"Which just gives us time to get going," came a cool and very cheerful voice at Bill's elbow. "Young chap, you've done mighty well. I ain't goin' to say that me or Jim or any of the other chaps that was down below couldn't have thought out the plan of an escape that you happened on, but it was happening on it just then, at what you might call the psychological moment, that just did it; and since we broke out you've given your orders clear and sharp, and there's been only one bad one, Mister, amongst them."
"Getting the engine-room staff up—eh?" asked Bill.
"Yep," came Larry's short rejoinder. "But that's fixed now: there's Jim down below working like a slave-driver, standing with two other mates, one in the stoke-hole and t'other in the engine-room, and if you'll look at their faces you'll know, and the Germans know too, that they ain't going to stand any sort of humbug. It's a case of shoot the first time a German tries to mix up the engine, or to let steam go, or to do us down in some other dirty manner. Gee! Ain't we seen something of the Germans now? That Heinrich and his shooting of your father, and his bombing of that other ship; and what with Jack's tale, and the hundreds of others that we've heard of, why, don't you ask Jim nor me nor any other American to trust a German. We'll put the handcuffs on 'em first, and then perhaps we'll know they ain't going to do any further damage. But you sent me for arms, young fellow; well now, this here trawler, and probably every other one of 'em, has a sort of magazine, at least I guessed it was that, though I couldn't read the words written on the door—this German language ought to be abolished! But I made free to cut a way in with an axe, and there was rifles and swords and what-not; every one of our men is now armed. Tuck this quick-shooter into your belt, young fellow. It ain't the sort of box-of-tricks that appeals to me, being too easy on its trigger; here's one of my sort—a heavy, cavalry revolver."
Automatically, not thinking at all of what he was doing, yet conscious of the meaning of Larry's words, Bill took the weapon and pushed it into his pocket; meanwhile he peered over the canvas screen which lined the front of the bridge, casting his eyes in the direction of the pursuing trawler, then turned in the direction of the gun which some of his own men were handling. Even to him, inexperienced as he was, the thought came that never before had he seen such calmness and such method and order. The gallant fellows, whom Jack had put under his command so suddenly and unexpectedly, were "carrying on" after the traditions of their service. Handy tars that they were, they had no sooner seized upon the ship than they settled down to the manning of her, as if she had been in their care for weeks past. There was no fuss or flurry about those jack tars, though, to be sure, there was haste and hurry, frenzied movement almost, as each man at the gun carried out the task which in every case was self-appointed. One swung her round and sighted her, another opened the breech, the third rammed in the shell-case, and sprang back for yet another, then all moved clear away, the lanyard was pulled, and scarcely had the gun recoiled, and the shell gone hurtling out toward the trawler, than the breech was flung open, while, through the smoke which issued, the man in charge of the ammunition pushed another shell into position. Thus, time and again the gun spoke—twice to every shot fired by the pursuing trawler; and if the gun were strange to these gallant fellows their shooting at any rate was precise enough—too precise in fact for the Germans.
"They are just about getting it about the ears," grinned the man who led the gunners. "How's that for a plunk under his bridge, getting her skipper in his stomick or under the belt, which is all fair in this 'ere warfare. What's that?"
"That" was a blinding flash yonder on the deck of the pursuing trawler, a burst of smoke, and then a flame which spouted up from the bridge at which the tar had aimed. But in warfare of this sort retaliation has to be expected, and, almost as the three men raised a cheer, a shell screeched across the deck behind them, struck the mast just in front of the bridge on which Bill and Larry stood, and, bursting as it struck, brought the steel affair down with a crunching roar and a thud across the bulwarks, bending them out of shape and denting the deck, incidentally, too, missing the bridge by less than a foot, tearing away its screen and leaving our two friends as it were stripped naked, staring across an open patch of deck, now littered with the fragments left by the bursting missile.
"Bah!" growled Larry, tilting his hat at a little more of a rakish angle—a habit he had when greatly moved, though, to be sure, nothing else could be seen about him to suggest excitement. As for Bill, young though he was, he stood his ground without wincing.
"And ain't doing half bad," Jack the bos'n told the men he was then taking along the deck to clear away the wreck of the mast. "I've had me weather eye on him as you might say. I seed or rather heard from his voice when he came below and joined us that that young chap had got something good about him. Mind, I don't say as the Americans along with him ain't just as good, better you might say, seeing as they are older and has a right then to expect to be; but the youngster's sharp, smart, and has lots of go, besides being cool-headed. Cut this stuff adrift! Chuck it overboard; it's only hampering us, and if another shell comes in the splinters might do us damage."
His words were almost prophetic; for hardly a minute later an enemy shell burst inboard, and its shattering roar half-stunned Jack and his men and Bill and Larry; yet by some miraculous chance not one of them was severely hurt, though certainly shaken.
As to elsewhere—if the men at the gun, Jack and his deck hands, and Bill and Larry, were "carrying on", to use an expression beloved both of sailors and of soldiers, what of the men down below? Jack told the tale some five minutes later.