"How about that bulkhead?" asked the skipper. "He hailed that he didn't think it would stand the strain of steaming."
"Maybe so, sir, but I don't agree with him. I don't see how that bulkhead's going to cave in with all those bales of cotton jammed up against it. What the most of them over there are suffering from is the reaction from that three hours of shelling—everything was looking pretty blue to them, sir."
"Can he make steam?"
"Yes, sir. Their engineer has two ribs busted in and a piece of shrapnel in his neck and part of his foot shot away. But he's all right. He was lying down when I first saw him, cursing the Germans blue. Then he says: 'Put me on my feet, men.' A couple of oilers put him on his feet. I thought he was going to give orders to make steam, but he only wanted to be stood up so as he could curse the Germans a little better. Lying down interfered with his wind. He rolled it out in one steady stream for ten minutes. He was an Italian, or maybe a Spaniard, and his English wasn't perfect, but he could talk like hell. He's all right. He'll get steam up, sir."
By and by they did make steam and begin to move on a course our skipper wigwagged to them. The skipper left the surgeon aboard, and at twenty knots the 352 steamed more circles around the steamer, all lookouts meanwhile skinning their eyes afresh for signs of the sub. We could make out a lot of smoke on the southern horizon. It was the convoy we had left in the morning. An hour later the Luckenbach found her legs.
Our cripple broke no records for speed, but she was making revolutions, and by five o'clock we rejoined the convoy with her alongside.
So here is an eight hours' log for the 352: At nine in the morning she was responding to S O S-ing ninety miles away; at five in the afternoon we had her tucked away for the night in the column.
The tall quartermaster came up on the bridge to stand his watch. We were in our regular position, at the head of the column at twenty knots. He looked back at the fleet. "There you are, Lucky Bag. They must have had you checked up and counted in, a big ship and a three-million-dollar cargo, this morning, and here you are to-night—one they didn't get."