“A fellow cannot help getting nervous out here—I mean nervous for the transports,” said Lieutenant Curtin, ten minutes later. “Before you came up, sir, there was a time when neither Mr. Dalzell nor I could see that nearest troopship at all.”
“Did you change your course?” asked Dave, with a smile.
“No, sir; I knew we must be right, for we had followed the course to a fine line. But it was uncanny, just the same—the knowledge that we must guard the transports, combined with the belief that they had slipped miles away.”
“Before you came across to this side of the ocean, Mr. Curtin, you were inclined to be a bit stout, weren’t you?” Dave quizzed.
“Nineteen pounds over weight, sir.”
“Cheer up! You won’t grow fat during this war.”
“I don’t care about loss of sleep, or anything,” declared the junior officer, earnestly. “I believe that I could get along without sleep, except when in port, if we could range the seas with a daily average of one enemy submarine sunk.”
“If you could do that, and the other destroyers did anything at all,” laughed Darrin, “the seas would soon be as safe as they were in 1913.”
“Do you remember that time, sir, a month ago, when we answered an S. O. S. call and arrived in time to jump at a submarine engaged in shelling the small boats that were pulling away from the wrecked Norwegian steamer?”
“Yes.”