‘It’s getting a bit fuggy, so I think we’ll come up at nine-thirty. What time is it now?’
‘Nine o’clock. I shan’t be sorry to get up, for one. That’ll be seventeen hours and a half, and quite long enough for my small needs. I’m not ambitious in that direction.’
‘No, I think we’ll make it half-past nine. You’d better warn them in the engine-room, Seagrave, that we’ll want full speed as soon as possible after rising. One can’t say that they’re not still on the look-out for us, and we can’t afford to hang about.’
Boyd busied himself with his charts and laid the course for home. ‘A hundred and thirty-five miles to go,’ he pronounced, ‘at twelve knots gets us in at about nine to-morrow morning. Just a good time to come in, and a silk ensign and the skull and crossbones.’
‘Hardly a good enough bag for all that,’ said the captain; ‘we might run to the silk ensign, I think, but we’ll hang on to the other till we sink a Hun Dreadnought or a big Fritz or something of that sort. All ready, Seagrave? Right. Diving stations.’
Then they rose, rose swiftly off the bottom, and steadied at twenty feet, when Raymond hoisted the periscope.
‘Seems quite dark,’ he said. ‘Always looks darker through the periscope than it really is, though. Good enough, blow 1, 2, and 3.’
When the hatch was opened it was considerably lighter than expected, and the engines were started off and worked up to full speed as soon as possible. Raymond wouldn’t allow any one but himself, Boyd, and the helmsman on the bridge, and all unnecessary gear was left below. Even the bridge screen remained furled, and the captain kept a steady look-out aft for possible pursuers.
Luckily the sea was still calm, and they got well away by midnight, after which the crew were allowed on deck and things made comfortable for the night. It had been a queer feeling, though, rising from the bottom of the sea up into the dusk, the quick hustle and the scurry for home, and the keen look-out aft through the gloom for signs of an enemy who might have seen the boat push her way up out of her watery funk-hole.
However, she was safe now, and the night slipped by with the usual surface watches, and daylight found ‘123’ off the coast and heading for the faint outline of home just visible on the horizon.