s closed over his head.

CHAPTER XIV

G 2

Gasping with the sudden shock, Ken struck out and got his head above
water. Only a few yards away, he saw Roy still clinging tightly to the
survivor of the dinghy's crew. He swam hard towards him and managed to
reach him.

'You!' gasped Roy, who hardly seemed to have realised what had happened.

'The trawler's gone,' panted Roy, as he lifted one hand and dashed the
salt water from his eyes. 'Big shell got her. See, she's still afloat, but
sinking fast.'

Roy gave a groan. He seemed to be nearly at the end of his strength.

'The brutes!' he muttered.

'We must get hold of the dinghy again. It's our one chance,' said Ken.
'Here, let me help you with that chap.'

'Why, it's Gill,' he exclaimed, as he caught the man by the other arm, and
started paddling hard towards the dinghy, which, caught in the current,
was drifting steadily away southwards.

It was at this moment that the searchlight switched suddenly off. Darkness
shut down around them, leaving nothing in sight but the overturned boat, a
dim bulk among the dull ripples.

Roy was almost done as the result of the exertions he had made in holding
up Gill, and Gill himself weighted them terribly. For two minutes or more
Ken thought they would never reach the boat.

At last they managed it, and then they had only just strength enough left
to haul Gill up across it and, each with an arm across the keel, cling and
let themselves drift where the current took them.

'The skipper said it was out of the frying pan into the fire,' said Roy,
with a weak attempt at a laugh. 'He wasn't far out, eh, Ken?'

'He wasn't,' Ken agreed. 'I say, Roy, he had pluck, hadn't he? It took
grit to stand by the "Swan" under a fire like that.'

'It did,' said Roy. 'God rest his soul,' he added softly.

Silence fell between them. Ken's spirits were sinking in spite of his best
efforts to keep them up. The sea was deadly cold, and the boat so small
that they were only just able to keep their heads above water. And they
knew, both of them, that their chances of life were not one in a thousand.

They were right out in mid-straits, they were still fully nine miles from
the southern entrance, and even if a British warship should come up to see
what had happened to the trawlers, the odds were enormous against her
people spotting them.

Ken strained his eyes through the gloom, but could neither see nor hear
any other craft. The waters