Page:Air Service Boys Flying for France.djvu/49

44 They sat up until a late hour, and were thrilled when it was learned that the vessel was even then being towed out from her berth into mid-stream by a fleet of powerful tugs. Even these usually noisy little monsters seemed to have their mufflers on, for they accomplished their work with but a fraction of the customary whistling and puffing and snorting.

The boys bundled up and went on deck to watch what took place. Leaving an American port during wartime was an entirely different thing from what it had been in other days. Silence and mystery had taken the place of whistle-blowing and music and loud salvos of cheers. Now the spectators stood and strained their eyes for a last look at those friends aboard the departing steamship, whom possibly they were fated never to see again in this world.

Tom and Jack stood on deck and looked back toward the overhead light that marked the torch in the hand of the Statue of Liberty. Long they stayed and paced the deck when chilled by the night air. Now and then they turned to look back to where the great city slept, secure, by reason of the vast ocean's width, from aerial bombardments and guarded against attacks from hostile battleships by the eternal vigilance of the Allied fleet by which the Germans were bottled up in their home waters at Kiel.