"Who said the Yanks couldn't stop their pesky undersea wasps?" chattered
Bill Witt joyously. "If they just let us loose long enough we'll show
'em how to kill poison with poison."

Mike Mowrey was in great glee.

"Just like a grasshopper begging for mercy on a bass hook," he said
jauntily, imitating with a crook of his finger the disappearing
periscope.

Soon the fleet was off Cape Clear on the southernmost point of the
Irish coast and very shortly headed well into the English Channel.
Now every few hours the American warships were speaking one or other
of the English and French patrol ships. Great was the joy of the
boys aboard the _Dewey_ when first they beheld an American destroyer
out on the firing line.

"Union Jack and French tricolor look pretty good; but none of them
makes a fellow's blood tingle like the Stars and Stripes; eh, chum?"
queried Jack, as he surveyed an American destroyer dashing along in
fine fettle. And Ted heartily agreed.

Off Falmouth, the transports, accompanied by three of the American
destroyers and two English "limeys "---as the British destroyers are
known in the slang of the sea---slipped off silently into the twilight.
The American infantry and marines were to be landed "somewhere in
France." Jack and Ted viewed the departure with mingled pride and
regret.

"Reckon they will be in the trenches before long," ventured Ted.