The arguments, whatever they were, were cut short by a blinding flash, by a shattering detonation, then, so far as the trio were concerned, by nothingness. A shell had burst against the ship's counter, wrecking her rudder and smashing a huge hole in her plates just above the water-line. In its course it crumpled the deck above upwards as if it had been made of paper, and, bursting its way through, probably ricochetting from one of the main beams of the vessel, it scattered Jim and Bill and Larry in the very midst of their argument. It flung them far from the ship, and sent them sprawling in the water, where, fortunately for them, the cold revived them and helped to keep them conscious. Yet it was only in a half-conscious way, automatically, as it were, that each one battled and supported himself in the water, while his head swam, his brain reeled, and his ears were filled with strange noises.
Little by little the ship passed on. Now and again other shells crashed against her. More than once, Bill, peering through his wet eyelashes at her, heard the sound of voices, and then presently saw a beam of light flash from the shore, and watched as the vessel slowly grounded.
"Saved her!" he shouted, and then subsided, as the sea washed into his mouth and set him choking.
Something touched his shoulder. Something gripped him by his sodden coat-sleeve. He turned, and there, staring at him, illuminated by the beam from the shore, was a face with which he was familiar, no one could have mistaken it. It was the thin, cadaverous, smiling face of Larry, with those twinkling, merry eyes of his, that happy-go-lucky, inimitable look with which he always favoured his friends and his enemies.
"You!" he shouted, "and here's Jim too! Here, hang on, young Bill, we've got hold of something that looks like a bit of a boat. Now, if we get washed ashore, what a landing!"
"Only——!" Jim, who lay athwart the shattered boat, peering at the shore, blinking in the light, stretched an arm across their faces and directed their attention to a point closely adjacent. "Look there!"
It was the submarine, now awash with the surface, her conning-tower thrown open. A man was standing there, while on the deck below there were a couple of German sailors armed with rifles. Did they see the three wallowing in the water? Were they going to shoot them down? Heaven knows! German sailors, to their eternal dishonour, have shot down helpless people—aye, helpless women and children, too—in open boats after similar submarine warfare. But no. The submarine came closer, the officer in the conning-tower gave a sharp order and shouted. A man slid down her bulging side with a rope round his waist, and a minute or so later the three friends had been hauled on to her narrow deck. Then a guttural voice ordered them to clamber to the conning-tower.
THE THREE FRIENDS ARE HAULED ABOARD THE U-BOAT