Before the whaler had been rowed a distance of fifty yards a portion of the tramp's deck blew up under the irresistible pressure of compressed air. A rush of steam and smoke followed, and the doomed vessel, her last reserve of buoyancy gone, sank like a stone.
It was now moonlight. A mile or so to the east'ard could be discerned the misty shape of the grey-painted destroyer. She was turning to starboard, with the intention of retracing her course in order to observe traces of her presumably shattered foe.
"Keep down, all hands," cautioned Fordyce.
The men, boating their oars, crouched on the bottom boards. There was just a chance that the Huns would overlook an apparently empty boat adrift in the midst of a medley of flotsam, for the sea all around was covered with woodwork of various shapes and sizes.
A minute passed in long-drawn suspense. There were audible indications that the German destroyer was bearing down. Then the tension was broken by a terrific roar, the rush of water being hurled violently into the air and falling again.
Raising his head above the gunwale, Fordyce gave vent to a shout of surprised gratification. A slowly-dispersing cloud of smoke marked the spot where the enemy craft had been. Broken asunder by the explosion of a torpedo, she was now lying on the bed of the Baltic.
"One more feather in the Old Man's cap," exclaimed a bluejacket, his enthusiasm outweighing his sense of respect in thus referring to his skipper.
"Give way!" ordered the Sub, as he grasped the yoke-lines. "There's someone in the ditch."
The men bent to their oars with a will. At the prospect of saving life their resentment for the Hun and all his works vanished.
They had not far to row before they entered the zone of acrid fumes, for at the moment of the torpedo's impact the destroyer had lessened the distance to about a quarter of a mile of the then motionless whaler.