"I wonder where I can find some water?" thought Hamerton. "I'll investigate."
The midship car was principally devoted to officers' cabins, there being two on the port side of the through gangway and one to starboard. The contents of all three had been completely wrecked by the concussion. Water bottles and jugs lay smashed to fragments upon the floor. In the midst of the debris he noticed a razor; this he carefully set aside, vowing to remove the straggling beard that was beginning to make itself particularly aggressive at the first opportunity.
For'ard of the nacelle, and adjoining the place formerly occupied by the motors, were two large tanks, one on either side of the gangway. One had been "started", a large rent showing in the sheet metal. The other was intact, and full of water.
"Salt!" ejaculated Hamerton disgustedly. "Water ballast, of course. It may come in handy though."
Continuing his forward pilgrimage the Sub reached the wreckage of the foremost car. Here the twelve-pounder gun had fallen through the floor, leaving jagged portions of the floor plates sufficiently wide to allow the Sub to gain the interior. In one corner of a subdivision of the compartment stood a metal freshwater tank, and close to it, in a rack, a number of cups. Without delay the Sub, carefully carrying a small quantity of water, made his way back to where the wounded officer lay.
The German was still insensible. Drawing a handkerchief from the unconscious man's pocket Hamerton dipped it in the water and proceeded to wash the cut in his forehead. As he did so he recognized that fate had thrown an old acquaintance across his path, for the officer was Lieutenant Schwalbe, the same who had effected Hamerton's arrest on board the Diomeda.
Having attended to the injured man as well as the limited means at his disposal would admit, the Sub decided that it was time he made an examination of the aircraft that had under remarkable circumstances come under his command.
Looking down over the rail he found that the Zeppelin was maintaining a height of about a thousand feet. Unknown to him the vessel had dropped to less than a fifth of that distance just before dawn, but with the rise of temperature following sunrise she had regained her former altitude.
The sea was still foam-flecked, and, although it was impossible to form an accurate description of the state of the waves from that height, Hamerton had reason to suppose that the gale had not yet blown itself out.
Allowing the average rate of the derelict to be forty-five miles an hour, he came to the conclusion that she was now—unless the direction had changed—within a hundred and fifty miles of the Northumberland or Berwickshire coast.