Slowly we collected our various limbs together and considered: what had happened?
The boat was standing on her head, so to speak, with her fore-part sloping downwards at an angle of thirty-six; her bow must be touching ground while the stern was obediently oscillating in the air above water; the gauge meanwhile showed a depth of about eight fathoms.
I took a rapid stock of our situation; it was far from pleasant.
According to the map there should be here a depth of about seventeen and a half fathoms; judging from the almost upright position of our long boat our stern must be projecting a considerable way above water, making thereby an admirable target for enemy destroyers. As long as the engines continued working it followed that as the waves passed over us the propeller lashing partly in the air was increasing our power of attraction by causing fountains of leaping water and foaming whirlpools.
This Klees had realised through the mad pounding of the engines, and by his presence of mind had removed the greatest danger.
All the same we had marked our resting-place with the strangest of buoys, and expected every moment to hear bombs crashing through the stem of our boat as it hung high in the air above us....
Moments of extreme tension followed....
But all was still. The screws could no longer betray us, and it was probably still too dark above for them to be noticeable. The destroyer, moreover, had no doubt enough to do in looking after herself in this rough sea.
It will be understood, however, that we were particularly anxious to get out of this absurd position as quickly as possible.
As the boat was still quite intact and had sustained the fearful shock without the least damage, the rest of the programme was easy enough to carry out.