"I was never more serious in my life," Körner assured him. "I tell you we are going to lie in her track—we and our two companion submarines. We shall station ourselves at three different points, one of which she must surely pass. And then, when she comes in sight, we shall creep nearer, unseen, unsuspected, and wait until she draws within range, when we shall take careful aim, making no mistake; and send our torpedoes into her. You see, it is war, my dear child; it is war."
Max Hilliger had turned suddenly pale; his eyes were staring wildly, his hands trembled.
"War?" he repeated. "Do you call it an act of war to sink a great steamship like that—a ship carrying no protective armour, no defensive guns, a ship crowded with innocent passengers, not all English, many of them Americans no doubt, probably scores of women and children. War? War? That is not war, Hermann Körner. It would have no excuse, no justification. It would be crime, I tell you—a horrible, fiendish crime. It would be murder."
Lieutenant Körner looked up at him with his egg-spoon poised.
"Calm yourself, my friend," he urged. "Call it what you will, that has nothing to do with you or with me. It is our part to do our duty by obeying our orders. And we have orders to sink this Ruritania. We shall obey."
Max shrugged his shoulders and sat down again, but not to eat.
"Oh, well!" he said presently. "After all, I need not distress myself perhaps. Her owners, her captain, her passengers have been warned. We shall not even see her. She will steam by another way, and even then be escorted by British cruisers. Otherwise—if I thought there was the merest chance of your doing this horrible thing—I should ask you to put me ashore on the nearest land, or I should pray that we ourselves should be sent to the bottom of the sea."
All the rest of that day and through the next night, while the U50 went on her way to take up her appointed position on the steamship route, Max Hilliger thought and brooded, wondering by what possible means he could avert the contemplated crime, even by the sacrifice of his own life.
He wondered if he could open some valve so that the submarine should never again rise to the surface; if he could secretly smash or disable some important piece of mechanism, or jam the torpedo tubes. But all the time he knew that if he should attempt such a thing there still remained the other two submarines, either of which might succeed where Hermann Körner had failed.
At length the appointed position was reached. The commander occupied himself in making calculations of time and distance. Again and again he examined his instruments and controls, again and again he went through a rehearsal of every act and movement which would be put into practice when, if at all, the fatal moment arrived. Had Max Hilliger tried to disable any of the mechanism he could not have succeeded, so carefully was everything watched, so constantly was he himself kept under observation.