“See you later, Commander!”
Expertly manned, the lifeboats touched the water with scarcely a sound. The boat falls were quickly released; strong arms pushed the little craft clear of the Gatoon’s looming side. Above, the dim blur of faces at the ship’s rail faded from sight.
“Out ... oars!”
The coxswain’s low spoken order came from the lifeboat’s stern sheets. It was answered by the soft thudding of oars into rowlocks. Don and Red, in their seamen’s uniforms, each gripped one of the long ash blades, “feathered” it by a drop of their wrists, and held it poised above the black water.
“Altogether.... Give way!”
At the coxswain’s word, six tough muscled bodies tensed; six oar blades hit the water at the same precise instant. The little craft leaped forward like a startled fish.
Steering only by the light wind astern, it covered the half mile to leeward of the Gatoon in about five minutes. As there was no moon the ship could not be seen. Only the starshine, reflected from the ocean’s heaving surface, showed where water ended and air began.
To a landsman, it would have given a queer sensation; adrift in a small boat at night, with nothing to see but starshine above or below; to know that a mile beneath that black water lay the hills and valleys of the ocean’s bottom; to think that, in just a minute, one would be in that water up to one’s neck, with the lifeboat pulling away, out of sight and sound!
Even the seasoned sailors in the boat with Don and Red must have had some such thoughts, though Navy discipline kept them from saying anything. When the two young officers stood up in their life belts, ready to bail out, the coxswain alone spoke up.
“Is there anything else, Commander?” he asked huskily. “Sure you don’t want us to stand by for a while after you and the lieutenant go overboard?”