At frequent intervals the U-boat's engines were stopped. The noise of the unseen motor vessel's exhaust alternately grew louder and fainter. Somewhere in that baffling mist was the danger. Engaged in a mutual game of maritime blind man's bluff the submarine and the submarine-hunter were groping for each other. At any moment a rift in the veil of fog might bring the adversaries almost broadside to broadside.
Von Preugfeld glanced at the luminous dial of his watch.
"Fifteen minutes more," he muttered. "Will it be in time?"
CHAPTER VI
PICKED UP
"Pull starboard; back port!... Give way together!" ordered Lieutenant-Commander Wakefield, as the blunt bows of the U-boat appeared through the dispersing fog-bank.
The men obeyed with a will. Almost in its own length the "tin" dinghy spun round and darted towards the pall of misty vapour. It was a dog's chance, and the men realised it, but they were not going to throw up the sponge without a determined effort to escape.
Alas for the bold resolve! With a rapidity that was little short of miraculous for a vessel of her type, the U-boat turned to starboard. Then, with her engines reversed, she brought up dead with her bows within an oar's length of the M.L.'s dinghy.
Right for'ard were half a dozen men clad in oilskins. One of them brandished a long boat-hook.