other patrol, who must also have been attacked and knocked unconscious by the Germans.
"You come along with us!" the captain shouted to Joan, who stood beside the boathouse ways, uncertain what to do next. "We'll drop you off at the Light on our way out." He picked her up bodily and, splashing through the surf, swung her into the boat.
"Beatin'est business I ever heard tell of," he said, as the power-boat plunged out through the inshore swell, her searchlight sweeping the foamy waves. "They was smart, all right; thought of everything. Maybe you don't know how we work this night patrol?"
Joan had no very clear idea of the system.
"Well, there ain't nobody on watch in the tower at night, y' see, but there's one of the boys sets in the Station, and he punches what we call a clock—a time-detector, it is—to show he's attending to business. In seven and a half minutes he goes out to a post on the beach in front of the Station and takes a look around and punches another clock. 'Nother seven and a half minutes he hits the one inside again, and he keeps that up for two hours. Well, now, whilst he's doing that, there's another feller that's going up the beach. When he gets up
