For the next half-minute the fate of U99 with all on board trembled in the balance. The unterleutnant, only too pleased to have the opportunity of finding a flaw in Captain Goslow's statement, was about to accept the invitation, when a warning shout from the kapitan of the U boat brought the boarding-party scrambling on board with the utmost alacrity.
To the accompaniment of a chorus of jeers and laughter from the American crew, the submarine submerged and was lost to sight.
Although Jack Sefton and his brother were in ignorance of the precise nature of the meeting with the tramp and the imperturbable Captain Goslow, they knew by the unwonted noises and the shutting-down of the motors that something had transpired. The sudden closing of the hatchways, and the hasty dive taken, told the sub that once again the ceaseless vigilance of the British navy had been responsible for a bad quarter of an hour for the Germans.
The kapitan's boast to the effect that his prisoners would be landed at Wilhelmshaven at nine o'clock was an empty one. Wildly exciting moments, when the U boat found herself foul of a maze of steel nets, delayed her progress, until at length U99 arrived at a position forty-five miles N.N.W. of Heligoland.
Here a wireless message was received, the purport of which was not hailed with any degree of enthusiasm by the weary and almost exhausted crew. They were on the point of completing a fortnight's cruise of strenuous discomfort, physical exertion, and mental strain. Now, instead of proceeding to Wilhelmshaven for a period of recuperation, they were ordered to make for a certain rendezvous and await the submarine depot-ship Kondor.
Officers and crew knew what this meant. Heavy losses amongst the German unterseebooten flotillas had necessitated the U99 being pressed into an extension of present service. She was to replenish stores and torpedoes, and to be attached to the submarine flotilla operating with the High Seas Fleet. Evidently another big movement was contemplated in the North Sea.
Something had to be done to bolster up the rapidly crumbling tissue of lies by which the German Admiralty had gulled the Teutonic world. Never in the history of naval warfare had a victorious fleet been compelled to remain inactive in its home ports beyond the period necessary for revictualling, replenishing of warlike stores, and making defects good. Nine weeks or more had elapsed since the glorious victory off Jutland, and still the Hun fleet clung tenaciously to its moorings. Even the fat-headed burghers who frequented the bier-gartens of Berlin began to realize that the crushing defeat of the British in the North Sea had not resulted in any increase of provisions or in the abolition of the hated food tickets.
There was a fly in the ointment. Steps had to be taken to counteract its baneful influence.
Almost in desperation, several German Dreadnoughts, accompanied by light cruisers and destroyers, emerged from the Heligoland Bight. Amongst them were the Westfalen and Nassau, sister ships, whose scars received in the Jutland fight had been hurriedly patched up in the Wilhelmshaven dockyards. Escorted by several Zeppelins, the Hun fleet steamed westward--not to give battle, but to make an attempt to copy Beatty's incomparable strategy.
Night was falling when U99 made fast alongside the Kondor. She was not alone. In the vicinity were a dozen or more unterseebooten of a similar type, awaiting wireless orders from the giant airship that was scouting fifty miles or so in the direction of the shores of Great Britain.