isn’t a picnic, lads, it’s a war.”
“We left a note for Mother; we told her we were going across with you in Shropshire Lass.”
“And very thoughtful of you, I must say.” The old engineer shook his head. “I shall have to put you off somehow; she won’t have a moment’s peace until you return. That’s if you do! This is war, boys, not a pleasure cruise. It’s no place for you whatever. And you came aboard without my permission.”
It was Ronny who spoke. “Yes sir, yes, Mr. Bennet, we did. Y’see, sir, Father’s over there at Dunkerque with his regiment, and we wanted maybe to help him get away. So we just came along.”
The old Chief Engineer looked at them quickly. For a second he thought of his own father, and saw them differently. Wouldn’t he have done the same thing under the circumstances? This man had the faculty, rare among adults, of recalling how he felt at fifteen. For he was just fifteen when he shipped as a cabin boy out of Southampton on the old Cathay of the P & O. His father was then on the dole and out of work. Yes, Mr. Bennet remembered those days plainly enough; they had made a mark on his character. He remembered what it was like to be hungry, what it meant to the family to have one less boy at home to feed.
Suppose his own father had been trapped in that smoke on the shores of France, with Panzers closing in from all sides to take him prisoner! During a matter of seconds Mr. Bennet was a boy of fifteen, saying good-by to his father, walking down to the docks with a lump in his throat, and climbing the gangplank of the ancient P & O liner in Southampton Harbor.
He turned his back. “Eh then, since you’re here, you’d best get to work. You’ll find life belts under the bunks below. Ronny, you go down and tear up those old sheets and towels into strips for bandages. Ricky, make yourself useful opening up those tins of biscuits, get out the dried figs, and break up the chocolate bars. We were in such a hurry leaving, everything is in a mess, so take those sacks off the bunks; make ’em up clean. We’ll need ’em for wounded most likely. Look sharp now. This isn’t a pleasure cruise.”
In high good spirits the boys went to work, a load lifted from their hearts. Work was what they had come for. The sun shone, the June morning was bright and crisp, far off to the right was the smoke of the burning city. All around were other vessels, from old friends they knew, like the Maid of Orleans, a Channel steamer on the Dover-Calais run, to destroyers, torpedo boats, and Thames river launches and scows, towed by tugs. The convoy was making only four or five knots. Around them hovered the destroyers and several armed speedboats, rushing here and there like sheep dogs, keeping them in line.
When everything had been made shipshape, they came on deck and took the wheel while the Chief went below to brew hot coffee, which, with pieces of chocolate, made their noon meal. The twins were exhilarated. The course had changed slightly to the northeast, the sun shone brilliantly, the vessels around them danced in the breeze. The boys were happy to be aboard. They looked around, proud of the little vessel, familiar with it, too. On a metal plate over the entrance to the cabin were inscribed words they had often read and knew by heart. It was part of the Breton Fisherman’s Prayer, which Mr. Bennet had copied in French and English.
“O God, be good to me. Thy sea is so wide and my ship is so small.”
Shropshire Lass was small compared to most of the flotilla. There were no water tanks, so a galvanized tankful had been rolled on before leaving, and edged into the cabin amidships, cutting down space considerably.
The boys observed that some of the boats around had a wide yellow stripe painted about their middle. “What’s that yellow stripe on some of the boats, Mr. Bennet?”
The Chief sipped his coffee. Without looking up he said, “Them as has the yellow stripe has been demagnetized,
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