Von Loringhoven nodded his satisfaction at the intelligence. He had resigned the periscope to the unter-leutnant and was engaged in fitting a new roll of films to his camera with the idea of taking a series of snapshots of the "Tantalus" in her last throes.
"That's all ready," he remarked, as he snapped to the back of the camera and wound the first film into position. "Isn't it about time we broke surface? How goes the cruiser?"
"She does not appear to be going at all in the direction we want her to, Herr Kapitan," answered the unter-leutnant, after a prolonged look through the periscope, "If anything she is about the same, sinking no deeper in the water. She is steaming ahead."
"Gott in himmel!" exclaimed von Loringhoven furiously, laying aside the camera and pushing his subordinate away from the object-bowl of the periscope. "Must we do our work all over again? Torpedo-room there!" he shouted through the voice-tube. "Launch home both tubes. Set the torpedoes to run at three metres this time.... Stand by."
Taking a compass bearing of the cruiser and ordinating her rate through the water, von Loringhoven gave orders for U 254 to dive to ten metres. Then, running at ten knots, in order to make the surface wake as inconspicuous as possible, he manoeuvred for a chance to deliver another blow.
It was a tedious, nerve-racking business. When at the end of an hour's cautious stalking the U-boat poked the tips of her periscopes above the surface their appearance was greeted with a hot fire from the alert gun-layers of the "Tantalus."
Von Loringhoven shuddered with apprehension as he feverishly tilted the diving rudders.
Not until the submarine was deep down did he heave a sigh of relief. Yet with dogged determination he resolved to make another attempt to give his foe the coup de grâce.
An hour and twenty minutes later U 254 prepared for another torpedo attack, but upon her periscopes breaking surface the ober-leutnant made the disconcerting discovery that a bank of sea-fog had swept down. The laboured churning of the cruiser's propeller could be faintly heard, but whether she was half a mile away or thrice that distance he had no means of ascertaining.
"Stand here, Herr Kuhlberg," was von Loringhoven's order as he stepped aside from the periscope. "My eyes are strained with peering into the object bowl. Report directly you see anything."