Looking down, I saw that immediately below us was a circular white table. I put my hand on it and it was painted canvas, dazzlingly white.
"The periscope is going up," my brother said. "It should be light, now—watch!"
There was a click and the lamp in the roof went out. We were in darkness. A slight creaking sound, a movement of my brother's arm, and there flashed down, in clear light upon the table, a picture of the upper seas.
Forty feet above, the eye of the submarine surveyed the dawn, and in that still box where we stood, we saw it also.
Dawn upon the waters! A tossing grey expanse of waves. It was like the film of a cinematograph, only in colour, and as Bernard turned the wheel, picture after picture glided over the table—the most incredible thing!
Not a sail was in sight. The North Sea was an empty, tossing waste of waters in the cold light of the winter's dawn.
The dawn of—what?
"A little fresh air is clearly indicated," said my brother, "and after that, when I've attended to another little matter, a good breakfast. Some of us may be taking our next meal in Fiddlers' Green, which, they say in the Navy, is nine miles to windward of hell, though I hope not."
He switched on the light again and went to the side table, where there was a complicated array of wheels and levers, all of which were duplicated in the chamber immediately below and by means of which the Commander, watching the picture of the periscope, could control every movement of the boat with his own hands if necessary.
He pulled a lever and a bell clanged. At once the loud purring of the electric engines ceased.
Bernard pulled over another and larger lever with both hands. I suddenly felt myself slipping backwards, until I fetched up against the wall of the conning-tower, narrowly missing the opening to the steersman's chamber.
"By Jove! I forgot to tell you," said Bernard. "You see, I've stopped the electric engines and jammed over the horizontal rudders. We're slanting up to the surface—look!"
Immediately in front of me and a little above my head, I now saw round portholes filled with amazingly thick, toughened glass. These had been quite black and had escaped my notice before. Now, as I watched, they grew a little lighter. Click! and the lamp went out. The portholes were grey now, grey melting into green, which grew brighter and brighter until it turned into a froth of soda-water, and then there was nothing but white sky. There was a slight jerk and the floor seemed to right itself.
"We're just awash now, but we'll get above water."
Again the ring of a bell, an order through a speaking-tube. After that came a clang of machinery and an extraordinary bubbling, choking noise, like a giant drinking.
"Just blown out the water tanks, old soul. Feel her lift? Now her whale-back is above water and we'll go and say good-morning to the sun, which I perceive is very kindly beginning to show himself. But before that ..."
He shouted another order and there came a deafening din from below. Bang! Bang! Bang! till the whole steel hull quivered.
"That is the surface engine starting. It'll be all right in a minute," and even as he spoke, the noise subsided into a regular throb. It was for all the world like a motor car starting on bottom speed and then slipping into top gear.
Scarlett came hurrying up into the conning-tower and he and my brother unlocked the sliding hatch. In a minute we had emerged into the keen air of the morning. How fresh and sweet it seemed to me it is impossible to say. The sun was rising. The bitter cold of the marshes had gone. The small waves were flecked with gold as we stood upon the wet steel plates and drank in the air as if it had been wine.
"An ideal day for a submarine action!" Bernard said, rubbing his hands. "There's just enough ripple on the surface to make us difficult to detect, and yet it is smooth enough to give me a clear view. This boat is beautifully trimmed, she doesn't roll a bit. I'll send those boys up in a minute or two, but meanwhile I've got to play a bit of bluff. A lot depends on it."
I nodded. It was not my place to ask questions.
"You see," he went on, "of course the German battleship expects us. I know exactly the spot in the North Sea where we are supposed to pick her up some time after lunch—provided, of course, that the Germans have carried out their plans successfully and our scouts really have been decoyed away. It is part of a huge scheme.
"Well, assuming that their own plans are successful, they will be on the look-out for us and they'll send us a wireless message when we're within close range. This will be some prearranged signal, a single letter repeated a certain number of times or something of that sort, so that any of our ships picking it up would not know what it meant. We've got a wireless mast on board which can be shoved up at will and there's a complete installation in a little room down below next to the cook's galley. Unfortunately there is not one of us who knows anything about wireless. Bosustow is a capable electrician and could control the machinery, but he can't understand the signals. Therefore, when we sight theFriesland—and I want to get as near her as possible so as to make no mistakes—we must signal with flags.
"I've got their signal book and in it is a special code made for this occasion. The flags are in the flag locker all right, but I don't understand a word of German and none of us here do, so I'm going to put the fear of God into our friend, Karl of the Portsmouth Royal. A lot depends on that.
"Just skip down, young John, and tell Scarlett to bring him up here."
"Aye, aye, sir!" I said—it came to me quite naturally, I didn't think about it—and I climbed down into the interior of the submarine.
Scarlett was standing by the starboard torpedo tube, while the Dickson brothers, with their backs turned to me, were chuckling delightedly. I heard a fragment of the conversation.
"... and so, sir, I ses to the gal, Molly her name was, they used to call her the belle of South-sea pier, 'Molly,' I ses, 'you're a little bit of all right, but ...'"
I cut short that anecdote. My pedagogic instincts awoke and I forgot that the Dicksons were now brevet officers of the King.
A sharp order did it. The two lads turned away and began to be ostentatiously busy, while Scarlett, his face did not belie his name at that moment, pattered along the grating, caught hold of the ex-German waiter with unnecessary roughness, and kicked him towards the ladder of the conning-tower.
