For a few seconds the optics of the submerged craft remained trained
upon the isolated smack. Although the submarine was forging slowly
ahead, the periscopes rose no higher out of the water. Evidently those
in charge of the vessel were not anxious to rise to the surface until
they had satisfied themselves that it was fairly safe to do so.
His attention attracted by his brother's fixed gaze, Leslie sprang to
his feet and grasped the weather shrouds.
"What's that, Jack?" he asked.
"What you wanted to see--a submarine."
"One of ours?"
"Hope so," replied the sub laconically; but he had great misgivings on
that score. Had it been a British submarine making for Portsmouth, she
would almost certainly be running on the surface, in order to make her
number before approaching the heavily-defended Needles channel.
Wildly excited, Tim forgot that he was steering and, putting the helm
down, allowed the smack to gybe "all standing". The thud of the heavy
boom as it swung across and brought up with a violent jerk, had the
effect of making Old Garge emerge from the cuddy in a state of nautical
profanity.
"What be you up to, you young lubber?" he shouted.
"Submarine, granfer," replied his youthful relative.
"No excuse for gybing," continued the skipper. "Do you mind what you are
up to. Where be she?"
He shaded his eyes, expecting to see one of the British "C" or "E" class
running awash. Instead, he saw only the tips of the periscopes.
"Drat it!" he ejaculated. "'Tain't for no good. Anyways, we're too
small for her to trouble about we."
Apparently his conjectures were correct, for, with a feather of white
foam, and a sullen swirl well in the wake of the periscope, the
submarine disappeared wholly from sight.
"'Er's afeard of fouling our nets," declared Old Garge. "Now, if we
gives the patrol-boat notice, an' that submarine is done for, there's
fifty pun' at least for me. A matter of a couple o' months back my
friend Peter----"
But what happened to Peter was a story that Jack Sefton was not
permitted to hear, for with a quick, unhesitating motion the submarine
reappeared at less than three cables' lengths ahead of the smack.
Shaking herself clear of the water, she displayed the unmistakable
outlines of a German _unterseeboot_, although no number was visible on
her grey conning-tower.
With remarkable celerity an officer and half a dozen seamen appeared
from below, while at the same time a quick-firer was raised from its
"housing", for'ard of the conning-tower, and trained upon the luckless
_Fidelity_.
Steadily the U boat approached within hailing distance, then, making a
half-circle, slowed down on a parallel course to that of the smack.
"Fishing-boat ahoy!" shouted the German officer. "Cut adrift your nets
and run alongside, or I'll have to sink you."
Old Garge gave a gasp of astonishment and looked enquiringly at Jack
Sefton.
"Them nets cost a sight o' money," he exclaimed ruefully. "Now if I had
a gun----"
"Hurry, there!" came the stern mandate from the U boat.
"You'll have to obey, I fancy," said the sub. "There's no escape.
Perhaps they'll let you off, as the smack is only a very small one. If
you give them any lip they'll cut up rough."
Deliberately Old Garge cut the trailing line of nets, bent the outward
part to a life-buoy and cast it overboard. As he had remarked, nets
were expensive affairs, and he was not going to cut them adrift without
a means of recovering the gear should the Huns let him off lightly.
"Back your head-sails, Tim!" ordered the skipper, at the same time
putting the helm hard down and allowing the _Fidelity_ to come up
motionless into the wind, within a couple of yards of the bulging side
of the U boat.
"Throw us a line!" was the peremptory greeting.
Agilely a fair-haired unter-leutnant boarded the smack, followed by
three of his men. Giving a cursory glance at the fish-well, he said
something in German to one of the seamen. In less than a minute the
night's haul had been transferred to the captor.
"Low-down robbers!" muttered Old Garge under his breath, but the
unter-leutnant caught the imprecation.
"Have a care," he said sternly, "or we sink your boat. What these men?
You carry a large crew for a little ship, Captain."
"They are my men," declared Old Garge loyally.
"Perhaps," drawled the German, then, suddenly turning, he strode up to
Sefton and his brother.
"Hold your hand out!" he ordered.
Leslie sniggered. In his opinion the uniformed Hun ought to have added
the words "Naughty boy". The lad was enjoying the novel experience. His
one regret was that George Crosthwaite was not present to share in the
adventure.
Critically the unter-leutnant examined Jack's extended hand. In spite
of the fact that it was discoloured with tar, and reeked of fish, the
sub's hand showed that it belonged to a person not of the ordinary
working class. The long, tapering fingers, manicured nails, and absence
of horny protuberances on the palm "gave him away".
