"Yes."
"Well, you'll be all right. The patrol will pick you up soon." And without further sound save for the almost silent fixing of the conning tower lid, the submarine moved off.
There was no assurance of an early pick-up, even tho the promise were from a German source, for the rest of the boats, whose occupants—if they felt and spoke like those in my boat—were more than mildly anxious about their plight and the prospects of rescue.
The fear of some of the boats crashing together produced a general inclination toward further separation on the part of all the little units of survivors, with the result that soon the small craft stretched out for several miles, all of them endeavouring to keep their heads in the wind.
And then we saw the first light—the first sign of help coming—the first searching glow of white brilliance, deep down on the sombre sides of the black pot of night that hung over us.
It was way over there—first a trembling quiver of silver against the blackness; then, drawing closer, it defined itself as a beckoning finger, altho still too far away yet to see our feeble efforts to attract it....
We pulled, pulled, lustily forgetting the strain and pain of innards torn and racked from pain, vomiting—oblivious of blistered hands and wet, half frozen feet.
Then a nodding of that finger of light—a happy, snapping, crap-shooting finger that seemed to say: "Come on, you men," like a dice-player wooing the bones—led us to believe that our lights had been seen. This was the fact, for immediately the coming vessel flashed on its green and red side-lights and we saw it was headed for our position.
"Come alongside port!" was megaphoned to us. And as fast as we could we swung under the stern, while a dozen flashlights blinked down to us and orders began to flow fast and thick.
A score of hands reached out, and we were suspended in the husky tattooed arms of those doughty British jack tars, looking up into the weather-beaten, youthful faces, mumbling thanks and thankfulness and reading in the gold lettering on their pancake hats the legend "H. M. S. Laburnum."