"We have to thank these Englanders for all this," he added. "But for them the war would have been over long ago, and we should be drinking Munich beer in the beer-gardens of Wilhelmshaven instead of being cooped up here—perhaps everlastingly."
A gong sounded, orders were communicated to various parts of the submarine, as, with the hiss of water entering her ballast tanks and the muffled purr of the electric motors, the U-boat dived.
In his cell Farrar could hear the jumbled noise of a dozen or more different sounds. Once he fancied he heard the detonation of the impulse charge that liberated the torpedo. There was certainly a sharp horizontal movement that follows the release of the powerful self-actuated weapon. In vain he strained his ears for the crash of the explosion, but he certainly heard the subdued reports of several quick-firers in action.
It was not until three hours later that the U-boat rose to the surface and Farrar was permitted to resume his airing on deck. Judging by the disgruntled appearance of officers and crew, the attempt to torpedo the hostile vessel was a failure.
Long afterwards the sub heard that the craft attacked was a British monitor returning from certain important work in the Gulf of Venice. The U-boat's torpedo had "got home," but owing to the peculiar construction of the vessel attacked, the missile did very little harm beyond blowing away a few plates from the exaggerated space surrounding her interior or main hull, which in naval parlance is generally spoken of as the "old hooker's blisters."
Upon returning to his cell the sub, worn out by his exertions and privations, threw himself down upon a pile of empty sacks and was soon sound asleep. It seemed as if he had been slumbering only a few minutes when he was aroused by a couple of seamen standing over him. One held an electric torch; the other, having indicated that the prisoner should collect his scanty belongings, including his meagre stock of food, motioned the sub to go on deck.
It was a bright moonlit night. Not a breath of wind ruffled the waters of the enclosed harbour in which the U-boat lay. She was not alone, but moored in one of three tiers of submarines, some eighteen or twenty in all. Each craft was ingeniously camouflaged, light nettings being suspended fore and aft, the meshes of which were liberally sprinkled with freshly cut foliage, while the periscopes ended in tufts of broad-leafed evergreens.
On one side of the harbour was a small village fronted by a long wharf, on which electric cranes and locomotives were at work. Although not a light was visible in any of the houses and the large workshops on the higher ground beyond, the clearness of the moonlit air enabled the sub to take in most of the characteristic features of the place. Almost encircling what was undoubtedly a secret U-boat base was a range of lofty serrated hills, culminating on the northern side in three conical peaks of equal height.
Nigel Farrar's observations were cut short by the angry voice of the kapitan-leutnant.
"Fools, pig-dogs, imbeciles!" he roared, addressing the two seamen who had charge of the prisoner. "Did I not strictly enjoin you to blindfold the Englishman? Donnerwetter! You will pay dearly for this omission."