Sub-lieutenant Webb gave vent to a low whistle.
"A hot corner this time," he said to himself. "We're properly between two fires."
CHAPTER XVI
'Twixt U-Boat and Arabs
Had the discovery of the petrol store been made a few hours earlier, steps would have been taken to cope with the peril from the sea that menaced the castaways. The defences that had been hurriedly thrown up had been constructed against attack from the landward side; the possibility of being shelled from a German submarine had not previously been taken into account.
Hastily the British seamen set to work to strengthen the parados of the trenches, in order to convert it into an earthwork sufficiently strong to resist the comparatively light shells fired from the hostile submarine.
Bullets from the Senussi now began to sing over the heads of the defenders. Well it was that the Arabs were very indifferent shots at long range, otherwise they would have taken a heavy toll of the seamen who were obliged to present a fair target as they toiled in the open.
The German submarine, which had been approaching rapidly, had now eased down. She was running on the surface, showing her conning-tower and the whole length of her deck. She displayed no colours, but her two quick-firing guns had been hoisted from below, and were manned ready for opening fire.
"I feel pretty certain," said Captain M'Bride to Osborne as the officers kept the hostile craft under observation, "that that submarine is the one which bagged us—and the Sunderbund as well. She's been lying off-shore waiting for the weather to moderate in order to replenish her fuel, and now she finds her depot in our possession. It was a rotten blunder on her part, sinking the old Portchester Castle so close to her temporary base."