Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/117

 God," he appealed in reverent wonder, "look at her come!"

"The United States Ship Starke!" Ruth cried. "One of our own!"

A wild, wanton, incredible phrase ran through her; "the shame of being an American." And, as she recalled it, she saw that Gerry Hull recollected it too; and the hot color on his cheeks deepened and his eyes, when they met hers, looked quickly away.

"They're wonderful, those fellows," he admitted to her aloud. He spoke, then, not to her, but to the destroyer. "But why couldn't you come three years ago?"

A cry rose simultaneously from a lookout forward upon the Ribot and from another man in the top. A periscope had appeared; and the guns at once were going again at it. The radio, in the cabin amidships, was snapping a warning to the Starke. The Ribot's guns and the splash of their shells into the sea gave the direction to Ruth and to Gerry Hull; and they saw, for a flash, a spar moving just above the water and hurling a froth before it, trailing a wake behind. Indeed, it was probably only the froth and the wake which they made out at all certainly; but that was discernible; and it moved, not toward them, but aslant to them and pointed toward the course of the American destroyer as it came up.

They're trying to get the Starke!" Gerry Hull interpreted this to Ruth. "The Huns are leaving us for later; they know they've got to get the Starke or the Starke will get their other boat."

"The Starke saw them!" Ruth cried, as the guns on the destroyer, which had been firing at the fleeing U-boat