“All right, stick to it! And here goes! We must stay together.”
The Kentuckians dived as well as the bulky life preservers would permit and then they swam quietly along side by side. The ship was rapidly settling. The last boat was off, so full that every little wave splashed over its panic-stricken passengers.
CHAPTER XII.
TUTNO.
The sea was comparatively calm and quite warm. If it had been anything but a shipwreck, our young men would have enjoyed the experience. They congratulated themselves that they had trusted to their own endurance and the life preservers rather than to the crazy boats when they saw one of the overloaded vessels come within an ace of turning turtle.
The submarine was now on top of the water and was slowly steaming towards the scene of disaster. The boats made for the opposite direction as fast as the oarsmen could pull. They had not realized that all the submarine wanted was to destroy the pork and beef cargo. The hungrier the French army got the sooner they would be conquered by the Germans.
“Well, my friend the book agent, what do you think about swimming in the direction of the enemy? Remember we are Americans, just plain Americans with no desire to do anything in the way of swatting Prussians.—Neutral noncombatants!” said Kent, swimming easily, the life preserver lifting him so far out of the water that he declared he felt like a bell buoy.
“Yes, I’ll remember! My line is family albums and de luxe copies of Ruskin. I hope those poor devils in the boats will make land or get picked up or something.”
“Me, too! If the sea only stays so smooth they can make a port in less than a day, if they don’t come a cropper. We are almost in the English Channel, I should say, due south of the Scilly Islands.”