"But the battleship has changed her course, has she not, sir?"
"She has received new orders; but we will meet her on this course, I have no doubt. Cheer up, my boy," and the ensign laughed. "You may yet help work the big guns in a real battle."
So it was actually a race. The cutter must reach a certain point in the open ocean to meet the superdreadnaught; if they missed her, in all probability the party from the Kennebunk would have to be returned to port and be assigned to some other duty for the time being.
"Oi, oi!" groaned Ikey when he heard Whistler's report. "I never did have any luck. If they had delicatessen shops on board ships, I'd be made to police the pickle barrels yet."
The day did not pass without some additional excitement. The cutter passed and signaled several Government vessels; but toward evening the lookout picked up the smoke of a small destroyer ahead which, within the next half hour, acted very strangely, indeed.
She seemed to be steaming in circles, and as the cutter raced nearer those circles narrowed. Then her guns began to pop.
The cutter's crew and their guests became much excited. Surely the gun crews of the destroyer were not at target practice. Yet they seemed to have found a target in the middle of that circle the destroyer was furrowing through the sea.
At last they saw an answering shot fired from the midst of the circle. The destroyer was traveling at top speed and her own guns continued to keep up a wicked cannonading of the central object.
"A Hun submarine!" shouted somebody. "They're circling it, and they are going to get it, too!"
"If it is a submarine why doesn't she sink?" demanded Torry the sceptical.