I went up first, and when Karl emerged he stood to attention with a very pale face, though I did not miss a quick glance round the horizon. My brother was looking down upon a shining magazine pistol in his hand.
Then he raised his head and his voice grated like a file.
"Look here, you Karl, or whatever you call yourself, you're a spy!"
There was a torrent of expostulation. "No, sir, not a spy; I never was that. I was a reservist in our Navy. I was called out and I had to go. I'm a prisoner of war, sir, that's what I am."
My brother shook his head. "You can't prove that," he said, "and the circumstances are most suspicious. I spared you last night, thinking you might be useful, and you certainly made some very good coffee this morning. But I've come to the conclusion ..."—he lifted the pistol.
I had had my brother's word for it that Karl was an excellent head-waiter. My own observations showed me that he was a coward, for he fell on his knees and tears began to stream from his eyes. My brother spat over the side in disgust and I kicked the fellow up to attention again.
"Well, I'll give you one more chance before shooting you out of hand. You must come down with me and translate the German in the Flag Signal Book. You must tell me all you know about the plans of your late commander. Then, if you make us a good breakfast—I thought I saw some tinned sausages and some marmalade in your rack—I may possibly not shoot you, though I shall tie you up when we go into action. At any rate, you will have the same chance as the rest of us."
The fellow's gratitude was painful to see. He was all smiles and obsequiousness at once, and so that little matter was concluded satisfactorily.
We had our breakfast, and an excellent one it was, all sharing alike. Afterwards I went up on deck with the Dicksons.
We saw the sails of two trawlers a mile away on the port bow, but save for them the sea was deserted. The boys were in high spirits. Not a thought of what was to come troubled them for a moment. "Just think, sir," said Dickson max., "what a bit of luck to be in for a rag like this!" But I won't recount any more of their joyous prattle. It was real enough. They had not a trace of fear, but underlying everything there was a deep seriousness that had made them men in a few short hours.
For two hours I worked hard with Bosustow at the engines. There was lots to do. The gauges of the petrol tanks needed attention. There were many details which would only interest an engineer were I to recount them.
At a quarter to twelve I went forward with my brother. We were still on the surface—heading fast for our destination—and saw the port and starboard torpedo tubes loaded. It was astonishing how the Dicksons had picked up something of their work, and Bernard was very pleased.
At twelve we lunched and a tot of rum was served out to the three sailors. Everything was now ship-shape. We were all dressed in uniforms of the dead crew. We tied up Karl and lashed him securely in his galley. Then, Adams being at the wheel in the lower portion of the conning-tower, my brother assembled us aft, by the clanging petrol engines.
"In ten minutes," he said, "I shall sound 'Prepare for action,' and from that time onwards you will be at your posts. I believe we are going to surprise the Germans and surprise the whole world. I believe we are going to save England from this raid. But we've got to remember that we may not pull it off. I am very pleased, more than pleased, with all you have done. I never want to command a better crew. It is the best scratch crew in naval history. We are only seven and we ought to be fifteen, but that does not matter. We have shown it does not matter, already. Now before we get to quarters I think we ought to remember what day this is. It happens to be Sunday."
I am ashamed to say we all looked up in surprise, but so it was.
"Well," my brother continued, "by good luck, I happen to have a prayer-book in my pocket and I am going to read a bit of the service and the ninety-first psalm."
Very straight and stiff, he pulled out a battered little book and began. This is not a scene I wish to linger on, but you will understand my reasons.
After the last sonorous Amen, Bernard said:
"Well, we've said our prayers and we've thought of our wives and—and of our girls. That is all I have got to say."
He nodded to Scarlett and a shrill whistle—the trumpet of the Navy—rang and rattled through the tube.
The two boys and Scarlett went forward to the torpedoes. Adams was called down from the steering wheel to assist Bosustow at the engines. My brother ordered me up into the conning-tower by his side.
"You'll be of more help to me here," he said. "I shall control the ship entirely myself, but I may want your assistance. Watch me carefully in case I have to go below at any moment."
At twelve-thirty precisely, the gasolene engines were stopped. Bernard filled the tanks, slightly deflected the horizontal rudders, and we dived into the smooth, green wall of an approaching swell and sank to ten feet. The light was switched off, the periscope rose, and we bent over the white table, white no longer.
At five minutes to one the picture of the empty sea was altered. Our range of vision was about two miles, and at that distance to the north-east we observed a cloud of smoke upon the horizon.
"There she is!" I said, and put my finger upon the rapidly growing smear.
Within twenty minutes, a large battleship raised her hull, making directly towards us. We altered our course a little, and as we swerved I could see she had four funnels which grew larger every moment. Of her accompanying flotilla and of the transports we could see nothing at all.
Then we rose to the surface.
Our short-handedness became apparent at once. Adams had to be called from the engines to stand at the wheel. Scarlett and my brother went on deck as I was useless at the manipulation of flags. It was a critical moment.
"I am determined to take no chances," Bernard said; "that is why I am risking signalling. We could probably get her without showing at all, but as she expects us and will lay to for us, we can make it absolutely certain."
He had the signal book, over which he had pencilled translations of the German, in his hand.
"That flag, Scarlett—'wireless out of order,' it means."
That flag ran up a steel halliard bent to the top of the conning-tower.
"Ah, they see us!"
