CHAPTER IV
A SUBMARINE'S REVENGE
All now waited on Eph's word during the next few moments.
If the "Hastings," striking on that stub of a submerged mast, had had her plates so badly sprang that pumping would not drive out the water as fast as it came in, then this newest of the submarines was doomed to go to the bottom.
All that would then remain to those aboard would be to take to the ocean.
True, they had life-preservers aboard, and with these, officers and men could keep afloat.
In the icy waters of a February night, however, with something like fifteen miles to swim to mainland through an ever-roughening sea, it was almost impossible that the strongest among them could hope to reach shore alive.
Yet, desperately anxious as he was to know the news, Jack Benson did not desert his post by the steering wheel. Some one must be there. Nor had Hal thought of leaving the engine room.
So the naval lieutenant remained with Benson, duplicating, in those awful moments, the boy's cool courage.
It was Ewald who presently came running up the stairs to report.