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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
Ralph Henry Barbour's "For the Freedom of the Seas" is a compelling exploration of maritime adventure and the complexities of naval power at the turn of the 20th century. Through a vivid narrative style reminiscent of classic sea tales, Barbour employs rich imagery and fast-paced dialogue to draw readers into the world of sailors battling for autonomy against oppressive forces. Set against a backdrop of geopolitical tensions, the novel delves into themes of bravery, loyalty, and the indomitable human spirit, inviting readers to reflect on the broader implications of freedom at sea and its intrinsic link to national identity. Barbour, an accomplished author known for his sports novels and adventure tales, was influenced by his own experiences and the historical context of burgeoning naval conflicts during his lifetime. His background in journalism and a keen awareness of early 20th-century political dynamics inform the narrative'Äôs authenticity and depth. Barbour's passion for maritime history and storytelling is apparent, as he interweaves factual elements with engaging fictional characters, creating a tangible sense of urgency and realism within the novel. This book is a must-read for those interested in adventure literature, historical fiction, or maritime studies. Barbour's deft combination of thrilling plotlines and poignant themes makes "For the Freedom of the Seas" not only an entertaining read but also a thought-provoking examination of freedom, power, and human tenacity in the face of adversity. Anyone seeking a captivating narrative infused with historical significance will find themselves enthralled by this remarkable tale.
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For the freedom of the seas
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ITHE WAY OF THE HUN
The three-masted schooner Jonas Clinton was loafing along in a six-knot breeze some five hundred miles off the coast of France. For the time of year, the middle of October, the Atlantic in those latitudes was unusually docile and there was scarcely enough swell to slant the schooner’s deck. Overhead, a moon in its first quarter was playing hide-and-seek in a bank of purple-black clouds. The night—the ship’s clock in the cabin had just struck five bells—was so mild that the helmsman had not yet troubled to button his heavy reefer.
Light winds, or no wind at all, had been the Jonas Clinton’s fortune for a month. The eastward voyage had been made in twenty-two days, Boston to Havre, but once rid of her cargo of lubricating oil for the armies in France, she had been forced to swing at anchor for two weeks. At last, despairing of a fair wind, Captain Troy had had the schooner towed across to Falmouth, England. Another wait had followed, a delay especially regrettable when ships were scarce and freight rates high. But at last a brisk breeze had started the Jonas Clinton on her homeward voyage only to peter out at the end of the second day, leaving the skipper, who, as half owner in the ship, was deeply concerned in her fortunes, decidedly glum. The skipper’s frame of mind was reflected by everyone else aboard, from Mr. Cupples, the mate, down to the latest addition to the crew of eight, the tall, raw-boned Nova Scotian lad who, whatever his real name might be, was known as “Bean Pole”; though the gloom extended in a lesser degree to two inhabitants of the four hundred ton craft, Nelson Troy and Pickles.
These two were at the moment seated side by side on the forward hatch, as though awaiting this introduction. Nelson, Captain Troy’s son, was seventeen, a well-built, nice-looking lad who was making his second voyage in his father’s ship. He was down on the ship’s papers as apprentice, since a merchant vessel may not carry passengers, but his position as a member of the crew was nominal rather than actual. Not, however, that he didn’t take a hand when there was something to be done, for he had picked up a fair amount of sailoring, and, perhaps, had inherited a taste for it. He was a broad-shouldered, healthy boy, full of fun and very fond of Pickles.
Pickles was—well, Pickles was just Pickles. First of all, he was a dog. Beyond that I hesitate to go. Leo, the big, two-fisted Swede who had sailed with Captain Troy for seven years, declared that “he ban part wolf-dog an’ part big fool.” But that was scarcely fair to Pickles, because, no matter how mixed he was in the matter of breed, he was certainly no fool. Even Terry, the cook, acknowledged that. No dog capable of stealing a piece of mutton as big as his head from right under the cook’s nose can rightly be called a fool. And Terry didn’t call him a fool, although he applied several other names to him! Visibly, Pickles was yellow as to color, shaggy as to coat, loving and faithful as to disposition. For the rest, he was long-legged and big in the shoulders, and just too much for a lapful.
