THE SPEAR OF FOAM
"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 the Friesland—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.