Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns Part 24

Mr. MacMasters yelled at them. They did their very best. The sleet whipped their shoulders like a thousand-lashed knout. The darkness of the tempest shut down upon them and the raft was instantly lost to sight.

"Frenchy! Ikey!" Whistler Morgan gasped, and Torry heard him.

But they could do nothing to aid their chums. Duty in any case held them to their work. They pulled with the very last ounce of strength they possessed.

The yawl's head was kept to the wind and sea; but it was doubtful if she made any progress.

"Pull, men! Pull!" shouted the ensign again and again.

He inspired them, and perhaps their straining at the oars did keep the yawl from overturning at that time. Yet such ultimate fate for it seemed unavoidable. The wind and sea lashed it so furiously that Whistler told himself he would not have been surprised if the boat and crew were driven completely under the surface.

He had seen a good bit of bad weather before this; but nothing like what they suffered at this time. The warring elements fairly bruised their bodies. Sometimes the boys felt themselves pounded so viciously between the shoulders that they could scarcely draw their breaths.

Now and then, above the tumult of the tempest, the ensign's voice encouraged them. Whistler, sitting three yards away, could not see the officer at all.

Then, with the unexpectedness that is the greatest danger of these off-sh.o.r.e gales, the wind changed once more. It snapped around in a moment to due west. The cross seas lashed the yawl impetuously.

Whistler heard an oar snap. The man behind him fell upon his back in the bottom of the yawl. His broken oar entangled with Whistler's, and the latter lost stroke.

There was a yell from the ensign. Whistler heard Al Torrance shriek. The next moment the yawl rolled completely over, and he was struggling in the sea and in the pitchy darkness underneath the overturned boat!

CHAPTER XIX

COINCIDENCE

Whistler kept cool in his mind. As far as his body went, that was icy.

He knew that, after all, he was personally in less danger than those who had been thrown far from the boat. He could hear nothing of what went on outside; the rolling and plunging of the overturned yawl continued.

Where had Torry gone? And the ensign, and the other members of the yawl's crew? Once Whistler had spent a long time in the sea, drifting about on a hatchcover; having been saved from that perilous adventure, he was not likely easily to give up hope now.

There was air enough under the overturned yawl, and he knew her water-tight compartments would keep her afloat indefinitely. But there might be work for him to do outside.

He might help the other members of the shipwrecked crew. Therefore he filled his lungs with air and dived under the side of the yawl.

Just as he came out into the open sea he collided with another person coming down. They seized each others' hands and rose to the surface.

It was Torry! When they popped up and expelled the air from their lungs and blinked the water from their eyes, each boy instantly recognized the other.

"Crickey!" coughed Torrance. "I thought we'd lost you."

"Are you all right?" demanded Morgan.

"Just as all right as a fellow can be when he--he can't walk ash.o.r.e,"

chattered Torry.

"Here's the yawl!" cried Whistler. "Where's Mr. MacMasters? And Rosy and Slim? And the others?"

But when his eyes were well cleared of the water he beheld the entire crew of the yawl, including Ensign MacMasters, perched along the yawl's keel like a string of very much bedrabbled crows on a rail fence.

Strangely enough the gale seemed to have lulled for the time. Having done its worst to them, it gave the unfortunate castaways a breathing spell.

With the aid of their mates, Whistler Morgan and Torry were able to reach the keel of the overturned boat. There they perched, too, and, chattering in the cold wind, tried to look about them.

Where was the raft? This question, first and foremost in Whistler's mind, troubled him intensely. It was impossible to see far across the tossing sea; but he was sure that the life raft was nowhere within the range of their vision.

"Poor Frenchy and Ikey!" groaned Whistler.

"That raft can't sink," urged Torry in his ear.

"But they could easily be torn off it by the waves."

"Don't look at it in that way. They may be better off than we are,"

returned his chum.

"What's that yonder?" shouted Slim suddenly.

"Land!" Mr. MacMasters cried.

"And a lot of good that'll do us," growled Slim. "We'll be dumped ash.o.r.e, maybe, like a ton of trap-rock."

The sodden boat was drifting steadily toward the island. The surf thundered against its ramparts most threateningly. But the outlook did not seem so serious as that upon the other island they had pa.s.sed.

Ensign MacMasters, after some fishing, secured the loose end of the broken hawser. With the help of those nearest to him he hauled this out of the water. Then, by his advice, they all lashed themselves to the long rope with their belts or neckerchiefs.

"No matter what happens, we want to hang together," he declared. "No one man can fight this sea alone."

His cheerfulness and optimism raised their spirits. At least they hung on to their insecure refuge with much ardor, and not uncheerfully waited to be cast upon the strand.

A great swell suddenly caught the yawl and drove it sh.o.r.eward. Mr.

MacMasters uttered a warning shout and waved his hand in a gesture of command. They all cast loose from the keel, and the boat was carried high upon the breast of the breaker.

Still fastened together by the rope, the castaways were tumbled over and over in the surf. The yawl was east upon the strand with dreadful force and if they had continued to cling to it their chances of being seriously injured would have been great indeed.

Lightly the men and boys lashed to the rope were tossed by the surf--rolling over and over, but still clinging to each other and to the hawser. Mr. MacMasters at one end and Whistler Morgan at the other managed to obtain a footing on the sand despite the undertow.

They threw themselves upon the beach and clung "tooth and toenail" when the breaker receded. Slim was completely exhausted; but before another comber rolled in those who were strong managed to drag the weaker ones out of the reach of the undertow.

There was only a fitful light on sea and sh.o.r.e. The castaways lay in a panting group, looking at each other dripping with brine, and very miserable.

"Begorra!" exclaimed Irish Jemmy at last, "I broke me poipe. Lend me a cigareet, will you, Rosy?"

Rosy gravely reached into his blouse and brought forth a little package filled with tobacco pulp.