Scarcely three-quarters of a mile away, the great battleship was moving at a snail's pace. Her decks were crowded with men—in the clear sunlight I could see every detail. A piece of bunting ran up her mast in a ball and opened to the breeze.
"I'm damned if I know what it means, but it's obviously all right. Now then, Scarlett, the black flag with the white stripe. That means 'am successfully bringing despatches'—got it?—good!"
There was another signal from the battleship, to which we had now approached within half a mile. The smoke from her funnels had almost ceased. She was lying to and waiting.
Slowly we forged onwards. Then came a sharp order. We jumped back into the conning-tower and the sliding hatchway closed. Scarlett had gone like a flash to his torpedo tubes, and we dived. We sank in just a hundred and fifty seconds.
"Good!" said Bernard, as the periscope panted up and the battleship lay on the table before us.
The hum and tick of the electric motors began again. Bernard turned his wheel and the picture of the battleship opened out in full broadside.
"They don't know what to make of it," he remarked, to himself, rather than to me. "Now, I think—steady—steady ..."
The ship grew larger every moment, higher and higher. It seemed as if she was rising out of the water.
"Now!"—he leant over a speaking tube.
He had hardly given his order when a bell rang smartly, close by my head. I heard staccato voices below in the bows of the submarine, and then the clang and swish of the discharge. We were only three hundred yards away. A white streak appeared shooting towards the monster, like a spear of foam. It was so quick that I could hardly have followed it with my finger upon the table.
Can you imagine a narrow belt of foam, rushing over the sea like a live thing with irresistible and sinister suggestion ofsomethingterrible below? That is what I saw as I stared down at the toy theatre, the little, coloured microcosm.
Then the inevitable happened.Der Frieslandwas struck full amidships. A wall of white water rose up out of the sea. Above it, in an instant, spread a huge black fan of smoke, dark as ebony against the sun. At that moment, my brother put the helm hard down and we flew off at an angle. Even as we did so, it seemed that the side of our ship received a terrific blow. We lurched in the conning-tower; we were flung against the starboard wall. There was a nerve-wracking pause, and then, with a jerk, the submarine righted herself, simultaneously as the faintest indication of a mighty explosion fell through the water and came through our armoured walls.
"Too close!" my brother gasped. "I ought to have allowed for these German torpedoes—look, John, look!"
The recoil from the explosion ofDer Frieslandhad nearly sent us to the bottom, but we were righted again, and we saw upon the table, quivering and indistinct, a piteous mass of unrecognisability, wreathed in black fumes, from which flared out angry bursts of fire, like Vesuvius in eruption. All this horror was sinking—sinking into the table, it seemed. Blazing all over, broken in two, the wreck of the monster went lower and lower in the water.
She was done. Bernard gave a great sob, and then hoarse orders rang through the submarine.
Within two minutes we were upon the surface. The hatch was open. My brother and myself stood there, gasping in the sunlight at the ruin we had made. The sea was covered with debris and dotted with the heads of swimming sailors. There was one boat afloat, crammed with men, under whose weight it hesitated, trembled, and sank like a stone, as we looked on.
"Good God!" I cried, "can't we help them, Bernard?"
"No can do," he answered, in Navy slang. "It can't be done, old soul. That's that. I'm damned sorry though."
We were rolling in a grey sea, churned by the monster's dying struggles. It was a desolate waste, patched with horror. Far away, on the port bow, something small and blurred was showing. It was either smoke or the hull of a big ship.
"The first transport!" Bernard said. "We had better be ..."
He did not finish his sentence. Something shrieked overhead like an invisible express train. There was a sound like a clap of thunder, and a fountain of spray rose a hundred yards away from us.
We wheeled round. Not quarter of a mile away, and heading straight for us, we saw two immense, white ostrich feathers, divided as by the blade of a knife. Each instant they grew larger.
One of the convoying destroyers had made a grand detour and was coming for us at the charge.
Then, I cannot say when or how, there was a sound like two great hands clapping together in the air above us. Instantaneously, the plates of the deck and conning-tower rang like gongs, followed by little splashing sounds, as if someone was throwing eggs.
I had no idea what it was. "What the devil ..." I was beginning, when Bernard explained.
"Shrapnel," he said, and held out his left arm to me. It ended in what looked like a bundle of crimson rags.
"Damn the blighters!" he said, "they've blown off my left hand. Quick, John, or we shall lose the trick. Your handkerchief!"
I pulled it out mechanically.
"Knot it round my arm—yes—there—just above the wrist. Thank God you're strong! Now then, you've got to twist it. Got anything for a lever?"
The only thing I could find was a silver-mounted fountain pen, a Christmas present from Doris the year before. I whipped it into the knot of the handkerchief, turned it round and secured it. The whole thing did not take more than ten seconds. I had hardly finished, when Bernard skipped inside the conning-tower. I followed him. The hatchway slid into its place with a clang, and as we heard another terrific explosion above us, I wrenched the rudder lever over, Bernard signalled below to fill the tanks, and through the portholes I saw the welcome green creep up, the light disappear, and felt the gratings sinking beneath my feet. I shouted down for Dickson—the first name I could think of.
Dickson max. was up in a second.
"Get the bottle of rum," I said, "the Captain's hurt."
It came. I held it to my brother's lips. He took a little and gave one deep groan.
