“Easy enough to guess,” Jim said. “They want to know anything we can tell them, that’s all. Look at us”—he glanced aloft—“flag-wagging our hardest. This is beginning to make up for last night!”
“Yes—you chaps must have had a pretty bad time,” West said. “I’m jolly glad rescue came—it wasn’t any too soon.”
“Oh, a miss is as good as a mile,” said Wally. “I’m too cheerful to think of last night. By Jove, I believe they’re coming near enough to talk! Isn’t it gorgeous!” He seized Norah, and they executed a wild polka down the deck—a proceeding which would ordinarily have attracted some attention, but just now drew not a single glance, except from the knitting old lady, who beamed over her muffler, and said, “Bless them, pretty dears!”—which remark filled Wally with wrath beyond anything he had manifested for the German ship. They came back to the others, outwardly sober, but still bubbling within.
“She’s the Sealark,” the second officer told them. “Light cruiser—about 6,000 tons; and her armament is a dream. I saw her in Portsmouth Harbour last July. I guess she’ll make things warm for the beggar.”
“How did she come—was it just luck?” Wally asked.
“Luck?—not it! She caught our ‘S.O.S.’ signals yesterday; a jolly good thing for us young Grey stuck to his wireless as long as he did. Watch her—she means hailing us, I think.”
From the bridge, a voice through a megaphone demanded perfect silence on the decks—and every voice was hushed as the cruiser came rapidly alongside, so close that greetings could easily be exchanged. Rapid questions and answers flashed from bridge to bridge. The Sealark was ready for action; they could see the cleared decks, and the guns trained in readiness. Bluejackets swarmed everywhere, cheery-faced and alert, and waved jovial greetings to the big liner. Norah found her heart thumping. War! this was war, indeed!
The cruiser drew away, exerting her utmost speed. Mr. Dixon came down to the passengers.
“She wants us to stand by to help with the wounded,” he said. “She’ll be engaging the German soon. No, I don’t think it will be much of a fight; the German is more than twice her size, but she’s only an armed merchantman, and the Sealark’s guns outclass hers hopelessly. We’re not going to run risks of shells, of course, but you’ll get some sort of a view.” He favoured Norah with a special grin. “I shouldn’t wonder if you got your friend Smith back, Miss Norah!”
It was half an hour later that the first dull roar of a gun echoed across the sea. The Perseus had altered her course, so that she should not be in the line of fire, and the three ships formed an irregular triangle. They saw the puff of smoke from the Sealark and then another, and another; but the German held on her way, unchecked, although the Sealark was rapidly overhauling her. Then she began to return the shots, and the watchers on the Perseus could mark by how much they fell short by the splashes as they fell. The British cruiser answered, her superior range giving her an immense advantage.