CHAPTER XXVII
IN THE HANDS OF THE HUNS
NIGEL FARRAR'S state of mind was far from being composed when he found himself under lock and key in the interior of the submerged U-boat. Apart from the physical pain and exhaustion, and the unaccustomed air in the confined space making his head throb with redoubled violence, his nerves were greatly overstrung. That was doubtless accentuated by his wound, but he tried to pull himself together like a true British sailor.
There was the disconcerting thought, too, that the U-boat stood a great chance of being strafed by the British destroyer, patrol-boats, and aircraft; and with a full knowledge of the terribly efficient means at submarine hunters' command the prospect was far from alluring. It was one thing, he reflected grimly, to chase a Fritz and blow him out of existence with depth charges; another to be most unwillingly in his company when the deed was done.
More than once the selfish wish flashed across his mind that he had taken the gun-layer's advice and fought it out. Better to die fighting than to perish miserably like a rat in a trap.... But it was for the best, after all... his men—comrades all—were still free, although their position a hazardous one.
Tormented by doubts and fears the sub spent a bad two hours, nor was the ordeal over when the door of his prison was thrown open and an electric torch flashed full in his face.
Dazzled by the sudden transition from pitch-black darkness to the blinding glare, Farrar stood bolt upright and stared with unseeing eyes at the Hun behind the light. His spell of mental depression had passed, and although his head was racked with pain, he faced his captor with a calm resolution that surprised himself.
He was under the mistaken impression that von Loringhoven confronted him, although on second thoughts he reflected that the Hun would hardly go to the inconvenience of interviewing the prisoner in such uncomfortable conditions. Nor could he satisfactorily account for any desire on his part for the Hun to see him, yet he could not banish the impression that it was von Loringhoven and none other.
Except for a brief interval when the kapitan-leutnant of the lost U 254 had been marched under escort from the "Antipas" to temporary quarters in Trecurnow, Farrar had never to his knowledge set eyes on him until a few hours previously, but von Loringhoven and the sub were alike in one respect—they had good memories for faces.
"Dis way; come quick!" exclaimed the German with the torch. The sub recognised the voice as that of the unter-leutnant.
In his still saturated, scorched, and badly torn uniform, and with a blood-stained bandage round his head, Nigel presented a forlorn appearance when he was unceremoniously ushered into the presence of von Loringhoven and the kapitan-leutnant of the U-boat in a fairly spacious cabin immediately below the elongated conning tower.
The submarine was still running beneath the surface, but the fear of pursuit was apparently at an end for the time being, since the kapitan-leutnant had handed over the control of the vessel to a quartermaster.
Since the commanding officer of the U-boat could not speak English the examination was carried out by von Loringhoven, who in turn translated, or mistranslated according to his own purpose, the prisoner's replies.
"What is your name?" demanded von Loringhoven.
Farrar told him.
"Ach! is that so?" exclaimed his questioner. "This is, to quote one of your English idioms, a little bit of all right.' Unless I am greatly mistaken you are the officer who shot my friend von Gobendorff in cold blood."
"It was an accident," corrected the sub. "I was rabbit-shooting, and quite by chance I wounded him slightly in his head. As to saying it was——"
"Accident?" interrupted von Loringhoven. "That is good. Whenever an Englishman does an underhand bit of work and he is discovered the excuse is, 'It is an accident.' However, that is one count against you. Now, what have you to say when I accuse you of being a common pirate, committing outrages under the cover of a Greek flag?"
"Surely he cannot have heard of the strafing of the U-boat that was shelling the 'Epicyclic's' boats?" thought the sub. "I'll say nothing about that."
"Come! Come!" pressed the Run. "Why hesitate in your reply?"
"What evidence have you as proof of your assertion?" asked Farrar.
"Evidence? My own eyes," explained von Loringhoven, laughing unpleasantly. "If you are such a fool as to go close under the stern of the ship I happened to be on—it was the British tramp 'Andromeda,' if that information interests you—it is not at all to be wondered at that I saw the Greek flag flying from your pirate craft?"
"It is permissible in the circumstances," said the sub shortly. "Germany has done the same thing times without number. Providing the hostile vessel under false colours replaces them by his own before opening fire it is a legitimate ruse de guerre. I think, however, that there is no justification of the conduct of certain of your submarines. I personally witnessed one engaged in shelling unarmed men in open boats."
"Oh!" sneered von Loringhoven. "Did you? Are you sure it was a German submarine?"
"She showed no number," replied the sub.
Von Loringhoven shrugged his shoulders.
