The other craft had ceased firing. She was coming up quickly, and could now be distinguished as a British E-cla.s.s destroyer.
Suddenly the doomed vessel gave a roll to starboard, flung her stern in the air, and with her triple propellers racing madly, disappeared from sight, leaving a heavy pall of smoke to mark the spot when she sank.
"We must pick up those fellows," announced Kenneth, pointing to about twenty heads bobbing in the water. "I"ll slow down as close as I can.
Mind your wrist, Rollo."
Three minutes later all the crew of the motor-boat were busily engaged in hauling half-drowned, and for the most part wounded, German seamen into their craft, till eleven men, the sole survivors of the luckless torpedo-boat, were rescued.
"You Belgians?" asked one, in broken French, when he saw the lads"
uniforms. "Good! We surrender to you."
"You"ll be transferred to that vessel," said Kenneth, pointing to the now close British destroyer.
"No, they will shoot us," exclaimed the terrified man.
"Nonsense!" replied Kenneth. "British seamen are not like----" He was on the point of saying "Germans", but pulled himself up and added "pirates".
Nevertheless the German seamen were not easily rea.s.sured. Their officers had impressed upon them that the British navy took no prisoners, and they firmly believed it.
"Motor-boat ahoy! What craft is that?" sang out a lieutenant, as the British destroyer reversed her engines and came to a standstill at her own length from the little vessel. It was a grand, inspiring sight to the refugees to see the White Ensign floating proudly from the mast-heads of the destroyer. Practically untouched in her duel with her antagonist, she looked as spick and span as when she first commissioned at Chatham Dockyard, only a week previously.
"We"re British in the Belgian service: refugees from Antwerp," replied Kenneth.
"We thought you were one of our Motor-boat Reserve craft in difficulties," said the officer. "Luckily we heard the firing, and closed to investigate. We"ll take charge of your prisoners; can you run alongside?"
Stalwart bluejackets, stripped to their singlets, and grimy stokers crowded to the stanchion rails to watch the transhipment of the captured Germans.
"Do you want a pa.s.sage back to Sheerness?" asked the lieutenant.
"If you wouldn"t mind taking my sister and her friend," replied Kenneth, "we"ll stick to the motor-boat."
"But you"re both wounded," exclaimed the officer. "Come aboard, all of you. We"ll make you as comfortable as we can, considering we are cleared for action."
"But the boat?" protested Kenneth; for, having carried them so far, it seemed hard lines that she would have to be abandoned.
"Don"t worry about that," said the lieutenant. "I"ll put an artificer and a couple of men aboard, and let them run her into the Medway."
The genial officer courteously a.s.sisted Thelma and Yvonne over the side. Rollo followed with a fair amount of agility, considering his disabled wrist. Lastly Kenneth left his first command.
As he gained the corticened decks of the destroyer he pulled himself up and thankfully saluted the diminutive quarter-deck, on which floated the White Ensign--the emblem of freedom. Then a grey mist swam before his eyes and he felt himself falling.
Two days later there was a happy reunion at an hotel at Sheerness.
Summoned by telegraph, all the members of the Barrington and Everest families who were not employed on active service hastened to welcome home their young heroes. With them came Major Resimont, now well on the road to recovery, and for the time being a guest of Mr. Everest.
"I should think you lads have had enough of this terrible war,"
remarked Mrs. Everest at the conclusion of their narrative.
"We"ve only seen the beginning," declared Kenneth gravely. "As soon as this little hurt of mine has healed, I want to go back."
"And I too," added Rollo.
Colonel Barrington flushed with pride.
"Of course," he said, "it ought to be a fairly simple matter, considering your experience, to get a commission. It is merely a case of applying to the War Office."
"And undergoing six months" training at home, pater?"
"Presumably."
"By that time the war may be over," said Kenneth. "In any case we will be out of it for six months. What do you say, Rollo?"
"We"ve put our hand to the plough, old man. I vote, as soon as we are able, we rejoin our old regiment. The 9th of the Line is now between Ostend and Nieuport, sir?"
"I believe so," replied Major Resimont.
"Then that settles it, unless our people raise serious objection,"
declared Kenneth resolutely. "As long as we have health and strength we will take our places with our comrades of the 9th, until Belgium is freed from the grey-clad troops of Germany."