Again he looked ahead. The cruiser was still drawing further and further out of range. Having satisfied himself on that score and that there was no fresh danger of colliding with any of the rest of the fleet, he staggered into the open air and leaned heavily against the outer wall of the conning-tower, He was barely conscious that the metal was still hot.
Up came the quartermasters. At their heels was a sub-lieutenant, his face grimed with smoke and his uniform torn.
"Take over, Garboard," ordered the lieutenant brokenly. "Report to the flagship and ask instructions. I'm feeling deucedly queer."
"Why, you're wounded!" exclaimed the sub-lieutenant, noticing a dark and increasing patch upon Aubyn's coat.
"Am I?" asked Terence incredulously.
Turning his head to ascertain the nature of his injury, of which hitherto he was unconscious, his shoulder slipped along the curved steel wall. Garboard was only just in time to save him from collapsing inertly upon the deck of the ship he had brought safely out of action.
"Congratulations, old man. You'll have to get your tailor to make some alteration in your uniform."
"What do you mean?" asked Terence.
Two months had elapsed since the day on which Lieutenant Aubyn had received a dangerous wound in his right side in the fight off Ostend.
He was sitting in the grounds of the Royal Naval Hospital at Chatham, having made a fairly rapid recovery.