"Well, pretty soon Louie took to leaving me with the engine, and he would walk back past the Captain. He saluted him every time, and he watched that bottle just like a starved dog. And every time the Captain would slowly take hold of the bottle and grin. And then Louie would walk back again.
"Then once he went a little too close, and the Captain said something in German, and stuck out his foot, and tripped Louie up. He fell the length of the apartment; just plunged down because he wasn't expecting it. Beany was trying to do something for the sick man on the locker, and I was at the engine. We were sort of out of the way; and it was a lucky thing, because Louie went mad then and there, that's all there was to it. I never saw anything so awful, and neither did Beany. He didn't look human. He had the bluest eyes you ever saw when he was right, and they turned red as blood. And his face got dead white, and he showed all his teeth like a dog does. He had big yellow teeth with longer ones, like a dog's fangs, at the corners. And say, he was quicker than a cat! The Captain didn't have a chance to pull his gun. Louie had him by the arms, and was trying to break him in two backward. A couple of other men ran to help the Captain, and that Louie just kicked out back, and doubled them both up, one after the other, in a corner. Nobody else interfered. I suppose Louie knew, if he knew anything, that he was a gone goose anyhow, and he wanted to punish the Captain. They never said a word. Louie had the Captain's right wrist in his left hand, so the Captain couldn't shoot, and I saw he was trying to twist the Captain's right arm so he could break it."
"That Captain was some quick, too," said Beany.
"They tripped and fell, and went rolling all over the place. That was when I most tipped the boat over. I forgot my levers, watching them and wondering if we would all get killed before the thing was over. Once they broke loose and came up, one each side of the table and the Captain leveled his revolver and pulled the trigger but it didn't fire. Guess it jammed or something. Anyhow, in the second that it refused to work, Louie was across the table and at him again. He was sure mad now. There was regular froth at the corners of his mouth, and he reached out as he clinched and clawed the whole side of the Captain's face off. Gosh!
"Then all at once the Captain got his right arm loose, and he brought round like lightning, and pressed the muzzle of the revolver right against Louie's side and bang! off she went. Louie never spoke, just grunted, and crumpled down on the floor. The Captain looked at him a minute, and then he dropped into a chair himself; and I tell you by that time he looked as though he did need a bracer. He was all in. Louie would have killed him sure as sure if he hadn't shot him.
"Nobody spoke or said anything. The Captain sat there a long time, just panting and staring down at Louie. Then he looked at me, and said, 'He had it coming to him. Can you run that engine and not turn turtle?"
"And I said, 'Sure!' Then he said something in German to the men. He talked and talked, but of course we couldn't tell what he said. Presently four of them took Louie and laid him in the torpedo chute, and there he was; and nobody paid any more attention to him than if he wasn't there at all. Gee, it was awful!"
CHAPTER XV
A SPY ON BOARD
Porky rubbed a hand across his eyes, as though to shut out a disagreeable sight. Beany shook his head. The boys evidently hated the pictures that memory drew.