"But if we go in there are you sure you can contrive to patch her
up? It looks like a rotten passage, and not much of a berth beyond it."
"I could cool her down."
"Oh, if that's all you want, I can anchor outside in thirty fathoms."
Curley Crothers heard that and his whole frame stiffened; there seemed
a chance yet that the Navy might not be disgraced. But it faded on
the instant.
"Man, we've got to go inside and we've got to hurry! Better in there
than at the bottom of the Gulf! Put her where she'll hold still for
a day, or maybe two days--"
"Say a month!" suggested the commander caustically.
"Say three days for the sake of argument. Then I can put her to rights.
I daren't take down a thing while she's rolling twenty-five and more,
and I've got to take things down! Why, man, the engine-room is all
pollution from gratings to bilge; if I loosened one more bolt than
is loose a'ready her whole insides 'ud take charge and dance quadrilles
until we drowned!"
"You won't try to make Bombay?"
"I'll try to give ye steam as far as the far side o' yon reef.
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