"And I've to thank the British Navy for this," thought Alec, critically regarding the black war bread. "Evidently efficacious, if Fritz and all his kind are compelled to carry on with this. Hallo! What's the game now?"
For the U-boat had suddenly commenced to submerge once more, the steep diving angle indicating that the action was not entirely voluntary on the part of her nerve-racked pirate crew.
CHAPTER VII
M.-L. 4452
"And the run across to Ostend?" inquired Sub-lieutenant Guy Branscombe of M.-L. 4452.
"A wash-out," replied his superior officer, Lieutenant Frank Farnborough.
Branscombe expressed no surprise at the information. During the war there were innumerable instances of orders being given, of plans carefully laid, and preparations made sometimes for weeks in advance, then, at the last hour, they would be countermanded. In Service parlance the abandonment of any particular project is generally referred to as a "wash-out".
M.-L. 4452 was lying in the outer harbour of Ramsgate. It was dead low water, but sufficient for the M.-L. to lie afloat alongside the eastern arm of the stone pier that towered twenty-five to thirty feet above the deck of the trim little craft.
She had had a quick, uneventful run round from the Firth of Forth, and upon reporting at Dover had been ordered to lie in Ramsgate Harbour, owing to certain activities in progress at the former base. It was on the cards that M.-L. 4452, in company with five sister ships, was to take part in important operations off the Belgian coast—operations requiring courage and discretion, and far from being devoid of great risk to life and limb.
For her size the M.-L. was a comfortable packet. True, she rolled heavily in a seaway and was unhandy on her helm when running at slow speed. Built of wood and equipped with two powerful eight-cylinder motors, she could attain a speed of twenty-six knots.