The swell was going down fast, too, so we lowered the whaler, an' the Sub chose the five strongest men on board to pull her, and that didn't leave me on board, you may bet your bottom dollar, and we took a torpedo instructor and grapnels and axes and shoved off in the dark, the swell lifting us along towards them lights.
We lost sight of "No. 3" in a brace of shakes, the last thing I saw being Mr. Glover a-looking sad and mournful for once, because Mr. Parker wouldn't let 'im go with us.
Lonely, were we? Why, I never felt so blooming lonely in all my life; not a sound but the oars creaking and the booming of the sea a'ead of us.
"Oars! Hold water, men," whispered the Sub, an' we 'ad time to look round, and there we were, right in between the two little twinkling lights. They were electric, too, as Mr. Parker had guessed, an' they was just light enough to make the rocks they was fixed to look darker than the night itself, and with just a glimmer in the sea which boiled up agin' them below.
There was no going near 'em to wind'ard, that was plain as a pikestaff, and after we had a look at both, shoving our nose as close as we dared, the Sub tried what we could do round the back of 'em, to leeward, where the swell wouldn't trouble us so.
It might have been all right in daylight, but this was just the horridest job as ever I took on.
We did get close in once, and the bowman, as plucky a little fellow as was ever invented, got a hold on it with 'is boat-'ook, but swish swirl came the swell, lifting us up and breaking an oar, and as we dropped again and tried to keep the boat off he lost 'is 'old, for it was only seaweed 'e'd 'ooked 'is boat-'ook in.
"Back hard, men, back hard!" came from the Sub, and we all backed as if the devil was after us, and scraped our keel along another ugly piece of rock, just being lifted over it and not stove in by the next swell that came.
My! but that was a close squeak, I can tell you, and we didn't breathe freely till we had backed out between the two lights once more.
We hadn't been there a minute before we 'eard firing, a long way out to sea. "That's 'No. 2,'" the Sub said, "and we'll have to just be quick about this job before she drives those torpedo-boats home again."