Nobody said anything. The Green Jackets climbed aboard with a derisive cheer. So near was the power-boat that Skeel, Ferez, and Soane were easily distinguishable there in the brilliant sunshine, on deck.
“Anyway,” burst out Renoux, “they’ll not dare lie there at anchor and wait for dark, now.”
Even as he spoke the anchor came up.
Very deliberately the small boat was hoisted to the davits; the big craft began to move, swinging her nose north by west, the spray breaking under the bows. She was already under way, already headed for the open sea.
And then, without any warning whatever, out of the northeast, almost sheering the jutting point which had concealed her, rushed a Canadian patrol boat, her forward deck a geyser of spouting foam.
A red lance of flame leaped from her forward gun; the sharp crack shattered the summer stillness; the shell went skittering away over the water, across the bows of the power-boat; a string of signals broke from the cruiser’s mast.
Then an amazing thing happened; the power-boat’s after deck suddenly swarmed with Green Jackets; there came a flash and a report, and a shell burst over the Canadian patrol cruiser, cutting her halliards to ribbons.
“Well—by—God!” gasped Renoux. Barres and Westmore stood petrified; but the three Frenchmen, with one accord, and standing up very straight, uncovered 405 in the presence of these men who were about to die.
Suddenly the power-boat broke out a flag at her masthead—a bright green flag bearing a golden harp.
Again the small gun flashed from her after-deck; another gun spoke with a splitting report from the starboard bow; both the shells exploded close to the patrol cruiser, showering her superstructure with steel fragments.