“But—but—you don’t really sink her?” Billy asked, not willing to show his ignorance, but far too curious to keep quiet.
“Oh, no; we get up as close as we dare and send up a signal to show that we could sink her and that it is to be counted on the record for us. But if she finds us with her searchlights before we can fire, and if we’re close enough to be smashed by her guns, then we are destroyed and a mad lot we are, I can tell you.”
It might have sounded like a foolish pastime to Billy when he was ashore, but here in the wind and the dark, with the ship rushing forward at full speed and with every one aboard her straining to do his part to the uttermost, the war game seemed most thrillingly in earnest. He too hung over the rail and watched the long beam of light swing in searching circles, he peered through the dark for the periscope of a submarine until his eyes ached and was as disappointed as anybody when no such discovery was made. Time passed and nothing was to be seen but a waste of angry, tossing water; so the lights were finally covered and the destroyer turned to pursue a steady course northward.
Billy never quite knew by just what process he came finally to be on the bridge. He was aware that it was absolutely against all rules for him to go there, but such a force of curiosity drew him thither that it did not seem possible to resist. By slipping silently from one inconspicuous place to another, by lounging carelessly against the rail whenever an officer chanced to pass and by speeding across the deck the moment his back was turned, he finally came closer and closer to the desired spot, ventured a cautious foot upon one of the steps and then another, and all at once was safely curled up in a corner of dense shadow within the sacred limits of the forbidden place.
The Captain was walking slowly up and down, talking to one of the officers, passing every now and then so close that he almost brushed Billy’s elbow. In the gleam of one of the hooded lights, he could sometimes catch the glistening of the water on their wet coats, or the shine of the younger officer’s bright red hair.
“That’s a queer pair we picked up,” the Captain was saying as they passed. “I went down to see how they were getting on and found the boy all worked up about some scheme that he claims is being hatched on Appledore Island. He says that the old sailor wants it reported, and may be too far gone to do it himself, but he isn’t very clear as to just what the trouble is. The best I can make out seems to be that there is an effort being made to buy this man Saulsby’s land, and that he is sure there is German influence backing it, with a view to getting ready a possible base of supplies in case of war.”