Dickson max. stood like a statue. He never asked a question. It was wonderful.
"Who fired that torpedo?" Bernard asked.
"I did, sir. Mr. Scarlett showed me how."
"You will be pleased to know, Mr. Dickson, that you have sunk the German battleship,Der Friesland, with probably a thousand souls on board. This will be remembered."
"You are hurt, sir?"
"Get down to the torpedo tubes. Load the empty one and stand by for orders."
Dickson vanished.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
"Right as rain. Now then, we've got to find those transports. I took their bearings before we sank. Meanwhile I think we'll get a little deeper, out of harm's way."
He told me what to do. I pulled the necessary lever and spoke orders to Bosustow at the engines. The needle on the manometer quivered and rose. We went down to thirty feet. Immediately, it seemed as if the world above, the noise of battle, everything, faded away. We were buzzing along in the depths of the sea, just as we had been, intact, unhurt, until I looked at Bernard's hand. He was rather pale, but as pleased in face as if he was just tumbling into the "Sawdust Club" at Portsmouth.
"I say," he said, "won't the daily papers spread themselves over this!"
Somehow or other, a beastly little fly must have got into the conning-tower. It settled on me. I put up my hand to brush it away. My hand came back—pink, and I stared stupidly at it.
"You silly blighter!" my brother said, "didn't you know you'd lost half your ear?"
I suppose we ran, deep under water, at the top speed of which the motors were capable for at least another ten minutes. Adams was called up to the wheel and Bernard went down. I stood where I was until the man below shouted up. "Captain calling for you, sir!"
I tumbled down into the centre of the submarine, looking first aft to where the huge Cornishman, Bosustow, was quietly moving about his engines.
"Forrard, sir," said Bosustow, and I hastened round the gangway towards the bows. Scarlett, the Dicksons, and Bernard were standing by the torpedo tubes. Bernard turned to me.
"That concussion has snookered our tubes a bit," he said. "You see we aren't quite accustomed to this new German mechanism. Scarlett says, and I quite agree, that it's a toss up if we can make correct aim under water. I think we shall have to go for that transport on the surface."
He looked at me with quick interrogation. I knew what he meant. Already we had done more than anyone in the world would have thought possible. It was no time for sentimentalism or heroic thoughts, and we knew that, whatever happened, we had earned imperishable fame. We were safe now. Should we run another risk? That was what my brother was asking me. Even his iron nerve doubted itself for an instant.
"The only thing I can see to do," I answered, "is to let 'em have it in the open—out of the trenches, bayonet attack, what?"
"My own opinion entirely, sir," said Scarlett. "Damn it, begging your pardon, sir, we've not 'alf give 'em it yet!"
For a moment my brother's glance rested on the two eager boys. Was he justified in flinging them to death after they had done so much, behaved so splendidly?
They knew it. By some intuition, the young devils saw it at once.
"Oh, let's have another smack at them, sir!" they said in chorus.
Without another word, Bernard limped along the gratings and I helped him up into the conning-tower again. We rose to the surface.
The stars in their courses fought for Sisera! When we went out on deck, the first transport was scarcely a mile away from us on the starboard quarter. We had judged it to a tick.
But she was no longer heading west. She had turned tail. She was a Hamburg-Amerika liner converted to a transport, and thick black smoke poured out of her four funnels as she raced back towards Heligoland and safety.
"She's got nearly three thousand troops on board, I'll bet you a manhattan," Bernard said. "Wemustget her, we simply must!"
Turning to the west, we saw at least five destroyers rushing for us like express trains. Whether they had seen us come up or not I cannot tell, but they knew well enough what our manœuvre would be, and they were not a mile and a half away.
"Get down. Tell Bosustow to cram it all on. Increase the spark. We've got to do twenty knots if we scrap the whole thing."
I was there in a moment, I told Bosustow what the skipper had said. The big man was quietly chewing tobacco, and he spat down on the accumulators as he made a motion to salute. He moved like a slug over his roaring engines, but even as he did so, the angry hum, the muffled explosions, rose into a steel symphony like Tchaikovsky's "1812"! I felt the ship leap forward like a whippet out of leash. When I stumbled up on deck again, the wind was whistling all round the conning-tower. It blew my cap off into the sea.
We gained, we gained enormously, but so did the pursuing destroyers.
We soon knew that. There were sounds behind us like a little street-boy whistling to a friend. They were firing their bow machine guns, taking no careful aim, at the fearful pace they were going, but all around us fountains of foam rose in the sea as we plunged onwards.
"You know, John," said my brother, "it's a difficult thing for any gunners at all to fire their bow chasers at a little bobbing thing like a submarine. Of course, they may get us with a lucky shot, but I don't think they will."
They didn't.
The great liner saw us coming and slanted off obliquely to the north. It wasn't any use at all. We had the heels of her, though we knew that at any moment our engines might give out, owing to the fearful strain we were putting on them.
It was Scarlett who fired the torpedo—"must let the old blighter have his chance!" my brother said—and it went straight and true to thePrincessin Amalia, as we afterwards learned she was.
I think that was the worst of all. We torpedoed her from six hundred yards. There was no explosion, as there was in the case of the battleship. We could see everything far more distinctly. She simply broke in two and sank in three minutes, defenceless, impotent.
"Poor chaps!" I said, as we watched.