Captain Troy, keeping the first watch, came along the deck from the stern, a tall, rather gaunt figure in the dim light, and paused where Nelson and Pickles sat. The captain was well on toward fifty and had followed the sea, boy and man, for more than thirty years, just as his father and his father’s father before him had followed it. Several generations of Troys had been born within sight and sound of Casco Bay and had taken to the sea as naturally and inevitably as ducks take to water. The captain was a slow-speaking man, with a deep and pleasant voice that could, when occasion demanded, bellow like a liner’s fog-horn. He was a good Master, stern but never unjust, and a good father to the boy who sat there holding the front half of the dog across his knees. Nelson not only loved his father very deeply—how deeply he was very soon to realize—but he both admired and respected him. No one could make two trips over and back with Captain Troy, watching his handling of his ship, his behavior in moments of peril and his attitude toward the men under him, without feeling admiration and respect for the simple-minded, big-hearted, cool-thinking man. The fact that Nelson’s mother had died when he was eight years of age had focused all his affection on his father, and, since Nelson was an only child, had, on the other hand, concentrated all the captain’s love on him. Besides being father and son they were excellent companions, and neither was quite contented when away from the other.
The captain gazed up at the half-filled foresail. “I’m fearing it’s to be light winds all the way across,” he said. “I hate the thought of going into steam at my time of life, but there’s no denying that a couple of screws aft there would be a big help just now. If I knew where to pick up a small steamship I’m not sure I wouldn’t take her over, son, for the next voyage. It’s maddening to think of all the cargoes awaiting bottoms back home, and us wallowing along at five or six knots; and in ballast, at that!”
“Mustn’t be greedy, dad,” answered the boy, smiling up in the dark. “We made a pile of money this trip, didn’t we?”
“Money? Yes, we did pretty well,” replied the captain with satisfaction. “I’ve been blowing east and west, north and south most of my life, son, and this is nearly the first time that big money has come my way. We ain’t rich, and I’d like to see a bit more in the bank before I quit. You’ll be needing some, and so’ll I when I join the fireside fleet.”
“You needn’t worry about me, dad. I’m going to earn my own money in a year or two.”
“Maybe, but not so soon as that. You’re going to finish your education first, I’m hoping. I want you to have all the trimmings before you take the wheel. Have you thought any more about that college?”
“Not much,” owned the boy. “There have been so many other things to think about, you see.” His tone if not his words implied that the other things were far more interesting. “Anyway, there’s time enough. I’ll have to put in another year in high school, I suppose.” His voice dropped dismally at the end, and the captain chuckled.
“I guess you’re like all the Troys. There never was one of ’em I ever heard tell of that was much of a scholar. Your great-uncle Joab got to be a Judge of the Supreme Court, but I always suspicioned that he did it by keeping his mouth clamped down and not letting on to how little he really knew about the Law! That’s one trait the Troys have generally possessed, and it’s a good one.”
“What, not knowing much?” laughed the boy.
“Not saying much. There’s more men have talked themselves out of their jobs than you can shake a stick at. Just you remember that, son, and every time you’re tempted to say something when you ain’t got anything to say, you just clap the hatch on. And then,” he added, “sit on it, just as you’re doing now!” The captain craned his head a little for a look at the dim spread of the jib. “I’ll feel a sight easier,” he muttered, “when we’re five hundred miles further west.”
“You aren’t afraid of U-boats, are you, dad?” asked Nelson, smiling as he pulled at the dog’s ears.
“I’m not exactly afraid of them, no, but ‘accidents’ have happened before this, and I’m kind of fond of this little ship.”
“But, dad, we’re not at war with Germany. They wouldn’t——”
“Well, there was the William P. Frye,” replied the captain dryly. “They got her, didn’t they? And we weren’t at war with her then, neither. Any more than we were when they sank the Lusitania,” he added bitterly.
“But I’ve always thought that was—was different,” said Nelson, vaguely. “She was British, dad, and——”
“I know,” interrupted his father roughly. “She was British, but she had American citizens aboard, and Germany knew it. I’d rather you didn’t try to excuse Germany for that deed, son; I—I’m likely to lose my temper. Well, ain’t it most time you turned in? Or are you considering taking the graveyard watch to-night?”
“Oh, it isn’t really late yet,” laughed the boy. “It’s such a peachy night that I hate to go below. So does Pickles, don’t you, you old rascal?”
Apparently he did, for he wagged a stiff tail enthusiastically and burrowed his nose further into the crook of the boy’s arm.
“Well, don’t make it too late,” advised his father, turning away. “If I find you on deck at seven bells I’ll put you in the lazaret on hard tack and water for the rest of the voyage.” With which dire threat Captain Troy strode off toward the stern.
