"You prevaricator!" Darrin uttered, sternly. "When did I ever hog all of the best sport and leave you the rind?"
"Kamerad! Don't shoot!" begged Dan, with another grin.
"Kamerad" (comrade) is the word the German soldiers employ when offering to surrender to Allied troops. But "Kamerad" does not always mean as much as it conveys, for instances have been numerous when Germans have pretended so to surrender, then have whipped out hitherto hidden weapons and slain their captors.
Returning to port before dark, Darrin put in that night in catching up with his sleep. He slumbered almost without stirring, for it had been long since he had enjoyed more than a part of his needed rest at sea.
Officers and men, too, made the most of their opportunity to sleep that night. Only one officer at a time kept deck watch, and only one engineer officer down below. The "Grigsby" was ready to put to sea almost on an instant's notice from the flagship, but no word came.
Fully refreshed, and in the best of condition, Dave Darrin enjoyed a famously good breakfast the next morning, as did every officer and man on the destroyer. Still the orders for special duty had not arrived, and Dave was beginning to chafe under the delay.
"If it were the first of April I might suspect the bluff old admiral were playing a joke on us," Dave confided to Lieutenant Fernald. "I might think this was his way of affording us all a chance to get even with our rest. I am wondering much what the special duty is to be."
"You will know, sir, in the same breath that you are ordered away to that duty," smiled the executive officer.
"Yes, this is war-time and advance information is very rare," Darrin admitted.
It was, in fact, nearly eleven o'clock when a man of the deck watch reported that a boat had put off from the flagship and was apparently heading for the "Grigsby."