"She's got it properly in the neck," he admitted. "We're gaining a bit, I think (his anxiety to beat 'Antipas' was almost an obsession). I can fancy Old Tress jumping about on the bridge like a cat on hot bricks, and working the engine-room johnnies like billy-ho."
"The wind's dropping; that's why we're gaining," said Kirkwood. "It's petrol motor versus turbine now, and let the best craft win. ...Hullo! the cruiser's opened fire again. Billy, my lad, we look like strafing that U-boat. Fritz is getting much too rash: he wants correcting."
"Stand by!" ordered Barcroft, addressing the aerial torpedo man through the voice-tube.
"Ay, ay, sir!" replied Anderson confidently. Then, bringing the tube into the nearest possible position to the horizontal, he carefully placed a sixty-pound missile into the breech, trained the weapon downwards, and stood by with his hand resting lightly upon the firing lever.
"All correct, sir," he reported.
Maintaining her former altitude the Blimp passed immediately above the badly listing "Tantalus," the crew of which raised a mighty cheer. The faint echoes of the true British greeting were wafted to the airship like a gentle murmur, in spite of the noise of the motor. Barcroft acknowledged the cheering with a wave of his hand, then, knitting his brows and compressing his lips, he centred all his attention upon the grim work that was about to be done.
Presently his eyes glittered with the light of battle, Three miles astern of the cruiser, and almost in the frothy wake of her labouring propeller, could be discerned an elongated, shadowy form, showing faintly against the greenish grey expanse of water. It was the U-boat running under the surface.
"Confound it!" ejaculated the lieutenant, as a dark grey swiftly moving vessel zig-zagged towards the spot where the U-boat's periscopes were last seen. "The old 'Antipas' is going to spoil my game."
A violent upheaval of foam, followed by a muffled detonation, announced that the destroyer had exploded a depth charge.
"You'll have to be a jolly sight more careful, Tressidar, old boy," soliloquised Barcroft. "You'll be blowing up the stern of your old hooker if you don't mind.... Ah! I thought so. You've missed your bird this time. Now, for goodness' sake fade away and let me have a look in."