II.

The big seaplane circled low over the harbour and then headed seaward,

climbing slowly. There were two men aboard--a young Sub-Lieutenant as

pilot and Mottin as observer. Mottin sat crouched low and leaning

forward as he studied the chart-holder before him and scratched times

and notes in his log-book. They were off on a routine patrol, but

there was the additional interest to the trip that on "information

received" they were to pay a little more attention than usual to a

particular locality.

From his seat Mottin could see nothing of the pilot but his head and

shoulders--a back view only, and that obscured by swathings of leather

and wool. The two men's heads were joined by a cumbersome arrangement

of listeners and tubes which, theoretically, made conversation

practicable. As a matter of fact, the invariable rule of repeating

every observation twice, and of adding embroidery to each repetition,

pointed to a discrepancy between the theory and practice of the

instrument. The machine was a big one, and its engines were in

proportion. The accommodation in the broad fuselage was considerable,

but on the present trip the missing units of the crew were accounted

for by an equal weight of extra petrol and T.N.T. "eggs."

The morning had been hazy and they had delayed their start till nearly

noon. It was not as clear as it might be even then, for in a quarter

of an hour from leaving the slip the land was out of sight astern. At

a thousand feet the pilot levelled off and ceased to climb. He flew

mechanically, his head bent down to stare at the compass-card. At

times he fiddled with air and throttle, twisting his head to watch the

revolution indicator. The occasional bumping and rocking of the

machine he corrected automatically without looking up. He had long ago

arrived at the state of airmanship which makes a pilot into a

sensitive inclinometer, acting every way at once.

Mottin finished his scribbling and sat up to look round. He raised

himself till he sat on the back of his seat, and began to sweep the

sea and horizon with a pair of large-field glasses. The wind roared

past him, pressing his arm to his side as he faced to one side or the

other, and making him strain the heavy glasses close to his eyes to

keep them steady. An hour after starting he touched the pilot on the

shoulder and shouted into his own transmitter. He waited a few seconds

and shouted again, with the conventional oath to drive the sound

along. The pilot nodded his swathed and helmeted head and swung the

machine round to a new course. Mottin crouched down again and began to

study his chart afresh. Navigation was easy so long as the weather was

clear, but with poor visibility, which might get worse instead of

better, he knew that it was remarkably easy to get lost in the North

Sea, and at this moment he wanted to see his landfall particularly

clearly. Five minutes later he saw it, and signalled a new course to

the pilot by a nudge and a jerk of his gloved hand. A low dark line

had appeared on the starboard bow, a line with tall spires and

chimneys standing up from it at close intervals. The seaplane banked a

little as they turned and headed away, leaving the land to recede and

fade on their quarter. The hazy sun was low in the west and the mist

was clearing. It had been none too warm throughout the journey, but it

was now distinctly cold, the chill of a winter evening striking

through fur and leather as if their clothes had been slit and

punctured in half a dozen places.

