IN THE HANDS OF THE HUNS
NIGEL FARRAR'S state of mind was far from being composed when he
found himself under lock and key in the interior of the submerged
U-boat. Apart from the physical pain and exhaustion, and the
unaccustomed air in the confined space making his head throb with
redoubled violence, his nerves were greatly overstrung. That was
doubtless accentuated by his wound, but he tried to pull himself
together like a true British sailor.
There was the disconcerting thought, too, that the U-boat stood a
great chance of being strafed by the British destroyer,
patrol-boats, and aircraft; and with a full knowledge of the
terribly efficient means at submarine hunters' command the prospect
was far from alluring. It was one thing, he reflected grimly, to
chase a Fritz and blow him out of existence with depth charges;
another to be most unwillingly in his company when the deed was
done.
More than once the selfish wish flashed across his mind that he had
taken the gun-layer's advice and fought it out. Better to die
fighting than to perish miserably like a rat in a trap.... But it
was for the best, after all... his men--comrades all--were still
free, although their position a hazardous one.
Tormented by doubts and fears the sub spent a bad two hours, nor was
the ordeal over when the door of his prison was thrown open and an
electric torch flashed full in his face.
Dazzled by the sudden transition from pitch-black darkness to the
blinding glare, Farrar stood bolt upright and stared with unseeing
eyes at the Hun behind the light. His spell of mental depression had
passed, and although his head was racked with pain, he faced his
captor with a calm resolution that surprised himself.
He was under the mistaken impression that von Loringhoven confronted
him, although on second thoughts he reflected that the Hun would
hardly go to the inconvenience of interviewing the prisoner in such
uncomfortable conditions. Nor could he satisfactorily account for
any desire on his part for the Hun to see him, yet he could not
banish the impression that it was von Loringhoven and none other.
Except for a brief interval when the kapitan-leutnant of the lost U
254 had been marched under escort from the "Antipas" to temporary
quarters in Trecurnow, Farrar had never to his knowledge set eyes on
him until a few hours previously, but von Loringhoven and the sub
were alike in one respect--they had good memories for faces.
"Dis way; come quick!" exclaimed the German with the torch. The sub
recognised the voice as that of the unter-leutnant.
In his still saturated, scorched, and badly torn uniform, and with a
blood-stained bandage round his head, Nigel presented a forlorn
appearance when he was unceremoniously ushered into the presence of
von Loringhoven and the kapitan-leutnant of the U-boat in a fairly
spacious cabin immediately below the elongated conning tower.
The submarine was still running beneath the surface, but the fear of
pursuit was apparently at an end for the time being, since the
kapitan-leutnant had handed over the control of the vessel to a
quartermaster.
Since the commanding officer of the U-boat could not speak English
the examination was carried out by von Loringhoven, who in turn
translated, or mistranslated according to his own purpose, the
prisoner's replies.
"What is your name?" demanded von Loringhoven.
Farrar told him.
"_Ach!_ is that so?" exclaimed his questioner. "This is, to quote
one of your English idioms, a little bit of all right.' Unless I am
greatly mistaken you are the officer who shot my friend von
Gobendorff in cold blood."
"It was an accident," corrected the sub. "I was rabbit-shooting, and
quite by chance I wounded him slightly in his head. As to saying it
was----"
"Accident?" interrupted von Loringhoven. "That is good. Whenever an
Englishman does an underhand bit of work and he is discovered the
excuse is, 'It is an accident.' However, that is one count against
you. Now, what have you to say when I accuse you of being a common
pirate, committing outrages under the cover of a Greek flag?"
"Surely he cannot have heard of the strafing of the U-boat that was
shelling the 'Epicyclic's' boats?" thought the sub. "I'll say
nothing about that."
"Come! Come!" pressed the Run. "Why hesitate in your reply?"
"What evidence have you as proof of your assertion?" asked Farrar.
"Evidence? My own eyes," explained von Loringhoven, laughing
unpleasantly. "If you are such a fool as to go close under the stern
of the ship I happened to be on--it was the British tramp
'Andromeda,' if that information interests you--it is not at all to
be wondered at that I saw the Greek flag flying from your pirate
craft?"
"It is permissible in the circumstances," said the sub shortly.
"Germany has done the same thing times without number. Providing the
hostile vessel under false colours replaces them by his own before
opening fire it is a legitimate _ruse de guerre_. I think, however,
that there is no justification of the conduct of certain of your
submarines. I personally witnessed one engaged in shelling unarmed
men in open boats."
"Oh!" sneered von Loringhoven. "Did you? Are you sure it was a
German submarine?"
"She showed no number," replied the sub.
Von Loringhoven shrugged his shoulders.
