It was extremely irritating, whilst anxiously following these sounds
with straining ears, to hear the swish, swish of the water across the
floats, the ripple as it rejoined the ocean again, and the creak, creak
of the great wings as we rose and fell with a squelch on the gentle
undulations of a swell.
These sounds eventually developed into a perfect nightmare. Every swish
and creak seemed to pierce our brains.
Eventually we climbed up into the seats again for a while and stared
our eyes out scanning the horizon with our powerful glasses. Every
piece of flotsam seen we dubbed a boat, till it drifted near enough to
make out detail.
The wind got up a little and died down again, but it shifted the haze
somewhat.
In the afternoon we saw a sight which gladdened our hearts.
High up to the nor'-west, and dropping towards us, was a bird-like
machine. Nearer and nearer it came, till we could hear the engines
clearly. Soon we identified her marks, which set our fears at rest. It
was a British 'plane.
We sprang up, gesticulated wildly, and fired a few pistol-shots just to
relieve our excitement.
She was a rescue seaplane from our own base, it appeared, and presently
she dropped on the water beside us and "taxied" as close as she might.
Her pilot steered within twenty yards or so of us, and the observer
heaved overboard in our direction a huge vacuum flask.
Then, without stopping their engine, and waving cheerily, they droned
along the surface and tilted into the air again. We watched her until
the machine became a mere speck and finally faded into the blue.
Then, and not till then, we remembered the flask. We were fated never
to taste its contents, however, for it floated past out of reach, in
the midst of a great school of giant jellyfish.
I have never been stung by one of these loathsome-looking creatures,
and I had no desire to be on this occasion. Neither had the pilot, so
the bottle floated out of sight without giving us anything but moral
support.
After this interlude our long impatient wait recommenced. The episode
had instilled hope into us, but the hours seemed to drag more heavily
than ever. There was nothing but sea on every hand--a great circular
expanse of glaring, shimmering water.
Presently schools of porpoises began to put in an appearance, sporting
about in their own unmistakable style. There must have been hundreds of
them. One group frolicked close around us, and several times a glossy
black tail caught one or other of the floats a resounding smack.
The fabric of these floats is exceedingly frail, and we were rather
concerned about them. It seemed a pity to shoot the playful creatures,
particularly as their antics created a diversion, but we trembled for
the safety of the floats every time they were struck.
As the tide went down, several dark, spheroidal objects commenced
bobbing up by twos to the surface--on our starboard beam, as we were
floating at that time.
Through our glasses we could spot scores more of them in the distance.
No need to tell one another what they were. We _knew_--deadly contact
mines!
The nearest pair were only a matter of half a cable's length away, and
presently our worst ordeal commenced.
We were drifting towards them with the ebbing tide, and were now on the
fringe of the great mine-field, perhaps the most extensive ever laid.
Once in among those floating engines of death we should have a lively
time.
It was with no very pleasant thoughts that we considered this new
danger. I might have turned the machine gun on the mines, but there
was the risk of exploding instead of sinking them, and if one went off
it was fairly safe to assume that its mate, a couple of fathoms away,
would detonate in sympathy. I presume that this is the underlying idea
of distributing mines in this fashion.
During the next four hours these horrid death-traps gave us a terribly
anxious time. We had some very narrow shaves, for at low-water hundreds
were in sight, and as the seaplane drifted along we were powerless to
avoid them.
The pilot got on one float and I got on the other, and once or twice
we actually had to ward the mines off with our bare hands in order to
keep them from knocking against the machine. Had one of them done so
this story would never have been written. Fending off the mines was a
ticklish operation, as you may suppose. Great care had to be observed
in exerting our strength, and we had to place our hands on parts of the
casing of the mine that were devoid of horns, or between two horns,
if it was not floating high enough. While engaged in this delightful
occupation I went overboard twice, but managed to scramble back safely
without getting into trouble with the mines.
Once a mine went off. It was too far away, however, for us to see what
caused the explosion. It is not improbable that a luckless porpoise
might have bent a horn in one of its leaps.
At length, to our heartfelt relief, the tide turned, and the mines
began to disappear under the water again.
By that time we were drifting nearly the opposite way again, carried
along by the flood-tide.