It was no time for respect to the dead when the fate of the living was at stake. Without ceremony the corpses of two men who had died of injuries were given to the waves, while willing hands hauled the senseless form of Sub-lieutenant Alec Seton into the boat.
"Look alive!" shouted the bowman to Alec's rescuer, who, on noticing the Sub relax his grasp of the beaker, had promptly dived and brought the young officer to the surface. "Stroke ahead; I'll give you a hand."
"Too many in the boat already, mate," was the reply. "I've a mother living in Lowestoft, and I'll have a shot at swimming there. How far—eighty miles?"
Without further ado the chivalrous bluejacket turned and began swimming away from the boat.
"'Ere, no you don't!" shouted the bowman, and with a quick movement he engaged his boat-hook in the neck of the bluejacket's jumper. "Plenty of room in the stalls, mate. Two blokes wot booked seats ain't taking 'em up."
"Is that jonnick?" asked the swimmer suspiciously.
"Proper jonnick," asserted the other.
"Good enough," rejoined Alec's rescuer, and suffered himself to be hauled over the gunwale into a place of at least temporary safety.
For nearly two hours the boat continued to drift in spite of the dogged efforts of the two oarsmen. The breaking of an oar made matters worse, and all that could be done was to keep the whaler stern-on to the waves. Where were the rest of the Bolero's crew, and how they fared, were merely matters for speculation.
Meanwhile the whaler's crew were unremitting in their attention to their disabled messmates, two of the men chafing Alec's numbed limbs in the hope of restoring him to consciousness. In this they succeeded, and presently the Sub opened his eyes.