"Time!" said Captain Jack, and at that moment a German bullet laid him low.
But Captain Jack was not dead. He raised his head and listened; and then what he waited for came.
There was a terrible rumble and roar, followed by two ear-splitting blasts. These were quickly succeeded by others. The ground rocked and swayed. Men, huge wooden buildings, steel and iron within the German lines went sailing high in the air, to come down for miles around.
Terrible screams and groans and curses shattered the night, quickly followed by more detonations somewhat muffled, as the mines dropped from the pirate submarine exploded beneath the water.
The waves were lashed into a frenzy. The ground trembled for long minutes and seemed on the point of dropping into the bowels of the earth.
And then it began to rain men and debris.
Great rocks, brought up from deep in the earth, fell on all sides of the place where Captain Jack lay wounded unto death, but as though by a miracle none touched him. Where the pirates were still racing for safety, with Jack and Captain Glenn at their head, trees were uprooted and toppled over. The rain of steel and iron and rocks carried even there, and the men threw themselves to the ground and put their arms above their heads.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the rain of missiles ceased.
Jack got to his feet, as did his men. Rapidly he led them back toward where a moment before had been a German submarine base.
There was no base there now. Nothing but ruin and destruction and death. The German submarine base, submarines in the harbor, men who had inhabited the place, had passed into oblivion.