Left to themselves, boy and dog sat a few minutes longer, and then, finding that the breeze was seeking them out, arose. Nelson yawned deeply and Pickles wagged his tail, as they went sleepily aft to the companion. As Nelson’s head dropped below the deck level he caught an uncertain glimpse of his father’s form by the helmsman and a glowing speck that showed that Leo’s pipe was drawing well. Nelson shared his father’s cabin, and twenty minutes later he was sound asleep there, while Pickles, half under the bunk and half out, twitched his legs and made little sounds, dreaming, perhaps, that he was doing battle royal with some long-whiskered, squeaking denizen of the hold.
Seven bells had struck some time ago, when Nelson was midway between sleeping and waking, and now it was close on midnight. From across the passage came the deep snores of Mr. Cupples. The mate was a vigorous, hearty man even when he slumbered. In the dimly lighted captain’s cabin Pickles, having vanquished his adversary, sighed and stretched his long legs into new positions, without waking, and the boy above, dreaming, too, doubtless, muttered faintly in his sleep. And then——
And then he awoke to chaos!
The first disturbing sound had been a dull, crackling thud from somewhere forward, and the schooner had reeled and shivered with the shock as though she had driven head-on to a reef. The second sound had followed so close on the heels of the first that it had been virtually but a continuation of it. Nelson was never certain that he had heard the first sound at all, for he came fully awake with his ears fairly splitting with the awful concussion that shook the ship. The noise was beyond imagination, and yet so peculiar that he knew instinctively what it meant.
An explosion!
Confused, frightened, too, if the truth must be told, he struggled from his berth. The light was out. Somewhere in the darkness Pickles was whimpering. On deck were shouts and the rushing of heavy feet. The cabin floor slanted amazingly and Nelson, groping for the passage, found the door swung wide and had to pull himself through the aperture with a hand on each side of the frame. He remembered the dog then and called. But his heart was beating too loudly for him to know whether Pickles followed as, clinging to whatever his groping hands encountered, he made his way to the companion. As he set foot on the lowest step another rending shock shook the Jonas Clinton, and there was the sound of splintering wood and the crash of yards and tackle to the deck above.
He knew then. His father’s half-felt fear had not been unwarranted, it seemed. Nelson’s fright gave way to a swift flood of anger, and as he hastened on deck, he trembled with the tempest of his wrath.
Even in the moonlit darkness the little schooner presented a pitiable sight. She was already far down at the head. Her foremast was broken short off and the great foresail shrouded the deck and dragged over the side. The first shell from the unseen enemy had entered the hull aft the galley and just above the water-line and the succeeding explosion had opened the seams wide and piled the fore part of the ship with destruction. The second shot had gone high and taken the foremast ten feet from deck. As he looked, spellbound at the head of the companion, the schooner’s bowsprit disappeared under the surface and the stern, with its idly swinging, deserted wheel, rose higher against the purple-black sky. Amidship on the starboard side there was confused shouting and the squeak of tackle where a boat was being lowered. Nelson hurried toward it just as with a whine, a third shell passed the stern.
There were but four men at the boat. One was Mr. Cupples, the mate, and one was Leo. The other two were sailors whom the boy didn’t identify until later. He caught Mr. Cupples’ arm.
“Where’s dad?” he cried anxiously.
“Lower away! What? Is that you, Nelson? Are you hurt?”
“No, sir. Where’s father, sir?”
“In with you, quick, lad! There’ll be another shell on us in a minute.”
“But I want to know where dad is! I don’t see him!”
“He’s coming,” said Mr. Cupples gruffly. “Skippers stand by to the last, lad. Over you go now.”
“Well——!” And then Nelson remembered Pickles. He called him but got no answering bark nor sound of scampering feet. Pickles, then, was still below! He turned, deaf to the cries of the mate and the others, and hurried up the canted deck and plunged again into the after cabin.
“Pickles!” he called. “Pickles! Where are you?” And then he heard a whine, and went stumbling, falling into the little compartment where the floor was already an inch deep in sea water. For a moment he couldn’t find the dog, but then another whine led him right and he gathered the frightened animal in his arms and hastened out again, sobbing reassurances and endearments, and all the time panic-stricken with a terror he couldn’t formulate, but that had to do with the amazing fact that his father had not come for him. On deck again, he sped to the side. The little boat was in the water and as his head showed over the rail Mr. Cupples called to him to jump.
