The Secret Service Submarine: A Story of the Present War

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.

CHAPTER XI

THE SUBMARINE FIGHTS FOR ENGLAND

Can you imagine a narrow belt of foam, rushing over the sea like a live thing with irresistible and sinister suggestion of something terrible below? That is what I saw as I stared down at the toy theatre, the little, coloured microcosm.

Then the inevitable happened. Der Friesland was 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 of Der Friesland had 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.