All need for concealment now at an end, Captain Meredith emerged from the fo'c'sle conning-tower and climbed the bridge-ladder.
By this time, the Complex had settled well down aft. Fumes and steam were still issuing from her engine-rooms. The acrid smell of burnt cordite still wafted from the unsecured guns.
The skipper had to make up his mind quickly—whether it were worth while pretending to abandon ship again and thus lure the submarine into rising to the surface, or to wireless for assistance.
He decided on the latter course. It might not be too late for the Messines and Armentières to stand in pursuit of the somewhat damaged Cerro Algarrobo. The seaplanes from the Basilikon might be able to spot the lurking submarine, if, as was likely, she continued to remain in the vicinity to make sure of the sinking of the Complex.
Accordingly, the wireless telegraphist began sending out an urgent signal to the Basilikon. The reply was prompt and to the point. The cruiser and her attendant destroyers were roughly seventy miles off. The Messines and Armentières were detached to proceed at full speed to the foundering decoy ship.
The Complex was in no immediate hurry to make her acquaintance with the bed of the Atlantic. Her cargo of cork and her elaborate system of water-tight bulkheads were playing their parts well. Those of the crew who were not at the guns were busily engaged in shoring up the bulkheads and endeavouring to pass a collision-mat over the gaping rent caused by the torpedo. The flooding of the boiler-rooms had automatically put out of action the mechanical bilge-pumps, but the hand-pumps, manned by the stokers of both watches, helped to delay the inevitable.
Meanwhile, the boats were lowered, each armed with a Lewis gun in the likely event of the submarine attempting to massacre the survivors. The wounded were transferred to one of the boats, the medical officer and sick-berth staff being in attendance.
Having taken all precautions, Captain Meredith and his crew could but await the end, whatever way it might turn out.
"Periscope right astern, sir," reported the Gunner. Hardly able to credit the good news, the skipper crossed to the port side of the bridge and looked. To his surprise and satisfaction, the submarine was within eighty yards of her victim. Her commander, judging that, as the stern of the Complex was almost awash, it was safe to make a periscopic view of the foundering vessel at short range, was in complete ignorance of the fact that the decoy ship still carried a most formidable sting in her tail. It might be that through inexperience he had misjudged his distance and had brought the submarine closer to the Complex than he thought.
Dead astern of the decoy-ship, he imagined himself to be safe. A Rioguayan invariably plays for "safety first". The two after 12-pounders could not be brought to bear astern. Even if they could, they could achieve nothing beyond demolishing one of the three periscopes with which the submarine was equipped. Twenty feet of water between the surface of the sea and the armoured back of the submarine would deflect any shell striking the water obliquely.