"What is your name?" demanded the German.
"Smith," replied Sefton promptly.
Again the irritating, dubious, and speculative "Per-haps". The sub
realized that he was in a tight corner.
"What this wound--how caused?" enquired the unter-leutnant, indicating
the white scar on the young officer's wrist--the legacy of the affair
off Jutland. "Ach! Shell wound, hein? You are of military age. Stand
aside."
In spite of the brown jersey and the soiled serge trousers, the
keen-witted Hun had come to the correct conclusion, that the tall,
bronzed man was not a genuine smack hand. Not satisfied with the
self-styled Smith's replies, he decided to interrogate his companion.
"Your name?" he demanded of Leslie, with a fierceness that effectually
quenched all further inclination on the part of the youth to snigger.
"Smith, too," replied Leslie. "He's my brother."
Again a display of palmistry. Leslie's hands, though grubby, were also
unmistakably unused to rough work.
"How old?"
"Fifteen?"
"You lie."
"On my word of honour," declared Leslie.
"No matter," rejoined the unter-leutnant. "You old enough to fight.
Suppose----"
A hail came from the U boat. Herr Kapitan had mounted the platform in
the wake of the conning-tower and was calling attention to the mist that
was bearing down in detached patches. Already the rest of the
fishing-boats were lost to sight.
"You go on board there," continued the German unter-leutnant, indicating
the submarine. Then, turning to Old Garge, he added:
"We let you go. Too much trouble to sink your little fischer-boat, and
you have no skiff. Stop here one hour. If you move or make signal, then
we return and blow you to pieces. You onderstan'?"
Without condescending to notice Tim, who was watching the course of
events with wide-open eyes, the unter-leutnant signalled to the two
Seftons to board the submarine. Then, followed by his men, the Hun
regained his own craft.
A minute later, with Jack and Leslie prisoners of war, the U boat slid
quietly beneath the surface.
Old Garge obeyed instructions until the tips of the periscopes vanished.
Then he began to gather in the mainsheet.
"Trim your heads'ls, Tim," he ordered. "Us'll be off as hard as we
can."
"How about the nets, grandfer?" asked Tim.
"Can bide," declared the old man as the _Fidelity_, gathering way, sped
to give the alarm that another U boat had been active in the Channel.
Three-quarters of an hour later, the smack ran alongside one of the
patrol-boats operating in Christchurch Bay, and reported the incident.
Quickly the news was wirelessed, and a regular fleet of swift
motor-boats was soon upon the scene, while overhead a couple of
sea-planes hovered, in the hope of detecting the shadow of the U boat
against the white sandy bottom.
But in vain. The unter-leutnant's threat that he purposed remaining in
the vicinity for an hour was a mere piece of bluff. Without loss of
time, the submarine was running at her maximum submerged speed in a
south-westerly direction, intent upon putting as great a distance as
possible between her and the hornets whose activities had already taken
a heavy toll from these modern pirates of the Black Cross Ensign.
U99 was one of the most recent type of _unterseebooten_. Possessing a
great radius of action, she combined the roles of mine-layer and
submerged torpedo-craft. She was one of nine detailed for operations in
the English Channel, and, since the passage through the Straits of Dover
had long been regarded as "unhealthy" by the German Admiralty, the
flotilla had been ordered to proceed and return via the Faroe Isles and
the west coast of Ireland.
Although the U99 had disposed of her cargo of mines without
mishap--several of the German submarines having been "hoist with their
own petards"--her efforts had not met with marked success. Beyond
torpedoing a tramp, and sinking another by gun-fire, she had failed to
carry out the work of frightfulness that had been expected of her.
Having exhausted her stock of torpedoes, and making only one effective
hit, she was on her way home.
After three hours of terrible suspense, when she found herself enmeshed
in a net somewhere off the back of the Wight--a predicament from which
she freed herself by means of the specially-devised wire-cutters on her
bows--U99 was forced to come up for a breather early in the morning.
Provisions were running short, and the sight of the solitary
fishing-smack tempted her commander to investigate, with the result that
Sub-lieutenant Sefton and his brother found themselves in the unenviable
position of prisoners in the hands of the enemy. More, they were cooped
up in a wretched U boat, faced with the possibility of being hunted by
their fellow-countrymen and consigned to Davy Jones in the undesirable
company of a crew of piratical Huns.
No wonder that Jack felt like kicking himself for having embarked upon
the ill-starred voyage in the smack _Fidelity_.
"Yes, by Jove!" he muttered. "Here's a pretty kettle of fish--and the
lid on with a vengeance."