"Oi, oi, Whistler!" whispered Ikey when the greatly abashed Morgan went forward, "you'll be an admiral next. If you beat me to it, what will my papa and mama say?"
CHAPTER XIII
THE KENNEBUNK SAILS
Put back upon her course, the S. P. 888 was soon beating her way through the cross-seas—"bucking the briny" the boys called it—toward the port from which the Kennebunk was to sail in the morning.
It was a wild night. The peril through which the ship's company had just passed, and from which Philip Morgan had been able to save them, made the threatening aspects of sea and air seem small indeed. Let the wind shriek through the wire stays and the waves roar and burst about and over the submarine chaser as they listed, none of these dangers equaled that of the depth charge which had run amuck.
Seven Knott was brought to his senses in a short time, and, after staring about a bit, murmured:
"Well, I didn't get it, did I?"
"Not your fault, my man," declared Ensign MacMasters cheerfully. "Wait till Lieutenant Commander Lang, of the Colodia, hears about it. You have done well, Hertig. He will be proud of you."
At that the petty officer smiled, for he was inordinately fond of the commander of the destroyer.