“Four—one rammed, two torpedoed, and one sunk by gunfire by the light cruisers. There were six all-told.”
“But,” interrupted Longridge, “doesn’t it rather tickle you to think of our being able to wipe the floor with their destroyers and not a blessed capital ship dares come out of Wilhelmshaven to save ’em! There we were in the Battle Cruisers, trailing the tail of our coat all round the Heligoland Bight, and—nothing doing, if you please. Ain’t that what’s called Sea Power?”
“Hum’m,” said Foster, and chuckled. “I don’t know about Sea Power: I’m only a humble Minelayer. But this may throw some light on the situation.” He drew a pocket-book from his pocket. “I saw a translation of a paragraph from a Dutch paper in the press this morning. I cut it out to send my skipper in case he hadn’t seen it.” He handed the slip to Aughtlone. “I thought it would cheer him up.”
“The crew of the—— Lightship report that at 3 a.m. on Tuesday morning a number of very heavy explosions occurred in a southerly direction. In several cases a sheet of flame was seen to ascend to an altitude of at least 150 metres. One of the men who had passed through the North Sea on the night of the Battle of Jutland stated that he recognised the flashes as from big ships blowing up.”
Aughtlone read the cutting aloud, and handed it back. “That was your dirty work, was it?”
The minelayer laughed. “Act o’ God, we like to call it,” he said. “Or in the words of that beautiful poem:
“The boy, oh, where was he?”
Aughtlone joined in the laughter. “That’s all very fine,” he said, “but didn’t any of your lighthouse friends further north observe my little contretemps later on in the morning? But perhaps they wouldn’t notice a mere minesweeper blowing up.” He removed the stoppers from the decanters and pushed them to Mayhew on his left. “That Zepp you were talking about evidently gave the tip that you were out to a mine-laying submarine, because we located a minefield on what would have been the Battle Fleet’s course if you’d come south. I lost a paddler clearing it, and got a swim before breakfast.”
“How did you know the minefield was there?” asked Longridge.
“Dutch ship blew up. ‘Matter of fact, she blew up on a stray one. I went to the position she’d given us, and before we started sweeping we were on top of Fritz’s eggs which he’d intended for you. Ah, well, we raked ’em up and I got my leave, so we won’t bear Fritz any malice this time.” He paused, glass in hand.