In vain, the trawler sent one shot after another at us. They never came near us. On our side, however, one hit followed another, and we could see that the hostile ship was listing heavily to port, and we hoped to be able to give him his death blow, when the outlines of three of his colleagues were sighted behind and to the right and left of him, approaching at great speed. Our only chance was to turn again in order to avoid being surrounded, since too many dogs can kill the hare.
Early in the evening we submerged to keep ourselves at a safe depth. We were very tired, because we had had thirty-eight hours of work and realized, now that all the excitement was over, how the nerves began to relax. To begin with, the nerve strain showed itself by the fact we could hardly go to sleep, tired as we were. And when we did doze off at last, we had many disturbing dreams. I, myself, lay awake for hours and heard through the open doors, in the deadly quiet of the U-boat, how the men tossed about in their bunks during their sleep, talking and muttering. It was as if we were in a parrot’s cage instead of a submarine. Also I lived over again during the night most of the events of the past hours. The only difference was, peculiarly enough, that I was never the fish, but always the fisherman above the surface who constantly tried to catch my own U-boat with a destroyer.
When I woke I could hardly untangle the real situation, because I saw the French Captain-Lieutenant’s black-bearded face before me, when, with great joy in his small dark eyes, he said:
“Diable, il faut attraper la canaille!”
VIII
THE BRITISH BULL-DOG
In the morning a clear, blue sky and a calm sea greeted us. The wind had abated during the night and had changed so that it came from the direction of land, and, therefore, could not disturb the sea to any great extent. In the best of spirits, well satisfied and refreshed by our breakfast, we were sitting on the conning tower, and enjoying the mild air of spring and puffing one cigarette after another. During the night we had reached the position where, for the present, we intended to make our attacks on the merchant transportation which was very flourishing in that region. We crossed the steamship lanes in all directions with guns loaded and with a sharp lookout so as not to lose any opportunity to damage the enemy’s commerce.
Shortly before dinner the first merchant ship arose on the south horizon. It was a sailer, a large, full-rigged schooner, which, hard by the wind, headed towards the French coast. With majestic calm, lightly leaning to the wind, the splendid ship approached. The snow-white sails glittered in the sun in the far distance. The light, slender hull plowed sharply through the sea.
With a delighted “Hello,” we hurled ourselves on our prey. Above our heads fluttered pennants and signal-flags which signified: