"Same old breed of Yankee sailor as always," Darrin smiled down into the lad's face while the surgeon began the painful work of extracting another shell fragment. This one being more deeply imbedded, the surgeon was obliged to make a selection of scalpel and tissue scissors and do some nerve-racking cutting. But the seaman, his hands tightly gripped on the edges of the operating table, which he had termed a cot, did not once cry out, though ice-cold sweat beaded his forehead under Darrin's warm hand. Then a bayman washed down the enameled surface of the table, rinsing the blood away, and another attendant skilfully dressed and bandaged the second wound as he had done the first. Two baymen brought a stretcher and the lad was taken to a bunk. Here he was given a drink that, after five minutes, caused him to doze and dream fitfully of the battle through which he had lately passed. By this time nearly all of the wounded had received first attention. Dave Darrin, followed by a junior officer, went forward to another, still smaller room, where he gazed down with heaving breast at the forms of the seamen who had given up their lives under the Stars and Stripes in the gallant work of that night. Over the face of each dead man lay a cloth. Each cloth was removed in turn by a sailor as Darrin passed along. "A good fighting man and a great romp on shore," said Dave, looking down at the face of one man. "One of the best fellows we ever had on any ship I've ever served on," he said, glancing at another face. "A new lad," he said, of a third, "but he joined on so recently that I know only that he was a brave young American!" And so on. It was just as the sailor was laying the cloth back over the features of the last one in the row that a seaman sprang into the room precipitately. "Beg pardon, sir," he called excitedly, "but telephone message, with compliments of executive officer, and commanding officer's presence is desired on the bridge--instantly!" That surely meant business! CHAPTER IV WHAT A FLOATING MINE DID AS Dave reached the deck he caught a fleeting glimpse of a big steamship ahead, which was revealed in the glare of the destroyer's searchlight. But he did not stop to linger there. Up to the damaged bridge he ran as fast as he could go. Evidently putting on her best effort at speed the steamship was moving forward fast in a zig-zagging course. "She was working her radio and blowing her whistle, all in the same moment, sir," Lieutenant Fernald explained. "She must have seen a torpedo that passed by her. There must be a submarine somewhere, but we haven't picked up a sign of it as yet." The ship was nearly two miles away. Having seen the destroyer's searchlight the big craft's whistle was again blowing.