Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/249

 to hear what that Fritz has to say, but I wouldn't hope for much. What camp was it?"

"He didn't tell me. I was going to ask, but the guard butted in just then."

"Well, you get speech with the Old Man and maybe he can fix it for you. He will if he can, anyway."

But it wasn't to be, and Nelson never saw the round-faced German from St Louis again. The next morning, soon after daybreak, the Gyandotte pulled her anchors up from the bottom of the Gironde and picked her way down-stream and through the mine fields and headed back toward Queenstown.

Nevertheless, after his first disappointment, Nelson was happier for that chance meeting. Sometimes he told himself that it was silly to think that the German had really had speech with his father, but, as drowning persons clutch at straws, so Nelson clutched at that little bit of encouragement. It made life far happier, in any case, and now that Martin was gone life wasn't terribly joyous.

For a month longer the Gyandotte had her base at Queenstown and spent more than half her time at sea convoying transports and great cargo ships back and forth through the danger zone. Six days 224