"Even if she were," he continued, "you ought to recognise by this time that as far as Germany is concerned might is right. We do not admit of any outside interference in the conduct of the war, otherwise where should we be? If you English are such fools as to play at making war, allow yourselves to be hoodwinked by your statesmen who attribute every one of your numerous set-backs to the mysterious working of Providence—you know perfectly well that the words, 'Adverse weather conditions,' appear in almost every official report—that is to Germany's advantage. But to return to business. You are a pirate. As such you richly deserve to be shot without further delay, but we have motives for sparing your life, although I don't envy your lot."
The German spoke with rising temper. For some cause that the sub could not fathom he was venting his wrath upon the prisoner.
"From this time forward," resumed von Loringhoven, "you are dead as far as your friends are concerned. I need hardly inform you that Germany does not report the names of all prisoners in her hands. How do you like the prospect of toiling in mines until you die? Not pleasant, eh? There is one way of evading the punishment, however. Of that you will hear more later. Meanwhile I would advise you to give all the information we demand, without any attempt to deceive us, for you will assuredly be found out."
"In other words," exclaimed the sub, "you want me to be a traitor to my country. I'll see you to blazes first."
"The interview is at an end," declared von Loringhoven, in cold, measured tones, that had a sinister ring in their delivery. "For what you are to undergo you have only yourself to blame."
Unprotestingly Farrar was led back to his cell, an empty store-room in the fore part of the submarine, and immediately beneath the torpedo-tubes compartment. His resolute courage had reasserted itself. He no longer dreaded the attentions of a British destroyer; the satisfaction of knowing that a pack of cowardly Huns would be done in outweighing the fear of death, even in their unhallowed company.
For the next twenty-four hours he was kept in utter darkness; his food and drink during that period consisted of black bread of the consistency of plaster of Paris and a pitcher of water. He could not help contrasting his present position with that of certain German officers whom he had seen as prisoners on board British men-of-war. In the matter of food and drink they fared equally as well as did their captors; if wounded, they were given the best medical attention available, and their comfort was considered in almost every possible way. The ungrateful Hun, however, does not thank his captors for their little attentions. With the arrogance of his race he attributes his easy lot as a prisoner of war to the fear of the British as to what might happen to them when Germany is victorious. And on their part the British have yet to learn fully—as they are beginning to do—that the only thing the German fears is the force of armed might.
During the second day of his captivity Nigel was allowed to take exercise on deck in charge of a couple of alert seamen, who had been strictly enjoined to take every precaution lest the prisoner should leap overboard.
The U-boat was now within sight of land, for lofty ranges of mountains were visible on the starboard hand. She had evaded the Otranto patrols and was now in the comparatively safe waters of the Adriatic, and within easy distance of the numerous land-locked harbours of the Dalmatian coast, where, under the lee of a chain of islands, the battle-fleets of the world could lie undetected from the open sea save from the all-seeing eyes of an aircraft.
With a couple of German sailors standing with ready automatic pistols at a distance of twenty yards apart, the sub was compelled to walk briskly to and fro on the fore deck. Fortunately the sea was calm and the comparatively low-lying platform was practically free from the waves, although occasionally a crest would break inboard and swirl ankle-deep as far aft as the base of the conning tower.
Before Farrar had been five minutes at his enforced exercise the kapitan-leutnant, who had been intently watching something on the distant horizon, rapped out a string of orders, from which the sub was able to understand with his limited knowledge of German that the U-boat was about to dive.
Unceremoniously the prisoner was hustled below, and as he descended the vertical steel ladder of the for'ard hatchway, he heard a petty officer remark, "Fortunately we have but one torpedo. I cannot understand why, since we are so near our base, the kapitan should risk it."
"And against an armed warship, too," added the Hun to whom the remark was addressed.
"It is unreasonable. What is she?"
"One of those accursed monitors, I believe," replied the first speaker with a shrug of his shoulders; then, catching sight of the prisoner being hurried forward, he spat contemptuously.
"We have to thank these Englanders for all this," he added. "But for them the war would have been over long ago, and we should be drinking Munich beer in the beer-gardens of Wilhelmshaven instead of being cooped up here—perhaps everlastingly."
A gong sounded, orders were communicated to various parts of the submarine, as, with the hiss of water entering her ballast tanks and the muffled purr of the electric motors, the U-boat dived.
In his cell Farrar could hear the jumbled noise of a dozen or more different sounds. Once he fancied he heard the detonation of the impulse charge that liberated the torpedo. There was certainly a sharp horizontal movement that follows the release of the powerful self-actuated weapon. In vain he strained his ears for the crash of the explosion, but he certainly heard the subdued reports of several quick-firers in action.
