But Fritz was not the only thing they hunted; for once, in the English Channel, the Mariner was sent to sea to look for Fritz's mother, a suspicious sailing-vessel supposed to be supplying him with petrol and other commodities.
It was midnight when the orders came, pitch-dark, snowing hard, and blowing half a gale of wind, and there was considerable risk in taking the ship to sea at all. First they had an altercation with the side of the jetty, the brunt of which was taken by the whaler at her davits, and caused that boat to open her seams and crack her ribs in resentful indignation. Then, since there was no room to turn, Wooten had to perform the rather ticklish manœuvre, in the midst of a snow-flurry, of steering stern first through a line of closely anchored ships with no lights. Any naval officer will agree that handling a destroyer in such circumstances, with a strong wind broad on the beam, the night so dark that it is impossible to see more than a hundred yards, and clouds of black, oil-fuel smoke making it darker still, is apt to be hair-raising and startling. Wooten found it so at any rate, and congratulated himself that he succeeded in getting to sea with no further damage than a badly squeezed whaler.
Shortly before daylight they arrived at the spot where the suspicious sailing-vessel had been sighted from the shore. They were all in a state of suppressed excitement, for they fully believed they were in for something at last; while the guns' crews, fidgeting with impatience, were standing by their weapons ready to open fire.
Wooten himself was very hopeful. 'If this report is true,' he said to the first lieutenant, 'I shouldn't at all wonder if we found a submarine taking in petrol alongside her.'
MacDonald, inclined to be sceptical, shook his head and smiled. 'I have my doubts, sir,' he said with true Scottish caution. 'It's my opinion that the whole yarn is pure bunkum.'
When the dawn broke in a blaze of scarlet and orange there was a sailing-craft in sight, and she was barely a mile away from the place where the submarine supply-ship had been reported. She seemed rather an ordinary-looking vessel, ketch rigged, with a sturdy, broad-beamed hull, and was hove-to under the lee of the land. Her sails were patched and dingy, and, like Joseph's coat, were of many colours. But really and truly there was nothing at all remarkable about her, though most of the officers and fully half the men were firmly convinced that she was a Hun of most immoral character.
The Mariner approached her warily, with guns trained, and the men's fingers itching on their triggers. They longed to fire. The Jessie and Eva, however, evinced no particular interest in the proceedings; and when the destroyer steamed up close alongside, and went astern to check her way, only a small, sleepy-eyed boy was visible on deck.
'Where d'you come from?' Wooten bellowed through a megaphone.
'Brixham, surr!' answered the youth with a broad west-country burr, as a tousled head appeared up the after-companion and stared at the destroyer in amazement.
'Where's your skipper?' the lieutenant-commander asked.