"Not yet, and I don't want you to."
"Are you as interested as that in us, Mr. Danvers?"
"I like you, Benson—like you from the deck up, and I don't want to see you lose a single point in the game. That's all."
Eph Somers came on deck, presently.
"Hal says he doesn't need me below for the present, Jack, so I came up to relieve you at the wheel. I don't want to see your steering wrist going stale when the race starts, so you'd better let me have the wheel, while you keep yourself fresh for the real work."
"As the race hasn't begun yet," broke in Lieutenant Danvers, "there is no impropriety in my taking the wheel out to the start, if you'll trust me to handle your boat."
"Trust a naval officer?" laughed Jack Benson, flashing a smile of gratitude at the lieutenant. "That's a funny idea to suggest."
Danvers took the wheel silently, then devoted his whole thought, apparently, to the—for him—simple task that he had in hand.
Outside the bay the "Chelsea" signaled to the submarine boats to slow up. Then the gunboat moved over to temporary anchorage. A line between the gunboat's bow and the lighthouse on Groton Point, to the northward, was to furnish the imaginary starting line. This line the five competing submarine torpedo boats must, at second gunfire, cross as nearly together as possible. There were penalties, of course, for any one boat trying to steal a lead over the rest.
By this time the fast gunboat "Oakland," which had a safe speed of twenty-four knots an hour, under forced draught, lay to, some two miles further out. The "Oakland's" task was to stick close to the leaders, and, at the end, to decide which craft had won.