The defunct monster advertised his presence far and wide when the tide fell. People approached him wearing gas-masks and with ammonia-soaked handkerchiefs held to their noses. How the authorities got rid of him history does not relate. One cannot very well bury a thing the size of a house. Perhaps they sold him for fertiliser.
There were no C.B.'s or D.S.O.'s conferred for that battle, though the shooting certainly had been good.
But all this has carried us rather far from the Mariner and her men. They always found Fritz, Hans, Adolf, Karl, or whatever they chose to call him, as cunning as a hatful of monkeys; but the destroyers and other craft which sought to compass his destruction admired him for his efficiency, for efficient he certainly was. He combined boldness with seaman-like caution, and would suddenly appear in an area crowded with traffic, sink a merchant ship or two, and then disappear into space. Occasionally he behaved as a sportsman, and towed the boats containing the crews of the ships he had just sunk in towards the shore. Sometimes, when it came to sinking liners and passenger-ships with women and children on board, his reputation was unsavoury; but even the righteous wrath and indignation of his pursuers, who always played the game themselves, were not levelled so much at Fritz himself as at those who had given him orders to go out and do his dirty work.
The Mariner was once working in an area in which Fritz was very active indeed, when Hills the telegraphist clambered on to the bridge in a state of purple excitement, flourishing a sheet of paper.
'Well, what is it?' Wooten demanded. 'What's the matter?'
'There's a steamer down to the south-east'ard makin' the S.O.S. call, sir!' the man ejaculated agitatedly. 'Says she's bein' overhauled by a submarine, who's firin' on her. I've got her position, course, and speed!'
'The devil you have!' said Wooten, putting the telegraphs to 'Full speed,' and giving the helmsman a new course. 'Let's have her position.' He took the paper from the telegraphist, and laid the latitude and longitude off on the chart. 'Lord!' he remarked, rather perturbed, 'we're a good forty miles off. It'll take us over an hour to reach her. They'll be strafed by then, poor devils!'
The Mariner, meanwhile, with smoke pouring from her funnels and a great bow-wave creaming aft from her sharp stem, was dashing off at something over thirty knots.
Wooten scratched his head. 'Hills,' he said at last, as an inspiration seized him, 'call her up by wireless, and make her in plain English—not in code, mind—"Hang on. Destroyer will be with you in twenty minutes." Got that?'
'Yessir,' said the man, writing it down.