ROUNDING UP FRITZ
There are only two or three conditions under which a destroyer can hope
to surprise a U-boat on the surface, and none of these is approximated
at the end of a clear North Sea summer afternoon with the stalking craft
trying to approach from a direction which silhouettes its leanly
purposeful profile against the golden glimmer of the sunset clouds. This
particular capsule of Kultur, rising with typical Hunnish effrontery for
his evening constitutional in an especially well-watched area while it
was yet broad daylight, still had the advantage of visibility
sufficiently on his side to make the thing a good deal less risky than
it looked. The skipper, doubtless coolly puffing his pipe as he lounged
over the rail of the bridge and filled his lungs with fresh air, must
have seen the masts and funnels of the speeding _Flash_ for a good half
hour before the latter's look-out sang out that he had picked up the
conning-tower of what looked to be a U-boat two points off the starboard
bow; so that all that was needed was the change of course which followed
that report to give Fritz fair warning that it was time to hide his
head for a while. Indeed, he must have been going down even as he was
sighted, for it was the matter of but a very few seconds more before the
_Flash_ found herself tearing at upwards of a thousand yards a minute
into an empty sea.
Under the circumstances, it is probable we gave that Fritz a fairly good
run for his money in showering the spot where he had disappeared with
what depth-charges we could spare, and then, like a fox-terrier after a
rat, standing by and "watching the hole." Unluckily, we had used a good
part of our stock of "cans" the day before, when a rather more promising
opportunity for attack had offered itself, while as for "watching the
hole," this particular patch of the North Sea chanced to be one in which
that way of playing the game was fraught with special difficulties
because it was sufficiently shallow for a submarine to lie doggo on the
bottom without danger of having its shell crushed in by the pressure of
the water. This defeated the uncannily sure way of tracking the U-boat
down by "listening," and demanded another form of special treatment,
which we were not, however, at the moment prepared to administer.
Slim as the chance was, the captain was reluctant to leave while any
hope remained, and it was only a signal ordering the _Flash_ to join in
some other work that had turned up (a destroyer is subject to as many
kinds of summons as a country doctor) that took him off in the end.
Mooring a buoy to mark the spot for "future reference," the captain saw
her headed off on the course she was to hold till daybreak, and then
took me down to the Chart House for a bowl of ship's cocoa before
turning in. It was some question I asked about the practice of placing
buoys over possible U-boat graveyards, to make it easy to resume
investigations if desired, that started him on a train of anti-submarine
reminiscence that led back to one of the smartest achievements of its
kind in the whole course of the sea war.
"There are times," he said, leaning back on the narrow couch that served
as his "sea-bed," and bracing with outstretched legs against the
twisting roll, "that a Fritz will do things that would lead a
superficial observer to think that he had a sense of humour. Of course,
we know that he hasn't anything of the kind (any more than he has
honour, sportsmanship, decency, or any other of the attributes of a
normal civilised human being). But the illusion is there just the same,
especially when he tries on such little stunts as the one he incubated a
couple of months ago in connection with a buoy I dropped to mark the
spot where there was a chance that my depth-charges might have sent him
to the bottom.
"It was just about such an 'indeterminate' sort of a strafe as the one
we've just had--no chance for gun-fire, not much to go by for planting
depth-charges, and, in the end, nothing definite to indicate that any
good has been done. So, in case it was decided that my report was of a
nature to justify further looking into, I left a securely moored buoy to
furnish a guide as to where to begin, quite as we have to-night. Well,
it chanced that the S.N.O. at Base reckoned that there was just enough
of a hope to warrant following up. Indeed, you may be sure there isn't
much that isn't followed up these days, now that we've got our whole
comprehensive plan into operation and adequate craft to support it with.
So he sent out quite a little fleet of us--craft fitted to do all the
various little odds and ends of things that help to make sure one way or
the other what has really happened to Fritz. Luckily, _Flash_ was able
to return with them. If she had not--if someone who had not seen the lay
of things after the strafe the night before had not been along to 'draw
comparisons'--Fritz's little joke might have turned out a good deal more
pointed than it did.
"We picked up the buoy without any difficulty, as the day was fine and
the sea fairly smooth--just the weather one wanted for that kind of
work. While we were still a mile or more distant, the lookout reported a
broad patch of oil spreading out from the buoy for several hundred yards
on all sides. This became visible from the bridge presently, and at
almost the same time my glass showed fragments of what appeared to be
wreckage floating both in and beyond the 'sleek' of oil. Now if there
had been any evidence whatever of either oil or wreckage the night
before I should not have failed to hail this morning's exhibit with a
glad whoop and nose right in to investigate. But as, when I gave up the
fight, I had dropped that buoy into an extremely clean patch of
water--even after the stirring my depth-charges had given it--the
plenitude of flotsam did not fail to arouse a certain amount of
suspicion.
