"You have to in warfare like this," said the Captain bitterly. The figure on the U-boat, looking very small in the distance, continued to wave his flag. The Captain nodded to the commander of the gun crew on the nearest turret. The gun leaped into position. At that instant the figure on the reeling submarine whipped a small flag from his pocket and flourished it beside the other. The officers and men on board the transport gasped.
It was an American flag!
Yes, there on a German submarine a solitary figure was waving aloft the Stars and Stripes.
The Captain uttered an exclamation of amazement, and shook his head at the gun crew. Almost at once a couple of motor-boats, filled with armed men, shot from the transport and raced over the rough sea to the rolling sub.
"We will soon know what all this is about," said Captain Greene.
"Come down while I prepare a wireless."
The two Captains and the Colonel went below, while the men crowded the rail and watched the boats, now at the side of the distant submarine. It was a long time before they started back. The men could see that they were loading the boats with something that looked like rolls of cloth. Finally they returned.
The officers, coming back to the decks, were greeted by volleys of deafening cheers, boots, calls, laughter. Every man who could got near the railing was there. They were packed solidly, looking down at the boats below. Those who could not reach a point of vantage swung up on their companions' shoulders. Everybody hooted and laughed. Presently there was a break in the line, and four strapping sailors made their way through with a burden which they laid none too gently on the deck. Another and another, and still they came, until at the Captain's feet there was a row of fourteen unconscious figures, wound and strapped with rope until they resembled mummies. Captain Greene bent closely above the figures. Two of them wore the uniform of German officers; but one and all were unconscious, and tightly roped.
"What does this mean?" demanded Captain Greene. He looked up just as a stifled cry came from the Captain of the Firefly. On the other side of him, Colonel Bright staggered and would have fallen, had not a friendly hand steadied him. He as well as the Captain of the Firefly were staring with bulging eyes at the figure that was just emerging from the crowd at the rail. As they stared, apparently unable to speak, another figure joined the first.
Covered with dirt, unkempt, dressed in what seemed to be cast-off fragments of all the uniforms under the sun, the two figures stood looking around with broad grins, on their pale and smudgy faces.
A bloody bandage half hid the face of one of them, the other nursed a hand bundled in rough, soiled cloths.