The next day passed without any greater excitements than those provided by an encounter with a couple of suspicious-looking Dutch fishing-boats, and a Norwegian steamer. The latter evidently did not fancy the looks of her fellow-countryman, for she took to her heels, belching forth volumes of the blackest smoke that her furnaces could produce, and only resumed her course after giving us a very wide berth. We found it rather an agreeable interlude to figure as hunter instead of quarry.
CHAPTER X SOME EXCITEMENTS
We were now four days out, and the most we had seen of the 'Grand Fleet' of the English was a couple of searchlights.
I had been on the bridge all night, and had turned in for a short rest, when I was awakened by a loud tramping and shouting on deck.
'Smoke cloud on the port beam!' What could that be? Well, of course, it might be a trader, but it was just as likely to be a warship, for we were now approaching the Shetland cordon.
For a quarter of an hour there was nothing to be seen but a great mass of smoke, which grew sometimes fainter and sometimes stronger. For a while it looked as if it was produced by several funnels. To make sure, I sent my first officer up to the fore-top with an excellent Zeiss glass. A few seconds later he reported a high mast with spotting-top—the funnels were not yet to be made out. A warship, then. The plot began to thicken.
I gave the orders, 'Emergency stations. Course NE., Engine-room staff to reduce smoke.' A course to the east of NE. was, for the present, not advisable, for it was quite possible that there might be other warships in that direction, and it was not yet possible to make out which way the cruiser was heading.
The 'smokeless' stunt we now tried for the first time, and it went much better than we expected. This was the more creditable, because tramp-steamers have no special arrangements for smokeless firing, and the men, who were mostly reservists, had not been trained to it.