"Ordering the sloops and trawlers to stand-off-and-on at a safe
distance, I went with the _Flash_ to have a look at a number of
fragments that were floating a couple of cables' lengths away from the
buoy. A piece of box--evidently a preserved fruit or condensed milk
case--with German letters stencilled across one end was undoubtedly of
enemy origin, as was also a biscuit tin with patches of its gaudy paper
still adhering to it. I did not like the careful way the cover of the
latter had been put on, however, and, besides, tins and cases are quite
the sort of thing any submarine throws over just as fast as it is
through with them. It was some real wreckage I was looking for, and this
it presently appeared that I had found when the bow wave threw aside a
deeply floating fragment of what--even before we picked it up--I
recognised as newly split teak. Closer inspection revealed the fact that
it was newly split all right, but also the fact that an axe or hatchet
had had a good deal to do with the splitting. What had probably been a
part of a bunk or locker had apparently been prised off with a bar and
then chopped up into jagged strips. Attempts to obliterate the marks of
bar and axe by pounding them against some rough metal surface had been
too hasty and crude to effect their purpose.
"'That settles it,' I said to myself. 'Fritz is trying to play a little
joke on us by making us think he is lying blown-up on the bottom, while,
in fact, he is probably lying off somewhere waiting to slip a slug into
one of the most likely looking of the salvage ships. Now that we've
twigged the game, however, we'll have to do what we can to defeat it.'
As senior officer, I ordered the three destroyers present to start
screening in widening circles, while--on the off-chance that there
really was a wreck on the bottom--a pair of trawlers were sent to drag
about the bottom under the messy patch with an 'explosive sweep.'
"My diagnosis was quite correct as far as it went, but it did not go
quite far enough; still--by the special intervention of the sweet little
cherubim who sits up aloft to keep watch o'er the life of poor Jack--my
plan of operation was quite as sound as if I had all the facts of the
case spread out before me. Had the U-boat really been lurking round
waiting for a pot at some of the ships trying to save his supposed
remains--something that we never gathered any definite evidence on--our
screening tactics would probably have prevented his success; while the
trawlers, with their sweep, furnished the best antidote for the little
surprise party that he already _had_ prepared for us.
"Scarcely had the trawlers entered the oily area than the jar of a heavy
under-sea explosion jolted against the bottom of the _Flash_, which, a
thousand yards distant, was just beginning to work up to full speed.
Almost immediately three or four other explosions followed, coming so
close together as to make one rippling detonation of tremendous
violence. An instant later I saw several columns of grimy foam shoot
skyward, two or three of them so close together that they seemed to
'boil' into each other as they spilled and spread in falling. Although
neither of the trawlers appeared to be immediately over any of the
explosions, both of them received terrific shocks. One of them I
distinctly saw rear up till it seemed almost to be balanced on its
rudder-post as a round hump of green water drove under it, while the
scuppers of the other spurted white as they cleared the flood that a
spreading foam geyser had thrown upon the deck. It seemed impossible
that either of them could survive such shocks as I knew they must have
received, and I fully expected to see nothing better than two foundering
wrecks emerge from the smother which hovered above the scene of the
explosions. Imagine my surprise, then, when two junk-like profiles (they
were both of the marvellously sea-worthy 'Iceland trawler' type) came
bobbing serenely into sight again, and I noted with my glass that
neither appeared to have suffered serious damage. On the score of lives,
a tom-cat has nothing the best of a trawler. If it had been otherwise
our whole fleet of them--and they, with the drifters, form the main
strands of the finer meshes of our anti-U-boat net--would have been
wiped out many times over.
"At the instant the jar of the first explosion made itself felt, the
thought flashed through my mind that there actually was a U-boat lying
on the bottom, and that the explosive charge on the sweep had been
detonated against its hull. The 'bunched' explosions immediately
following also lent themselves to this theory, and it was not till the
distinct columns of blown water began rising in the air that I surmised
the real cause of them--mines, probably laid so close together that the
explosion of the first had set off the others. This fact we were shortly
able to establish beyond a doubt.