"Fortune of war!" Bernard answered—"Yes, poor chaps! At the same time, remember that they're the same sort of fellows who have been crucifying flappers in Belgium and taking out the whole male population of harmless villages and shooting them before breakfast. They would have been doing that all over Norfolk in thirty hours, if"—he paused—"if you hadn't been rejected by the R.N.F.C. and also been the right hand of the late lamented Doctor Upjelly. We must get down quickly, or else ..."
He had turned and was holding his binoculars to his eyes.
"Good heavens!" he said, "what's that?"
I turned, and I saw that the five destroyers were sweeping away in a great curve to the north. They were pursuing us no longer.
"What is it?" I cried.
The answer didn't come from my brother, though I heard it plainly enough. It was like thunder many miles away—a huge, dull boom such as I had never heard before.
"Why, they're running!"
"I should rather think so, old soul!"
"Are they afraid of us? What is that noise?"
"That, my dear young friend, unless I am very much mistaken, is one of the twelve-inch guns of His Majesty's ship,Vengeance. Cruiser-battleship, young John. I happen to know she's been lying off Harwich for the last week, waiting orders. Our friend, Lieutenant Murphy, has sent my wires to good purpose, and 'now we shan't be long!'"
Again the great, menacing boom, but this time we saw something.
From the deck of a submarine the range of vision is only two miles. The last destroyer was almost disappearing on the horizon, when she suddenly jumped out of the sea and fell to pieces like a pack of cards.
"That's old Snorty Bethune-Ranger!" my brother said, wagging his head gravely. "Best gunner commander in the fleet, and I know he's on board theVengeance. Now don't you think we'll have the boys up and let 'em chortle a bit?"
"I'll go and call them."
I was just going in when I was gripped by the arm so hard that I winced.
"Look there!" said my brother.
I followed his pointing right arm and saw something far up in the sky, something like a crow, which grew larger every second.
"One of their hydroplanes, off the deck of the second transport. She's going to try and drop bombs on us."
"Will she do it?"
"Can a duck bark?" Bernard answered contemptuously. "Of course, she may be lucky, but it's never happened yet. The worst of it is that they can see us thirty feet below the surface. Still, old sport, she can't do much—hear her coming?"
I did. There was a noise like a motor-bicycle in the sky, and the crow grew to an eagle, developed into an aeroplane, such as I had seen so often in the illustrated papers.
"I suppose we'd better submerge, though I don't want to run from a beastly mechanical kite, after sinking Kaiser Bill's lovin' enthusiastic soldiers, all in the box, complete, one shilling! I say, John, would you like a little bit of sport?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I don't suppose this fellow is going to do us any harm, and any way, it's a toss up. Now you rather pride yourself as a wild-fowler, don't you?"
"If I hadn't been a wild-fowler," I said, "we shouldn't have been where we are now."
"Quite so. Now, there's a rack of excellent rifles down below, and dozens of clips; see if you can't pick this Johnny off."
He bellowed down through the hatch.
"Bring up a magazine rifle and some ammunition. Look sharp!"
I got the rifle in a few seconds. I think we were both perfectly reckless. I know I was. I laughed as I tucked the gun into my shoulder. There was a complicated arrangement of sights, but I never even snapped up the foresight. It did not seem worth while; the mark was so big.
The hydroplane fetched a sweep of quarter of a mile round us, and then came head on. I could see the pilot distinctly and, a little below him, the gentleman who was getting ready to drop his bombs.
It was quite delightful. They were not going at a higher speed than a flock of widgeon. To me, it was child's play.
I plugged the bomb expert with the second shot. Then, and I really rather pride myself on what I did next, I hit the long, sausage-like petrol tank and ripped it up. There was a huge roar, an overhead explosion, and as the whole beastly thing turned a somersault and fell, I am pretty certain, too, that I put the pilot out of his pain with my last shot.
We were surrounded by ships—they had come racing north out of Harwich just in time. The bigVengeancewas still booming away, but two snaky-like destroyers were coming up hell for leather and a big seven thousand ton cruiser was not more than three hundred yards from us.
Puff! puff! A white pinnace, with a shining brass funnel, swirled round and came up on our quarter. My brother and myself, together with the two Dickson boys, were standing by the conning-tower.
The pinnace was full of men. It was steered by a youngish-looking, clean-shaved officer, wearing the badges of a lieutenant.
Adams, Scarlett, and Bosustow were over the side in a minute, a coil of rope ran out, boat-hooks appeared from nowhere. There was a subdued hum of chatter, as the men from the cruiser greeted the three heroes of the submarine.
Then I heard a sharp and rather squeaky voice.
"Hallo, Whelk!" it said.
Bernard leant over the rail; he was nearly done, but he found voice to answer that hail.
"That you, Reptile?" he muttered, "you are more like a stuffed frog than ever!"
Such are the greetings and amenities of the Navy. But the last thing I remember hearing that afternoon came from the lieutenant in charge of the pinnace.
"I say, excuse me for mentioning it, but 'well done,' you fellows!"
Note.—I have certainly written this chapter—with a pen, that is. Neither my brother's wife nor my own actually set down a word of the following. I am not responsible, and I will say no more. You will understand why when you have read this last chapter. If I were the usual sort of poopstick that often lurks behind such a story, I should say: "This is put in at the request of my friends." It is not. It is done simply to tell you the end of our little affairs, and rather more with my heart in my mouth than my tongue in my cheek.—J. C.
