One of the hands caught the dinghy's painter. A rope ladder was lowered down the perpendicular side of the Alerte, and with a final effort to control their cramped limbs, Vyse and Broadmayne contrived to reach the deck of the pirate submarine.
"Take them below!" ordered Captain Cain from the height of the bridge. "Tell Davis to serve them with a good hot meal. They can berth for'ard."
With his head swimming and his knees giving way under him, Rollo Vyse was glad to have the assistance of a couple of the crew to take him below. Broadmayne, although feeling decidedly groggy, still retained sufficient alertness of mind to take stock of his immediate surroundings as far as the first streaks of red dawn permitted.
The steel deck littered with kelp and seaweed was in itself suspicious, unless the vessel were a trawler and had just emptied her nets on deck. But there was not the peculiar smell that steam trawlers cannot get away from.
Directly the Sub found himself below, he knew.
"By Jove!" he soliloquised. "She's a sub marine."
In spite of his hunger and fatigue, Broadmayne puzzled his brains over the strange situation. What was a submarine, disguised as a surface ship, doing in the Channel? Her officers and crew were not in naval uniform, although several of them had unmistakable indications of having served under the white ensign. The owner, especially, had the cut of a pukka naval man.
"Perhaps she's a new type of Q-ship," he thought. "If the manoeuvres were on, I could understand it. Won't it be a joke if she is a mystery ship; and won't the owner feel a bit sick when he finds he's harbouring an inquisitive Sub on board his hooker? Like his confounded cheek, though, making us mess and berth for'ard."
Soon the two chums were sitting down to a hot, substantial meal. They were not alone. The crew's quarters in which they were sheltering was occupied by the best part of the watch below, about a dozen rather smart and alert men, older than the usual run of naval ratings. The Sub noticed that, without exception, they looked a bit tired and fatigued, consequently he was not surprised to find that his attempts to broach a conversation were resolutely, yet politely, rebuffed. Foiled in that direction, Broadmayne tried to pick up the threads of the scanty scraps of conversation. Again he was foiled. Every sentence he overheard had no bearing upon life on board. "Shop" in the crew's quarter seemed to be taboo.
He glanced at Vyse. Rollo, having made a good meal, was leaning back on the settee with his eyes closed. The problem offered no difficulties to the owner of the burnt-out Ibex, for the simple reason that he was comfortably dozing.