"Made the Huns line up on deck and sing the 'Hymn of Hate'. You can imagine the surprise of the trawler's men, who, judging by the treatment meted out to our fishermen by the German submarines, expected nothing less than imprisonment and the loss of their boat. But it's close on one bell," remarked Fox at length. "You're messing with the skipper to-day, I believe. He's quite a decent sort when you know him properly, but it takes a bit of doing."
A seaman strode up to the bell and gave it a sharp stroke. Just then a messenger hurried from the diminutive "wireless" room abaft the chart-house and, leaping down the ladder at a single bound, knocked at the door of the Captain's cabin.
"Stow those things away, Sparkes," exclaimed Captain Syllenger. "Lunch will have to wait."
He dashed out of his cabin. On the way to the bridge he passed Fox and the two midshipmen.
"You'll have to tighten your belts, my lads," he announced. "We've just had a message through. A strafed unterseeboot has been spotted trying to get into Spithead. If we don't nab her within half an hour, I'll eat my hat!"
CHAPTER XVII
A Double Bag
It was a sea-plane, flying at fifteen hundred feet above the Warner and The Nab Lightships, that had detected an elongated shadow creeping stealthily over the shingly bottom close to the Dean Tail Buoy. The shadow was that of a German unterseeboot, since none of the British submarines were known to be in the eastern approaches to Spithead. Evidently she had gone out of her course, for instead of being in the main channel she was well to the north of it. More than likely the strong east-going tide, which hereabout surges at such a rate that it causes the shingle 30 or 40 feet beneath the surface to emit a deep rumble, had taken the unterseeboot in its grip.
Promptly the sea-plane wirelessed the news, and quickly a "general call" was sent to the patrol vessels in the vicinity. The Capella was one of the craft that picked up the welcome order.