"Now drop alongside and board," chuckled the Commander. "You take the helm, Jones, I'll manage the stoker, and Glover, you cast off the ropes."
In a moment we had shot out from the bank, and were alongside the steam-boat before the scared stoker knew we were there. The Commander laid him out in the bottom of the boat with a crack over the head with a stretcher he had found in the boat. Jones jumped aft, secured the boat's painter, unhooked the stern rope, and got hold of the helm. I sprang across her bows and unhooked the bow rope, the Commander opened the steam-valve, the propeller flew round (it went astern for a moment, but the Commander found the reversing-lever and threw it over for "ahead"). I shoved her bows off for all I was worth, nearly falling overboard doing it, and by the time I had recovered myself we were away with the boat, and our two gagged sentries, towing behind us.
Jones steered her bows round till we were in the middle, and then I wondered how ever we were going to find our way through the twisting channel.
The tide was sluicing us out as fast as it had borne us in that morning. The glare of the fire was shut out as we rushed round the corner into the channel, into absolute pitch darkness. You could almost feel the intense darkness, and I was horribly scared lest we should smash into a rock, so hung on like grim death for fear of being knocked overboard.
But then the Commander stopped the engines, and we simply drifted between the wall faces of those two forts, only standing by to shove her off if she had hit up against anything. But we were well in the middle, well in the grip of the current which was running like a millstream, swinging us round and round like a cork, and all we could do was to hold our breath and trust to being safely swept out to sea.
The only noise was the bubbling of the current, till suddenly the stoker in the bottom of the boat let fly a most piercing yell which echoed from side to side. The Commander was on top of him in a moment, and must have caught him by the neck. We could see some lights moving overhead. Somebody called out, and I jumped aft to help the Commander.
"Go back, Glover, and stoke; shove a little coal on at a time. I can manage him, and we shall want all our steam when we get outside."
I had never done such a thing before in my life, but it wasn't difficult to find a shovel, and I lifted the furnace door open, and by the light of the furnace saw where the coal was stored. I threw some on, as far back as I could, and shut up the door again, but already the alarm had been given. On each side of us I could hear men shouting and see lights hurrying up and down, and that one flood of light from the open door must have just showed them where we were.
Sentries began letting off rifles, and the shouting redoubled.
We were half-way through by this time. We began to feel the motion of the sea beneath us, and, unless they had a search-light ready, or we ran on a rock, we were almost out of danger.