Williams, a burly torpedo coxswain, at once took charge of Ken. His big hands were as tender as a woman's as he stripped off the boy's soaking clothes and substituted for them a fresh suit of warm lammies. Before putting them on, he gave Ken such a rubbing with a rough towel as sent the stagnant blood tingling through every vein.
'Thanks awfully,' said Ken gratefully. 'I say, how's Gill? He got knocked silly with the blast of the shell that sunk the "Swan." Is he hurt?'
'He ain't hit, anyway,' said Williams. 'He's swallowed a bit more salt water than suits his innards, but he'll pull round all right, never you fear.
'Here, drink this down,' he continued, handing Ken a thick mug full of some steaming mixture. Ken swallowed it obediently. It was thick Navy cocoa, laced with a dash of rum.
It sent a grateful warmth through every inch of Ken's body, but its immediate effect was to make him so drowsy that his eyes began to close.
'That's all right,' he heard Williams remark in a satisfied voice. 'Forty winks won't do you no manner of harm.' The last thing Ken remembered was being wrapped in a blanket. Then he dropped back on the mattress and almost before his head reached it was sound asleep.
He woke to the purr of engines and a warm thick atmosphere smelling strongly of oil and illuminated by white electric lamps. For the moment he could not imagine where he was nor what had happened. It was not until he rolled over and saw Roy lying stretched on another mattress beside him, and Gill a little beyond, that any sort of recollection came back to him.
He stretched himself. He was sore all over, but otherwise fit enough and very hungry. Then he sat up.
A burly figure came towards him, walking with that curiously light-footed tread which becomes second habit in a submarine. It was Williams, the coxswain.
'Well, young fellow me lad,' he remarked genially, 'how goes it?'