"Away cutter."
The pipes of the bos'n's mates trilled in the keen air as the boat's crew, armed in case of emergency, rushed to their duty. Quickly the falls were manned and the boats swung outboard, Tressidar being in charge.
With a loud splash the boat struck the water. Dexterously the falls were disengaged, the lower blocks swinging with a sharp crack against the cruiser's side.
"Give way, lads!"
As one the double line of blades dipped and the boat drew away from her parent, for the "Heracles" had now circled slightly to starboard and had almost bows on to the Norwegian.
At that moment half a dozen port-lids, cunningly concealed in the stranger's side, were lowered, and a line of flashes leapt from the quick-firers hitherto concealed. Simultaneously two torpedoes shimmered in the dull light on their brief journey through the air before they took to the water and headed at the rate of an express train towards the British cruiser.
Taken completely by surprise, the sub. gave an order to "Back all." The cutter was on the point of entering the direct line of fire. To attempt to return to the "Heracles" was to court disaster, for already shells were bursting against her unarmoured bows.
With the discharge of the torpedoes the disguised German cruiser, for such she was, began to forge ahead. Under a false flag she had attempted to deal a knock-out blow at her more heavily armed antagonist, and she all but succeeded.
Well it was that the British cruiser was pretty well bows on to her antagonist, for the first torpedo, passing almost underneath the cutter's keel, missed the "Heracles'" port quarter by a few yards. The other seemed as if it were making straight for the almost motionless ship when, with a terrific report, a column of water was thrown up a couple of hundred feet in the air at less than half a cable's length from the boat under Tressidar's command.
By sheer good luck as far as the "Heracles" was concerned, the powerful locomotive weapon had struck a huge block of almost submerged drift-ice, sending fragments in all directions. Several of the men in the cutter were slightly injured by pieces of falling ice, while for six minutes the boat rocked violently in the confused water churned up by the explosion.