“Half sunken Zep, sure as you are a foot high!” declared Al Torrance.
“No argument on that score,” admitted another of the boys. “Do you suppose any of the poor chaps can be alive?”
“‘Poor chaps’ is good!” growled Al. “Like Willum, the coster, I don’t believe in wasting sympathy on ‘the ’Un.’”
The dashing rain and spray almost blinded at times the Colodia’s boys, but they searched the remains of the wrecked dirigible keenly as the destroyer drew nearer.
Now and then a great wave dashed completely over the twisted framework and sprawling bag of silk cloth. And, yes! over several specks that were apparently lashed to the wreckage. These specks were bodies of men, whether dead or alive could not at first be decided with the wind driving the spindrift head-on.
Commander Lang discussed the situation with his chief officers amidships. How could they reach the wreck of the Zeppelin under such weather conditions as these? Scarcely could a boat live in such a sea!
“I’ll order no boat’s crew out into such a mess as that,” said the commander, with a gesture indicating the gray, leaping waves. “And I hate to ask for volunteers when those people out there are what they are. It is hardly possible for the boys to think of them as human beings. They are set aside from us; they belong to another race—a race that has shown neither mercy nor compassion.”
“It will have to be volunteers, if anybody,” said one of the other officers. “But I’ve a wife and children. If I am ordered, I’ll go. But no volunteering to get those Huns, for me!”
Among the crew the indications were that they felt about the same as the officers. Said Hans Hertig:
“Who would volunteer to save them squareheads yet? Not me!”