Presently the wind dropped almost to a flat calm. The crested seas, beaten down by the rain, subsided into long sullen rollers.
"Merely a lull," declared the warrant officer. "I've put in three commissions up the Straits, and I ought to know a bit about the weather by this time, or I'm a Dutchman. It'll veer and blow dead in our teeth."
"Up helm and let her lay to on the port tack," ordered the sub, glad to have the experience and resource of the warrant officer at his disposal. He thrust back the sliding hatch of the companion and glanced at an aneroid on the bulkhead. The barometer stood at 28.75", with a decided tendency to drop still lower.
"Wish to goodness we had fore and aft canvas instead of this unwieldy tackle," he thought, as the fore yard rattled in the slings and hammered against the raking mast with a succession of thuds that shook the vessel from truck to keel. "However, it's no use wanting what is not to be had. I'll have that foresail close reefed. If Gripper was right, we'll have plenty of sea room. Hullo, Stevenson, what is it now?"
This to the leading hand of the carpenter's crew, who had just come up from below.
"Three feet of water in the forehold, sir," he reported. "Maybe some of the gear's carried away and stove a plank, or else she's strained her forefoot."
Hands were immediately ordered to the pumps, with the result that the leak was soon got under control, but directly the wind piped up again the influx of water was resumed. Evidently the hammering of the sea had either started a plank or loosened some of her caulking, necessitating constant work with the powerful semi-rotary pumps with which the felucca had been supplied in lieu of the antiquated gadgets previously fitted to get rid of the bilge water.
But Petty Officer Stevenson was a man of many parts—one of those resourceful individuals whose value is not sufficiently appreciated by the Powers that Be. Calling for a couple of hands to volunteer for the hazardous work, he went below, and in the heaving, confined space of the forehold, set to work to remove a number of the barrels and chests at the immediate risk of being jammed between the heavy articles as they jolted and slid with every movement of the vessel. The sight of a steady stream of water rewarded his efforts. Betwixt wind and water one of the planks had been "started," probably by the impact of a piece of floating wreckage.
By means of a bit of tarred canvas with a backing of copper sheet Stevenson succeeded in stopping the leak, short pieces of timber being shored up between the ribs to make all secure, and at the end of two hours' hard and exhausting work the three men returned on deck, the petty officer making his satisfactory report as nonchalantly as if he had just carried out some trivial routine.
Throughout the rest of the day and the whole of the ensuing night, the "Georgeos Nikolaos" drove almost under bare poles, for sail had been reduced to a close-reefed foresail. Not a craft of any description had been sighted during the whole of that time. It was quite possible that more than once the felucca was in imminent danger of being run down by large steamers plying their way without lights through the trackless wastes; reasonable even to assume that she had sailed over U-boats that, to avoid the storm, were running submerged at a depth of a hundred to one hundred and fifty feet. More than once Farrar's thoughts flew to Billy Barcroft. He found himself picturing the "Avenger," and wondering how she was faring should the flying-boat happen to be caught out in the sudden storm. Long afterwards the sub made the discovery that Barcroft was "up" during the gale, and running serenely at a height of 8,000 feet, had passed within a few miles of the "Georgeos Nikolaos," for the "Avenger" was on her way to take up patrolling duties in the AEgean, where U-boats had been somewhat too active of late.