Note.—I have certainly written this chapter—with a pen, that is. Neither my brother's wife nor my own actually set down a word of the following. I am not responsible, and I will say no more. You will understand why when you have read this last chapter. If I were the usual sort of poopstick that often lurks behind such a story, I should say: "This is put in at the request of my friends." It is not. It is done simply to tell you the end of our little affairs, and rather more with my heart in my mouth than my tongue in my cheek.—J. C.
It was Sunday night in Lieutenant Murphy's house at Cockthorpe. The wires had worked. By dawn there was an army of police from Norwich in a fleet of motor cars. They invested Morstone House School. Old Mr. Pugmire, startlingly sober for once, was placed in charge of the boarders, who were all sent home during the course of the next day. Another, and more dangerous reprobate, Mrs. Gaunt with the broken leg, was interrogated by a stern-faced inspector in the presence of a doctor. The hag had been in von Vedal's confidence for years. The police learned much.
By ten o'clock, others than the County Police had arrived. There were clean-shaved, quiet-mannered officials from the Admiralty. There was a lean, elderly gentleman in khaki, with the red band round his cap and on his shoulders which pronounced him of the War Office Staff.
Admiral Kiderlen-Waechter and the man, Schweitzer, were in Norwich Castle by eleven. The whole countryside and coastline buzzed like swarming bees. A detachment of Territorials patrolled the village. Nobody knew anything at all of what had really happened, but everyone was very excited. All the local people agreed that there had not been a Sunday like this for many years!
Doris and Marjorie Joyce were at Cockthorpe, in the Lieutenant's house. They were being looked after by Mrs. Murphy, a jolly old Irishwoman with all the tact and humour of her nation—a woman who knew when to foil hysteria with a jest, to hearten a girl with a sharp word, and, when the final interrogation was over, to invite the warm relieving flood of tears with the instinctive motherhood of one who nightly prayed to Mary to pray for those in distress.
The girls were troubled very little. The Lieutenant of the Coastguards had seen almost everything. There would not be an inquest for two or three days. They had made their statement to a courteous person from London. They were to be left in peace.
After lunch the old lady came to them—came to the little sitting-room which opened out of the bedroom she had given them.
"Now, my dear children," she said, "ye'll just take off your stays and pull down your hair, and I'll tuck ye in under the eiderdown, and ye'll sleep!"
She had two tumblers in her plump hands, upon which sparkled many rings—the Irish carbuncles, which are so much larger and more brilliant than mere rubies, the Ballysheen emeralds, "which you can only find at Ballysheen, me dear, and glad the jewellers of Regent Street would be if they could get a supply of 'em! Faith! and the doctor has given me this for you. Bromide to calm the nerves—not that I ever had any nerves, meself, when I was your age! But I never had a crool stepfather lying dead in an adjacent village, nor was mixed up with spies, though in the Sin-fein riots of '84—Marjorie, me darlint, take your shoes off. Now then, I'll tuck ye both up and pull down the blinds to keep out the sunlight, though it's shutters I would be putting up when I was a gurl!"
It was like a fairy story, and Mrs. Murphy was the good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid: "The children sank into a deep, dreamless sleep."
Poor dears, how they must have wanted it after all they had been through! I can see them lying there....
(Excision by censor and pencil note in the margin of the manuscript: "John Carey, you liar, don't obtrude yourself and your sickly sentiments.")
It was about six when Doris and Marjorie awoke. They came out of the bedroom into the sitting-room adjoining. A bright fire burnt upon the hearth with that clear redness which indicates a dry and frosty night. On a little table there was an equipage of tea, and a copper kettle sang gently.
These two girls were essentially healthy and plucky. The semi-imprisoned life they had led at Morstone House School had broken nothing of their spirit. The death—the righteous execution—of the man who had hurried their mother into her grave affected them not at all. They were too brave and fine to affect an emotion that they did not, could not, feel. All that had happened in the large, L-shaped house was hideous and horrible, yet not to be overmuch remembered or deplored.
They had another subject of discussion, these two beautiful sisters.
"Doris, it was desperate from the first."
"Yes, it was, Marjorie."
"Then, do you think——?"
"That they will come out all right, you mean?"
"Yes, do you?"
"My red-haired sister," Doris answered, "if you go on like this I'll be bound to bite!"
"Of course, Commander Carey knows all about submarines, and he's one of the bravest officers...."
"Yes, I rather like Bernard myself."
"Yourather likehim, Doris!"
"Well, you haven't known him as long as I've known John. What price Johnny, my sweet young sister, and what about the bold, brave Dickson max. and Dickson major?"
They kept it up for a minute or two very well, and then their arms went round each other, and one sister held the other close.
The bell from the adjacent church tolled for evensong. It was a lovely night, cold and clear with a great, round, green moon. Mrs. Murphy mercifully left them alone. They heard the front door close, and saw her rolling up the path towards the church, a long, dark façade with lit windows.
As if in a dream, the girls heard the droning murmur of the Psalms. Their thoughts were far away with a little band of heroes. There was a long pause—it must have been the sermon—and then came a deep, swelling sound. The congregation were singing the last hymn, and it was "for those in peril on the sea."
They clasped hands and went to the window, opening it wide to the moonlight. The simple, familiar music flooded into the room.
