Out of the darkness came a shout for help close at hand.  Switching the searchlight in the direction of the cry, Commander McClure beheld a head bobbing in the water only a few yards away.  It was one of his own crew, one of the electrician’s helpers who had gone overboard with the rest in the mad scramble to outwit the Germans.  In a few minutes he was hauled aboard, dripping wet, his teeth chattering from the exposure in the water.

“They are all around here,” the boy chattered.  “We managed to keep pretty close together in the water.”

McClure grasped his hand.

“You are a brave lad,” he said.  “Every man of you has proved his mettle by taking a daring chance.  Go below now, son, get into warm clothing and gets something hot to drink.”

Coasting to and fro in the water, scanning the sea now to the right, now to the left, the Dewey continued the search for her crew.

Singly, in twos, and in one case three, men were picked up until it seemed to the commander that every boy who had gone overboard had been reclaimed from the sea.

“Call the roll below decks,” the commander instructed his executive officer.  Jack and his commander remained in the conning tower still operating the searchlight.

In a few minutes Officer Cleary returned.

“All safe?” asked “Little Mack.”

“No; two still missing,” was the executive officer’s reply.

“Who are they?” McClure queried.

“Ted Wainwright and Bill Witt,” came the answer.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SURVIVORS

Jack’s knees sagged for a moment and it seemed his heart stood still.  His old Brighton chum and good old Bill Witt still unaccounted for!  Out there in the dark and the water somewhere they were floating alone!

Then he heard “Little Mack” speaking.

“We’ll stay right here until we find them,” he was saying.

Megaphones were brought on deck and the Dewey’s officers began calling into the darkness of the sea.  Another searchlight was run up through the stern hatch and affixed aft to sweep the sea from that end of the vessel.  For a time there was no response to their calls; then, when it seemed that all hope had fled, there came a hoarse cry, now seeming far away, now closer and louder.

“Something there to starboard just off our bow!” shouted Jack, who had climbed up on the conning tower.

McClure directed that both searchlights be flashed in the direction of the muffled calls and was rewarded by the faint outlines of a small boat buffeted about in the water like a cork.

“Well, they are not our boys,” said the Dewey’s skipper listlessly.  Then, taking Jack’s megaphone, he shouted:  “Who are you?”

A tail, gaunt figure loomed up in the bow of the lifeboat.  He was waving a life-belt frantically with an appealing gesture for aid.