"Even if she were," he continued, "you ought to recognise by this
time that as far as Germany is concerned might is right. We do not
admit of any outside interference in the conduct of the war,
otherwise where should we be? If you English are such fools as to
play at making war, allow yourselves to be hoodwinked by your
statesmen who attribute every one of your numerous set-backs to the
mysterious working of Providence--you know perfectly well that the
words, 'Adverse weather conditions,' appear in almost every official
report--that is to Germany's advantage. But to return to business.
You are a pirate. As such you richly deserve to be shot without
further delay, but we have motives for sparing your life, although I
don't envy your lot."
The German spoke with rising temper. For some cause that the sub
could not fathom he was venting his wrath upon the prisoner.
"From this time forward," resumed von Loringhoven, "you are dead as
far as your friends are concerned. I need hardly inform you that
Germany does not report the names of all prisoners in her hands. How
do you like the prospect of toiling in mines until you die? Not
pleasant, eh? There is one way of evading the punishment, however.
Of that you will hear more later. Meanwhile I would advise you to
give all the information we demand, without any attempt to deceive
us, for you will assuredly be found out."
"In other words," exclaimed the sub, "you want me to be a traitor to
my country. I'll see you to blazes first."
"The interview is at an end," declared von Loringhoven, in cold,
measured tones, that had a sinister ring in their delivery. "For
what you are to undergo you have only yourself to blame."
Unprotestingly Farrar was led back to his cell, an empty store-room
in the fore part of the submarine, and immediately beneath the
torpedo-tubes compartment. His resolute courage had reasserted
itself. He no longer dreaded the attentions of a British destroyer;
the satisfaction of knowing that a pack of cowardly Huns would be
done in outweighing the fear of death, even in their unhallowed
company.
For the next twenty-four hours he was kept in utter darkness; his
food and drink during that period consisted of black bread of the
consistency of plaster of Paris and a pitcher of water. He could not
help contrasting his present position with that of certain German
officers whom he had seen as prisoners on board British men-of-war.
In the matter of food and drink they fared equally as well as did
their captors; if wounded, they were given the best medical
attention available, and their comfort was considered in almost
every possible way. The ungrateful Hun, however, does not thank his
captors for their little attentions. With the arrogance of his race
he attributes his easy lot as a prisoner of war to the fear of the
British as to what might happen to them when Germany is victorious.
And on their part the British have yet to learn fully--as they are
beginning to do--that the only thing the German fears is the force
of armed might.
During the second day of his captivity Nigel was allowed to take
exercise on deck in charge of a couple of alert seamen, who had been
strictly enjoined to take every precaution lest the prisoner should
leap overboard.
The U-boat was now within sight of land, for lofty ranges of
mountains were visible on the starboard hand. She had evaded the
Otranto patrols and was now in the comparatively safe waters of the
Adriatic, and within easy distance of the numerous land-locked
harbours of the Dalmatian coast, where, under the lee of a chain of
islands, the battle-fleets of the world could lie undetected from
the open sea save from the all-seeing eyes of an aircraft.
With a couple of German sailors standing with ready automatic
pistols at a distance of twenty yards apart, the sub was compelled
to walk briskly to and fro on the fore deck. Fortunately the sea was
calm and the comparatively low-lying platform was practically free
from the waves, although occasionally a crest would break inboard
and swirl ankle-deep as far aft as the base of the conning tower.
Before Farrar had been five minutes at his enforced exercise the
kapitan-leutnant, who had been intently watching something on the
distant horizon, rapped out a string of orders, from which the sub
was able to understand with his limited knowledge of German that the
U-boat was about to dive.
Unceremoniously the prisoner was hustled below, and as he descended
the vertical steel ladder of the for'ard hatchway, he heard a petty
officer remark, "Fortunately we have but one torpedo. I cannot
understand why, since we are so near our base, the kapitan should
risk it."
"And against an armed warship, too," added the Hun to whom the
remark was addressed.
"It is unreasonable. What is she?"
"One of those accursed monitors, I believe," replied the first
speaker with a shrug of his shoulders; then, catching sight of the
prisoner being hurried forward, he spat contemptuously.
"We have to thank these Englanders for all this," he added. "But for
them the war would have been over long ago, and we should be
drinking Munich beer in the beer-gardens of Wilhelmshaven instead of
being cooped up here--perhaps everlastingly."
A gong sounded, orders were communicated to various parts of the
submarine, as, with the hiss of water entering her ballast tanks and
the muffled purr of the electric motors, the U-boat dived.
In his cell Farrar could hear the jumbled noise of a dozen or more
different sounds. Once he fancied he heard the detonation of the
impulse charge that liberated the torpedo. There was certainly a
sharp horizontal movement that follows the release of the powerful
self-actuated weapon. In vain he strained his ears for the crash of
the explosion, but he certainly heard the subdued reports of several
quick-firers in action.
