“Before you try to maltreat that boy, perhaps it would be as well to settle with me,” he said calmly, while along the deck came the click of the sailors’ rifles. “That is,” he added, “if you’ve got the guts to do it.”
“Schweinhund!” cried the enraged officer, as he sprang to his feet. Without an instant’s hesitation, he swung for Bill’s head.
The useful art of self-defense is well taught at the Naval Academy, and Bill had ever been a proficient pupil. He jerked back his head, dodging the man’s fist by a hair’s breadth. Then as the other overbalanced, he stepped in with a short-arm jab to his opponent’s kidneys. This he followed up immediately with a powerful left hook to the point of the jaw, and the Herr Lieutenant went crashing overside, through the ropes of the gangway. There came the dull thud of his head as it struck the metal side of the submarine, and he disappeared down the narrow strip of water between the vessels. Immediately Bill dived after him.
His lithe body cut the surface with hardly a splash, and he shot into the cool green depths from his twenty foot dive with eyes wide open. To right and to left dark blurs of the vessels’ hulls shadowed the translucent green. No other objects met his searching gaze, so using a powerful breast stroke, he forged further downward. All at once he saw something grayish white below. His lungs were bursting with lack of air and the heavy water pressure at this depth. It grew icy cold, but he continued to strain onward, backing his muscles with an indomitable force of will.
The white spot beneath him was taking shape now—surely the linen uniform of the unlucky lieutenant. Yes, there he was, sinking face down, arms and legs spread-eagled and useless, the wind knocked out of him by the double blow of Bill’s fists and the crash against the submarine side.
Bill caught the sprawling, inert figure, with a cupped hand beneath the chin. Instantly his legs and free arm got into action again, but heading this time in the opposite direction. Up shot the drowning man and his rescuer. Bill’s head was whirling, his faculties were leaving him. The man would sink again if he lost his hold. Slipping the crook of his elbow beneath the unconscious lieutenant’s chin, he held his head close to his side. Would they never reach the surface—and air? What if his own unprotected skull should strike the bulging curve of a vessel’s hull? Sharp pain stabbed him between the eyes—he knew no more.
Far away—fathoms above him—Bill heard a voice calling his name. He seemed to be floating upward in a sea-green haze, but there was air at last—heaven-sent air.
“He’s coming round now,” said the voice, which sounded like Osceola’s, and much nearer than before. “No wonder he went out—under water nearly two minutes and a half! How’s the other fellow, Baron?”
“Poor Fritz!” Surely this was the blond commander speaking and his voice seemed much louder and closer at hand than that of the young chief. And as the words grew more distinct, their meaning impressed itself on Bill’s dawning consciousness. “Poor Fritz!” repeated the baron. “We’ve got the water out of him now and he will live—but it will be a touch and go for some time. The poor lad has a bad case of concussion. I can’t tell whether his skull is fractured, but I don’t think so.”
“He got an awful crack on the back of his head, but you can’t hold that up against Bill Bolton,” returned Osceola.