d yards nearer the coast. Carried fifty or a hundred
feet forward through the water by the force of the expulsion from
the torpedo tube, the youth had emerged in the widened wake of the
vessel. Apparently it was a German warship returning to its base
in Wilhelmshaven after a night raid off Dunkirk or Ostend. It was
hugging the coast fortifications now for protection.

Floating alone in the ocean, a mere speck in the water, Jack turned
toward land. It was his only salvation now.

Tearing off his hat and with it the wet waste he had inserted as a
cushion for his head, he struck out with long bold strokes. The fresh
air and the salt water invigorated him wonderfully after the long
confinement in the stifling atmosphere of the _Dewey_.

As he swam he thought of the boys back there in Uncle Sam's submersible
and how they, too, would be negotiating this same swim very
shortly---provided they escaped as safely as he had.

Before his mind flashed also the picture of what might happen to him
when at last his feet would strike bottom and he would make his way
through the surf to shore. He knew full well that practically all of
the Belgian seafront was held by the Germans. It was not likely he
could go very far without encountering a Hun coast patrol. But he
reserved to make the best of the situation and trust to luck.

After a hard swim he found himself in the surf and then his feet
touched bottom and he made his way shoreward through the breakers.
Fatigued by the trip, he threw himself down on the sand, puffing
and blowing from the effects of his fight in the water.

As he rested, he heard the murmur of a skyplane's motors and turned
to behold a giant Gotha machine heading up the coast. Stretching
himself out quickly, as though to simulate the posture of a drowned
man cast up by the waves, he lay wide-eyed watching the German birdman.
Undoubtedly, it was one of the aerial coast patrol.

Five hundred feet above, it lazily floated along. It came closer and
closer, finally flying almost directly overhead. With bated breath
the boy on the sand waited for its passage and heaved a great sigh of
relief as it purred onward in the direction of Blankenberghe without
giving any indication as to whether its pilot had noted the body on
the sand below.

Jack scrambled to his feet.

"Might as well find out what's doing here," he muttered to himself.
He peeled off his wet clothes. One at a time he wrung out his
garments a