Actually it was two days before the doctors permitted the two young officers and Mercedes Colby to visit the crippled veteran. By that time the danger of wound fever was past, and the “Old Lion” of the Navy Intelligence Service was loudly demanding a sight of his friends.
“Ahoy, Commander!” he greeted, as Don stepped into the white hospital room. “They showed me your note about the evidence in those black ledger books. Is it true that it clinches the guilt of all them we took in the raid?”
“It does more than that, sir!” smiled Don, taking the older man’s hand. “But I’m not going to tell you another thing till you calm down and quit trying to sit up. A man with a bullet hole in his vertebrae ...”
“Whisht, now!” complained the dauntless cripple. “Is that a respectful way to talk to your elders? Mercedes, child! Tell me what’s on Commander Winslow’s mind. Suspense is not good for a sick man, ye know that!”
“Lie down and I’ll tell you!” laughed the girl, taking the chair Red had moved over to the bedside. “It’s just that those ledgers contain a record of every order carried out by Scorpion agents in the past two years. The evidence incriminates hundreds more besides those we captured two nights ago.”
“Yeah!” put in Red Pennington with a fighting grin. “With this evidence as a weapon, the United States Navy is going to make a thorough clean-up on the Scorpion! Am I right, Skipper?”
“I hope so, Red!” replied Don Winslow soberly. “At least we’ll make the Americas and their two oceans an unlucky harbor for the enemies of peace. With the aid of all our loyal shipmates, not forgetting Suzette and Count Borg and Lotus, too, we’ll work, we’ll live, and if need be we’ll die to make this old world a better place!”
“Amen!” responded Michael Splendor from his sickbed. “Already ye have the Scorpion and his warmongers on the run, but perilous waters lie before ye. Commander. The enemy is desperate. He’ll use every fiendish trick to wreck ye, and there’ll be a bitter fight when ye overhaul him—perhaps in some far corner of the earth. Me one regret is that I must lie here safe and helpless for the next two months while me young shipmates are riskin’ their necks on land or sea or in the air!”
Impulsively Don gripped Splendor’s big hand with both his own.
“You old fire-eater!” he exclaimed. “You’ll be back with us inside of two months, if my guess is right! Not even a bullet nicked spine is going to keep you out of our country’s fight to wipe war—and the threat of war—from the face of the earth.”