As Saxham spoke, with that strange hoarseness, Patrine took his arm tremblingly. Her heart plunged as though it would burst its prison as the Doctor went on:
"An hour or more later a Wireless came in. It had been sent on to Sir Roland from the Admiralty!—I will not puzzle you with technical details. But at 8.30 the officer on duty on the upper-bridge of the second-in-line of a Battle Squadron steaming through Northern Waters on the way to a Southern rendezvous, reported having heard an aëroplane pass overhead, crossing the course of the Squadron diagonally—apparently flying due east——"
Saxham added:
"The aviator made no signal for assistance. But the engine-beat told of trouble developing.... There is nothing to do but wait and hope!"
What had really happened on board H.M.S. Rigasamos, maintaining her appointed speed of fifteen knots, and her statutory two-cable-lengths from the stern of the Flagship ahead, and the bows of the sister-ship following her, had been that as the ship's band struck into The Roast Beef of Old England, and the Owner took his place at the head of the Ward-room mess-table, his Second in Command on the fore-bridge got a speaking-tube message from the Navigating Lieutenant on the upper-bridge, to say that the drone of an aëroplane, flying at about four hundred overhead, had been picked up by Warrant Officer So-and-So, of the gun and searchlight control, per medium of the microphone.
The Second in Command called back through the voice-tube:
"An aëroplane.... You're sure? Could hear her racket myself, without assistance. But put it down to a Fleet Seaplane taking a flip round the Squadron for exercise, or one of the Goody-Two-Shoes from the R.N.A.S. Station at Rosforth, blown out to sea doing Coast Patrol."
An answer rumbled down the pipe:
"It was an aëro all right, sir! The rattle of her floats 'ud have given away a Goody.... Travelling east against the side-drive of a forty-mile-an-hour north-west gale.... And with engine trouble well developed. Missing and back-firing like the gayest kind of hell!"
The Second in Command took his ear from the mouth of the speaking-tube, and with a glance that included the figures of his Sub-Lieutenant, the Midshipman, signalmen, and lookouts at their posts swung into the chart-house and logged the occurrence in the plain language of the sea. The clock told 8.35 P.M. as he finished, capped his fountain pen, and slipped it in an inside pocket, soliloquising: