"Not such a bad take for the first, eh?" said Arnold Bilverstone, emptying the pocket of the shrimping net into the basket between the thwarts. "If you're fond of shrimps, Seth, you can have a good feed at teatime."
Seth Newruck, astern at the tiller, bent forward to examine the catch of the dim light of the early dawn.
"I should like them very much better if they weren't so beastly difficult to peel, sir," he answered. "I nearly always break them."
"That is probably because you don't go the right way about it," rejoined Mr. Bilverstone, glancing shoreward. "You should press the head and tail firmly towards each other, giving them a gentle half turn. That loosens the scales, and you can draw the shrimp free as easily as drawing your finger out of a glove. Luff!"
Seth luffed, and the lugger came up to the wind and bowled forward with a musical gurgle of water along her strakes.
Mr. Bilverstone was in no hurry to add to the little pile of jumping, wriggling crustaceans in the basket. He was much less intent upon catching shrimps than watching the growing light in the eastern sky and calculating the boat's distance from Alderwick Knoll.
"When we get abreast of the lighthouse," he said, "we'll put out the gear again and creep along the shore. Don't stare about too much. We must pretend to be tremendously interested in our work. But keep your ears open. When we've passed Sunnydene we shall tack out as if we were making for the north end of the shoal. If a periscope pops up, we'll just go ahead as if we hadn't noticed it. A submarine couldn't torpedo a cockleshell like this, and unless she comes up awash we're just as safe from gunfire."
"What I don't understand," said Seth, "is that, supposing a German submarine to be lying submerged out there in the shoal water; supposing she has come to refill her petrol tanks, how could she get the petrol on board? She couldn't come alongside the beach; and submarines don't carry boats."
"The new German ones do," Mr. Bilverstone informed him. "They keep a collapsible boat stowed in a hatchway abaft the conning-tower. But, of course, it could only be launched when the submarine is awash. As for getting the petrol aboard, you may be sure they'd manage it somehow if it were still where they think it is."
"They can't find out that we've removed it, unless they come ashore to look," Seth reflected.