“Catch Pickles,” he answered, and dropped the dog. “Is father down there? Are you there, dad?”
But it was Leo who answered. “Sure, he ban here in boat. Yump, Nels!”
Nelson jumped—the distance now was but a few feet—and landed safely between thwarts. Oars dashed at the water and the boat headed away. Nelson, recovering himself, peered about. It seemed lighter here than on the schooner’s deck, and it took him but an instant to learn the truth. He leaped to his feet again despairingly.
Oars dashed at the water and the boat headed away.
“He isn’t here! You lied to me! Where is he?” he cried.
An arm pulled him back to the seat and Mr. Cupples’ voice came to him from the dimness, broken and husky.
“We couldn’t find him, Nelson. He must have been forward when the first shot hit us. I think he was—I’m afraid——” The mate’s voice trailed off into silence. A fourth shot struck the schooner. They could see the brief scarlet glare of the bursting shell and hear the havoc caused by the flying shrapnel. But Nelson neither saw nor heard. He was staring dumbly, agonizedly into the night, while Pickles, clasped close in his arms, whimpered his sympathy.
CHAPTER IIWITH THE COAST PATROL
The U. S. S. Wanderer plunged her nose into the blue-green waters of Nantucket Sound, tossed them high in glittering spray that rattled against the slanting glass of the little wheel-house—only they liked to call it the bridge on the Wanderer—and raced on at a good twenty knots, leaving a fine hillock of sea under her low taffrail and a long snow-white wake behind. It was a brisk, sunshiny morning in late April. A blue sky that held a half-cargo of cottony clouds grayed into mist at the horizon. A few points off the starboard bow Handkerchief Light Ship swayed her stumpy poles and marked the southern limit of the four mile shoal. Beyond, the sandy shore of Cape Cod glistened in the sunlight, and to port Nantucket Island came abreast.
The Wanderer was but ninety-six feet over all and was built with the slender proportions of a cigar. Barely more than a month ago she had been a private cruising yacht, but a fortnight in a Boston basin had changed her appearance greatly. Now she was the color of tarnished pewter from stem to stern, from keel to tip of signal pole. Her deck was bare save for a rapid fire gun at the bow and a three-pounder aft and a gray tender swung inboard amidships. Below, however, something of her former magnificence remained in the form of mahogany and egg-shell white and gold lines, but curtains and soft cushions and similar luxuries had been sternly abolished. She carried a personnel of fourteen, Naval Reserves all, for the Wanderer was listed as Number 167 of the Coast Patrol. Of the fourteen, two were commissioned officers, Lieutenant Hattuck and Ensign Stowell, five were petty officers and the rest were seamen, if we except that worthy and popular personage “Spuds,” whose real name was Flynn and whose rating was that of ship’s cook of the fourth class.
The commander was an ex-Navy man, his junior a yachtsman of experience. The chief machinist had come from a Great Lakes freighter and his mate had run a ferry in Portland Harbor. Some of the others were ex-service men, but the electrician was just out of the Radio School and three of the seamen had been swinging their hammocks in the barracks at Newport a month ago. Of the latter trio, one was a well set-up youth of barely eighteen, with a pair of very blue eyes and a good-looking face set in rather serious lines. There was something about the lad that impressed one with a sense of ability and determination; or perhaps it was a number of things, such as the firm molding of his chin, the straight set of his mouth, the back-throw of his broad shoulders or the quiet, direct way of speaking. In the ten days that the Wanderer had been on duty most of its occupants had come into nicknames, or had brought them with them, and this boy was known as “Chatty.” It was Cochran, GM2C, who had labeled him the first night at sea when, clustered in the tiny forward cabin that served as forecastle, those off watch had proceeded to get acquainted. The boy, a second class seaman, had had so little to say that the gunner’s mate had finally turned on him with a sarcastic: “Say, Jack, you’re a chatty guy, aren’t you? Come across with a few words, just to show there’s no hard feeling!” For the rest of the evening Cochran had addressed him as “Chatty” and the nickname had stuck. Now, aside from the officers, it is doubtful if anyone aboard knew the boy’s real name.
That one at least of the officers did was proved presently when Ensign Stowell turned from listening to Cochran’s lecture on the mechanism of the bow gun delivered to “Spuds,” Hanson, radio man, and Jaynes, chief machinist, and stopped in the lee of the deck-house where “Chatty” was leaning against the life-buoy that hung there and gazing thoughtfully across the sun-flecked water to the distant green expanse of Nantucket.
