It was a point which might well bother him and Bill and the others, for, undoubtedly, if this second torpedo-boat destroyer was part of the British fleet, the German had a long start of her. That gun now opening upon the trawler might well destroy her, and the crew who had won their liberty, long before the British boat came up. It was a moment for quick decision and swift action.
"Swing her round! Shove her in the opposite direction! Keep her going as hard as you can," shouted Bill. "Jack, send a message down to the engine-room staff to stoke hard, all they can. We must knock every ounce of speed out of the trawler."
They turned, and, as it were, dived into the haze rising from the water, and as the engine staff laboured down below, and "whacked"--to use a nautical expression--the utmost speed out of the boat, a bow wave rose in front of the trawler. Behind came the other trawler, farther aft the German pursuing boat, and still farther astern, and from a different quarter, what everyone hoped was a rescuing British vessel.
Long minutes passed before the end of the affair came, and before the fate of Bill and Jim and Larry and the rest of them was settled. Not that all the participators in this alarming and exciting adventure realized the length of time or found the seconds hang heavy upon them. These fled indeed faster almost than the thudding screw of the trawler pushed that vessel through the water. For every half-minute brought some new event, everyone was working to his utmost, and at every turn the position wore a different complexion.
"It's a time when every man has to work hard, to go all out," said Jack, as, dripping with perspiration, he clambered to the bridge to report to Bill. "You can believe me, young sir, but I've just come up from that there engine-room again, and, my! how them Germans do work to escape from their own people!"
The very mention of it tickled him so much that, in spite of their precarious position, this honest, burly sailor burst into uproarious laughter. Indeed, he might well do so, for the picture down below in the engine-room would have exercised the same influence on anyone of British nationality and blessed with a sense of humour. In amongst the eddying clouds of steam, with the thud and thump of the pistons and the deafening whirr of machinery filling the air, stood Jim on one of the engine-room gangways, gripping the rails and looking over into the smoke-clouds down below, peering now in this direction and then in that, fixing his eye upon some German "greaser"--just fixing his eye on him for a moment--and then swinging round to stare in another direction. No need to show the revolver, which he now wore strapped round his waist, no need to shout a peremptory order, no need to point, to gesticulate, to shake a fist. Those "greasers" knew. They cast glances askance at the young American now and again, and, seeing his square jaw, his determined appearance, flung themselves upon the task of keeping the engines going, well knowing all the time that they were steaming away from their own people.