Jack gripped the rails again and burst into bitter anger.
"And after all what we've done!" he blustered. "After we've been took at sea and clapped into the hold here like so many dogs—though I admit we might have been left to drown. After we've broke our way out and fixed things up in fine trim, and have got almost clear away safe from the trawler yonder, which ain't worth countin', to see that—that—image!"
Larry produced his beloved cigar, or rather the bedraggled end of one. He always seemed to carry one in his pocket. It went to his mouth, was pushed home into the favourite position, then two hands groped in his pockets for a sodden matchbox. Quite naturally he attempted to strike a light, lifted the damp match to the cigar, and threw it to the deck the next instant.
"How'd you know?" he asked suddenly. "She might be British."
"B—B—British?" shouted Jack. "British! By gum! she might, and in that case——"
"She ain't," Bill ejaculated. "I'll swear we've got the best of her in this position. We can see her clearly, standing out in the sun's rays. Look aft at the trawler. One minute she's gone in the haze, the next minute she comes up. So you can count that the ship yonder, or the men aboard her, ain't yet seen us, but they've heard the guns and are coming along to see what's happened."
"In which case," said Larry, looking aside at Bill, while Jack too turned to the young fellow.
"In which case," said Bill. "Well, there's nothing else for it; we keep straight on. If that's a German torpedo-boat destroyer it's bad luck; if it's British, well, it's British."
There was no need for further argument after that, for it was quite clear to all three of them, and indeed to the deck hands down below, and to those standing over the staff in the engine-room, to whom the news soon filtered, that liberty so recently won might already be on the point of being torn from them; and if it were, what sort of treatment might they expect from the Germans? What indeed? It was no wonder, then, that their spirits sank to zero when, perhaps a quarter of an hour later, the torpedo-boat destroyer having drawn much nearer, a gun spoke from her deck and a shot sailed over them. Meanwhile, too, the pursuing trawler had kept up her fire, so that Bill and his friends were now attacked from two quarters. It looked like hopeless failure; and yet, wait.