Bang! Bang! Bang! The door burst open. It was midnight, and Mrs. Murphy, in an appalling night-cap and a magenta dressing-gown, was standing by the girls' beds.
"Get ye up! Get ye up!—no, don't bother about your hair, it's well enough as it is. The Saints be praised—hush, ye'll not say a word, for I'm a good Protestant here, for Murphy's sake, and an old gazaboo the clergyman is, to be shure!—but there's a gintleman come down in a big automobile to see you. Wirra, phwat news!"
While she was shouting and gesticulating, the old lady had pulled Doris and Marjorie out of their beds, and was wrapping them up in their dressing-gowns with shaking fingers.
"News?" Doris gasped—"news of John?"
"News that'll shake England, aye, and Doblin too, to its foundations."
"Bernard?" Marjorie said unsteadily.
"Ye'll kindly come along with me," said Mrs. Murphy, and a strange procession went down the stairs into the hall.
The three servants of the house were bundled into one corner, and the less said about their attire the better. Lieutenant Murphy, in his uniform, was trying to light candles, and his wrinkled face was brighter than the flaring, smoking lamp which hung from the ceiling. In the centre of the hall was a tall, clean-shaved, youngish-looking man. He held a cocked hat in one hand and wore a uniform of dead black-blue.
Directly the old lady rolled down the stairs, followed by the frightened girls, this new-comer made a step forward. His manners were perfect, and he bowed as if he were at Court.
"Miss Joyce?—Miss Marjorie Joyce?"
"Faith, and they're the same, the very gurrls!" said Mrs. Murphy.
"I am sent by the First Lord, ladies, to give you some news, which I understand will be most welcome. Lieutenant-Commander Bernard Carey, Mr. John Carey, the two young gentlemen named Dickson, and Commander Carey's three sailors, Scarlett, Adams and Bosustow, have covered themselves with glory."
Doris was splendid.
"Ah!" she said, "we were waiting for this, my sister and myself. Are they, are they—?" She could not go on.
"Madam, they are all safe and sound. Commander Carey is slightly wounded—that is all. They have engaged in action with the great German battleship,Der Friesland, and sunk her. They have sunk a transport. They have evaded a flotilla of German destroyers. In short, they have saved England. Our flotilla came up just in time. The Admiralty have had wireless messages during the whole of the afternoon."
Hitherto, the officer—he looked thirty-five, was really fifty, and the son of a duke—had spoken formally.
"Then?" Marjorie sighed.
"Then, it just amounts to this. No more glorious deed had ever been done in the whole history of our Navy, from the days of Sir Francis Drake down to this moment. I was privileged to be at the Palace a few hours ago when the news was brought. Each member of the crew of the submarine is to receive the Victoria Cross. It is not only by order of the First Lord of the Admiralty, but also by express command of His Majesty that I have motored down here to-night to bring you the news. My instructions are to ask you if you will accompany me to-morrow to Harwich, for we expect and hope that, during the earlier part of the afternoon...."
"They will come back!" Marjorie shouted.
"Precisely," said Lord William, "and, of course, you must be there to meet them!"
"Gurrls, I'll chaperone ye! Now, get back to bed, and sleep—if ye can. Shure, and I'm ashamed of ye appearin' in such dishybayle!" concluded the merry old lady, with a wink.
She stood at the foot of the stairs and hooshed her young charges away.
Then she turned to her guest.
"Ye'll forgive an old woman appearin' like this," she said simply. "Pathrick, take Lord William into the dining-room, and we'll make him some supper in a moment. We're all friends in the Navy."
Her voice changed and became very grave.
"Blessings on you," she said, "that have brought the good news to this house and to those dear gurrls this night!"
It was a tall man with black hair, dark eyes and a pinched face. His black, clerical clothes were rather rusty in the bright morning sunlight, though they were his best.
"The young beggars!" he said, "the young beggars!" and there was a catch in his voice. "A commission for both of them and a special allowance, did you say, Lord William?"
"The Admiralty could do no less, Mr. Dickson. We want a thousand lads like yours, if we could only get them. Not that any officer of their age in the Navy wouldn't have done the same, but their names will be for ever glorious in the history of the service. It is a feat that England will never willingly forget. You know that they, as well as the rest, are to have the Victoria Cross?"
Mr. Dickson stared, as if he saw something at a great distance.
"No," he said, "I didn't know that—er—excuse me for a moment."
The clergyman turned away to the window of the Admiral's office, which overlooked Harwich Harbour, and his shoulders were shaking. "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word: for mine eyes have seen——"
"Shure, and they can't be long now, the Admiral says," came from Mrs. Murphy, sitting in the Admiral's chair, at the Admiral's table, with all sorts of confidential documents spread in front of her.
"Pathrick is to have the rank of Captain for the part he's tuk in it, though that was pure luck and him being on the spot. And, bedad, we'll have that motor cyar—and I never did see why a mere Docthor's wife like Mrs. Pestle, and him little better than a vetherinary surgeon, should keep a cyar when an officer in His Majesty's Navy couldn't!"
The Admiral in command at Harwich, a grizzled sailor who had been called up from his peaceful Devon home to leave his pheasants and fat cattle, came into the room, rubbing his hands.
"Well, they'll have the reception of their lives, young ladies," he said beaming; and, with a clank of his sword as he sat down, "Mrs. Murphy, if you attempt to read any of the papers on that table, I shall regretfully be compelled to have you shot, which will mar the festivity of the occasion! My dears, a special train full of journalists has just come down from town. There are thousands of people flocking to the quays in the spaces provided, and what the papers are saying about our friends will astonish you."
