CHAPTER XIII
ADRIFT
With the excitement of watching the ocean duel still fresh in their minds, the cutter's crew did not readily realise their predicament. They had sublime faith in the ability of the "Heracles" to give the Huns "a proper hammering" and that in due course the British cruiser would return and pick up her boat.
For some time the sounds of the violent cannonade were borne faintly to their ears; then, save when a man's hearing played tricks upon him, the noise of the firing died utterly away.
Hour after hour passed, but no sign of the returning cruiser. The horrible thought that perhaps the "Heracles" had been sent to the bottom took root and increased in Tressidar's mind. Yet no hint did he give to his men. In order to occupy their minds and to keep their blood circulating—for in the open boat the cold was intense—the sub. ordered them to row, the oarsmen relieving each other every half-hour. Round and round in a vast circle the cutter went. Tressidar was too cautious to take the boat far from the spot where she had parted company with her parent ship, otherwise, should the "Heracles" return and find no sign of the cutter, she would most likely conclude that the boat had either been swamped or blown to atoms by a stray shell.
To add to the discomfort of the cutter's crew, it was now raining the steady downpour accompanied by occasional sleet and drifts of fog. Frequently the extent of vision was limited to less than half a mile. In these circumstances the chances of being picked up by the "Heracles" were greatly diminished.
Presently one of the men caught sight of a grey pointed object forging through the detached pieces of drift ice. At first glance it resembled a destroyer, save for the difference in colour. It was a vessel of some sort, but different from any that the cutter's crew had yet seen. It had a slightly raised fo'c'sle, large superstructure, and two slender masts fitted with wireless gear.
"A German submarine!" exclaimed a seaman hoarsely. "My word, ain't she a whopper!"
It was an unterseeboot of the newest type—resembling a small cruiser rather than the accepted idea of a submarine. Trimmed for surface running, she exposed a freeboard of nearly ten feet. For'ard were two twelve-pounder guns in circular turrets, so arranged that they could be lowered below the deck in a few seconds whenever it became necessary to dive. In the elongated superstructure, which comprised not only the conning-tower but several spacious compartments, were gun-ports fitted with watertight lids. These were now triced up, revealing the muzzles of four seven-pounder quick-firers. From the after end of the superstructure floated the Black Cross of Germany, while abaft were two more "disappearing" guns and the above-water mine-dropping gear.
Already the two for'ard guns were trained upon the luckless cutter. At any moment shells might be dealing death and destruction amongst her crew.