“Why?” demanded the captain, astonished.
Jimmy hesitated. “I think, sir, he’s yellow.”
“Send him to me,” thundered the captain.
Just what occurred during that interview nobody but the captain and the delinquent operator ever knew. But young Black came out on deck at last, looking both frightened and very vengeful, and the captain announced that Black had been restricted for twenty days. If the third-class radio man realized how near he had been to a general court-martial, he gave no sign of knowing, and showed no gratitude for the pleas that had in all probability saved him.
The run to Boston continued without incident. Slowly but steadily the Iroquois proceeded with her tow. The wind fell steadily, and the sea grew calmer. The journey up the tortuous channel was made without mishap. The Capitol City was safely berthed where she could be repaired, and the Iroquois continued to the Navy Yard, and secured some small boats to replace those she had lost overboard. Then the little cutter once more headed down the harbor and out to the open sea.
The passage back was indeed an eventful one to Henry. Had it not been for the terrible events he had so recently witnessed, events which he could not forget, the journey would have been joyful in the extreme. The weather was excellent. Bright and clear shone the sun: the sea, becoming ever calmer, flashed and sparkled brilliantly; the air had a tonic quality. Overhead, white, fleecy clouds floated in an azure sky.
Porpoises appeared. In shoals they played about in the sea. Like so many hurdlers, they drove forward in groups, first one and then another, lunging above the waves as though to leap over some unseen marine obstacle. Henry had never before seen porpoises. It delighted him to watch them. And when he found that a shoal of them was swimming immediately in front of the ship’s prow, he leaned over the forward rail with the sailors, and watched them. In particular he was interested in two of the great, lumbering bodies that swam side by side immediately before the cutwater. Their tails almost touched the prow. They looked as though they were towing the ship, as apparently, without effort, they kept pace with it. But when a sailor hit one of them with a clinker, frightening them, the great fish showed that they were anything but lumbering. They darted away from the Iroquois as though that ship were tied to a post, instead of traveling fourteen or fifteen miles an hour. Henry wondered how fast porpoises could swim. He thought that they must be going at least twice as fast as the cutter. He remembered that he had read of the enormous speed of those curious denizens of the deep, the barracuda and the sailfish, which travel sixty or even seventy miles an hour.
But if the porpoises interested Henry, the next fishes he saw held him almost speechless, for off the Nantucket shoals the Iroquois came upon several whales. With the glasses Henry could make them out plainly. Enormous bulks they were, and at times they spouted columns of water aloft, which was quickly blown into misty spray by the breeze. Henry had read of whales spouting, but he had never expected to see one of them doing it.
Close to the Ambrose Lightship the Iroquois passed as she was heading into the channel for New York. On the lightship’s flaming red side was painted in huge letters the word “Ambrose.” Instead of topmasts she carried, on her mastheads, round red globes for lights at night. Henry marveled at the sturdiness of these little ships that lie at anchor month after month, riding out the most terrific storms, and guiding the sailor on his way.
As the Iroquois sailed past the lightship, the colors of the latter slowly fluttered down from aloft, then rose again. Henry had not previously seen one ship salute another by dipping her colors. He noticed the flag fluttering down, but did not catch the significance of it until the quartermaster called to a sailor to run aft and dip the Iroquois’ flag. A moment later the cutter’s ensign came fluttering down, then was run aloft again.