“Well, Troy,” said the Ensign, “seen any periscopes yet?”
Sighting a periscope was an over-used joke in the patrol service those days, but it usually brought a smile, just as it did now.
“Not yet, sir. I’d like to.”
The officer laughed. “By Jove, so would I! But I guess you and I’ll have to cross the briny before we have any such luck as that. You came from the Newport Station, didn’t you? What do they say there about getting across? The Reserves, I mean.”
“A good many have gone, sir. There was a detail of seventy left the day I did. They were to go to Halifax and board a transport for the other side. Nothing was known beyond that, but the general idea was that they were to be sprinkled around the destroyers over there.”
The officer sighed. “I’ve done my best to make it, but this is what I drew. Oh, well, something may happen even here. You know the Smith’s men stick to it that they dodged a torpedo off the Maine coast the other day.”
The boy smiled again, and the Ensign, watching, chuckled. “Just my idea,” he agreed, although the other hadn’t spoken. “Still, it would be something to even think you saw a ‘fish,’ eh? There’d be a dime’s worth of excitement in that! How did you happen to go into the Reserves, Troy?”
“I wanted to get into action, sir, and the folks I talked with thought I’d get there quicker if I enlisted in the Reserves than in the Navy. I’m not so sure now, though. Maybe I made a mistake.” The Wanderer called gruffly twice to a tug ahead and the tug unhurriedly replied. Ensign Stowell spoke to the man at the wheel, through the open door of the house, and turned back again.
“Blessed if I can tell you,” he answered. “Looks to me, though, as if they were going to need every man they can get before this shindy is over. Well I hope they’ll shove me over before long! I didn’t count on serving in a two-by-twice motor boat. Have you been to sea much?”
“I made two trips on a sailing vessel, sir, with my father. The last time was in the Fall. The Germans got her.”
“Got her! You mean sank her? Where was this? What ship was she?”
“The Jonas Clinton, sir. We were shelled about five hundred miles from the coast on the voyage back.”
“The Clinton! Of course, I remember that! So you were the captain’s son that was picked up by a British destroyer, eh? I remember reading about it. That was in November, wasn’t it?”
“October, sir: the sixteenth when we were picked up. They got the schooner about midnight of the fourteenth.”
“Yes, yes, they found four of you in a small boat——”
“Five, sir, and a dog.”
“Was it five? I remember about the dog. The papers made a sort of hero of you, didn’t they? Had you risking your life to get the dog off, or something.”
“The papers,” replied Nelson Troy gravely, “printed a good deal that wasn’t so. I couldn’t very well leave Pickles behind, you see. And I guess there wasn’t much danger.”
“But, I say, Troy, your father!” The ensign’s voiced dropped sympathetically. “He was lost, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m sorry I rattled on so about it! I’d forgotten that. By Jove, I don’t blame you for wanting to get a whack at those murderers! You had a hard time, boy. Was your father killed outright?”
Nelson’s eyes closed slightly and two vertical creases appeared above his straight nose. “I don’t think so, sir. You see, they couldn’t find him. Mr. Cupples, the mate, thought he might have been forward when the first shell struck and been knocked overboard. And I suppose that’s the way it was, but dad was a good swimmer, and unless he was wounded first I don’t see why we didn’t find him. That shell cleaned out the forecastle and killed five of the crew, but it couldn’t have hit anyone on deck, as I figure it. Dad might have been standing square over where the shell burst, perhaps. It’s a sort of a mystery, sir, and I don’t know what to think, only—somehow—I can’t make up my mind that he’s dead.”
“Perhaps not,” replied the other thoughtfully. “It’s just as well to keep on hoping. He may turn up some day. Still, there’s this to consider, Troy. If he was knocked into the sea and was picked up you would have heard from him long before this.”
“Unless he was picked up by the U-boat that attacked us,” answered the boy quietly.
“By the U-boat? Why, yes, that’s possible, of course. Do you know whether she searched the schooner before she sank her?”
“We couldn’t be sure, sir. She didn’t show any lights, of course, but it was sort of half moonlight, and after we’d rowed off about two miles we thought we saw something approach the schooner. We didn’t stay around long, because we were afraid they would see us and start shelling.”
“I see. But you stood by the ship long enough to have rescued your father if he had been afloat, eh?”
