Slowly, even for the low-speed lighter, McIntosh, made for the disabled vessel, which was now lying broadside on to the fairly confused sea. The Sub was cautious. Strange to the boat, he knew that there was a vast difference between the manoeuvring capabilities of an M.L. and a lighter, and with that fact in mind he displayed an excess of caution.
Almost before he realised the danger, disaster came. Answering too slowly to her helm, No. 5 crashed heavily against the bluff steel bows of No. 6. Amidst the hiss of inrushing water, the two engineers scrambled through the smoke-laden atmosphere of the motor-room and gained the deck with the tidings that the sea was pouring in like a mill-race. And to add to the peril the fog was then enveloping the colliding craft.
There seemed no doubt about it: No. 5 was sinking. Had she been struck anywhere but right aft, her heavy rubbing-strake would have saved her. As it was she had been hit in a vital spot—her engine-room.
As luck would have it, both lighters drifted together, their metal-bound sides grinding and bumping in the agitated waves. Since No. 5 was evidently sinking, the only refuge for her crew was the deck of disabled No. 6.
"Jump for it!" shouted McIntosh. "Every man for himself."
Waiting till the last, the Sub snatched up his confidential papers, thrust them into the pocket of his oilskins, and, as the two lighters rolled heavily together, he made a flying leap for the deck of No. 6.
He was not a moment too soon. At the next roll there was a gap of five or six yards between the two vessels. Separated by a freak eddy of the tidal stream, they increased their distance more and more, until the holed lighter, with her stern level with the water, was lost to sight in the fog.