CHAPTER XI
THE SUBMARINE FIGHTS FOR ENGLAND
Can you imagine a narrow belt of foam, rushing over the sea like a live thing with irresistible and sinister suggestion of something terrible below? That is what I saw as I stared down at the toy theatre, the little, coloured microcosm.
Then the inevitable happened. Der Friesland was struck full amidships. A wall of white water rose up out of the sea. Above it, in an instant, spread a huge black fan of smoke, dark as ebony against the sun. At that moment, my brother put the helm hard down and we flew off at an angle. Even as we did so, it seemed that the side of our ship received a terrific blow. We lurched in the conning-tower; we were flung against the starboard wall. There was a nerve-wracking pause, and then, with a jerk, the submarine righted herself, simultaneously as the faintest indication of a mighty explosion fell through the water and came through our armoured walls.
"Too close!" my brother gasped. "I ought to have allowed for these German torpedoes—look, John, look!"
The recoil from the explosion of Der Friesland had nearly sent us to the bottom, but we were righted again, and we saw upon the table, quivering and indistinct, a piteous mass of unrecognisability, wreathed in black fumes, from which flared out angry bursts of fire, like Vesuvius in eruption. All this horror was sinking—sinking into the table, it seemed. Blazing all over, broken in two, the wreck of the monster went lower and lower in the water.
She was done. Bernard gave a great sob, and then hoarse orders rang through the submarine.
Within two minutes we were upon the surface. The hatch was open. My brother and myself stood there, gasping in the sunlight at the ruin we had made. The sea was covered with debris and dotted with the heads of swimming sailors. There was one boat afloat, crammed with men, under whose weight it hesitated, trembled, and sank like a stone, as we looked on.
"Good God!" I cried, "can't we help them, Bernard?"
"No can do," he answered, in Navy slang. "It can't be done, old soul. That's that. I'm damned sorry though."