"Fleet? Fleet of what?" asked Jack, with some sarcasm. "Fleet of motorboats, perhaps?"
"Precisely," said Lord Hastings with a smile, and added: "You don't seem to think much of the idea."
"No, I don't, sir," was the reply. "I was in hopes that we were to feel a real vessel beneath our feet once more. What good is a motorboat against a submarine, anyway?"
"That's what I would like to know," agreed Frank.
"I'll tell you," replied Lord Hastings. "But first let me ask you something. Do you remember, the other day, of asking me to explain the mystery of the vanishing submarines?"
"Yes, sir," replied both lads.
"Very well. The solution of this mystery is, primarily, motorboats."
"What do you mean, sir?" exclaimed Jack.
"Just what I say. In the main, the possible hundred German submarines that have disappeared recently have been accounted for by high-speed, powerfully armed motorboats. The government has discovered, after much experimenting, that the one craft with an advantage over a submarine is a powerful motorboat; and England now has a fleet of several hundred scouring the seas in the proximity of the British Isles."
"But I can't see where they would do any good," said Jack.