The warrant officer stood on the weather bulwarks and, with one hand holding firmly the tautened shrouds, levelled his glass at a point on the horizon.
"What is it, Mr. Gripper?" asked the sub.
The gunner did not immediately reply. Frequently enveloped in spray he hung on rigidly, gazing the while with a doubtful expression on his weather-beaten face.
Then he leapt down.
"It's all right, sir," he announced. "There's a destroyer making for her. She'll have to be quick about it, though," he added under his breath.
CHAPTER XXV
HOLCOMBE'S SURPRISE
"S.O.S. MESSAGE through, sir," reported the yeoman of signals of H.M.S. "Antipas," saluting, as he handed Lieutenant-Commander Aubyn a signal pad.
The skipper took the proffered message, scrawled in indelible ink upon a flimsy sheet of damp paper, for the destroyer was making heavy weather of it.