Through the crowd of sailors and marines at that moment came a slender lad who elbowed his way forward with the ruthless violence of a fullback determined upon a touchdown.  Right and left he tossed the bluejackets until he had fought to the side of the rescued American in the center of the group.

“Jack!” he yelled in delight.

“Ted!” cried the other almost in unison.

Unabashed, the two old Brighton chums embraced each other like two school girls just back for the fall term after summer vacation.

“Gee, chum, I never expected to see you again!” exclaimed Ted as he released his companion from a regular bear hug.

“Nor I you, either,” said Jack.  “Tell me, what happened to the Dewey?  How did you get out?  Where is McClure and all the rest of the crew?  How did you get here?”

Jack was so excited thinking of his old friends he forgot his own part in the stirring incidents of the last few hours, and his own injury, as he insisted on hearing the whole story from his old roommate.  “I’ll tell you pretty soon; everybody is safe and all O.K.,” answered Ted.  And then he beheld the blood dripping from Jack’s wounded arm.

“Wait a moment; what’s wrong here?” he exclaimed, lifting the arm tenderly and disclosing to the view of the excited group of Americans a wound just above the wrist.

“Oh, it’s just a scratch on the arm; one of the Boches nipped me while I was out there on the U-boat deck waiting for you fellows to come down through the village,” he replied lightly, trying to minimize his injury.

A first-aid kit was produced and the wound hurriedly dressed.  It seemed to be but a slight flesh wound.  In the midst of the dressing a great shrapnel shell burst just on the other side of the canal and threw some of its fragments into the water just beyond the U-boat.  At the same moment was heard the whirr of an airplane motor overhead and very shortly a hand bomb crashed to earth not more than two hundred yards up the canal towpath, exploding with a terrible detonation and tearing up a fearful hole in the ground.

“The German guns are all in action now,” said Ted as he watched the airplane circling above the U-boat base.

Jack was soon told of the situation.  He had been rescued by a landing party from several warships of the U.S. fleet.  Under the cover of their guns, trained upon the German fortifications at Blankenberghe, further up the coast, and another Hun fort further down the coast, the bluejackets and marines had come ashore.

Seaward could be heard the incessant pounding of the American guns, intermingled with the boom-boom of the German artillery in the coast defenses.  The German air patrol had flashed warning of the approaching American fleet and given the range to their gunners.

As Ted finished dressing the flesh wound, Jack saw coming toward him a naval officer whose epaulets showed him to be a Lieutenant-Commander of the United States Navy.  Jack saluted formally.