Two men clad in bluejackets' working rig heard the order not without emotion. The instinct to obey—the result of three years' service under the White Ensign—was strong; but resisting the impulse the two remained "as you were", sheltering from observation in a corner of a disused flat abaft the after-magazine.
Clearing out the supernumeraries—men embarked to assist in the navigation of the Vindictive across Channel—was a slow process. Again and again alert, lynx-eyed petty officers scoured the ship to make certain that the additional hands had fallen in. More than once the flat in which the disguised Seton and Branscombe were concealed was inspected, but no one thought to pay particular attention to a heap of empty cement sacks that camouflaged the determined stowaways. After half an hour of suspense, they felt secure.
"They're gone," whispered Seton, taking a pull at a water-bottle and passing it on to his companion. "Stuffy show, isn't it? Good thing we provided ourselves with biscuits and water."
"Hope to goodness the stunt won't be declared off," remarked Branscombe. "Let's see; we're due to arrive off the Stroom Bank at 2 a.m. That means that we've got to lie low for another four hours. It wouldn't be safe for us to show up before 1.30 at the earliest."
"No one will notice us if we hang about the main deck," objected Seton. "I don't want to miss any of the fun. Besides, as soon as the ship's under way, they wouldn't slow down to send us ashore."
The somewhat erratic pulsations of the Vindictive's engines—for since the Zeebrugge operations, when her propellers got foul of the Mole, the hard-worked machinery was far from perfect—announced that the venerable and historic cruiser was leaving the Roadstead, and the two chums left their place of concealment and made their way to the starboard battery on the main deck.
Not a light was shown on board. In the darkness they were unrecognized as strangers, and boldly mingling with others of the depleted crew they had the satisfaction of finding that their carefully laid plan was being carried out without a hitch.
"What's wrong with the old Sappho?" inquired a seaman, who was looking out of the gun port. "She's dropping astern."
"Something wrong with her," agreed his "raggie". "Hope that won't put a stopper on this little jaunt."
As a matter of fact it very nearly did. The Sappho had hardly cleared the anchorage when a man-hole joint in the side of her boilers blew out, instantly reducing her speed to six knots.