Chapter X: The Allies Triumph

With joyous shouts the rescuers fell upon the enemy’s rear. Taken by surprise, the Sinn Feiners found themselves between two fires, for Steve, Joe, Truso and Hearn put new life into their blows, while the newcomers set to work with a fine enthusiasm. Pandemonium reigned supreme for a brief space and then the tide of battle turned. The more recent recruits to the Sinn Fein ranks turned and fled precipitately, while the onlookers, discerning the outcome of the engagement, began to cheer the sailors. The original attacking party fought valiantly and desperately, but they had not escaped punishment and were unable to cope with the reinforcements. Down they went, one after another, or, turning to defensive tactics, retreated across the street in the hope of finding escape through the circle of spectators. But the rescue party was having too good a time to lose their prey so easily, and when, a scant three minutes after their arrival, the battle was won, the foe, almost to a man, was accounted for. And it was not until then that the rescued ones made the discovery that their new friends were not countrymen, after all, but British bluejackets!

_H.M.S. Challenge_ said their cap ribbons.

“Well, I’m blowed!” exclaimed Hearn. “Much obliged, Limies. They had us going when you broke up the party.”

“The dirty thraitors!” responded one of the rescuers in a fine, rich brogue. “Sure, it’s been a dale of pleasure we’ve had, my friend. And I’m thinking ’twas a lucky job we came along. What’s your ship, boys?”

“_Warren_, destroyer.”

“I know the _Warren_,” spoke up a smaller chap with a pronounced Cockney twang. “She was in Plymouth when we were there larst month.”

The onlookers had gathered around the victors, displaying a scant concern for the vanquished who, picking themselves up from the cobbles, vanished most unobtrusively. Steve administered to Higgins as best he could and was quickly rewarded by a groan from his prostrate comrade. Then Higgins opened his eyes――or one of them, for the other didn’t respond to the effort――and looked dazedly about him.

“Hello,” he muttered. “I’m all right now. Give me a hand.”

Steve obeyed and Higgins came to his feet, swayed dizzily and then, with a bellow, made for the crowd, fists up. But Steve clutched him and held him back. “They’re gone, Higgins,” he cried. “It’s all over. Some Britishers butted in and――――”

“Gone!” exclaimed Higgins in heart-broken tones. “Gone? The dirty cowards! Where’d they go?” He looked about him eagerly, but Steve, laughing, although it hurt him horribly to do it, pulled him toward the others.

“We’d best get out o’ this before they rouse their friends and come back again,” one of the British bluejackets was saying. “Come on, Yankees. What was you doing up this here alley, anyhow?”

“Looking for the movie house,” said Truso. “We lost our way somehow.”

“Rather! You’re near a mile from a theatre. I say, old pal, you need patchin’ up a bit, the whole bloomin’ lot of you. There’s a bit of a hotel down the road a way, ain’t there, Bill?”

“There is. Come on, fellows. I’ll show you the w’y.”

They pushed past the gathering which, now of considerable size, was loudly sympathetic in its comments, and trailed by a dozen or more boys whose curiosity was still unsatisfied, retraced their steps for several blocks and then swung into a wider thoroughfare and, guided by the small cockney whose sleeve insignia showed him to be a gunner’s mate, presently reached a small hotel. Inside they took stock of their casualties. None of the five had escaped visible mementos of the engagement. Higgins, with one eye almost completely closed and a deep gash on his cheek which, as Hearn observed, could never have been made by a bare fist, was the most disreputable looking of them all, but everyone showed one or more contusions. Joe’s lip was bleeding profusely, Steve had a lump on his forehead and a swollen mouth, Truso had a nose that was already nearly twice its normal size and Hearn had a lump on his forehead as large as a small egg. These, together with swollen and bleeding knuckles, were the visible signs of the recent combat, but there were sore spots that didn’t show, and Steve, although he made no mention of it, felt as if his head was inhabited by a swarm of bees! Nor had their allies escaped punishment, for the Irishman proudly displayed a fine long gash on a cheek bone, the Cockney was already peering with difficulty from his left eye and one of the others had a swollen jaw. Hearn and Truso had lost their caps and the attire of all had been roughly used.

The _Challenge_ men performed like Red Cross nurses, commandeering the services of the host and his buxom wife and all the supplies on hand, which, fortunately included arnica. Wounds were bathed and bound up and swollen hands were swathed in bandages, and presently, having abandoned the idea of moving pictures in favour of taking the next train to Queenstown, they all made their way to the station.

