“The life buoy!” came a sharp shout from the conning tower.
“Gone away, sir!” roared back the sailor whose duty it was to watch the
contrivance.
Already, such was the speed of the destroyer, the blue flame of the
chemical buoy showed some distance astern--now glimpsed on the top of a
wave, now vanishing altogether.
But even as Ned’s heart, which had stilled for an instant--or so
he imagined--at the shout of alarm, began to beat again, the speed
diminished. Waves began to hammer viciously at the slowing craft. The
midshipman on watch had set the telegraph to “full speed astern!”
The engine-room crew had instantly obeyed the order. Into the angry sea
the slender, vibrating craft began to back at the full power of her
propellers.
As she did so, the middy was already off the bridge and among the
watch. Lieutenant Timmons had also appeared, oilskins hastily thrown
over his pajamas. He had assumed command and was on the conning tower.
“Volunteers for the boat!” sang out the middy.
“How many, sir?” asked Stanley.
“Four. That’s enough. We don’t want to overcrowd her.”
“Then there’s four more here than you’ll want, sir,” rejoined Stanley,
as the entire watch stepped forward.
The middy chose Herc and Ned and Stanley, and a man named Beesley. All
were alert, strong and fearless, true types of Uncle Sam’s sailormen.
In the meantime the boat had been unlashed and made ready for slinging.
If it would have been dangerous to launch a boat on such a night from
a battleship, how infinitely more so was it from the bounding, swaying
deck of the destroyer! Never still for an instant, her military mast
was cutting big arcs back and forth against the ragged sky.
But not one of those men hesitated a wink of an eyelid. Into the boat
they piled, and the next instant the quadrant davits had dropped them
overside into the turmoil!
A sharp “click” told that the falls had been automatically loosened.
“Stand by!” shouted the middy, who stood in the stern with the steering
oar.
As he spoke, a mighty wave picked the boat up as if it had been a
walnut shell and swept it dizzily away from the side of the destroyer.
Off into the blackness it was carried before the oarsmen had time to
stay it. The sharp command rang out again:
“Give way!”
Those four strong-backed, supple oarsmen bent to their sweeps as if
they meant to split them. Far off, on their lee, they could see the
bluish flame of the chemical buoy, now rising into view on the crest
of a comber and now sinking out of sight in the dark trough of the
turbulent seas. It was impossible to tell if there were a man clinging
to it or not.
Bending forward, the middy scanned the wilderness of tumbling waters
eagerly, while the oarsmen steadily struggled against the big seas
down toward the lambent flame. Time and again it seemed as if one of
the immense waves must crash down into the boat and overwhelm her.
But the navy craft are built for just such work, and the boat kept
comparatively dry amid the tempest.
“Hooray, boys!” came a sudden shout from the middy in the stern, “I see
him!”
The temptation was strong upon the oarsmen to turn their heads and
look, but they knew that such an action might result in the swamping of
the boat, and kept steadily at their work.
All at once a blinding glare of light enveloped them, and then swept
on. It was the destroyer’s searchlight.
“Woof!” exclaimed Herc, “I never knew those seas were so big till that
light showed them up.”
Viewed in the bright electric bath of the searchlight, the waves
did, indeed, look formidable. Black and huge, they reared up on every
side of the tiny boat. Their tops were torn off by the furious wind
in sheets of ragged foam. The spume thus formed drenched the boat in
clouds.
Suddenly the middy at the stern oar swung the boat right around to port
and, hauling his oar inboard, rapidly crawled forward.
“I see him, boys,” he shouted, grasping a line and leaning far out over
the bow. “Stand by for orders.”
“Peak oars!”
Round came the boat’s head, the faces of its occupants now flooded with
light from the destroyer’s searchlight.
“All right, my man, I’ve got you!” exclaimed the young officer, as he
reached overboard for the patent buoy, to which hung a bedraggled,
almost exhausted figure.
But at the same instant he uttered a shout of alarm, and before the
horrified eyes of his startled crew he lost his balance and toppled
over the bow into the raging sea.
“He’ll sink like a shot in those rubber boots!” yelled Stanley.
“Thank goodness, he kicked ’em off before he went forward,” cried Ned,
who was at the stroke oar.
But even without the boots, the young officer was in dire peril. As
he was swept past the buoy he made a frantic grab for it, but his
fingers closed on the air. The contrivance, already burdened, was swept
from his reach. Ned never forgot that face as the middy was carried
by. In the glare of the searchlight every man in the boat could see
his distressed features as plainly as if he had been performing on a
lighted stage.
Suddenly Ned gave a shout. As a matter of fact, his outcry was
simultaneous with the sweeping past the boat of the struggling young
officer.
