Towards evening the wind jumped round to NNW., and fell considerably. In the course of the night we sighted two more English ships of the auxiliary cruiser type, but neither of them took the slightest notice of us. Our luck in this respect began to seem a little uncanny. Could there be something behind it? Did the English know about our coming? In that case caution was doubly necessary, for if our plans had been betrayed, there would be no lack of patrolling craft on the Irish coast.
My orders tied me to a definite time of arrival. This was two days off. To arrive an hour too soon or too late might spoil everything, for no one would be expecting me. We measured off distances on the chart. There could be no doubt about it that if we continued steaming at our present pace we should make Tralee a day too soon—an eventuality which had appeared so improbable that none of those who planned our voyage had taken it into account.
With the intention of running in on the evening of the next day, as this would be the most favourable time for us, I steered south-east at reduced speed, intending to approach the steamer track. So far, of course, I had avoided it. While I was sketching out the plan of action for the next day, there came a knock at the door. 'Well, Battermann,' I said to the signalman, who entered, 'what is it? Surely not another of them?'
'Just what it is, captain. Another of these Englishmen. Three miles away on our starboard beam. We saw him just coming out of a squall.'
As I came on deck a long black steamer with narrow funnels was steaming down on us at full speed. The first-officer had meanwhile given the order for emergency stations, and was steaming, with the usual reduced speed, on an easterly course. We might thus be supposed to be coming from America.
'The "conjurer's box" is watertight,' came the report from below, and the usual 'bag of tricks' was hurriedly passed down. It was high time, for the Englishman was approaching us with alarming rapidity. He looked as if he meant to bite us, damn him!
'Down, Hector! Down, sir!' The dog was barking furiously on the forecastle head. They must have heard him clearly on the English ship, for we, on our part, could hear the ringing of their engine-room telegraph.
She stopped her engines scarcely five hundred yards away. Now for the prize crew, thought I. But as I had no desire for a closer acquaintance, I kept the Aud waddling quietly along at a 'speed'—if you can call it so—of five knots. We carried on meanwhile, as if the English ship was not there.
She was an old Oriental liner of some 6000 tons burden, and somehow I could not help thinking that I had seen her before. Suddenly I remembered. Of course, it was on that very promenade deck that I had spent a pleasant hour or two at a reception held on board her, in Fremantle, West Australia. What a contrast the deck presented then and now! Instead of the fair faces and gay summer frocks, which then made so pleasing a picture, some dozens of English bluejackets were crowded at the rail, watching us curiously, and where the comfortable liner deck-chairs had stood, a couple of grim-looking three-inch guns were turning their ugly muzzles on us.
Whether she perhaps expected us to wish her a polite good-morning, I do not know, but any way, instead of her old tattered scrap of bunting, she suddenly ran up a brand-new ensign. No doubt she wanted to impress us. However, we Norwegians were far too phlegmatic to worry ourselves about little things like that. And so everything remained just as it was before. No boat was lowered; no prize crew came on board.