We were slowed down, barely moving, the waves slop-slopped against our sides, and the passengers came scrambling up.
“Germans! Yarmans!” they cried, and from the torpedo boat came a voice through a megaphone.
“What are you doing with all those fine young men on board?” it asked in excellent English, the language of the sea.
The black torpedo boat was lying up against us.
Sea-sickness was forgotten, and the violinist came to me.
“They are going to take the young men,” he said, and he was sorry and yet pleased, because all the time he had been full of the might of the Germans.
I thought of the Oxford man in the very prime of his manhood.
“Have you told him?”
“Guess I didn't dare,” said he.
“Well, I think you'd better, or I'll go myself. They are going to search the ship and he won't like being taken unawares.”