"I wish to speak to you."
The Flying Fish and the See Adler quickened up, and the others slowed down until they met about two thousand feet above the sea. Castellan ran the Flying Fish alongside the Commodore of the other Squadron, and in ten minutes he had learned what the other had to tell, and arranged a plan of operations.
Within the next five minutes three of the seven craft had dropped to the water and disappeared beneath it. The other four, led by the Flying Fish, winged their way towards Dover.
The aërial section of the squadron made straight for the harbour. The submarine section made south-westward to cut off the half dozen "lame ducks" which were still struggling towards it. With these, unhappily, was the Scotland, the huge flagship of the North Sea Squadron, which still full of fight, was towing the battleship Commonwealth, whose rudder and propellers had been disabled by a torpedo from a French submarine.
She was, of course, the first victim selected. Two Flying Fishes dived, one under her bows and one under her stern, and each discharged two torpedoes.
No fabric made by human hands could have withstood the shock of the four explosions which burst out simultaneously. The sore-stricken leviathan stopped, shuddered and reeled, smitten to death. For a few moments she floundered and wallowed in the vast masses of foaming water that rose up round her—and when they sank she took a mighty sideward reel and followed them.
The rest met their inevitable fate in quick succession, and went down with their ensigns and pennants flying—to death, but not to defeat or disgrace.
The ten British submarines which were left from the fight had already put out to try conclusions with the Flying Fishes; but a porpoise might as well have tried to hunt down a northern diver. As soon as each Flying Fish had finished its work of destruction it spread its wings and leapt into the air—and woe betide the submarine whose periscope showed for a moment above the water, for in that moment a torpedo fell on or close to it, and that submarine dived for the last time.
Meanwhile the horrors of the past afternoon and evening were being repeated in the crowded harbour, and on shore, until a frightful catastrophe befell the remains of the British Fleet.