Chapter X: Dave Falls Asleep

Time passed. They rested at intervals and, having rested, swam again. Gradually the fear of recapture passed. The moon was gone and the limitless expanse of ocean was dark and submarine and prey were swallowed in the gloom. They talked infrequently, conserving their breath for the struggle for life. Always they listened for the sound of oars and peered into the gray darkness with straining eyes. The small boats from the steamship must be within a few miles, they argued, and they longed for daylight. Gradually the eastern sky paled, then flushed with rose and the sea became dimly visible in that direction. They swam straight for the coming day, not hurriedly, but with slow, even strokes that required a minimum of exertion. Pete had got his second wind or had discovered a less exhausting way of breathing. Swimming with life-vests on was more difficult than had at first appeared, for the garments had a tendency to float them too high in the water. Dave let some of the air from his, but it didn’t help much. As the sea and sky lightened they searched anxiously for boats, but, although now and then the crest of a distant wave, darker than others, set their hearts leaping, they saw none. Daylight came fast, having once announced itself. The western rim of the ocean faded from darkness to dusk, from dusk to pearly gray. In the east the tender tint of rose changed to yellow and, like a miracle, it was day! The orange rim of the sun pushed itself above the horizon’s curve and dyed the tips of the little waves with strange metallic colors. A tern cried overhead and swooped downward to splash against the water and go beating up again, having found its breakfast. But save for the bird, daylight came up over an empty world.

“Those boats must have gone in the other direction,” said Dave, as they rested again, with the pale sunlight dazzling their eyes with its long beams. “But I don’t see why, Pete. The nearest land must be the French coast, and that’s eastward.”

“Maybe the Huns sunk the lot of ’em,” replied the other grimly. “That’s a favorite trick of theirs.”

“But we’d have heard the guns,” objected Dave. Pete nodded.

“Yeah, that’s so, too. Well, I don’t know much about this part o’ the world, Kid. Ain’t there anythin’ but France lyin’ around here?”

“It depends on where we are, of course. I figure that we must be somewhere west of France and south of Ireland. Maybe we’re making a mistake in swimming east, Pete. Maybe we ought to go north. If we’re nearer Ireland――”

“I guess it don’t cut much ice which way we swim,” said Pete. “The best we can do is keep afloat. How you feelin’?”

Dave considered a moment. Then: “I’m tired,” he answered. “But I guess I’m good for another hour or two’s swimming.”

“I’m not. Besides, what good’s it going to do us, Kid? We’re just as likely to get picked up here as two miles away. Best thing for us is to take it easy and not get all tuckered. I’m beginnin’ to think we’d ought to have stayed where we was, Kid. It don’t look good to me.”

Dave said nothing. It didn’t look good to him, either. It would have been very easy for him to have given way to panic just then. But he took a grip on himself and once more raised himself from the water and stared in all directions over the glinting waves. Something that was surely not a green crest caught his attention. It looked to be the better part of a mile away, and, having found it, he straightway lost it again between the waves. It was fully a minute before it came into sight a second time, and he saw that it was, if not actually a boat, at least some floating object that promised aid. They made toward it with weary muscles. It appeared to be drifting slowly southward, and presently they had to alter their course in accordance. Gradually it became clearer, and they could determine that it was not a boat, since it lay too low in the water. It seemed hours before they at length reached it. When they did it resolved itself into a hatch cover some eight feet long by six wide. It was painted buff and had a figure 3 in one corner in black. It was several minutes before Dave was able to pull himself over the edge and lie sprawling on the curved surface. Then he reached a hand to Pete, and the latter squirmed, panting hard, out of the water. They stretched themselves face down on the wet surface and lay there silent and motionless for a long time. The hatch made an unquiet raft, for with their weights on it it lay low in the sea and tilted and tossed continually. It was never for an instant dry, since the waves washed across it, but they had no fault to find with it, you may be certain.

I think each of them drowsed a little, with the sunlight warming their chilled bodies, and then Dave sat up cautiously and Pete regarded him dazedly for a moment and grinned slowly.

“Not so worse, Kid!” he sighed. “A little damp, but Oh, boy!”

“If we could only hoist something, Pete,” said Dave. “I’m afraid we don’t show up very plain.”

“There’s nothin’ to hoist and nothin’ to hoist it on. We got to keep our eyes peeled an’ when we see a ship we got to stand up, one o’ us, an’ wave a shirt. You lie down an’ rest your hands an’ face, Kid, an’ I’ll be lookout for awhile.”

“No, you’re more tired than I am,” replied Dave. “You go to sleep and I’ll do the ‘spotting.’”

Pete demurred at first, but finally consented. “If I roll off, Kid,” he muttered, closing tired eyes, “fish me out, but don’t wake me, see?” In less than a minute he was snoring deeply, sprawled out on his back. Dave, swaying with the short toss of the hatch cover, watched for smoke or sail, his own eyes threatening to close every moment. The sun climbed higher and higher. His watch had stopped again at a little after four, and he had to guess at the time and guessed half-past eight. A myriad of tiny black birds swept overheard, rising and falling, and disappeared against the blue of the sky. A gray mist hid the horizon now, but there were few clouds in sight. After an hour or so Pete awoke of his own accord and Dave slept. When he returned to consciousness the sun was well overhead.

“You know what’s goin’ to get us, Kid,” observed Pete, soberly, “is thirst. I could drink a bucket of water this minute and not know I’d had it.”

“Shut up,” said Dave. “I was trying to forget it. How long can a fellow go without water, Pete?”

