"Won't she," interrupted the R.N.R. officer grimly. "You leave that to us."
"He means 'submerge,' I fancy," remarked Wakefield.
"Ach! Dat is so. She submerge cannot make. Take prisoners dose mutineer sailors."
"What's he driving at, Wakefield?" inquired Morpeth. "Hanged if I can cotton on to the yarn."
"He apparently wants to get his own back," suggested Wakefield. "A true type of the egotistical, arrogant Prussian. D'ye notice he never referred to his fellow victim of the mutiny. Perhaps they got what they jolly well deserved."
"No business of mine," quoth the R.N.R. man. "Sinking Fritzes is my job. Take that fellow below, Walters."
He jerked his thumb in the direction of the fore hatchway, whither von Loringhoven had already been escorted; but von Preugfeld had another card to play.
"Englisch officers der are on board der submarine," he declared. "Four officers prisoners—nein, it is three," and he held up three fingers to emphasise the fact.
Except to serve his own ends, von Preugfeld would not have mentioned the fact. It mattered nothing to him whether the prisoners were sent to the bottom inside the hull of the U-boat if she were destroyed by the British craft; but as a lever to influence Morpeth's decision, in order to enable von Preugfeld to take vengeance on the mutineers at some distant date, the Prussian blurted out the disconcerting news.
Almost at the same time he realised that the situation was a complicated one. There was the question of the spy, von Preussen. The R.A.F. officers would, on their release, certainly demand an explanation of their supposed comrade's whereabouts, and then the spy would be revealed in his true character. It would be awkward—decidedly awkward—for von Preussen, but in his vindictiveness against the mutineering crew von Preugfeld swept aside the question. He had little qualms in sacrificing von Preussen to attain his immediate aim.