Page:Cruise of the Dry Dock.djvu/321

 port bow. Madden whirled quickly. A ball of white smoke, the size of a balloon, drifted up in the air a quarter of a mile distant.

The American stared at the smoke quite wonderstruck, then looked around at the distant ships that had not yet topped the horizon.

“Did they shoot this far?”

“A request to heave to.”

“Are you going to do it?”

At the bursting of the shell, the men on deck came walking aft to the superstructure, with the apprehensive gait of men getting under shelter from blasting operations.

Caradoc leaned over the rail of the bridge. “Greer!” he shouted, “go to the flag locker, get out a union jack and show our colors on the peak!”

The men pulled up at this, and half a dozen men, two or three of them crippled, hurried to carry out the order. In a few minutes they came running back on deck with the flag. They tangled the sheets after the manner of landsmen, but finally the red pennant traveled skyward. There was a brief hoarse cheering from the cockneys.