Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 3, 2025
Mudge had a steering oar out; but the raft wabbled on the summit of the swell as though drunken. They saw the castaways upon the raft cowering helplessly. Then like a shot the white wave rode down upon them with the pallid storm-cloud overhead. The yawl was headed into the gale and the oarsmen pulled like mad. Mr. MacMasters yelled at them. They did their very best.
He was young and inexperienced, and he did not start for the rolling cylinder himself. Had it been Ensign MacMasters, Phil Morgan and his friends knew that he would have jumped for the bomb as he shouted the order. The two lookouts were not supposed to leave their positions at such a call; but it was a direct command.
Now and then they were completely overwhelmed with the seas; and always the craft plunged and kicked as though she actually had to fight for supremacy with each wave. As the bitter night crept on they wore around the Cape, and then, when it seemed safe to do so, Ensign MacMasters ordered the helm shifted and they edged farther in toward the land.
The wireless instrument aboard the steamer was of too narrow a radius to reach the superdreadnaught in her present position. Orders were soon repeated for the auxiliary craft to make for the battleship again, and laying the course for Ensign MacMasters to follow. There were storm signals flying; but the steamer was to keep near the shore until she got around Hatteras.
"Here's the yawl!" cried Whistler. "Where's Mr. MacMasters? And Rosy and Slim? And the others?" But when his eyes were well cleared of the water he beheld the entire crew of the yawl, including Ensign MacMasters, perched along the yawl's keel like a string of very much bedrabbled crows on a rail fence. Strangely enough the gale seemed to have lulled for the time.
Junior Lieutenant Perkins has come back to his command and we are only guests aboard," and Ensign MacMasters laughed. "We are about to have a taste of rough weather outside, too, I fancy. But our instructions are to make the port where the Kennebunk lies before the morning tide." "Has the submarine patrol boat, Eight-hundred-eighty-eight, come into the harbor, sir?"
The dangerous thing had yet to be held right there until Lieutenant Perkins ordered the submarine chaser headed up into the sea. Then the bomb could be removed to a place of safety. The whole affair had occupied seconds, that is all. But all felt as though an hour had passed! "Good boy, Morgan!" declared Ensign MacMasters, his face shining with approval. "Is the mate hurt badly?"
The yawl and raft got out into the open sea safely, and Mr. MacMasters steered for the harbor in which they expected to take refuge. The first island was long and narrow a mere windrow of rock and sand breaking the force of the sea. The huge combers coursing up its strand broke twenty feet high and offered nothing but utter destruction to any small craft that attempted a landing.
She said: "You-uns was blowed up in yon channel. And you lost your boat, ain't you?" "Crickey!" gasped Torry to Whistler. "She's a German a German with a southern accent! What do you know about that?" Meanwhile Mr. MacMasters was interrogating her to some purpose. "Have you seen others of our party?" he asked. "There were fourteen men and boys on a raft."
Within half an hour the fact that a huge steam craft was storming across the cutter's course could not be doubted. Mr. MacMasters gave some sharp orders to his men. The latter had nothing with them but the water-shrunk garments they stood in; so it took but a moment for Mr. Mudge to line them up properly along the rail.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking