“It’s awful!” he continued. “Two men—divers—from a submarine—fighting with Mr. Rawlins! They’re attacking him—struggling with him! Get Dad, get the police!”
Then, faint and as from a vast distance, he heard Frank’s voice calling excitedly for Mr. Pauling’s telephone number. He knew his chum was summoning aid and he sat rigid, watching with staring eyes the struggle taking place beneath the river. Rawlins had arisen; by a tremendous effort he had flung aside one man, but the other was grappling with him, fighting desperately, and as Tom saw something flash in the water above the struggling
men’s heads he realized that the stranger held a knife.
Now they had drawn closer, they were some distance from the submarine and the very instant Tom noticed this a wild cry of alarm rang in his ears.
At the sound, Tom saw one man start to plunge towards the under-sea boat, and to the boy’s astonishment he saw that the craft was moving and was slipping rapidly from its resting place. Although the man struggled desperately to reach it he might as well have stood still, for scarcely did Tom realize that the submarine was under way ere it was a mere shadow and a second later had faded into the murky green.
And now Tom saw that Rawlins was the aggressor, the man who had been chasing the submarine was swaying drunkenly, whirling in a half-circle, his arms waving helplessly, while his companion had broken away from Rawlins and was standing, with hands upraised, and backing slowly away from the latter who leaned towards him with the other’s knife in his hand.
“Kamarad!” Tom heard in thick tones.
“Kamarad!” and the boy’s heart jumped as he heard the words of surrender, the words which had become so familiar to thousands of men in the trenches, and Tom, with a shock of surprise, realized that the divers were Germans.
Now he could hear Rawlins’ words, spoken as if to himself or as if he thought the others could hear.
“Yes, you dirty skunk!” Tom caught. “I’ll tell the world you’ll surrender. All right, right about face and forward march and no nonsense or I’ll puncture that suit and your hide under it.”