Mottin had just slid back in his seat after a sweeping search of the

sea through his glasses, and was slowly winding, with cold fur-gloved

fingers, the neat carriage clock on the sloping board before him, when

he heard a yelping war-cry from the pilot and felt the machine dive

steeply and swerve to port. He half rose in his seat and then slipped

back to feel for his bomb-levers. The submarine was just breaking

surface eight hundred feet below and a mile ahead. As he looked she

tucked down her bow and slipped under again, having barely shown her

conning-tower clear of the short choppy waves. The pilot throttled

well down and glided over the smooth, ringed spot which marked where

she had vanished. As it slid past below them he opened up his engines

again and "zoomed" back to his height. He turned his head to look at

Mottin, but said nothing. Mottin made a circular motion with his hand

and they began a wide sweep round, climbing all the while. Mottin sat

back and thought hard. No, it had not been indecision that had

prevented him from dropping bombs then. He knew it was not that, but

the exact reasons which had flashed through his mind at the fateful

moment must be hunted out and marshalled again. He knew that his

second self, his wide-awake and infallible substitute who took over

command of his body in moments of emergency, had thought it all out in

a flash and had arrived at his decision for sound reasons. Yes, it was

clear now, but that confounded fighting substitute of his was just a

bit cold-blooded, he thought. They had petrol for the run home with

perhaps half an hour to spare. Fritz had not seen them, as his lid had

not opened--or at any rate if he had seen them through his periscope,

the fact of no bomb having been dropped would encourage him to think

that the seaplane had passed on unknowing. Of course they might have

let go bombs, but, well, Fritz must have been at anything down to 80

feet at the moment they passed over him, and it was chancy shooting.

Yes, it was quite clear. Fritz should be up again in an hour (he

evidently wanted to come up), and if they were only high up and ready

they would get a fair chance at him. Of course, they would not get

home if they waited an hour; but if that cold-blooded second self of

his thought it the right thing and a proper chance to take, well, it

was so. Mottin looked over the side and wished it was not so loppy. A

long easy swell was nothing, but this short choppy sea was going to be

the devil. The pilot shouted something to him and pointed at the clock

and the big petrol tank overhead. Mottin nodded comprehension, and

shouted back. The Sub took a careful look overside and studied the

water a moment. Then he laughed back at Mottin, and shouted something

about bathing, which was presumably facetious, but which was lost in

the recesses of the headpieces.

The sun was down on the horizon, and the hour had grown to a full

ninety minutes before the chance came. They had not worried about

clocks or thoughts of petrol after the first half-hour of circling.

They were "for it," anyhow, after that, and it was going to come in

the dark too, so that the question of whether it was going to be fifty

or a hundred miles from land did not make much difference. Almost

directly below them the long grey hull rose and grew clear, the

splashing waves making a wide area of white water show on each side of

her. The seaplane's engines stopped with startling suddenness, and to

the sound of a rushing wind in the wires and of ticking, swishing

propellers they began a two-thousand-feet spiral glide, coming from as

nearly overhead as the turning circle of the big machine would allow.

At two hundred feet the pilot eased his rudder and began a wider turn,

and then the German captain saw. He leapt for the conning-tower,

leaving a startled look-out man behind. The man tried to follow him

down, but the lid slammed before he could arrive at it. He turned and

looked helplessly at the big planes and body rushing down a hundred

yards astern. With his hands half raised and shoulders hunched up the

poor devil met his death, two huge bombs "straddling" the

conning-tower and bursting fairly on the hull as the boat started

under. Mottin had a vision of a glare of light from the rent hull, a

great rush of foaming, spouting air, and then a graceful knife-edge

stem, with the bulge of torpedo-tubes on each side of it, just showed

and vanished in the turmoil of broken water. The seaplane roared up

again, heading west, the young pilot--apparently oblivious to the fact

that he hardly expected to be alive till morning--displaying his

feelings on the subject of his late enemy by a series of violent

"switchbacks."

Mottin checked him, rose, and began a careful look round. Any ship

would be welcome now, neutral or not; but this was an unfrequented

area to hope to be picked up in. The petrol might last five minutes or

half an hour--one could not be certain. The gauge was hardly accurate

enough in this old bus to work by. As he looked the engines gave a

premonitory splutter and then picked up again. Well, it was five

minutes, he reflected, not half an hour--that was all. The pilot

turned and headed up wind. With the engines missing more and more

frequently they glided down, making a perfect landing of the

"intentional pancake" order on the crest of a white-topped four-foot

wave. Instantly they began to feel the seas--the hard, rough,

senseless water that was so different to the air they had come from.

The machine made wicked weather of it, and it was obvious that she

could hardly last long. She lurched and rocked viciously, constraining

them to cling to the sides of the frail body. Mottin pulled off his

headpiece, and the pilot followed suit.

"Well," said Mottin, "it was worth it--eh?"

"By gum, yes! It was that, and I give you full numbers, sir. I thought

for a moment you had taken too long a chance, but you were right."

A wave splashed heavily over the speaker and laid three inches of

water in a pool around his ankles.

