CHAPTER XXVIII
THE HOMECOMING
"It's time those scallywags of ours put in an appearance, Sparrowhawk," remarked Colonel Greyhouse of the Auldhaig Air Station. "They reported from Leith two days ago. We're short-handed, and there's a patrol needed to escort the light cruisers back."
"Quite true, sir," agreed Major Sparrowhawk. "I'll 'phone through. Because they had a joy-ride on a Q-boat is no excuse for kicking their heels around Leith and Edinburgh."
"And how's young Pyecroft?" inquired the C.O.
"Reported for duty this morning, sir," replied the second-in-command. "I asked him if he wanted sick leave and he declined."
Colonel Greyhouse raised his eyebrows in surprise. Never before had he known of a case of a junior officer refusing leave.
"Wonder what his game is?" he remarked, as he gathered his cap, gloves and stick from an untidy heap on the ante-room table.
Before the second-in-command could think of a suitable reply, the door was thrown open and the three absentees filed into the room—Captain Cumberleigh leading, followed by Lieutenants Blenkinson and Jefferson.
"Detained at Area Headquarters, sir," reported Captain Cumberleigh.
"All right," rejoined the C.O. drily. "As it happens, you're just in time, Major Sparrowhawk will give you your orders."
He went out, leaving the three returned officers exchanging inquiring glances.
"The light-cruiser squadron went out yesterday to give a leg-up to your pals in Q 171," explained the major. "There are U-boats knocking about off the north of the Dogger. The C.O. wants a couple of blimps to go out and get in touch with the cruisers."
"And Q 171: what of her, sir?" asked Blenkinson.
The major shook his head.
"No news has come through," he replied. "Apparently you fellows had an exciting time."
"Rather, sir," exclaimed Jefferson. "I suppose Pyecroft told you everything up to the time we lost sight of him. Plucky blighter, Pyecroft!"
"There's one point I'd like to mention, sir," remarked Cumberleigh.
"What's that?" asked Major Sparrowhawk.
"You owe me a double whisky," said Cumberleigh solemnly.
"By Jove, I do!" admitted the second-in-command. "You were right about that Fennelburt fellow. They are on his track, but I've had no news of his capture."
"That's why we were detained," explained Cumberleigh. "There's a 'tec—Entwistle is his name—on the spy's track. Almost nabbed him at York, but he managed to slip through the 'tec's fingers. This Entwistle came to Leith to ask us certain questions. It appears that Fennelburt's real name is Karl von Preussen, and he's a don hand at the game."
It was early on the following morning that the light-cruiser flotilla came into Auldhaig Harbour. All had their funnels blistered and stripped of paint, testifying to the efforts of the engine-room staff to break all records in the matter of speed. After them came the destroyers, a few showing signs of having been in action.
In single column line ahead they stole on at reduced speed, their passing greeted with resounding cheers from the crews of the vessels at anchor and from dense crowds of spectators who lined the shore. Silently, as if too modest to take unto themselves any credit for what they had done, the cruisers went to their appointed mooring-buoys and the destroyers disappeared from view within the entrance to the large basin in Auldhaig Dockyard.
But still the crowd refused to disperse.
They expected something more. Even the bald official Admiralty announcement—"One of our Light-Cruiser Squadrons, supported by destroyers, sighted and engaged enemy forces in the North Sea. Three enemy destroyers were sunk; the rest escaped, apparently heavily damaged. Our casualties were light"—had failed to keep one of the salient features of the action a secret. The inhabitants of Auldhaig remained on the shore, expecting, and were not disappointed of, a spectacle.
Well in the rear of the flotilla came three vessels, one towing another and the third steaming slowly a cable's length astern. Overhead, their envelopes glistening in the sunlight, were three coastal airships.
As the expected vessels drew nearer telescopes and field-glasses were levelled in a formidable battery by the throng.
"That's the Inattentive, sure," declared a man who wore a silver badge and had the appearance of a sailor despite the fact that one coat-sleeve was empty and pinned across his breast. "She's got the Q-boat in tow. Looks like the old Pylos coming up astern."
"Looks like a U-boat in tow," remarked another spectator. "P'raps they've captured her before her crew could sink her—dirty dogs!"
The Silver Badge man handed his telescope to a boy and tapped the second speaker on the shoulder.
"Look here, my man!" he exclaimed. "She's flying a flag, isn't she? What flag is it?"
"White Ensign—half-mast high," replied the other.
"Then what d'ye mean by saying she's a blinkin' U-boat?" demanded the ex-bluejacket hotly. "If she were, you'd be seein' that White Ensign flyin' over Fritz's rotten ensign. That, I tell you, is the Q-boat our light cruisers went out to bring in. And they've jolly well done it, too. Stand by, you chaps, an' give her a proper British cheer."
Slowly, very slowly, the Inattentive passed the Outer Bar Buoy, and turning close in shore followed the line of buoys marking the approach channel to Auldhaig Harbour.
The spectators wanted a sight. What they saw was a long hull, battered and scarred. The deck was little more than a litter of torn and riddled steelwork, but conspicuous among the debris was the muzzle of a dismounted quick-firer that tilted at an acute angle to the sky. Right aft a space had been cleared, and on it were rows of motionless figures wrapped in canvas hammocks. Clustered round the hastily repaired stanchion-rails were a few bandaged heroes whose appearance resembled that of tramps rather than British bluejackets.
Cheers? Not a sound. At the sight of the half-masted Ensign and the gallant dead lying upon the deck of the ship that they had fought so well, the desire to cheer was quelled. As if by a common impulse the crowd stood silent and bareheaded, as a tribute to those who had laid down their lives for King and Country.
But "Tough Geordie," Wakefield and Meredith were ignorant of the silent tribute. They were still unconscious.
With those dishevelled but undaunted survivors of her crew standing at attention, Q 171 glided past the port flagship, the towing hawser was slipped, and the battered mystery ship, taken in charge of a dockyard tug, was safely berthed alongside the jetty.
Ambulances were already in attendance, and the work of transferring the wounded to the naval hospital was immediately put in hand.
Wakefield opened his eyes as he was being carried up the broad steps into the building. Morpeth had a partial return to consciousness almost at the same time.
Looking round at the unfamiliar surroundings, he appeared to be solving some perplexing problem. His last conscious vision as he lay with a shattered arm upon the deck of the ship he had handled so magnificently was that of a man scrambling through the smoke and across a pile of debris to the triple torpedo-tubes. He watched the unknown hero fumbling over the releasing levers until at last a "tin fish" leapt from the only serviceable tube. Then in a swirl of pungent smoke the vision grew blurred and faded into nothingness.
"What I want to know is," he exclaimed with startling clearness, "who the blue blazes fired that last torpedo? 'Tany rate, it got her properly."
And Wakefield smiled to himself and closed his eyes again. But Kenneth Meredith was still in blissful ignorance of his surroundings.