CONCLUSION
"Shall I order the helm to starboard, sir?" asked Ensign Ormsby. "We're due to sail too close to that mine-sweeper."
Though the two craft were separated by several hundreds of yards, Darrin's quick, trained eye took in the fact that the mine-sweeper, by the time the "Grigsby" crossed her course, would be a safe distance ahead.
"No," he decided; "keep to the course and she'll clear us."
Ensign Ormsby nodded and remained silent. Neither could know of the hidden mine that lay in her path.
Yet less than half a minute later a signalman raced to the stern of the mine sweeper, wigwagging frantically this message:
"Hard a-starboard! We have just picked up a mine!"
The little craft had slowed down; she was maneuvering around that mine to get hold and land it on her deck.
Ormsby read the signal with his chief. Not even waiting, now, for Darrin's word, the watch officer changed the course.
Right in the course that they had been going the mine-sweeper now blocked the way. Had her sweep been thirty feet either side she would have gone on past and the destroyer would have struck the mine.