"This is going to be a short business, sir, unless we get busy."

"I know," said Mottin. "Case of four anchors and wish for the day. Sea

anchor indicated, and mighty quick too."...

An hour later it was pitch-dark, and a semi-waterlogged seaplane

drifted south, head to sea, bucketing her nose into the lop. Two

figures crouched together in the body of her, baling mechanically. On

the upper plane an electric torch glowed brightly, pointing westward.

The figures exchanged disjointed sentences as they baled, and

occasionally one of them would stretch his head up for a glance round

for possible passing lights.

"Cheer up, Sub!" said Mottin. "Your teeth are chattering like the

deuce. Bale harder and get warm."

"It's not the cold, it's the weather that's doing me in, sir. I'm so

damned sea-sick."

"Yes, it's a filthy motion, but she's steadier than she was. 'Fraid

she's sinking."

The Sub-Lieutenant ceased baling for a moment and looked into his

senior's face, dimly lit by the reflection from the torch overhead.

"Do you know, sir," he said, "I don't feel as bucked as I did? I

believe I've got half-way to cold feet about the show."

"Do you know, Sub"--Mottin copied the hesitating voice--"I've had cold

feet the whole blinkin' time? If it wasn't for one thing I keep

thinking of, I'd be properly howling about it."

"And what's that, sir?"

"D'you remember a line of Kipling's in that 'Widow of sleepy Chester'

poem? It's about 'Fifty file of Burmans to open him Heaven's gate.'

Well, that's keeping me cheered up."

"'Mm--that's true. How many do you think that boat carried?"

"Round about forty--she was a big packet."

"Only twenty file--still, that's good enough. Besides, they'd have

done damage to-morrow if we hadn't got them."

"True for you, Sub--and they might have killed women on that trip. Now

they won't get the chance."

"Twenty file. Ugh! I'll make 'em salute when I see them. Hullo! See

that, sir?" The two men rose to their knees and stared out to the

west. A bright glow showed beyond the horizon, and through it ran a

flicker of pulsating flashes of vivid orange light. The glow broke out

again a point to the northward, and the unmistakable beam of a

searchlight swung to the clouds and down again. As they looked, the

glow spread, and the rippling flashes as gun answered gun came into

view over their horizon. Mottin fumbled for the glasses, but found

them wet through and useless. The action was evidently coming their

way, and was growing into a pyrotechnic display such as few are

fortunate enough to see.

"Destroyers--coming right over us--Very's pistol, quick! We may get a

chance here. Don't let the cartridges get wet, man--put 'em in your

coat." The guns began to bark clearly above the straining and bumping

noise of the crumbling seaplane, and a wildly-aimed shell burst on the

water half a mile to windward. Both men were standing up now, staring

at the extraordinary scene. A flotilla of destroyers passed each side

of them, one leading the other by nearly a mile. The searchlights and

gun-flashes lit the sea between the opposing lines, and the vicious

shells sent columns of shining water up around the rapt spectators, or

whipped overhead in a continued stuttering shriek.

A big destroyer passed at half a cable's length in a quivering halo of

light of her own making. The short choppy beam sea sent a steady sheet

of spray across her forecastle, a sheet that showed red in the light of

the guns. As she passed the Sub-Lieutenant raised his hand above his

head, and a Very's light sailed up into the air, showing every detail of

the battered seaplane with startling clearness for a few seconds. A

searchlight whirled round from the destroyer, steadied blindingly on

their faces a moment, and was switched off on the instant. As swiftly as

it had approached, the fight flickered away to the eastward, till the

last gleam was out of sight, and the two wet and aching men crouched

back into the slopping water to continue their baling.

"If they _do_ find us, it'll be rather luck, sir," said the younger

man. "She isn't going to last much longer."

"Long enough, I reckon. But they may go donkey's miles in a running

fight like that. Is that petrol tank free?"

