'Then the wires must ha' been down, Joe. She's a coming right now.'
'Let's have a look,' exclaimed Williams, springing across.
'Ay, you're right, Bill. There she is. A big un, too!'
'And, lumme,' he added with a growl, 'a blighted torpedo boat a escorting of her!'
''Tis only one o' them tin Turkish rattle-traps,' said Bill with a pitying air. 'The old man'll slap a tin fish into her afore she knows what's hit her.'
As he spoke, the engines were already quickening, and G2 had begun to glide away at the top speed of her powerful electrics. The deep hum of the dynamos filled the long interior, and on every face was a look of eager expectancy.
As for Ken, his heart was throbbing like the dynamos themselves. The feeling that his father, whom he had hardly hoped ever to see again, was within a mile or so, had plunged him into such a state of tense excitement that it was all he could do to control it.
He turned to speak to Williams, but the latter had gone forward, and was standing by the torpedo in the fore tube.
The other coxswain, too, had gone to his place, and Sub-Lieutenant Hotham had taken his seat at the forward periscope.
For four minutes, which seemed to Ken like four hours, the submarine drove onwards in silence. Then came a sharp order from the commander, and she began to rise.