a line of splashing waves. Overhead on deck
the twelve-pounders were barking out a series of ear-splitting
reports--much as a terrier might yap defiance at a cobra over the
stricken body of its master.

"I think our number's up, old thing." Thorogood bent and slipped his
arms under the surgeon's body. "Shove your arms round my neck. . . .
Steady!--hurt you? Heave! Up we go!" A Midshipman, ascending the
hatchway, paused and turned back. Then he ran towards them, spattering
through the water that had already invaded the flat.

"Still!" sang a bugle on deck. There was an instant's lull in the
stampede of feet overhead. The voices of the officers calling orders
were silent. The only sounds were the lapping of the waves along the
riven hull and the intermittent reports of the quick-firers. Then came
the shrill squeal of the pipes.

"Fall in!" roared a voice down the hatchway. "Clear lower deck! Every
soul on deck!" The bugle rang out again.

Thorogood staggered with his burden across the buckled plating of the
flat, and reached the hatchway. The Midshipman who had turned back
passed him, his face white and set. "Here!" called the Lieutenant from
the bottom of the ladder. "This way, my son! Fall in's the order!"
For a moment the boy glanced back irresolute across the flat, now ankle
deep in water. The electric light had been extinguished, and in the
greenish gloom between decks he looked a small and very forlorn figure.
He pointed towards the wreckage of the after-cabin, called something
inaudible, and, turning, was lost to view aft.

"That's the 'Pay's' cabin," said the Doctor between his teeth. "He was
a good friend to that little lad. I suppose the boy's gone to look for
him, and the 'Pay' as dead as a haddock, likely as not."

Thorogood deposited the Surgeon on the upper deck, fetched a lifebuoy,
and rammed it over the injured man's shoulders. "God forgive me for
taking it," said the latter gratefully, "but my fibula's cracked to
blazes, an' I love my wife . . ."

All round them men were working furiously with knives and crowbars,
casting off lashings from boats and baulks of timber on the booms,
wrenching doors and woodwork from their fastenings--anything capable of
floating and supporting a swimmer. The officers were encouraging the
men with words and example, steadying them with cheery catch-words of
their Service, ever with an eye on the forebridge, at the extreme end
of which the Capta