* * * * *

"Yes, I couldn't get the union-nut off--it was burred; so I broke the

pipe and bent it back on itself. It'll hold all right, I think--at

least it will only leak slowly. Hullo, she's going, sir."

"Not quite. Pass that tank aft and we'll crawl out on the tail.

That'll be the last bit under, and we may as well use her all we can."

* * * * *

With gasps and strainings they half-lifted, half-floated the big tank

along till they had it jammed on end between the rudder and the

control-wires. They straddled the sloping tail, crouching low to avoid

the smack of the breaking seas, their legs trailing in the icy water.

With frozen fingers the Sub-Lieutenant removed two Very's cartridges

from his breast-pocket and tucked them inside his leather waistcoat.

A flurry of snow came down wind. The two were too wet already to

notice it, but as it grew heavier the increased darkness made Mottin

lift his head and look round. At that moment a gleam of brightness

showed through to windward; as he looked it faded and vanished. He

leaned aft and shouted weakly--

"Come on, man--wake up! Fire another one. They're here!"

It seemed an age to him before the pistol was loaded, and his heart

sank as a dull click indicated an unmistakable misfire. He watched the

last cartridge inserted with dispassionate interest. If one was wet,

the other was almost certain to be, and--Bang! The coloured ball of

fire soared up into the driving snow, and the pistol slipped from the

startled Sub-Lieutenant's hand and shot overboard. The searchlight

came on again and grew stronger and nearer, and as the glare of it

became intolerable, a tall black bow came dipping and swaying past at

a few yards' range. Mottin almost let his will-power go at that

point--the relief was too great. He had a confused memory afterwards

of crashing wood as the tailplane ground against a steel side, and of

barking his shins as he was hauled across a wire guard-rail and

dropped on a very nubbly deck. The wardroom seemed a blaze of intense

light after the darkness outside, and the temporary surgeon who took

charge of him the most sensible and charming person in the Service.

* * * * *

"Sit down--take your coat off--lap this down. That's right. Now, I

have two duties in this ship--I'm doctor and I'm the wine caterer.

They are not incompatible. You will therefore go to bed now in the

Captain's cabin, and you'll have a hot toddy as soon as you're there;

come along now and get your clothes off. Your mate is in the First

Lieutenant's cabin, and he won't wake up till morning."

Twenty minutes later Mottin, from beneath a pile of blankets, heard a

tinkle of curtain rings and looked out. A muffled, snow-covered figure

entered quietly and began to peel off a lammy coat. Mottin coughed.

"Hullo! How are you feeling? I've just come for a change of clothes. I

won't be long--I'm Sangatte. No, that's all right. I won't be turning in

to-night; we're going right up harbour, and I'll be busy till daylight."

He bustled round the chest of drawers, pulling out woollen scarves,

stockings, &c., and talking rapidly. "Lucky touch our finding you. I

noted position when your first light went up, but as the chase looked

like running on ninety mile yet, I didn't expect to find you. Your

joss was in, because the snow came down and they put up a smoke-screen

and ceased fire, so we lost touch, and I hadn't far to come back to

look for you. Got a Fritz, did you? Good man! We'll have a bottle on

your decoration when we get in. The Huns? Yes, they lost their rear

ship right off, and the others were plastered good and plenty. We lost

one on a mine, but we took the crew off and sank her. I sank your

'plane just now--tied a pig of ballast to her and chucked it over. I

thought you might have left some papers--oh! you've got 'em, have

you? That's good."

"Yes, they're in my coat pocket. I say, haven't I seen you before? I

seem to remember you. Do you hunt?" Mottin stretched his legs out

sleepily as he spoke.

"Yes--met you with the Hambledon or Cattistock, I expect. Haven't been

on a horse for all of three years, though; and I don't suppose there'll

be much doing that way for a long time, now they're putting half the

country under plough. S'long. I'm for the bridge; ring that bell if you

want anything. The Doc.'s got one or two wounded forrard, so he'll be

busy, but my servant'll look out for you." The curtain clashed back, and

Mottin, turning over, slid instantly into a log-like sleep.