"What had happened, as nearly as we could reconstruct it, was this: The
U-boat had been a mine-layer, probably interrupted on its way to lay its
eggs off one of our main fleet bases. The chances are that it had been
sufficiently injured by my depth-charges to make it more of a risk than
its skipper cared to take to proceed farther from his base; quite
likely, indeed, he had to put back at once. Then the chance of preparing
a little surprise party for the ship responsible for his trouble must
have occurred to him, and the result was that a snug little nest of
mines was laid all the way around the marking buoy. Having more mines
than he needed to barrage the buoy, he had scuttled several of those
remaining after the first job was completed, and these had been the ones
set off by the explosive charge on the trawlers' sweep. The spreading of
wreckage as bait around the trap was probably an afterthought, for it
was so hurriedly done that it really defeated the end it was intended to
accomplish. I am inclined to think, in fact, that, if the mines had laid
round the buoy, with no spread of oil or wreckage left to decoy us into
them, they might have had a victim or two to their credit. They were
laid shallow enough to have bumped both sloops and destroyers, and the
exploding of a mine against the bows of one or the other of these may
well have been the first warning we had of Fritz's little joke. As it
was, that part of the show was so crudely done that it gave away that
something was wrong.
"Yes, I have always thought of that as 'Fritz's little joke,'" continued
the captain, bracing himself at a new angle to meet a rollicking
cork-screw action that was working into the ship's wallowings. "It was
just the sort of a plant I would like to have left for Fritz, if our
rôles had been reversed, and for a while I felt rather more kindly
toward all Fritzes on account of having knocked up against it. That
feeling persisted until three or four months later, when the fortunes of
war--in the shape of a luckily-planted depth-charge--paved the way for
an opportunity for me to tell the story to a certain Hun _Unterseeboot_
officer during the hour or two he was my guest on the way to base. He
spoke English fairly, and understood it well; so that I was able to run
through the yarn just about as I have told it to you. He gave vent to
his approval in guttural 'Ya's' and grunts of satisfaction until I ended
by asking him if he didn't think it was a jolly clever little joke. And
what do you think he said to that?
"'Choke,' he boomed explosively; 'choke, vy, mein frent, dot vos not ein
choke ad all. He vos dryin to zink your destroy'r. Dot ist no choke.'"
The captain stretched himself with a whimsical smile. "How unpleasant it
would be to be shipmates with a chap like that who couldn't see the
funny side of being blown up," he observed presently.
"Just as unpleasant," I replied, "as it is pleasant to be shipmates with
a man who _could_."
After thus rising to the occasion, I was emboldened to ask the captain
to tell me a little more about that "luckily-planted depth-charge" he
had referred to so casually, and its train of consequences.
"Here is the result," he said with a smile, handing me several small
kodak prints from his pocketbook. "What little yarn there is to tell
I'll rattle off for you with pleasure after I've been up to the bridge
for a bit of a 'look-see.' Seems as if she is banging into it harder
than she ought for this course and speed."
The light went out as the automatic switch cut off the current with the
opening of the door, and when it flashed on again, as the door was
slammed shut, I found myself alone, with the prints lying in the middle
of the chart of the North Sea. Two of these showed a thin sliver of a
submarine that might have been of almost any type. A third, however,
showed an unmistakable U-boat, heeling slightly, and with a whaler
alongside, evidently in the act of taking off some of the men crowded
upon the narrow forward deck. And in the background of this print was
lying a long slender four-funneled destroyer that I recognised at once
as either the _Flash_ or another of the same class. On the back of this
print was written "Quarter view of U.C.--at 14.10. _Flash's_ whaler
transferring prisoners; _Splash's_ whaler's crew clearing decks of
wounded."
A fourth print, similar to the third but much covered with arrows and
writing, appeared to be a kind of key to the latter. An angling sort of
bar, which appeared as a black line above the bows in the photograph,
was labelled "Nut Cutter," and several other characteristic U-boat
devices were similarly indicated. These all established points of great
technical value, doubtless, but a keener human interest attached to the
legends penciled at the feather ends of arrows pointing to two figures
on the deck of the submarine, just abaft the conning-tower. Opposite the
one that appeared to be leaning over a light rail, with one arm extended
as though he was in the act of giving a command, was written, "Deceased
captain of submarine." Against the other, a sprawling inert heap huddled
up against the conning-tower, appeared, "Man with both legs shot off
(alive)."
There was a lot of history crowded into that scrawled-over print, and I
was still gazing at it with awed fascination when the opening door
winked off the light, and then closed again to reveal the captain,
dripping with the blown brine of the wave that the _Flash_ had put her
nose into at the moment he was coming down the ladder.
