"Unfortunately, no," replied Barcroft. "I'll send you back, but I cannot get away after six bells. We're giving a display for the edification of the Commander-in-Chief and his staff. Meanwhile, let's go across to the mess; you fellows must be wanting lunch—I do."
CHAPTER XX
RAMMED
"SAIL one point on the port bow."
The hail, coming from the look out for'ard, made Farrar hasten to the weather side of the navigation-bridge and bring his night-glasses to the eyes.
The "Zenodorus" was steaming at twenty-one knots with all lights screened. Her position was roughly forty miles N.E. by E. of Cape Sta Maria di Leuca, her mission being to act as covering screen to a drifter patrol operating in the Straits of Otranto.
Five miles to the nor'ard of her course were the hardy little drifters, their crews—one-time hard-working, peaceable North Sea fishermen—forming an effective unit of the British Navy in the hazardous task of assisting in the blockade of the Austrian fleet in the Adriatic. The erstwhile fishing-boats had been on this service for many long-drawn months. They had suffered hardships and severe losses, yet day in and night out relays of these stumpily built little craft were always to be found in the Otranto Straits, sweeping for mines, looking for hostile submarines, and otherwise doing their level best to circumvent Fritz and his Allies in their stealthy acts of frightfulness.
But for one fact the drifters might be one or a hundred miles from the "Zenodorus," for, also without lights, they were totally invisible in the intense darkness. It was the constant crackle of the wireless receiver that told the alert officer of the watch of the position of the plucky little auxiliaries.
The sighting of the mysterious vessel called for immediate and prompt action. No armed merchant cruiser or light cruiser of the Royal Navy was known to be within ten miles of the "Zenodorus's" "beat"; nor, according to official information from the Italian Admiralty, were any of the Italian fleet under way in these waters. The inference, therefore, was that the strange craft was an enemy ship; possibly a raider striving to run the blockade, or else an Austrian cruiser attempting a "tip-and-run" enterprise.