“Down, men!” Larry shouted, and the two men left their guns and slid down the hatch. “Get on down, March,” Larry said, “and take her down. I’m right behind you.” But at that moment shots rang out from the shore. Figures were running along the beach, shouting and gesticulating wildly. The seaplane was roaring away over the water and some men were firing at it. March, his feet on the rungs of the ladder, looked up, startled. And then Larry fell at his feet. “I’m hit, March,” Larry said. “Don’t waste a minute. I can get down. Hurry.” Grabbing his Skipper, March hauled him to the companionway. He heard the spatter of bullets against the sides of the submarine. He lowered Larry quickly down the hatch and men below grabbed him and helped him from the ladder. March slid down after him, shouting commands to take her down while he was still closing the hatch. “Call Sallini,” he said to one of the men. “Take the Skipper to his quarters. Mac, go in with him.” The roar of water into the ballast tanks flowed over them, and the whine of the electric motors told them the ship was under way. “Steady at fifty,” he said. “Hold course. We’ll surface in a little while. Stan, will you take over here? I want to see how the Skipper is.” “Sure, March,” Stan said. “Pat him on the back for me. Hope it’s not bad.” March stood at the door of Gray’s quarters. There was not room inside. Larry was on his bunk, looking up to smile with an effort, but with pain marking his face. “This was one _if_ we didn’t think of, wasn’t it, March?” he asked. “How are you, Larry?” March asked. “It hurts like the devil,” the Skipper replied. “I think there’s two or three slugs in my chest somewhere. Sallini will be able to tell in a minute.” The pharmacist was ripping off Gray’s shirt and undershirt, which showed spreading stains of blood. McFee helped him, trying to move Gray as little as possible. Then Sallini examined the wounds carefully for a few moments. “Three’s right, Skipper,” he said. “And they’re still in you. I don’t see how this one missed the heart but it must have or you wouldn’t be talking now. This one up here busted your collar-bone. That’s what hurts so much right now. And the other, on the right side must’ve gone right through the lung. I can’t tell if any might be lodged in the spine or not. Doubt it or you’d have passed out—couldn’t move much.” “Can’t move much anyway,” the Skipper replied weakly. March saw that his face was draining white, and his eyes began to cloud over. “Sulfa tablets, anyway,” Sallini said. “And bandages to stop the bleeding here, though there’s not much likely to come out while he’s lying down. May be some internal bleeding but I couldn’t do anything about that. Don’t know what else I could do right now.” “Okay, Sallini,” March said. “Go get what you need and do it as fast as you can.” The pharmacist left and March stepped close to the Skipper, leaning down close to him as Mac was.