Tim shook himself to make sure that he was still all together and got to his feet. He was still a little shaky.
“You stay down here while I go on deck and see what it was all about,” said Pat. He climbed nimbly up the ladder and disappeared just as cries sounded along the dock.
“On board the submarine,” boomed a heavy voice. “What’s the matter down there?”
A beam of light cut through the night and outlined Pat as he stood on the deck.
“Someone tried to board us and we had to call out our own riot squad,” yelled Pat. “Looks like everything is all right now and I don’t think we’ll have any more visitors tonight.”
Satisfied, the watchman returned and Pat called down for Tim to hand up another bulb to replace the one which had been taken from the light over the hatch.
“I’m sure we won’t have any more callers,” he said, “but this light may discourage them even though it didn’t the first time. How in the dickens did you happen to wake up?”
“You might call it my ‘news sense’ being on the job,” said Tim as he rubbed his bruised chin. “The first thing I sensed was that the light was out. Then I knew someone was moving around in the control room and after that I was almost too scared to move.”
“Seems to me you did a pretty nice job of tackling, but the next time don’t bring your man down on top of me. It’s an awful shock to awake in the middle of the night and find a first class fight taking place right in your midships.”
Tim glanced at his wrist watch.