“’Tain’t the first time,” informed one of the _Challenge’s_ men. “Only larst week a lot of us was up here and had a set-to with a bunch of them scoundrels. They heaved stones at us, first off, and we didn’t pay any attention to them for a bit. They were marchin’ along with their flags and banners quiet enough till they seen us. Then ’twas ‘Up the Huns!’, whatever they might mean by that, and they started heavin’ stones at us. We’ve orders to keep out o’ trouble, of course, and so we ducked for the shops and got inside. But when they started heaving bricks through the windows it wasn’t fair to the shopkeepers and so we went outside again. ’Twas a Saturday night and so there was a lot of us around and it wasn’t long before we was having a rare old time of it. It wasn’t ’arf lively for awhile! Then the Bobbies took a ’and, and the provost guard from the garrison came along and we called it off. There was more than one Sinn Fein head broken, I’m thinking.”

At the station they found a crowd of their own compatriots and as many from the British ships waiting for the train, and their advent was hailed with shouts of approval and expressions of envy. A big, raw-boned boatswain’s mate from the _Cassin_ was all for returning to the scene of trouble and inviting renewed hostilities, and his companions had difficulty in persuading him to board the train. On the way back “Yankees” and “Limies” mingled and fraternised, and there was much vocal harmony and a great deal of noise, all of which stood for good-fellowship. Steve and Joe tried to do their share of the singing, if only for the honour of the United States Navy, but the effort was far too painful. Before eleven, having parted from their friends of the _Challenge_ with hand-shakes and renewed expressions of gratitude, they were back on the _Warren_ relating their adventures to a small but attentive audience grouped about Number Two gun.

In the morning they had to face authority in the persons of the officers, and they were a bit doubtful of the result. But, save for stern disapproval, that melted to amusement when they had passed, there came no sign from the Old Man or the luffs. About the middle of the forenoon a French destroyer, one of the “Harlequin Fleet,” came limping into harbour with her port bow badly stove in. She passed close to starboard of the _Warren_ and the captain of the latter hailed through the megaphone in his choicest French. Those on the deck grinned as the Frenchie’s commander, gesticulating regret, even despair from the bridge, responded in excellent English: “Pardon, sair! A thousand pardons! I deed not understand what monsieur ask.”

Browny, machinist’s mate, second class, guffawed and had to stuff his cap in his mouth. On the bridge Captain Stanwood coloured, and then, with a smile for the joke on his pronunciation, politely repeated his question.

“No, no,” responded the French officer, leaning far over the rail and expressing denial with head and hands and shoulders. “We ware not torpedoed, sair! We were collisioned by a――a――what you say?――a――――” His voice grew fainter as the distance between the destroyers lengthened and the listeners thought they were doomed to never know what had happened to the fantastically decorated French ship. But after another moment of agonised effort on the part of her commander the completion of the sentence floated across the water:

“By a r-r-rottan _chasseur_! Merci, m’sieur!”

“What’s a _rotan shasur_?” demanded Smitty disappointedly.

“Rotten chaser, of course,” giggled a neighbour. “Where’s your French, you ignoramus?”

“Say,” observed a tall chap with the crossed quills of a yeoman, “if Frenchie gets as excited as that in telling the yarn what do you suppose he was like when the chaser hit him?”

That afternoon the _Warren_ slipped out to sea again, followed by a sister ship, and zig-zagged her way through the mine field. Sealed orders had come aboard, so the rumour went, and they were off for “special duty” and wouldn’t see port again for a week. There was some grumbling over shortened leave and a vast amount of conjecture as to their errand. Hopeful ones guessed a rendezvous with the British North Sea fleet for an attack on the German naval base at Zeebrugge, the pessimists a return to American waters. The next morning, however, it was plain that the North Sea was not their destination, for the compass showed the _Warren_ headed east, while, ahead and astern, Steve counted five more destroyers tossing spray from their knife-like bows. It was standard speed all that day and for two days and nights following. The weather was of the kindest, and the _Warren_, try as she might, could not roll enough to make her happy. Joe, still fearful on leaving Queenstown, gradually plucked up hope. Save for a qualm or two the first evening he felt no indications of seasickness and began to get a bit cocky about it. The destroyers steamed in column of two sections, with the flagship leading the _Warren_. All day signals fluttered and the wireless sputtered. Higgins, supposed to know a vast deal of what was in the wind, only grinned and shook his head.

The single event to jar the monotony of steady steaming occurred the second night out. That was fairly exciting, for the General Quarters alarm sounded just before midnight, and Steve, warmly tucked in his bunk and sleeping beautifully, reached the deck half-awake with the sensations of one aroused by an especially strident alarm-clock. But the affair was a good deal of a disappointment, for after Number Four gun had barked once――fortunately missing its mark――the supposed Hun proved to be a British steam trawler who had been slow in answering questions! “Missed us!” she signalled. “Now go to bed again!”

The next morning the mystery was dispelled, for the bulletin board announced: “This ship will meet the first contingent of American forces to operate in France and convoy them to Bordeaux.”