t going to be much fun cooped up here if we’re going to stay tied to the dock. It’s too crowded. Wouldn’t be so bad if we were at sea and knew we were moving toward home. But if we have to hang around this dock it will give me the willies!”
“You said another mouthful!” agreed Ned. “But it’s a good thing this accident didn’t happen when we were three or four days out. And maybe they’ll let us go ashore.”
This hope was realized, at least on the part of the Motor Boys, a little later. Once the Sherman was made fast to the dock again, there were numerous petitions from the privates to their officers for permission to go ashore, if only for a few hours. Ned, Bob, and Jerry made their requests, and, to their delight, they were granted. Perhaps Jerry’s D. S. C. and the honors attained by Ned and Bob had something to do with this.
“But you must not go far away, and you must report back here on board in three hours,” their captain told them. “It is thought the repairs will be completed by then.”
Jerry and his chums were closely scrutinized and their passes examined with care when they walked down the gangplank to the dock. All who were allowed to go on shore were thus observed, and as the three friends passed out to the streets of the city which had loomed so large of late as the location of the camp of much rain and mud, they noted that the sentries had been doubled around the wharf of the Sherman.