getting off by itself.

The same tactics were to be followed as had been used on the day when
the battleship went aground; that is, firing when the ship was
traveling at full speed, about seventeen knots an hour.

The red-headed boy was retained on shipboard to attend to the
wig-wagging, Dan going out in the motor boat with an engineer and
coxswain.

"Red flag up!" shouted Dan. "Keep clear of the course."

The ship's siren blew, and soon they saw the path made by the marine
monster heading off in their direction. Dan, in the motor boat, was
near the extreme end of the range.

"Better sheer off, coxswain, because you can't tell where the old
torpedo is going when it gets near the end of its run. There she goes."

The torpedo took a long dive at an angle of about forty-five degrees
from her course.

"Look where she's going!"

Off in the direction that the projectile was headed was a fleet of
fishermen in small boats, tending to their nets, which were scattered
over an area of a quarter of a mile, standing almost end to end.

"Head toward them, head toward them! We must warn them!"

The coxswain was a seaman, not a coxswain by appointment, and he did
not appear to be as familiar with the work as he might have been. The
regular coxswain of the motor boat was in the sick bay, though Dan did
not know this.

"Torpedo heading your way! Look out for her!" he shouted with hands to
mouth. "Pull out, men; pull out for your lives!"

The fishermen looked at the Battleship Boy, standing poised on the
plunging bow of the motor boat, wondering if he had gone crazy.

"Pull out, I tell you! There she comes!"

The motor boat was driving; ahead full speed.

"They'll be hit, sure as fate," groaned the boy. "They can't see her
because they are so low in the water."

A yell from the fishermen told him that they had made sudden discovery
of their peril. Dan, with his wig-wag flag, motioned to them to
separate at a certain point. For a wonder they understood and laid to
their oars in great haste.

All at once from the water right at the side of one of the fishing
boats the torpedo emerged. It missed the boat by a matter of inches
only, but the tail of the projectile hooked the keel. Like a flash the
fishing boat turned over and the men were scrambling in the water.

"Drive in there, full speed!" commanded Dan.

"We'll get fouled in the fish nets."

"Never mind the nets. Those men may drown. Drive in there,