“Fritz disappeared under the foam-spouts thrown up by the fall of shot, and, although two more destroyers joined in the hunt, which was continued all that day and on to nightfall, no further trace of him was discovered. Even if he did not sink at once, the chances are all against his being in shape ever to get back to base. But just the
same,” he concluded, with a wistful smile, “it would have been comforting to have had something more tangible than the memory of an oil smell and thirty-six hours without sleep as souvenirs of that little brush.”
It had been dark for an hour where the waters of the River Lee were streaming seaward with the ebbing tide, but the tree-tops along the crest of the eastward hills were silvering in the first rays of the rising moon. The signalman was looking at it when I bade him good night and started down the ladder to the main deck.
“I hope it isn’t a blue one,” he said with a grin; “we’re expecting to go out again tomorrow.”
CHAPTER VII
ADRIATIC PATROL
Boring into a North Sea blizzard in a destroyer off the coast of Norway is not exactly the kind of thing that one would think would turn a man’s thoughts to sunny climes, with scented breezes blowing over flowery fields, and cobalt skies arching over sapphire waters, and all that sort of thing; but the human mind moves in a mysterious way, and that is just what Lieutenant K—— started talking about the night we were shepherding the northbound convoy together, after it had been temporarily scattered by what had proved to be an abortive German light cruiser raid.