"Rather more of a sea than I expected to-night," he said as he pulled
his duffel-coat over his head and sat down to kick off his sea-boots;
"so I've slowed her down a few knots and we'll jog along easy till
daylight." Then, as he recognised the photo in my hand, "Rather a grim
story that little kodak tells, isn't it? You'll find just about all of
the yarn you were asking for down there in black and white."
"Not quite," I replied hastily, recognising from long experience the
forerunning signs of a modest man trying to side-step going into details
respecting some episode in which he happens to have played a leading
part. "Not quite. It chances that I've heard something of the bagging of
U.C.--from Admiral ---- not long after it occurred, and he said it was
one of the cleverest bits of work of the kind that anyone has pulled
off. I didn't connect you and the _Flash_ with it, though. But now that
you're caught with the goods, the chance to hear several of the details
the Admiral had failed to learn is too good to miss. How did you manage
to slip up on her in the first place, and did you wing her skipper at
the outset, and----?"
Evidently figuring it would be best not to let me pile up too big a lead
of questions for him to answer, the captain sat down resignedly and took
up the thread of the story at somewhere near the beginning.
"How did we manage to slip up on her?" he repeated. "Well, principally,
I should say, because she was 'preoccupied.' I told you last night that
I used to get away for a bit of tiger shooting while I was on Eastern
stations, and you mentioned that you'd had a go at it yourself now and
then. So we both have probably picked up a smattering of the ways of
tigers. Now I've always maintained that the fact that I had given a bit
of study to the ways of man-eaters was a big help to me in understanding
the ways of Huns. A hungry tiger, on the prowl for something to devour,
is about the hardest brute in the world to stalk successfully; while, on
the other hand, one that has made its kill and is sating its bloody
lust upon it is just about the easiest. It's just the same with a
U-boat. The one best chance we have of surprising one on the surface is
while it is in the act of sinking a merchantman by bombs or shell-fire,
or just after the victim has been torpedoed and the pirate is
standing-by to fire on the boats and pick up any officers it may think
worth while to take prisoner. That was what was responsible for the luck
that befell me in the instance in question. The U.C.--a day or two
previously to the one on which she was slated to meet her finish, had
sunk the British merchantman _Hilda Bronson_, and carried off as
prisoners the captain and mate. These men, after we rescued them, were
able to give us some account of how their hosts spent the morning of the
day on which they encountered the _Flash_. Their general practice, of
course, was to submerge in the daytime and run on the surface, charging
batteries, during the night. Emboldened by two or three recent successes
in sinking small merchantmen by gun-fire and bombs, they appeared to
have become very contemptuous of our anti-submarine measures, and
declared that they were just as safe on the surface in the daytime as at
night. Bearing out the probability that these words were by no means
spoken in jest, is the fact that they did not dive at daybreak, but
continued to cruise on the surface on the look out for unarmed ships
which could be safely sunk without risking the loss of a torpedo or
damage to themselves by gun-fire. This class of ships--fortunately,
there are few of them left save under neutral flags--was the U-boat's
favourite prey.
"About eight o'clock their search was rewarded. The two British sailors
heard a number of shots, and presently understood the U-boat skipper to
declare that he had just put down a small Norwegian steamer with
shell-fire. As they were still full up with the stores looted from the
_Hilda Bronson_, no attempt was made to take off anything from the
sinking Norwegian. All morning the pirate continued cruising on the
surface, diving only once. Great attention was given to surroundings,
stops being made about once an hour to heave the lead. In this they
displayed good sense beyond a doubt, for it is worth a lot to a
submarine to know whether it can dive straight on to the bottom without
encountering a pressure strong enough to crush it in.
"About noon another helpless victim--this time a British merchant
steamer--was sighted, and the imprisoned sailors counted nine shots
before tremendous consternation and confusion spread through the
submarine as fire was opened on her by some ship coming up from the same
direction as the merchantman bore, and she dived with all possible
dispatch. This was where the _Flash_ began to take a hand in the game.
"Now the fact that this particular Fritz ought easily to have sighted us
at twice the distance at which we opened with our foremost 12-pounder
bears out exactly what I said about the traits the Hun and the tiger
have in common. They are both 'foul-feeders,' and begin to see so red,
once the blood-lust of prospective satiation is upon them, that they are
half blinded to everything else. If this fellow hadn't been so absorbed
in doing that little steamer to death he need never have let us get
within a range that would have permitted more than a swift shot or two
at his disappearing conning-tower. It was his sheer 'blood-drunkenness'
that gave us our chance.
