“Well, Sant,” he said eagerly, “you’ve made a grand discovery. I got your wireless off Finisterre last night, and came here full speed. Wilson is outside Bilbao, and Matthews at Gijon, both waiting. I have sent out a message to the squadron, and we hope to make a big bag. But we’ll get this friend of yours in the cove first, anyhow. You’ll come, of course?”
I eagerly assented, and we went down to the water’s edge, where the tramp steamer’s boat was lying in charge of two men whose merchant jack rig-out hardly concealed the purposeful British bluejacket. We were soon on board the tramp. A few minutes later the submarine rose noiselessly to the surface, close alongside, and we went on board.
“Now for the cove,” said Jeans, as we dropped below.
Crawling along dead slow in order that the noise of our propellers might not betray us to the enemy, we approached the cove. By this time it was dark. A mile from the cove, screened by a promontory of rock, we rose noiselessly to the surface. A collapsible Berthon boat, containing half a dozen armed men, put off to guard the approach to the beach, and once more we submerged and made for the cove, showing only six inches of our periscope above the rippling waves.
There was just enough moonlight for our purpose, and as we drew near we were able to make out the enemy submarine, lying just awash, and presenting a magnificent target. Very few of the crew were on shore; obviously they were getting ready to leave. We could make out the captain, walking up and down with two men that we knew must be the “Italian” and Bernhard.
Jeans swung our ship slowly into position; the torpedo crew grouped themselves round the bow tube and we waited the exact moment. It was necessary that most of the crew should be on board, for our landing-party dared not risk a possible fight on Spanish soil, and if only one man escaped we should lose our chance of a big bag of the pirates, since a warning that the plot was discovered would at once be sent them by wireless.
At last the men began to go aboard. They were using a small boat which would hold only three men, and, as luck would have it, only the captain at length was left on the shore, talking to the “Italian” and Bernhard. The small boat, with only a single sailor in it, was being pulled ashore to fetch him when Jeans gave the single word “Fire!”
Our boat reeled slightly to the shock of the departing torpedo. At the range of a few hundred yards, under such circumstances, a miss was out of the question. A few seconds later a ponderous “boom!” blanketed by the waters, told us our torpedo had exploded and, gazing eagerly into the mirror of the periscope, I saw a blood-red flash as the enemy ship apparently flew to pieces in a confused column of spray and smoke. She must have been ripped open from end to end and, of course, disappeared instantly, with every soul on board.
“Now for the rest,” was Jeans’s laconic remark, as we swung out to the spot where we had put the landing-party ashore.
They were there almost as soon as we were, bringing with them the captain, Fontan, and the “Italian.” Dazed with the surprise and shock of the explosion, they had made no resistance to the rush of our men. The captain, indeed, had recovered himself sufficiently to throw into the sea a case of papers, but a sailor had dived and recovered it, and to our intense delight we found it gave details of the exact plans which had been made for the destruction of the Athabasca, with the precise points at which five successive U-boats were to lie in wait for her. This was luck indeed.