To the starboard ship he called, “Course, eighty, true, speed, fifteen; start now.”
Then to the officer of the deck, “Course, eighty, true, speed, twenty-five.”
In a few seconds the pack was dashing forward again in a maneuver calculated to bring them in nine minutes into line on their new course, within a mile or two of their prey—perhaps less.
Fraser reviewed the evidence:
“Bearing fifty-five from starboard end; barely heard here; not heard port. It’s a good scent, if it isn’t a fix.”
“We haven’t got him yet,” remarked Evans uneasily. “He may stop altogether and balance with his tanks. Then we’ll have to find him with the magnetic detectors, and that way we can barely cover a thousand yards, the three of us. It won’t be any cinch.”
But the frightened submarine underestimated the hydrophones of her pursuers and preferred trying to steal away at the almost silent speed of three knots. In the last half of the ninth minute, as the ships were coming into perfect line, Fraser again called a general halt; and as the three ships made their sudden stop which enabled the sensitive hydrophones to penetrate the silent deep about them, clearly the listeners down in the three hulls heard at the same moment the faint hum of motors, again dying quickly away as the fact that the pursuers had stopped again to listen was reported to the submarine captain and the motors were hastily shut down. But this time each ship had heard, and each had read the bearing.
First the report came up the voice-tube from the flagship’s own hydrophones, “Relative bearing three forty-three.”
“What does that make it?” said Fraser.
“Sixty-three, true,” answered Evans.