“I don’t know. Seven days, is it? No, that’s a camel. Wish I was one o’ ’em! It’s gettin’ mighty hot, too, Kid. That don’t help much, take it from Pete!”

Talk lapsed. Thirst increased as the sun beat more hotly upon them. What breeze there was came from the southeast, and was too faint to afford much relief. They took turns at lying face-downwards to relieve their eyes from the incessant glare and glitter of the dancing waves. The afternoon, between two and four, was more intolerable than the morning hours. They laved their heads and faces with salt water at intervals, or held their wrists under. There was no sleepiness now; only a languor that made movement, or even conversation, distasteful. After a long, long while their shadows began to lengthen across the raft and the breeze strengthened. Their mouths were dry and salty, and talking, when they felt any inclination toward it, was difficult. Peter said his tongue was getting too big for his mouth.

They searched the horizon continually, but without result. Once a faint smudge of something that might possibly have been smoke showed against the haze to the west, but it was gone almost before Pete had drawn Dave’s attention to it. Shortly before sunset the breeze dwindled again to a mere breath. They experienced no hunger, but had queer, sharp pains inside them. They were beginning to lose hope of rescue now, although neither said so. About eight o’clock Pete dozed off, and Dave, feeling very lonely and despondent, sat and watched the shadows grow in the hollows of the waves. The change from the extreme heat of the sun to the chill of evening made him shiver in his damp clothes. He lay down to escape what breeze was stirring and the water that washed over the curving surface of the hatch seemed warm in comparison. He closed his eyes for an instant and must have slept, for when he awoke, startledly, the daylight had almost gone. Pete was leaning above him and shaking him hard.

“Wake up, Kid! We’re all right! See who’s here!”

Pete’s words were thick and difficult to make out, but the tone of them told enough to make Dave sit up quickly and peer about him in the gray twilight. Black against the lingering radiance of the western sky, so close that he could hear voices on deck, floated a long, slim destroyer, while, halving the distance, was a small boat, heading straight toward them.

Dave tried to speak, but for a moment his swollen tongue and dry lips made no sound. When he did make himself heard his voice was only a mumble.

“Is she――German?” he managed to ask.

“German!” babbled Pete, thickly. “No, sir, she’s good old U. S. A., Kid! And,” he added with an attempted laugh that sounded like a croak of a raven, “we’re back home!”

“Back home?” repeated Dave, confusedly.

“Sure! A United States deck’s United States territory, ain’t it? And, listen, Kid, there’s water over there! Fine, wet water! Oh, boy!”

Ten minutes later their troubles were over. They were heaped under blankets in two narrow bunks and their parched throats had known the blessed joy of a few sips of water. A young medical officer with an ensign’s grade was in stern authority.

“You can have more presently,” he said. “Keep those blankets up to your chin, you freckled face fellow! What’s that? Food? Oho, I guess there’s not much the matter with you, then! Yes, you’ll get some broth after a while. Now just stow the talk and keep quiet.”

They must have obeyed, for when Dave opened his eyes again the destroyer’s engines were clattering and thumping busily and the ship was swaying at a fine rate. Some one was playing on an accordion further along the deck, and Dave, smiling contentedly, murmured the words to the merry tune: “Where do we go from here, boys, where do we go from here?” Then:

“Pete!” he called above the clamor of the engines and the creaking of the hull.

“Hello?”

“Awake?”

“Sure!”

“How are you feeling?”

“Dry! Hungry, too! I could eat a raw dog!”

“So could I,” answered Dave, and was quite convinced that he meant it. “What time is it, do you think?”

“Search me! And I don’t care. But if some guy don’t fetch me somethin’――”

“Pour this into your lockers,” said a voice. It was the medical officer again, and with him was a man in a soiled white jacket who balanced bowls of steaming broth. They ate ravenously――or drank, if you prefer――and then were allowed nearly a half cup of water apiece. And after that Pete found his voice again.

“Gee, but that was great, sir!” he said. “Do I get any more?”

“Yes, in the morning,” answered the ensign, dryly. “And in the morning you can tell me how you came to be floating around the sea on a hatch cover, wearing German uniforms!”

“Easy, sir! I’ll tell you all about it now.”

“No, you’ll go to sleep,” laughed the doctor.

“Yes, sir,” answered Pete very obediently. “But will you tell me what ship this is that we’re on, please?”

“This is the _Lothrop_. Where did you drop over from?”

“We was on Chaser _944_, sir, an’――”

“The _944_?” exclaimed the ensign. “Why, we convoyed her into Queenstown day before yesterday. She’d been in a scrap with a Hun, she reported, and was a bit knocked about. Lost her after-house and had a hole knocked in her side. Well, we’ll put you back on her in the morning, for we’re making Queenstown now. We’ve just picked up Fastness Light. Now you’d better go to sleep, the two of you. Good night, boys.”

“Good night, sir, and thank you!”

Presently: “Did you hear that, Dave?” asked Pete.

But there was no answer from the bunk above. Pete chuckled to himself. “The Kid’s asleep,” he muttered. “Won’t he be surprised when he wakes up an’ sees the little old _944_ lyin’ alongside? Some boat, the little old _944_, take it from Pete! Some Kid, too. Plucky little guy. Him an’ me showed the Huns a trick, didn’t we, Petey? Huh? An’ we got a lot more tricks, too, ain’t we? Sure ... we ... have! Lots ... more....”

Then there was silence in the lower bunk.