'But surely your own countrymen won't stand by and see that happen?' said Hargreaves with pleasant curiosity.
'I do not know. Bot efen ef dem pick us op, you dry do sink der onter-see boot, so ve drown anyhows! I haf wife an' childrens, capitan,' he added agitatedly; 'many childrens. Von, do, dree, four, fif, six childrens. I doo old do fight. Ach!' he suggested with an oily smile, 'you safe me an' drown de ozzers. Dey not marriet. Dey not care!'
The sub. shook his head. 'I'm sorry,' he said; 'war is a very terrible thing.'
'I hope ve do not see onter-see boot!' murmured the other. 'Ach!' he nodded, noticing Hargreaves's grinning face; 'you choke, es et nod?'
'I beg your pardon?'
'You make fon, hey? You no drown der prisoners?'
'Depends upon how you behave yourselves,' came the noncommittal reply.
The skipper fell to with redoubled energy.
The weather was fine and the sea calm, but the Anna's engines and boiler were long past their early youth, and they had steamed across the North Sea at a speed of barely seven knots. It was a heart-rending performance; and though Coggins, the stoker petty officer, exhorted the German fireman to shovel coal on the furnace until he was purple with passion and they were limp with weariness, the steam pressure to the engines dropped and dropped.
Shortly after noon on the second day, by which time they were on the Dogger Bank with not a vestige of another vessel in sight—there is not much fishing done in war-time—the climax came. It was not exactly due to the boiler, though the propeller had been revolving more and more slowly; but all of a sudden there came a peculiar grinding sound from the engine-room, and the screw refused duty altogether.