"Himmel!" growled von Loringhoven over his shoulder. "Where are your wits, Kuhlberg? That craft carries a gun; perhaps two. We could out-range her, of course, but then, there would be the delay before we sent her to the bottom."
The ober-leutnant did not think it worth while to mention that he had a wholesome respect for the comparatively short-range guns carried on tramps and drifters. Experience had taught him that lesson.
With the tips of her periscopes showing at intervals above the waves, U 254 manoeuvred until she was in a favourable position for firing a torpedo. At a distance of three hundred yards the chances of hitting the tramp were practically certain.
"Fire!" ordered the ober-leutnant.
The submarine tilted slightly as the powerful weapon left the starboard tube. Barely had the hiss of the compensating quantity of water rushing into the vacated tube ceased, when the dull roar of the exploding missile was borne to the ears of the piratical crew.
"Another cursed Englander gone," grunted von Loringhoven, as he ordered the ballast tanks to be blown.
Very cautiously, after a lapse of five minutes, the dealer of the recreant stroke poked her periscopes above water. As the ober-leutnant expected, the tramp was sinking rapidly. The force of the explosion, for the torpedo had struck her abreast of the engine room, had practically shattered the lightly built hull. Bow and stern were cocked high in the air, while amidships the frothy sea was pouring over the submerged deck.
One boat had already been lowered. Another had been swung out and the falls manned. The crew were waiting for something. Curious on that point, von Loringhoven peered intently through the eyepiece of the periscope. Presently he saw a man, waist deep in water, staggering aft, carrying the body of an insensible comrade on his back. So steep was the deck and so strong the swirling water that the devoted rescuer had all his work cut out to reach the boat, where willing hands relieved him of his burden.
The boat got away only just in time. Even as the lower blocks of the falls were disengaged, the doomed tramp slid beneath the waves, the davits just missing the laden boat's gunwale as the crew fended off with oars and boathooks.
Then in a smother of foam and a dense pall of smoke and steam the two boats were left tossing upon the waves, eighty miles from the nearest land, and without a friendly craft in sight.