''Bout six or seven hours, sir.'
'Well, carry on with it at once.'
In ordinary circumstances a boiler is cleaned when it is stone-cold and the fires are drawn; but Coggins, in some miraculous manner unknown to any one save himself and his victims, goaded the Germans into such a state of frenzied activity that they swept the tubes and uptakes in five hours. They did it with the fires damped down but still alight, and what they suffered from the heat only they themselves knew. But the job was done somehow, the firemen were revived with neat navy rum, and by one o'clock the next morning the Anna Schrœder resumed her journey at the exasperating speed of 3·75 knots.
They eventually arrived in a certain harbour late the same evening without further mishap; and Hargreaves, after seeing the prize and the prisoners turned over to the responsible authorities, and his own men comfortably housed and fed in the Sailors' Home, retired to an hotel, ate a hearty meal, had a hot bath well impregnated with Jeyes's Fluid, borrowed a suit of pyjamas, a razor, and a new toothbrush from the manager, and then turned in and slept for nearly twelve hours.
Little more remains to be told, for the next morning they left by train to rejoin their ship, taking with them sundry mementoes from the prize. They have passed through many vicissitudes since, but neither the sub. nor his men will ever forget the Anna Schrœder.
CHAPTER XVI.
MINOR INCIDENTS.
I.
'Signal just come through, sir,' said Rosser, the signal-man, thumping on the door of Wooten's cabin at half-past one in the morning.
The skipper grunted, sat up, switched on the light, and blinked. He was used to sudden calls and excursions in the middle of the night, and knew instinctively from the tone of the man's voice that the message was urgent.