Wiping the moisture from the lenses of his powerful night glasses, Meredith raised the binoculars and scanned the limited expanse of visible sea. Even as he did so a weird greyish object swept across his field of vision.
"By Jove!" he ejaculated.
"By Jove, what?" asked Wakefield sharply. "Good heavens! Yes, there she is!"
He jerked the telegraph indicator to full speed ahead.
"See her, Clarkson?" he shouted to the gun-layer. "Two points on your starboard bow. Let her have it."
CHAPTER III
SUNK IN ACTION
A blinding flash and a deafening roar, followed by a sickening lurch of the little patrol boat as the lightly built hull reeled to the recoil, announced that the action had commenced. Almost immediately the breech-block of the six-pounder was jerked back and the still smoking metal cylinder clattered noisily on the deck. The air reeked of burnt cordite as the excited gun's crew, who had never before been in action, loaded and fired like men possessed.
With the first shot Kenneth's sense of nervousness fell from him like a cast garment. Up to the present the foe had not replied to the M.L.'s fire, but it was not to be supposed that she would decline the combat. Glowing steel messages of death would presently be hurtling through the air with the avowed object of wiping out the little M.L. and her crew. Kenneth fully realised this, but beyond a curious feeling of elation the Sub was as cool as if bringing No. 1071 alongside her parent ship.