"Cease fire!" Aubyn ordered for the second time within two minutes. Then, "Out boats."
It was an easy matter to order the boats away, but a most difficult task to carry the instructions into effect. The gig had been completely pulverised, while the other boats were in a more or less unseaworthy condition.
"Look alive, lads!" exclaimed a petty officer of the carpenters' crew. "T'other blokes'll be there first if we don't look out."
Hastily the holes in the bottom strakes of that particular boat were plugged, and, quickly manned, the leaky craft pushed off, the men urged by her coxswain to "pull like blazes an' get them chaps out o' the bloomin' ditch."
By this time the German torpedo-boat had vanished beneath the waves, leaving a rapidly-dispersing cloud of smoke and steam to mark the spot where she had disappeared and the heads of about twenty swimmers—the survivors of her complement.
In twos and threes the war-scarred and nerve-shattered Huns were hauled into safety, for other help from both destroyers was now upon the scene, and deeply laden the boats returned to their respective parents.
Suddenly Barcroft, who was watching the arrival of the sorry-looking crowd of German prisoners, gave vent to an uncontrolled shout of joyous surprise, for huddled in the stern sheets of the whaler were Flight-lieutenant-John Fuller and his comrade in peril, Bobby Kirkwood.
"There's precious little of report," said Fuller in reply to the skipper of the "Audax", when the two rescued officers were snugly berthed in the ward-room—warm in spite of the additional ventilation in the shape of a couple of neatly-drilled holes marking the place of entry and the point of departure of the ill-advised German "dud" shell. "We had to make a forced descent, got collared by a strafed U-boat just as we had effected repairs. The U-boat rattled herself to bits, so to speak, and had to be abandoned. I've had quite enough submarining, thank you. Give me a seaplane any day of the week, Sunday included. Then that torpedo-boat—V198's her designation—picked us up. They stowed us in the forehold and forgot to let us out when she went under. Suppose they had quite enough on their hands and clean forgot about us," he added generously, giving the kapitan-leutnant of the V198 the benefit of the doubt.
"Anyhow, there we were," continued the flight-lieutenant. "We knew the rotten packet was going, and although we yelled the racket on board prevented them hearing us, I suppose. Still, our luck was in, for a shell burst in her fo'c'sle, ripping up the deck and bursting the cable-tier bulkhead. It was pretty thick with the smoke, but we groped for'ard——"
"You hauled me for'ard, you mean," interrupted the A.P.