He produced a copy of theDaily Wireand opened it, while they all crowded round to look. Modern journalism had secured a triumph. Short as the time had been, there were columns and columns of description of the events at Morstone of which hardly anybody had been allowed to know anything—and the Battle in the North Sea, about which nobody knew but the Admiralty.
There were portraits of the two Dickson boys, each apparently about twelve years of age and in broad Eton collars. There was a truculent, prize-fighting individual, with distinct side-whiskers, labelled, "Mr. John Carey, M.A., the heroic schoolmaster who slew the Master-spy, 'Doctor Upjelly,' with his own hands." A smudge on the top of a uniform represented Lieutenant-Commander Bernard Carey—also "heroic," with sundry other adjectives; and if those excellent Plymouth ladies, Mrs. Bosustow, Mrs. Scarlett and Mrs. Adams, had seen the people represented in the newspaper as their lords and masters walk into Paradise Row, Devonport, they certainly would not have known them.
Doris gasped. "To call thatJohn!" she said; "what a wicked libel! Couldn't the editor be arrested?"
"An editor is one of the people whom nothing can arrest," said the Admiral. "'In rebus desperatis remedia desperata,' which means 'What the public wants, the public must have, however short the time in which to fake it up.'"
There was a knock at the door, and a young officer entered, saluting.
"Destroyers sighted, Sir," he said, not without an appreciative glance at the two pretty girls close by. He handed a piece of paper to the Admiral, adding: "Just come in by wireless from theArethusa, Sir."
The old gentleman with the pointed beard and clanking sword read it. He chuckled.
"Well," he said, "the public is going to have some fun for its money, for Commander Carey is coming into harbour on boardhis ownboat. Now, then, suppose we all go out to the signalling station at the end of the Mole and get the first sight of them?"
Half a dozen clouds of black smoke upon the horizon, growing larger and larger every minute; a great murmur of the crowd; officers in dress uniform with binoculars at their eyes; a group of journalists in hard felt hats, making notes!...
Now the destroyers can be seen in a half-circle, with three great ships in the background.
"The Transports!" the Admiral said—"from seven to eight thousand Germans in them—what a haul! Look, Mrs. Murphy, that is the CruiserArethusaby the side of them. I expect they had a handful in disarming all those chaps, and they must be pretty short-handed on board the whole flotilla, for they'll have had to send a lot of men aboard those two liners. Fine boats, the new light cruisers,CaptainMurphy?"
The old lieutenant of Coastguards flushed with pleasure.
"Never had a chance to go to sea in one of them, Sir," he said—"long after my time, I am sorry to say."
"Look!" Marjorie whispered to Doris, "they're opening out. Isn't it wonderful? How near they're getting! It's just like a figure in the Lancers."
Doris did not answer for a moment. Then she said:—"What's that, right in the middle?"
The Admiral overheard her.
"You've quick eyes, young lady," he answered; "that, unless I am very much mistaken, is a certain Submarine, lately in possession of the Kaiser, and which people are talking about a good deal just now!"
It was so. The destroyers slowed down, and made a great lane upon the sea. In the centre of this lane was something infinitely small, a black speck, like a cork floating on the water.
It grew and grew.
Then, from somewhere not far away, there was the heavy boom of a gun. Immediately, the air was rent with a noise like hundreds of bellowing bulls as all the ships at anchor opened their steam-sirens until the very stone quays trembled.
The cheers of thousands of voices, the wild tossing of hats into the air, the fluttering of hand-kerchiefs like sudden snow; and then, the Submarine, its whale-back ploughing through the Harbour waters, a white wake of foam behind it, came into full view. From the periscope fluttered two little flags, black and white. In half a minute the cheering, delirious crowd saw what they were.
"The skull and cross-bones, by Jove—two of 'em!" said a young lieutenant on the Admiral's Staff to his friend, a newly promoted Commander.
"So it is! How on earth did they get those on board a German submarine?"
"Someone of resource on board has spent a happy hour or two on the cruise home."
The young gentleman was right, but he did not know that Dickson max.'s shirt and the back of Dickson major's coat were the materials used by Mr. Scarlett, who was very handy with his needle.
"Here they come!"
"Here they come!" "Here they come" "Hurrah!" "Hurrah!"
Bang! went a whole salvo of guns. Upon the deck of the Submarine was a little group of four figures, and, if the truth must be told, four dirtier and more shame-faced human beings have rarely made a public appearance.
"Those must be the boys," the lieutenant shouted in his friend's ear.
The other nodded. He was staring at the Submarine.
"By Jove!" he cried, "there's the 'Whelk,' the good old Whelk! Look at him! We were at Osborne together, and he always swore he liked the beastly things—so the name stuck to him. That other chap must be his brother, I suppose—the schoolmaster Johnny."
"Good old Whe-e-lk!" he shouted, his hands to his mouth.
The lieutenant had never been shipmates with Bernard Carey. Also, his eyes were elsewhere. He twitched his friend's arm.
"I say," he said, in an awed voice, "look at the faces of those two girls!"
The Commander did so.
"Lucky old Whelk!"
Printed byBallantyne, Hanson & Co.Edinburgh & London