“I should think you would be,” said Bobby, “and I suppose you had plenty of other narrow escapes besides that one.”
“Plenty is right,” assented Quinn, “Why, I remember one winter afternoon we got an S.O.S. from a munition ship that had caught fire. It was some eighty miles to the west of us, and by the time we reached it, it was right on the edge of dark. When we got there, the fire was at its height. Most of their boats had been wrecked by the explosions of ammunition as the fire reached it, and most of the crew were in the water, some with life preservers, and others clinging to bits of floating wreckage. It was like going through a barrage to get near them. But we lowered our boats and finally got the last man safely aboard. Then we steamed away at a rate the old hooker had never hit up before, because we knew that when the fire reached the main hold there would be a blowup that would pretty well clean everything that happened to be around right off the water. And we weren’t a bit too soon either, because we hadn’t covered more than half a mile when the blazing wreck exploded with a slam that you could hear for fifty miles. As it was, we were pretty well shaken up, but got off without any serious damage. But it was pretty ticklish business while we were cruising round a cable’s length away, picking the crew out of the water.”
CHAPTER XI
QUICK THINKING
“It must have taken some nerve to do it at all,” declared Lee admiringly.
“Well, we knew they’d have done the same thing for us, if conditions had been the other way round,” said Quinn. “If seamen didn’t help each other out that way, the life would be even harder than it is.”
The boys were eager to hear more of the wireless man’s adventures, and he, nothing loth, spun them more than one yarn of exciting episodes in far corners of the earth, for he had been almost everywhere that ships go. He was often interrupted by messages coming or going, but the boys were fascinated by his stories, and could hardly tear themselves away when dinner time came.
“That man has surely seen a lot,” remarked Bobby, while they were eating an excellent meal, “and he knows how to tell about what he has seen, too. I’m sorry we didn’t get acquainted with him earlier on the trip.”
“So am I,” agreed Lee, “but he’ll be on duty again this evening, and if we get a chance we can look him up then.”
After lunch the three friends went on deck again. The sea by this time was quite calm, and the boys strolled over to the port side and, leaning on the rail, gazed idly out over the broad expanse of waters.
Suddenly the lads heard a shrill yell and a heavy splash alongside the ship. One of the mess boys, a young negro, had been sitting carelessly on the rail not far from where the boys were standing, when a sudden lurch of the vessel had thrown him off his balance and he had made a clean dive overboard.