But we had no time to dream. The storm had not calmed, but continued in its fury, and it was not long before we in the tower were soaking wet. However, to our satisfaction, the water was much warmer than in the North Sea. We noticed that the last hours had brought us much closer to our object.
It was the Gulf Stream that was flowing by us and which, in this section, is really warm, running between two shores close together.
The night was coal black. At a great distance astern, two light-houses flashed, one white and the other red. It was easy for us to know our position. No enemy was in sight, so he must have abandoned his search as useless. Can any one understand with what relief we realized this fact? Confidently we began to look ahead to success now that, at last, the dangers of the mine fields, which had been greater than we had expected, were behind us.
The exhausted batteries were quickly re-charged, in order to be ready for other emergencies, and then, with our Diesel engines running, we went out into the open ocean, away from the unfriendly shores, to get some fresh air and to rest our nerves.
When the day began to break, we were twenty sea miles out and had already re-charged the batteries with so much power that, if necessary, we could proceed for several hours under water. In the dusk of the dawn, we had a new surprise.
Gröning, who, by chance, had looked toward the bow where the outlines of our boat were becoming visible, suddenly against all rules, grabbed my arm. With mouth open, eyes staring, and an arm outstretched, he pointed toward the bow.
“What is that?”
I ran up, bent forward, and followed with my eyes in the direction in which he was pointing.
“What is that?” I asked him.
I hurried toward the bow, so as to be able to see better. The boat’s whole deck, from the conning tower to the prow, looked as if it had been divided into regular squares, between which dark, indistinguishable objects were moving in snakelike lines. Near me there was such a square. I stooped down and picked up a steel cord about as thick as my finger. A net, I thought, certainly a net.