It was not until three hours later that the U-boat rose to the
surface and Farrar was permitted to resume his airing on deck.
Judging by the disgruntled appearance of officers and crew, the
attempt to torpedo the hostile vessel was a failure.
Long afterwards the sub heard that the craft attacked was a British
monitor returning from certain important work in the Gulf of Venice.
The U-boat's torpedo had "got home," but owing to the peculiar
construction of the vessel attacked, the missile did very little
harm beyond blowing away a few plates from the exaggerated space
surrounding her interior or main hull, which in naval parlance is
generally spoken of as the "old hooker's blisters."
Upon returning to his cell the sub, worn out by his exertions and
privations, threw himself down upon a pile of empty sacks and was
soon sound asleep. It seemed as if he had been slumbering only a few
minutes when he was aroused by a couple of seamen standing over him.
One held an electric torch; the other, having indicated that the
prisoner should collect his scanty belongings, including his meagre
stock of food, motioned the sub to go on deck.
It was a bright moonlit night. Not a breath of wind ruffled the
waters of the enclosed harbour in which the U-boat lay. She was not
alone, but moored in one of three tiers of submarines, some eighteen
or twenty in all. Each craft was ingeniously camouflaged, light
nettings being suspended fore and aft, the meshes of which were
liberally sprinkled with freshly cut foliage, while the periscopes
ended in tufts of broad-leafed evergreens.
On one side of the harbour was a small village fronted by a long
wharf, on which electric cranes and locomotives were at work.
Although not a light was visible in any of the houses and the large
workshops on the higher ground beyond, the clearness of the moonlit
air enabled the sub to take in most of the characteristic features
of the place. Almost encircling what was undoubtedly a secret U-boat
base was a range of lofty serrated hills, culminating on the
northern side in three conical peaks of equal height.
Nigel Farrar's observations were cut short by the angry voice of the
kapitan-leutnant.
"Fools, pig-dogs, imbeciles!" he roared, addressing the two seamen
who had charge of the prisoner. "Did I not strictly enjoin you to
blindfold the Englishman? _Donnerwetter!_ You will pay dearly for
this omission."
Possibly with the idea of mitigating the impending punishment by a
belated display of zeal, or else with a vindictive desire to get
even with their captive for trouble in store for them, although
through no fault of his, the Huns seized the young British officer
by the wrists, wound a strip of coarse canvas so tightly round his
head as to threaten him with suffocation, and bundled him forward to
a gangway that led over the bows to a pontoon.
Presently the yielding planks of the pontoon gave place to hard
metalled ground, and the sub knew that he was once more on dry land.
Stumbling over ring-bolts and railway lines, to the gross amusement
of his gaolers, the prisoner was led for a distance of nearly a
mile. All around he could hear sounds of activity, the hum of
machinery, the rasping of metal, and the thud of numerous pneumatic
hammers predominating, while the air reeked with the fumes of petrol
and a peculiar, nauseating odour that the sub failed entirely to
identify.
Engines, evidently drawing small trucks, judging by the noisy
clatter, were passing and repassing continually, so close that
Farrar distinctly felt the windage from the rapidly moving train and
the blast of hot-oil-laden air in his face, for his captors had
condescended to readjust the bandage so that it no longer impeded
his mouth and nostrils.
Groups of men, marching rather than walking, were frequently
passing, and coarse greetings in which reference was made to the
blindfolded prisoner were bandied between them and the Huns, but the
language in which they spoke, although it bore a certain resemblance
to German, was almost incomprehensible as far as the sub was
concerned.
Then one of the German seamen gripped Farrar's shoulder and guided
him across what felt like a swaying plank bridge. An iron gate was
opened and closed with a sonorous clang, and a rifle-butt grounded
on hard stone.
"Sentry," thought the sub. "Seems like a tough nut to crack, but if
there's a ghost of a chance I'm on it. Wonder what's coming next?"
Up a flight of stone steps and through a wicket gate set in a larger
door the prisoner was led; then along a corridor into a room. The
bandage was removed from his eyes, and in the glare of a number of
electric lamps he found himself face to face with Ober-Leutnant Otto
von Loringhoven. With the latter were four naval and military
officers in German uniform, and another in what the sub rightly
guessed to be that of the Emperor Karl of Austria.
"This is your last chance, prisoner," began von Loringhoven without
any preamble. "Do you agree to give us all the information you
possess on any subject of which we wish to obtain intelligence?"
"I gave you my answer," replied the sub fearlessly.
"Did you?" sneered the Hun, his lips curling menacingly, and
displaying a row of teeth resembling the fangs of a wolf. "What was
it?"
"I told you I'd see you to blazes first," said the prisoner. "And
I'll stand by what I've said."
"Very good," rejoined von Loringhoven. "I trust that you will enjoy
yourself in the sulphur mines of Ostrovornik."