Before the trawler was a cable's length from the mark-buoy a series of columns of water rose two hundred feet in the air, accompanied by a muffled crash and a haze of smoke. When the water had subsided and the vapour had drifted on the light breeze the mark-buoy was no longer to be seen. All around were the bodies of fish killed by the submarine explosion.
"That's settled her hash," declared Waynsford. "If she survived the hit we gave her she didn't get over that little attention. See, the 'Lawley' is sending a diver down to report."
"More copy for the Press," remarked his chum, the sub. from the "Pixie."
Waynsford shook his head.
"Not much," he replied. "It's part of the game to keep this sort of thing quiet. We don't want to frighten our friends the German submarines, we want to lure them out and make an end of 'em."
Terence made no remark. He was thinking, striving to picture the shattered hull with its crew of corpses, lying fifteen fathoms below on the sandy bed of the North Sea.
Half an hour later the prize was moored alongside one of the Yarmouth quays, while the German crew were marched off under an armed guard.
Declining an invitation to breakfast with the naval officers of the port, Aubyn hurried ashore. It was now six o'clock. Already a wireless report had been received from the "Lawley" stating that her divers had discovered the wreck of the hostile submarine, which was a matter for congratulation. But there were no tidings of the spy von Eckenhardt. In spite of a rigorous search he had contrived to get clear away, and von Eckenhardt at liberty in in England was a more serious menace than a dozen German submarines operating in British waters.
"I say, mater," remarked Terence, while Mrs. Aubyn and her son were at breakfast, "I think you ought to evacuate 'Aubyn's Battery '—at least while the war lasts."
Mrs. Aubyn looked at her son in utter astonishment.