In the meantime the submarine had approached at full speed to within about 700 yards, and, evidently not satisfied with the speed at which the ship was being abandoned, fired another shot, which pitched 50 yards short of the engine-room. There was apparently nothing further to be gained by prolonging the performance for this impatient audience, and the Lieutenant-Commander on the bridge, cap in hand, and breathless with his pantomimic exertions, blew a shrill blast on his whistle. Simultaneously the White Ensign fluttered to the masthead, deck-houses and screens clattered down, and three minutes later the submarine sank under a rain of shells and Maxim bullets. As she disappeared beneath the surface the avenger reached the spot, and dropped a depth-charge over her. A moment after the explosion the submarine appeared in a perpendicular position alongside the ship, denting the bilge-keel as she rolled drunkenly among the waves. The after gun put five more rounds into the shattered hull at point-blank range, and, as she sank for the last time, two more depth-charges were dropped to speed her passing.

The Lieutenant-Commander in command had personally been superintending the administering of the coup de grâce from the stern, and, as he turned to make his way forward to the bridge, for a few brief moments the bonds of naval discipline relaxed. His men surged round him in a wildly cheering throng, struggling to be the first to wring him by the hand. They then mustered in the saloon, standing bare-headed while their Captain read the Prayers of Thanksgiving for Victory, and called for three cheers for his Majesty the King. They cheered as only men can cheer in the first exultant flush of victory. But as the vessel gathered way and resumed her grim quest, each man realised, deep down in his heart, that far sterner ordeals lay ahead.

2
ORDEAL BY FIRE

Because man is mortal, not infallible, and Fortune at her brightest a fickle jade, it was inevitable that sooner or later a day must come when a crippled German submarine would submerge beneath a hail of shells, miraculously succeed in patching up her damaged hull, and, under cover of darkness, crawl back to port. Word would then go out from Wilhelmshaven of a British man-of-war disguised as a lumbering tramp, with such and such a marking on her funnel, with stumpy masts and rusty deck-houses, who carried guns concealed in wheel-house and hen-coops, whose bulwarks collapsed, and whose bridge screens masked quick-firers and desperate men. German submarines would be warned that to approach such a vessel was to enter a death-trap, unless every precaution was first taken to ensure she had been abandoned.

Such a day came in due course; misty, windless, with the aftermath of a great storm rolling eastward beneath a sullen swell. A vessel with the outward appearance of a merchantman (the fruits of whose labours for the past six months had doubtless perplexed that section of the Wilhelmshaven bureaucracy concerned with the non-return of U-boats), sighted towards evening the periscope and conning-tower of a submarine a mile away on her beam.

The figure on the bridge of the tramp, who carried, among other papers in his charge, his commission as a Commander of the Royal Navy, laughed as Drake might have laughed when the sails of a Spanish galleon broke the horizon. A tangle of flags appeared at the periscope of the submarine, and the tramp stopped obediently, blowing off steam in great clouds. Her Commander turned over the pages of the International Signal Code, smiling still. "Hoist: 'Cannot understand your signal,'" he said to the signalman, "I want to waste a few minutes," and moved to the engine-room voice-pipe. Obedient to his directions, the screws furtively jogged ahead under cover of the escaping steam, edging the steamer towards the watching enemy. The latter, however, promptly manned her foremost gun, turned, and slowly steamed towards them; she opened fire at a range of half a mile, the shell passing over the funnel of the disguised man-of-war.

In the tense excitement of that moment, when men's nerves and faculties were stretched like banjo-strings, the report of the submarine's gun rang loud through the still air. One of the man-of-war's gun-layers, lying concealed within his collapsible deckhouse, heard the report, and, thinking that the ship herself had opened fire without the customary warning gongs, flung down the screens which masked his weapon. Any further attempt at concealment was useless. The fire-gongs rang furiously at every gun position, the White Ensign was triced up to the mast-head in the twinkling of an eye, and the action started. After the first few hits the submarine lay motionless, with her bows submerged and her stern in the air for upwards of five minutes, while shells burst all about her. The heavy swell made shooting difficult, but eventually she sank in a great commotion of the water and dense clouds of vapour that hung over the surface for some minutes. Two depth-charges were dropped over her, and if ever men had cause for modest self-congratulation on having ridded the seas of yet another scourge, it would seem that the officers and crew of The King's Ship might have laid claim to their share. Yet, by ways unknown and incredible, it was claimed by the enemy that the submarine contrived to return, with shot-holes plugged, to tell the tale.

Once the cat was out of the bag, it was obvious that in the future the enemy would not rise to the surface until his torpedo had found its mark, and it became part of this grim game of bluff for the victim to ensure that she was hit. Then, when the "panic party" had abandoned the ship, the remainder must wait concealed and unresponsive beside their hidden guns, while the submarine rose to the surface and either closed within range or shelled them with sufficient thoroughness to convince him—who judged endurance and self-control by no mean standards—that the limit of human courage had been reached; that there could be no one concealed on board, and that he might with safety approach to loot and burn. Now this, as Mr. Kipling would put it, "was a damned tough bullet to chew." They were no demi-gods, nor yet fanatics, these three-score or so sailor-men. They were just ordinary human beings, with the average man's partiality for life and a whole skin, and the love of wife and bairn or sweetheart plucking at the heart-strings of most of them. But they shared what is not given to all men in this world of human frailty—a whole-souled confidence in a fellow-man, which would have carried them at his lightest nod through the gates of hell.

Under his command, then, they sailed with a cargo of timber in each hold, and in due course, about 9.45 one morning, a torpedo was seen approaching the starboard beam. Observing his rôle as Master of a careless tramp, with poor look-outs, the Commander held on his course. At the last moment, however, the helm was imperceptibly altered to ensure the ship being struck abaft the engine-room, where the torpedo might do least damage. Those whom fate has afforded the opportunity of studying the trail of an approaching torpedo will, if they recall their sensations, appreciate to some extent the iron nerve requisite to such a manœuvre. The torpedo burst abreast No. 3 hold, hurling a wall of water and wreckage to the height of the mast, and blowing a hole in the ship's side 40 feet wide. Half-stunned and deafened by the concussion, the Commander raised himself on his hands and knees, where he had been flung, and shouted to the Navigator: "They've got us this time!" The Navigator, who was inside the chart-house, thrust his head out for a moment, moistening a lead pencil with his lips. "I reckon I've got time to finish working out this sight, sir," he replied with a grin, and withdrew his head.