It was not until three hours later that the U-boat rose to the surface and Farrar was permitted to resume his airing on deck. Judging by the disgruntled appearance of officers and crew, the attempt to torpedo the hostile vessel was a failure.
Long afterwards the sub heard that the craft attacked was a British monitor returning from certain important work in the Gulf of Venice. The U-boat's torpedo had "got home," but owing to the peculiar construction of the vessel attacked, the missile did very little harm beyond blowing away a few plates from the exaggerated space surrounding her interior or main hull, which in naval parlance is generally spoken of as the "old hooker's blisters."
Upon returning to his cell the sub, worn out by his exertions and privations, threw himself down upon a pile of empty sacks and was soon sound asleep. It seemed as if he had been slumbering only a few minutes when he was aroused by a couple of seamen standing over him. One held an electric torch; the other, having indicated that the prisoner should collect his scanty belongings, including his meagre stock of food, motioned the sub to go on deck.
It was a bright moonlit night. Not a breath of wind ruffled the waters of the enclosed harbour in which the U-boat lay. She was not alone, but moored in one of three tiers of submarines, some eighteen or twenty in all. Each craft was ingeniously camouflaged, light nettings being suspended fore and aft, the meshes of which were liberally sprinkled with freshly cut foliage, while the periscopes ended in tufts of broad-leafed evergreens.
On one side of the harbour was a small village fronted by a long wharf, on which electric cranes and locomotives were at work. Although not a light was visible in any of the houses and the large workshops on the higher ground beyond, the clearness of the moonlit air enabled the sub to take in most of the characteristic features of the place. Almost encircling what was undoubtedly a secret U-boat base was a range of lofty serrated hills, culminating on the northern side in three conical peaks of equal height.
Nigel Farrar's observations were cut short by the angry voice of the kapitan-leutnant.
"Fools, pig-dogs, imbeciles!" he roared, addressing the two seamen who had charge of the prisoner. "Did I not strictly enjoin you to blindfold the Englishman? Donnerwetter! You will pay dearly for this omission."
Possibly with the idea of mitigating the impending punishment by a belated display of zeal, or else with a vindictive desire to get even with their captive for trouble in store for them, although through no fault of his, the Huns seized the young British officer by the wrists, wound a strip of coarse canvas so tightly round his head as to threaten him with suffocation, and bundled him forward to a gangway that led over the bows to a pontoon.
Presently the yielding planks of the pontoon gave place to hard metalled ground, and the sub knew that he was once more on dry land. Stumbling over ring-bolts and railway lines, to the gross amusement of his gaolers, the prisoner was led for a distance of nearly a mile. All around he could hear sounds of activity, the hum of machinery, the rasping of metal, and the thud of numerous pneumatic hammers predominating, while the air reeked with the fumes of petrol and a peculiar, nauseating odour that the sub failed entirely to identify.
Engines, evidently drawing small trucks, judging by the noisy clatter, were passing and repassing continually, so close that Farrar distinctly felt the windage from the rapidly moving train and the blast of hot-oil-laden air in his face, for his captors had condescended to readjust the bandage so that it no longer impeded his mouth and nostrils.
Groups of men, marching rather than walking, were frequently passing, and coarse greetings in which reference was made to the blindfolded prisoner were bandied between them and the Huns, but the language in which they spoke, although it bore a certain resemblance to German, was almost incomprehensible as far as the sub was concerned.
Then one of the German seamen gripped Farrar's shoulder and guided him across what felt like a swaying plank bridge. An iron gate was opened and closed with a sonorous clang, and a rifle-butt grounded on hard stone.
"Sentry," thought the sub. "Seems like a tough nut to crack, but if there's a ghost of a chance I'm on it. Wonder what's coming next?"
Up a flight of stone steps and through a wicket gate set in a larger door the prisoner was led; then along a corridor into a room. The bandage was removed from his eyes, and in the glare of a number of electric lamps he found himself face to face with Ober-Leutnant Otto von Loringhoven. With the latter were four naval and military officers in German uniform, and another in what the sub rightly guessed to be that of the Emperor Karl of Austria.
"This is your last chance, prisoner," began von Loringhoven without any preamble. "Do you agree to give us all the information you possess on any subject of which we wish to obtain intelligence?"
"I gave you my answer," replied the sub fearlessly.
"Did you?" sneered the Hun, his lips curling menacingly, and displaying a row of teeth resembling the fangs of a wolf. "What was it?"
"I told you I'd see you to blazes first," said the prisoner. "And I'll stand by what I've said."
"Very good," rejoined von Loringhoven. "I trust that you will enjoy yourself in the sulphur mines of Ostrovornik."