"Back to 'No. 3'," sings out the Sub, and we pulls away as cheerily as mud-larks, and then came the 'unt for her.
We'd got a signal lantern in the boat, and was just a-going to light it, when the Sub-lootenant caught sight of her and 'ailed her softly.
We were aboard in a jiffy and 'oisted the whaler in again, everyone a-patting us on the back.
They'd got some 'ot cocoa made down in the stokehold, too, and served us out some all round, which we needed pretty bad.
There was more firing just about this time, and when we'd got on deck again, after our 'ot cocoa, we were romping along in that direction. But we weren't off to 'elp "No. 2", not by a long chalk, for Mr. Parker or the Sub-lootenant, or both of them, gets another idea (real artistic, too, I called it), and he stops, and we gets out the two collapsable boats and the whaler, and we soon sees what 'is little game is, for he lashes a lantern in each of the small boats and sends the Sub inshore again. We were still, you see, quite close to the rocks, but 'alf a mile farther along.
"Take some fire-bars to moor them with, and leave them as close in as you can," he told the Sub. "Light the lanterns, and come back as fast as you can."
My! wasn't that a pretty little game? and weren't those torpedo-boats a-going to get a sur-prise?
It took pretty near a 'alf-'our to do this, and every now and agin we could 'ear shots—sometimes closer and sometimes seemingly farther off; but at last the lamps shone out, and though they did look a trifle unsteady in the swell, still they was good enough to deceive them Chinese.
When the Sub had got back we went off to where we'd heard the firing.
It was getting less dark now, and a few stars were coming out, and in a few minutes a long dark thing, with flames sputtering from the funnels, went flying past us—one of the Chinamen a-going 'ome—and another followed her, and we just laid low and let them go, chuckling to ourselves and thinking of the trap we'd laid for 'em.