For a moment the destroyer yawed right off her course, but she was under control again in a few seconds, and her forward gun spoke once more.
The flash was followed by a tremendous shock, and the launch, with her rudder and part of her stern carried away, spun round helplessly, and began to drift downstream.
'That's finished it,' groaned Roy.
Again the destroyer's gun roared, and the deckhouse melted in a shower of splinters. Ken, struck on the leg by one of them, toppled over helplessly. His leg felt numb, he could not move. There was nothing for it now but to await the inevitable end.
Crash! Vaguely Ken realised that this was a heavier gun than the 12-pounders of the destroyer. He heard a shell roar overhead, then from the destroyer, now no more than a hundred yards away, rose a blinding flash.
'Hurrah!' he heard Roy shout, but the reason he could not imagine. He made a desperate effort to struggle up, felt the blood gush hot from his wound. His head spun, he fell back and knew no more.
Coming back to consciousness after being knocked out is always a slow and painful business. The first thing that Ken's muddled brain took in was the surprising fact that he was lying in a real bed between beautifully clean sheets.
He had not been in such a bed for more than six months, and he could not understand it at all.
Slowly he opened his eyes, and looked up at a whitewashed ceiling. Through a window opposite the sun was shining and a warm breeze blowing.
'I suppose I'm dreaming,' he said at last, and was surprised to hear how weak and husky his voice seemed.