“’Tis terrible that a great big man should be so feared. Now I’m sort o’ sorry for him. I daresay he needs ye badly on his ship, and so I’ll say no more about it, David.”
“Ye always see things right, once ye let your kind heart go,” he said tenderly. “And I can’t think that Uncle Whinn’ll play the coward if ever he’s really up against it. . . . And now, what about us two gettin’ married on my next leave?”
The Hesperus sailed a couple of days later. The outward voyage was completed without mishap or adventure, and she was within a day’s run of the home port when her end came.
After a brief but havoc-working bombardment, her helpless skipper gave orders to abandon ship, and signaled the enemy accordingly. There were two lifeboats,—the third had been smashed,—and in the natural course of things David would have been in charge of one of them. But Captain Whinn decreed otherwise.
“I want ye wi’ me,” he said to his nephew, as they came down from the tottering bridge. “Cast off!” he bawled at the boat whose crew included the second mate.
When they emerged, a couple of minutes later, he was wearing the belt, and his countenance was pale. But the young man’s was ghastly.
Now there were blurs of smoke on the horizon. Captain Whinn indicated them, remarking:
“A little bit too late. Poor old Hesperus!”
The blurs had evidently been observed from the U-boat also, for a “Hurry up!” came in the form of a shell aimed just high enough to clear the deck.
Skipper and mate went down the ladder, and the boat was cast off. At a safe distance, the rowers, at a sign from the skipper, lay on their oars. Speedily the U-boat put her victim into a sinking condition. During the operation Whinn neither moved nor spoke; seemingly he did not hear the several remarks softly addressed to him by his nephew. His face was set; all the skin blemishes stood out against the tan of many years, upon which had come a grayish pallor; there was moisture on his brow.
Then through the slightly ruffled sea the U-boat, her gunners’ job over, moved toward them. A hail came from the commander, a tall young man with an unslept, nervous look on his thin face.
“Come alongside, and look sharp about it. I want the captain,” he called.