Raising his arm, Ross dealt the bird a furious blow. It missed, but had the effect of scattering the gulls. Apathetically the lad watched them as they flew off. As he did so he caught sight of three vessels being driven at high speed.
"Hurrah!" he exclaimed feebly. "The destroyers, old man; we are saved!"
CHAPTER XIII
The Arm of the Law
"Hulloa! What the deuce have we got here?" enquired Commander Devereux of H.M. torpedo-boat destroyer Yealm, as three dripping figures were transferred from the destroyer's dinghy to the deck. "One strafed Hun, right enough; but who are these fellows in mufti?"
"Can't say, sir," replied the coxswain. "They sort o' collapsed directly we got 'em into the boat."
"Then take them below," continued Devereux. "I say, Fanshawe, there's a job for you at last, my festive sawbones."
Fanshawe, lately a young country practitioner with a scattered "panel" connection, had but recently entered the Navy as a surgical probationer R.N.V.R. He joined purely through patriotic motives, having sacrificed a fairly substantial income in order to do so. Up to the present his work had been almost a sinecure. The Yealm had not had the faintest chance of taking part in an engagement. Her crew—to use Fanshawe's own words—were "that beastly healthy, don't you know", that, out of sheer anxiety to do something, he was learning navigation from the Sub-lieutenant.
The medico undertook his first important professional task on board the Yealm with great alacrity, and it was not long before Ross and Vernon were in a fit state to be questioned. Hans Koppe was in a bad plight. So utterly shaken were his nerves that he seemed on the point of collapse.