“Yes, sir, we rowed around for about fifteen minutes. Then the shells were getting pretty thick and the sailors wouldn’t stay any longer so we rowed out of range. That’s what I don’t understand. If dad wasn’t on board, and Mr. Cupples says they searched all over for him, he must have been in the water. But we couldn’t find him there, and——” The boy’s voice trailed into silence.
The ensign laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “He might have been there, just the same,” he said hopefully. “Stranger things have happened. I don’t suppose he was wearing a life-belt.”
“No, sir, none of us were. We didn’t really expect any trouble, although dad had his mind on it that night. I remember his saying he’d be easier when we were out of the submarine zone. But I no more expected what happened than—than nothing at all!”
“Of course you didn’t! Who would? Oh, wait till we get a shot at them! We’ve got a lot of scores to pay off, Troy, and, by the Great Horned Spoon, we’ll do it! Now I understand why you’re so eager for service, Troy, and I hope you’ll soon get across where things are happening. I know that we’re taught that revenge is sinful, but——”
The ensign shook his head.
“I don’t think it is exactly revenge I want,” replied Nelson thoughtfully. “Killing a thousand Germans wouldn’t bring dad back, if he’s really—gone, but things like that aren’t right, sir, and I’d like to do my share in stopping them. No nation should be allowed to act like a pirate, to attack neutral ships on the high seas and murder defenseless men. But of course you can’t teach nations of that sort by just talking to them; you’ve got to hurt them first. That, as I figure it, is why we’ve gone into this war, sir. Anyway, I guess it’s why I’ve gone into it.”
“Right! ‘For the Freedom of the Seas!’ That’s our motto, and before we’re done we’ll write it big over every ocean, Troy. And across the sky we’ll write ‘Humanity!’” The ensign ceased abruptly, smiled as though at his own earnestness, and nodded. “Good luck, Troy. You’ve got the right idea, son.”
He passed aft and disappeared down the companion that led to the officers’ quarters, leaving Nelson again to his thoughts. But after a moment he shook them off, left the lee of the bridge and went forward. Cross Rip Light Ship was nearly abeam now and Martha’s Vineyard was coming fast across the flashing water. Staples, seaman gunner, was lavishing good vaseline on the bow gun and singing a song as he worked. He broke off at Nelson’s approach and nodded gayly.
“Think I’ll ever have a chance to point this little toy, Chatty?” he asked. “Say, wouldn’t it surprise those chaps on the light ship to drop a shell alongside? I’d like to do it just to see ’em jump! What’s on the luff’s mind today, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” replied Nelson. “We’re making for New Bedford, though. There was a lot of sizzling in the radio room an hour ago.”
“Maybe someone saw a porpoise,” hazarded Staples. “And this is what I left a happy home for! Well, it’s a fine, free life, with nothing to do but work. There, if anyone finds any rust on that gun it won’t be my fault. Isn’t it most time for grub?”
“Pretty near, but I guess they’ll wait till we’re at anchor.”
“Great Scott! What’s the big idea? Don’t they know I’m hungrier than a shark? Anchored be blowed! Why, that’ll be the middle of the afternoon!”
“Not at this rate, Lanky. We’re doing twenty and New Bedford’s only about thirty-five miles.”
“Yeah, and it’s seven bells now,” replied Staples disconsolately. “Some folks haven’t any heart at all. I’m so near starved I could eat that grease!”
“I guess that would fetch about five dollars in Germany,” said Nelson, “if what we hear is so. They’d probably butter their bread with it.”
“It’s a sight better spread than they deserve,” grunted the gunner. “Axle grease is what those criminals ought to have. Help me with this jacket, will you?”
Nelson lent a hand and the canvas covering was drawn back over the gun and laced tight. Staples wiped his hands thoughtfully on a bunch of waste. “Know what I’d rather have happen than a plate of beans and a quart of coffee, Chatty?” he asked, gazing westward over the plunging bow. Nelson didn’t and said so. “Well, I’d rather see a U-boat come up right over where that gull’s dipping. That’s my rather.”
“You’re likely to see it,” laughed Nelson.
“Why shouldn’t I?” demanded the other. “What’s the use of us fellers kiting around here if there’s never going to be any fun? Mark my words, Chatty, some day you’re going to be surprised. Government isn’t paying us wages to give us sea trips. Not by a long shot! We’re here because we’re needed here. It’s Lanky Staples that’s telling you!”
