Raymond looked up sharply.
‘Yes, all right,’ he answered, and stepped through into the control room where the coxswain watched him with curious eyes as he peered through the lens.
Presently he lowered the instrument.
‘Keep her at eighteen feet,’ was all he said as he rejoined Seagrave in the ward room.
‘Do you think it’s anything, sir?’ the latter asked eagerly.
‘Yes, I think it is. Call Boyd.’
Together they pored over the chart, and the situation was explained to the navigator, who did mysterious things with parallel rulers, and finally announced that they must be coming from ‘there,’ which was a well-known German base.
Raymond nodded, and went back to the periscope, where he remained silent for several moments. Away on his port bow the rim of the horizon was broken by three tiny smudges of smoke, one behind the other, which were coming towards him over the glassy calm sea, and would eventually cross his bows. He took a careful bearing, and noted that the shapes of slender hulls were forming below the smoke blurs before he lowered the periscope again.
‘Diving stations,’ he ordered.
‘Diving stations,’ repeated Seagrave, tingling with anticipation, and ‘diving stations’ echoed the coxswain, springing to life from a heavy slumber in the after battery compartment.