"I congratulate you, Mr. Farrar," said the lieutenant-commander. "It showed promptitude and daring on your part. Your reasoning was sound—absolutely. She would have slipped a couple of tin-fish into us for a dead cert. if you had let her run past our lee. As it was we've come off lightly, but it would have been a costly mistake if that craft had been a friend."
The "Zenodorus" was still forging astern.
With her damaged bows it would be a risky business to go ahead and thus increase the hydrostatic pressure upon the transverse bulkheads. The wreckage of the foremast was cut clear and temporary wireless aerials sent aloft, a message being sent to the "Zenoclides," the "next on station," asking her to relieve the damaged vessel as soon as possible.
Examination of the prisoners revealed the information that the enemy craft was the 8,000 ton Austrian Lloyd liner "Hapsburg," that had been fitted out at Trieste for a raiding expedition to the Western Mediterranean. That the Austrian naval authorities realised that there was slight possibility of her return was evident from the instructions given to her commanding officer. The captain of the "Hapsburg" had been ordered to break through the Otranto patrol, if possible, and then, directly matters became too hot, to make for a Spanish port and be interned.
It was a daring piece of work—the evading of the drifter patrol. Favoured by intense darkness and a northerly breeze the Austrian vessel hoisted a square-sail of black canvas, and depending solely upon the wind to give her steerage way, ran noiselessly through the British outer line. Then, putting on all speed, she trusted to chance to avoid the supporting cruisers, only to be sent to the bottom by the "Zenodorus."
"It will mean six weeks in dock," observed Captain Aubyn, when the damage was revealed in the morning light. "But it might have been a jolly sight worse."
The crumpled state of the armed merchantman's bows made her injuries appear greater than they actually were. For thirty feet the plating was buckled and twisted, the deck planks shattered, and the whole of No. 2 transverse bulkhead exposed to the level of the water. The "Zenodorus" was nine feet down by the bows, but fortunately beyond the flooding of the forehold the rest of the hull was still watertight. As additional evidence of the immense force of the impact, the "Hapsburg's" steam capstan had been uprooted from its bed and had been forced completely through the British cruiser's for'ard bulkhead, where it remained as a trophy of the encounter.
With the loss of the foremast and the damage aft caused by the explosion of the hostile shell, the "Zenodorus" looked a wreck, but, as the lieutenant-commander had remarked, it might have been a jolly sight worse.
Under easy steam and escorted by a destroyer the battered merchant cruiser crawled back to Malta, where steps were immediately taken to make good defects.
At the first opportunity Sub-Lieutenant Farrar sought an interview with his commanding officer and made a suggestion.