There were suspicious vessels at anchor, one moonless night, in a small bay near the Mumbles. They lay there like shadows, but before long they knew that the night was alive for a hundred miles with silent talk about them. At dawn His Majesty's trawlers Golden Feather and Peggy Nutten foamed up, but the shadows had disappeared.
The trawlers were ordered to search the coast thoroughly for any submarine stores that might have been left there. "Thoroughly" in this war means a great deal. It means that even the bottom of the sea must be searched. This was done by grapnels; but the bottom was rocky and seemed unfit for a base. Nothing was found but a battered old lobster pot, crammed with seaweed and little green crabs.
Probably these appearances were more than usually deceitful; for shortly afterward watchers on the coast reported a strange fishing boat, with patched brown sails, heading for the suspected bay. Before the patrols came up, however, she seemed to be alarmed. The brown sails were suddenly taken in; the disguised conning tower was revealed, and this innocent fishing boat, gracefully submerging, left only the smiling and spotless April seas to the bewildered eyes of the coast guard.
In the meantime signals were pulsing and flashing on land and sea, and the U-boat had hardly dipped when, over the smooth green swell, a great sea hawk came whirring up to join the hunt, a hawk with light yellow wings and a body of service grey—the latest type of seaplane. It was one of those oily seas in which a watcher from the air may follow a submarine for miles, as an olive green shadow under the lighter green. The U-boat doubled twice; but it was half an hour before her sunken shadow was lost to sight under choppy blue waters, and long before that time she was evidently at ease in her mind and pursuing a steady course. For the moment her trail was then lost, and the hawk, having reported her course, dropped out of the tale.
Photo by U. & U.
A British Submarine.
The next morning in the direction indicated by that report several patrol boats heard the sound of gunfire and overhauled a steamer which had been attacked by a submarine. They gave chase by "starring" to all the points of the compass, but could not locate the enemy. A little later, however, another trawler observed the wash of a submarine crossing her stern about two hundred yards away. The trawler star-boarded, got into the wake of the submarine and tried to ram her at full speed. She failed to do this, as the U-boat was at too great a depth. The enemy disappeared, and again the trawlers gathered and "starred."
Permission of Scientific American.