“You fellows keep her head to the seas!” he shouted above the voices of
the gale.
“What are you going to do?” demanded Herc, as Ned rapidly threw off
his oilskins and divested himself of his heavy boots. The young
man-of-war’s man stood poised in the stern for an instant of time,
and then, as a white face was borne by the boat once more, he plunged
overboard, his body cleaving the waves as neatly as a torpedo.
So quickly had it all happened that hardly a man in the boat but Herc
realized what the boy was going to do. Situated as they were, however,
there was no time to indulge in speculation. Handling the boat took
every ounce of energy and brain power they possessed. By a streak of
luck, however, the boat had, during all the excitement, been allowed to
drift to lee of the man clinging to the buoy. A wave literally smashed
him against the side of the boat, the buoy fortunately striking first
and taking off the force of the blow. In the flash of time accorded
him, the fellow took advantage of his opportunity and clutched the
gunwale. The next minute he was hauled aboard, dripping and almost
gone. A more grateful man could not have been found in the universe.
In the meantime, all sight of Ned and the middy had been lost. Not a
man aboard the boat had any idea of where to look for them in the wild
tumult about them. They might be struggling for their lives at almost
any point beyond the oarsmen’s ken.
The suspense was maddening to Herc. Strong swimmer as he knew Ned to
be, it was doubtful if, with the added burden of the middy, the boy
could battle for his life long.
Suddenly a cry came from Stanley, who was pulling the bow oar. The
wandering searchlight had, for an instant, shone upon two white faces
on the crest of a wave a short distance off. The man shouted his
information, and the boat was at once headed in that direction. All
this time water had been breaking into the little craft. There being
no time to bail, she was soon in a very loggy condition. As the three
oarsmen remaining in her strove, with every sinew in their bodies, to
urge her forward, she rode half lifelessly on the tumbling waters.
“There they are!” yelled Herc suddenly.
As he shouted a big wave bore down toward them, carrying with it two
figures. They were rushed by the boat in the dark swelter of waters.
Stanley leaned over, at imminent risk of the craft’s broaching to, and
seized one of them in a firm grasp. It was the limp, unconscious figure
of the midshipman, who had been torn from Ned’s rescuing arms.
Stanley’s fingers had hardly closed on the middy’s collar before Herc
reached over and grabbed his chum. He was just in time. Another instant
and Ned, whose strength was fast deserting him after his struggle to
rescue the middy, would have been borne far beyond hope of salvation.
But the simultaneous desertion of two oars, brief though it was, proved
disastrous to the boat. As a big gray-back swept down upon it, the
little craft broached to and filled with water to the gunwale.
“Overboard, everybody!” cried Stanley, setting the example and clinging
to the edge of the boat, his body being over the side. With one arm he
supported the rescued middy. The others followed his example. It was
cruel work for Ned, and he was glad to feel Herc’s strong arm at his
elbow as they clung to the helpless, water-logged boat.
“Say, looks like we’re goners!” exclaimed Herc, as he held tightly to
Ned.
“If the _Beale_ doesn’t hurry up, we are,” agreed Ned. “Wonder if
they’ve seen our plight?”
“Not yet, but here comes the searchlight.”
As Herc spoke the bright rays enveloped them. They fancied they could
hear a loud shout of consternation borne down on the wind toward them;
for by this time the destroyer was well up to the weatherward of the
half-sunk boat.
“Now, if they’ll only get us in their lee, they may get us out of this
yet,” exclaimed Ned.
“And that’s what they are going to do,” cried Herc jubilantly, as the
black form of the destroyer drew closer and closer. Her propellers were
backing her slowly. Her commanding officer was allowing the wind to
drift her down toward the submerged boat.
In this way it was hoped to form what sailors call a lee. That is, the
big form of the destroyer would be interposed between the wind and the
boat. In the comparative calm thus formed on her lee side, it was hoped
that it would prove feasible to get the castaways on board.
But those minutes of waiting were among the most trying any of them
had ever experienced. Time and again a monster wave would engulf the
half-sunk boat, submerging the clinging crew altogether.
At last, just as Ned’s strength seemed to be giving out, he saw above
him the black, glistening outline of the destroyer.
From somewhere far above him, as it seemed, a line came whistling
through the air. Exerting his remaining strength, he caught it and
made fast. He heard shouted commands above him and saw lights flitting
hither and thither.
All at once both boat and destroyer seemed to be picked up together
and hurled upward to the sky in a dizzy ascent. The next instant the
downward drop started. Ned felt his senses leaving him. In the midst
of a terrific crash, which he knew was the splintering of the helpless
boat against the _Beale’s_ steel sides, his senses went out.