To his astonishment he was just in time to see the masts and sails of one of the fishing-boats disappear over the side, to the accompaniment of a shower of spray and a cloud of smoke from the bursting projectile while less than four hundred yards away from its victim was a large U-boat.
The pirate had evidently been resting on the sandy bottom of the bay, and finding that she was in the vicinity of a fleet of small and unprotected fishing-craft, had judged it a good opportunity for an object-lesson in kultur.
A careful survey of the horizon by means of the periscopes had failed to reveal anything of a suspicious nature to the kapitan-leutnant of the unterseeboot. M.B. No. 1164 B, lying motionless on the water, was an inconspicuous object, her aviation-grey painted sides hardly visible against the haze on the skyline.
The crew of the motor-boat looked enquiringly at their skipper. It never occurred to them that a hostile craft was in the vicinity. Not one of them had seen a U-boat except in the form of a picture in an illustrated paper, and this one did not resemble their idea of a German submarine.
Derek weighed up the case in a few brief seconds. Here he was in a fast motor-boat with a raw, practically untrained crew, and with not so much as a pea-shooter on board. The Hun probably carried a couple of six-inch quick-firers and a few machine-guns. By force Derek could do nothing.
Nor could he, with any degree of honour, seek safety in flight and leave the slowly-moving fishing-boats to the mercy, or rather the lack of mercy, of a ruthless pirate compared with whom the Buccaneers of the Spanish Main were gentlemen.
By stratagem Derek might do something. Unceremoniously pushing aside the still bewildered coxswain, and ordering the engineer to "let her rip for all she's worth", Derek swung the helm hard over until the motor-boat headed straight for the long, low-lying, sinister hull.
"Full throttle!" yelled Daventry. "Lie down, men, all of you."
