"
"Thank you for the range," said Pyecroft, and paddled gingerly. "Feel well
out in front of you, Alf. Remember your fat fist is our only Marconi
installation." The voices resumed:
"Bournemouth steamer he says she be."
"Then where be Brixham Harbor?"
"Damme, I'm a tax-payer tu. They've no right to cruise about this way.
I'll have the laa on 'ee if anything carries away."
Then the man-of-war:
"Short on your anchor! Heave short, you howling maniacs! You'll get
yourselves smashed in a minute if you drift."
The air was full of these and other voices as the dinghy, checking, swung.
I passed one hand down Laughton's stretched arm and felt an iron gooseneck
and a foot or two of a backward-sloping torpedo-net boom. The other hand I
laid on broad, cold iron--even the flanks of H.M.S. _Cryptic_, which is
twelve thousand tons.
I heard a scrubby, raspy sound, as though Pyecroft had chosen that hour to
shave, and I smelled paint. "Drop aft a bit, Alf; we'll put a stencil
under the stern six-inch casements."
Boom by boom Laughlin slid the dinghy along the towering curved wall.
Once, twice, and again we stopped, and the keen scrubbing sound was
renewed.
"Umpires are 'ard-'earted blighters, but this ought to convince 'em....
Captain Panke's stern-walk is now above our defenceless 'eads. Repeat the
evolution up the starboard side, Alf."
I was only conscious that we moved around an iron world palpitating with
life.
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