"It was a day of very low visibility--not over a mile and a half, or two
miles at the outside--and I was out on a bit of an escort stunt of small
importance. The first intimation I had that anything out of the usual
run was afoot came in the form of sharp gun-fire on my starboard beam.
It sounded fairly close at hand, and though no ship was visible, there
was just a hint of luminosity in the mist-curtain to indicate the
direction of the gun-flashes. The helm was immediately put hard-a-port
and the telegraphs at Full Speed, and off went the _Flash_ to
investigate. Scarcely had I turned than a wireless signal was brought to
me on the bridge repeating the calls of assistance of a steamer that was
being shelled by an enemy submarine. That little 'flying start' of mine,
which involved leaving the ship I was escorting and jumping out without
waiting for orders, gave me the minute or so to the good which probably
made all the difference between success and failure. But that is quite
characteristic of destroyer work; more than in any other class of ship,
you are called on to decide for yourself, to jump out on your own.
"The first thing I saw was the dim blur of a small merchantman taking
shape in the mist, and as the image sharpened, the splash of falling
projectiles became visible. She was throwing out a cloud of smoke and
zigzagging in a panicky sort of way in an endeavour to avoid the shells
which were exploding nearer and nearer at every shot. As she caught
sight of the _Flash_ she altered course and headed straight up for us,
and, busy as my mind was at the moment, I could not help thinking how
like her action was to that of an Aberdeen pup I used to own when he saw
me coming to extricate him from his daily scrap with a neighbour's fox
terrier.
"It was just at the moment that the merchantman turned up to get under
our wing that the sharpening gun-flashes began revealing the
conning-tower of a submarine. We had gone to Action Stations at once, of
course, and I am practically certain that the opening shot of the
fo'c'sl' gun was the first warning Fritz had that his little kultur
course was about to be interrupted. Under the circumstances, the fact
that he effected his disappearing act in from thirty to forty seconds
indicates very smart handling; too smart, indeed, to give us a fair
chance to get in a hit with a shell, although the gunners made a very
keen bid for it. Their turn came a few moments later, however.
"Once Fritz had passed from sight there was only one thing to do, the
thing we _tried_ to do to-night--depth-charge him. And there really was
no difference in what we did on the one occasion and what we did on the
other--nothing, I mean to say, except the result. Estimating his course
from the point of submergence, I steered directly over where I judged he
would be and let go one of those very useful type '----' charges.
Well,"--the captain smiled in a deprecatory sort of way--"the
depth-charge isn't exactly what you'd call a 'weapon of precision,' and
so it follows that when you hit what you are after with one it must be
largely a matter of luck. Judgment? Oh, yes, a certain amount of it, but
I'd rather have luck than judgment any day. At any rate, this was my
lucky day. Within fifteen seconds from the moment I felt the jolt of the
detonating charge Fritz's conning-tower was breaking surface on my
starboard beam. Helm had been put hard-a-port as the charge was dropped,
so that all the starboard guns were bearing on the conning-tower the
instant it bobbed up. This was right on the outer rim of the 'boil' of
the explosion--just where it would be expected--and, of course, it
presented an easy target. To say it was riddled would be putting it
mildly. One shot alone from the foremost six-pounder would have made it
out of the question for it to dive again, even had other complications
which had already set in left it in shape to face submergence.
"A second or two more, and the whole length of our bag was showing,
riding fairly level fore-and-aft, but with a slight list to starboard.
We had now turned, and from our position on the submarine's port quarter
could plainly see the crew come bobbing out of the hatch on to the deck.
Each of them had his hands lifted in the approved 'Kamerad' fashion, and
took good care to keep them there as long as they noticed any active
movement around the business ends of our guns. As a matter of fact, as
there had been no colours flying to strike, those lifted hands were the
only tangible tokens of surrender we received. As we had her at our
mercy, however, they looked conclusive enough for me, and I sent a boat
away as quickly as it could be lowered and manned.
"It was not until this boat returned that I learned of the two British
merchant marine officers who had been aboard her through it all. The
Huns had crowded them out in their stampede for the hatches, so that
they had been the very last to reach the deck. Mr. X----, who was in
charge of the whaler, compensated as fully as he could for this by
taking them off first. The experiences they had been through had been
just about as terrible as men could ever be called upon to face; and
yet, when they clambered aboard _Flash_, they were smiling, clear of
head and eye, and altogether quite unshaken. You've certainly got to
take off your hat to these merchant marine chaps; they've fought half
the battle for the Navy.
