Wot ship is that ?" he vociferated aloud.
Some answer was forthcoming--what, it mattered not.

The launch bumped into the rusty ribs of a twelve-hundred ton tramp.

A rope ladder was lowered.

A round-faced Teuton mate--fat and placid--was vastly surprised to find a horde of nondescripts pouring up the ship's side in the wake of a short, thick, bovine-looking person who neither understood nor tried to understand a word he was saying.
These extraordinary visitors from the deep brought with them a girl and three wounded men.

By this time the captain was aroused; he spoke some English.
"Vas iss diss ?" he asked, surveying the newcomers with amazement, and their bizarre costumes with growing nervousness.