“Smoke! Way over starboard!”
Instantly Rankin dived for it with a quickening of the pulse. Testily the voice came.
“Hey! Not that, you goat. Farther over. Heavy stuff; looks like a mile of cloud bank.” In a few more minutes: “Yes, that’s the one—lower; can’t make her out; she’s smothered.”
After a strained period again, in snappy intervals, but in a passionless monotone:
“Two master—some speeder—but she’s steaming up and down and around and cutting all sorts of fancy patterns—dive to it son! Destroyer, making knots!”
Rankin dove. All he said was:
“Get your package ready.”
But in his heart was an exultant thankfulness that he had arrived in time to warn “his ship.” In a few more minutes he was able to distinguish her himself, smothering herself in foam and black columns of smoke as she smashed her sharp nose into the high-running waves. He could make out the short stumpy signaling masts, the torpedo tubes, the quick, rapid-firing guns, and—
Suddenly there was more smoke! Not from the low, raking funnels, but from the starboard quarters! Then a sharp puff! And then another! And then a spitting stream! At the same instant came Jim’s voice, vibrant and tense; and Rankin could feel through the micrometer that even that passionless man was excited at last.
“They’ve got her, by God!”