"The story they had to tell of what they had seen and heard during their
enforced cruise in the U-boat was an interesting one, but on the final
act--largely because the curtain had been rung down so quickly--there
was little they could add to what had passed before my own eye. The
shock from the depth-charge--which appears to have detonated just about
right to have the maximum effect--was terrific. The whole submarine
seemed to have been forced sideways through the water by the jolt, and
just as all the lights went out one of them said that he saw the
starboard side of the compartment he was in--it was what would
correspond to the Ward Room, I believe, a space more or less reserved
for the officers--bending inward before the pressure. Instantly the
spurt of water was heard flooding in both fore and aft, and that alone
was sufficient to make it imperative for her to rise at once. As it was
only a minute or two since she submerged, everyone was at station for
bringing her to the surface again, so that not a second was lost in
spite of the inevitable confusion following the sudden dive and the
explosion of the depth-charge.
"There had been a mad lot of rushes for the ladders and hatches, but the
skipper, it appears, got up first, through the conning-tower to the
bridge, as the official leader of the 'Kamerad Parade.' He was just in
time to connect with the first shell from our foremost six-pounder, and
that, or one of the succeeding projectiles which were fired before it
was evident they were trying to surrender, accounted for several others
in the van of the opening rush. The officer in charge of the whaler
reported seeing several dead bodies lying on the deck and floating in
the water, among these being that of the captain, which was taken back
to Base and given a naval funeral. There were also two or three wounded.
Of unwounded there were fifteen men and two officers, out of something
like twenty-four in the original crew. One of the officers claimed to be
a relation of Prince Henry of Prussia, but why he didn't claim the
Kaiser himself, who is full brother to Prince Henry, I could never quite
make out. As this was the same officer I told you of as not being able
to see a joke, I didn't think it worth while to try to follow the
ramifications of his family tree any farther. The engineer asserted that
he had already been in eight warships which had been destroyed, these
including a battleship and two or three cruisers and motor launches. I
did the best I could to comfort him by telling him that, in case the
_Flash_ wasn't put down by a U-boat in the three or four hours which
would elapse before we made Base, he need have no further worries on the
sinking score for some time to come. Just the same," he concluded, with
a shake of the head, "I was glad to see that chap safely over the side.
No sailor likes to be shipmates with a 'Jonah,' especially in times like
these.
"By the time we had finished transferring the prisoners the _Splash_ had
joined us, and her captain, being my senior, took charge of the rest of
the show. On my reporting that I had several severely wounded Huns
aboard, he ordered me to return to Base with them.
"I think that's about all there is to the yarn," said the captain,
rising and starting to pull on his sea-togs preparatory to going up for
another "look-see" before turning in. Then something flashed to his mind
as an afterthought, and he relaxed for a moment, red of face and
breathless, from a struggle with a refractory boot.
"There was one thing I shall always be glad about in connection with
that little affair," he said thoughtfully, a really serious look in his
eyes for almost the first time since I had seen him directing the
dropping of the depth-charges early in the evening; "and that is that I
didn't know in advance that those two British merchant marine officers
were imprisoned in the U.C. '----' with the Huns when we came driving
down to drop a 'can' on her. My duty would have been quite clear, of
course, and, as you doubtless know, some of our chaps have faced harder
alternatives than that without flinching or deviating an iota from the
one thing that it was up to them to do; but, just the same, I'm not
half certain that the instinct, or whatever you want to call it, which
seemed to jog my elbow at the psychological moment that charge had to be
let go to do its best work--I'm not at all sure that instinct would have
served me so well had I known that success might have to be purchased by
sending two of my own countrymen--yes, more than that, two sailors like
myself--to eternity with the pirates who held them as hostages. Yes, it
was a mercy that I didn't have that on my mind at the moment when I
needed all the wits and nerve I had to get that 'can' off in the right
place."
Visibly embarrassed at having allowed his feelings to betray him--a
British naval officer--into a display of something almost akin to
emotion, the captain stamped noisily into the stuck sea-boot and
disappeared, behind a slammed door, into the night.
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
1. Numerous inconsistencies in capitalization, hyphenation and spelling
have been retained as in the original publication.
2. The four brief footnotes have been moved to the end of the
relevant paragraph.
3. The sole occurrence of bold text has been marked with = =.
4. oe-Diphthongs have been changed to a simple "oe".