telephone. "Did he go back to the house?"
"Well, sir," Seth continued, "he went by a round-about way, and I lost
sight of him for a long time and couldn't move for fear he should see
me. While I waited, a very queer thing happened, sir. There were no
ships anchored in the Roads, and of course there were none under weigh;
and yet when I looked out to sea, I noticed a tiny, green light
somewhere about the middle of Alderwick shoal. It disappeared as
suddenly as it came. And then, sir, there was a curious grunting noise
from the same spot. Are you listening, sir?"
"Yes. What sort of a noise do you say it was?"
"I said grunting, sir; but if it had come from deeper water I should
have said that it was the sound made by a submarine emptying or filling
her ballast tanks. Do you think it could have been?"
"Wait. Let me consider." There was a long pause. "It's just possible.
You've to remember that secret store of petrol. There is no doubt that
Heinrich Hilliger intended it to be used by a German submarine. In that
case it's not wildly improbable that a German submarine is hanging round
with the intention of lifting it, not knowing that it has already been
removed. But they can't very well come ashore for it while the sentries
are patrolling the beach. Neither can Seligmann do any digging, unless
he's desperate enough to shoot the sentries first, and so get them out
of the way. Now, if it was indeed a submarine that you heard--a German
submarine--and if she is short of petrol, she will wait there,
submerged. In that case we may be able to drop on her. Do you
understand?"
"Yes, sir," returned Seth. "And I understand, or rather guess,
something else. I guess that if she has come to fill her petrol tanks
from Alderwick beach, she must have been piloted there by some one who
knows every fathom of that shoal. Don't you think it's likely that Max
Hilliger is aboard of her, sir?"
"Listen!" Mr. Bilverstone's voice responded. "I will send a couple of
marines along to keep watch, while you cut home and dress yourself up as
a fisher boy and come down to me here at the naval base."
"A fisher boy, sir?" Seth inquired in wonder.
"Yes," came the answer. "At the first gleam of daylight you are going
out with me in a shrimping boat, to fish for shrimps round about
Alderwick shoal. You understand? Right."
*CHAPTER XVIII.*
*A SHRIMPING ADVENTURE.*
"Not such a bad take for the first, eh?" said Arnold Bilverstone,
emptying the pocket of the shrimping net into the basket between the
thwarts. "If you're fond of shrimps, Seth, you can have a good feed at
teatime."
Seth Newruck, astern at the tiller, bent forward to examine the catch of
the dim light of the early dawn.
"I should like them very much better if they weren't so beastly
difficult to peel, sir," he answered. "I nearly always break them."
"That is probably because you don't go the right way about it," rejoined
Mr. Bilverstone, glancing shoreward. "You should press the head and
tail firmly towards each other, giving them a gentle half turn. That
loosens the scales, and you can draw the shrimp free as easily as
drawing your finger out of a glove. Luff!"
Seth luffed, and the lugger came up to the wind and bowled forward with
a musical gurgle of water along her strakes.
Mr. Bilverstone was in no hurry to add to the little pile of jumping,
wriggling crustaceans in the basket. He was much less intent upon
catching shrimps than watching the growing light in the eastern sky and
calculating the boat's distance from Alderwick Knoll.
"When we get abreast of the lighthouse," he said, "we'll put out the
gear again and creep along the shore. Don't stare about too much. We
must pretend to be tremendously interested in our work. But keep your
ears open. When we've passed Sunnydene we shall tack out as if we were
making for the north end of the shoal. If a periscope pops up, we'll
just go ahead as if we hadn't noticed it. A submarine couldn't torpedo a
cockleshell like this, and unless she comes up awash we're just as safe
from gunfire."
"What I don't understand," said Seth, "is that, supposing a German
submarine to be lying submerged out there in the shoal water; supposing
she has come to refill her petrol tanks, how could she get the petrol on
board? She couldn't come alongside the beach; and submarines don't
carry boats."
"The new German ones do," Mr. Bilverstone informed him. "They keep a
collapsible boat stowed in a hatchway abaft the conning-tower. But, of
course, it could only be launched when the submarine is awash. As for
getting the petrol aboard, you may be sure they'd manage it somehow if
it were still where they think it is."
"They can't find out that we've removed it, unless they come ashore to
look," Seth reflected.
Mr. Bilverstone paid out the lugsail sheet an inch or two and perched
himself on the windward gunwale.
"As a matter of fact," he said, "I believe they know already. I didn't
tell you; but an hour ago, while you were having a sleep under my
writing-table, we had a report from the two marines patrolling Alderwick
beach. At about two o'clock they saw an electric light signal flashed
from the foreshore, near one of the groins. There were no ships in
sight, and no answering signal was seen. Still the light kept on
flashing. The two marines crept up, one on either side of the groin.
They got so near that one of them called out a challenge. As there was
no response he fired. The light went out then. There was no cry, no
sound, no movement. Nobody was shot; yet nobody ran away. The two
marines and two Territorial sentries searched, but found absolutely no
trace of the chap who had been signalling. He had vanished as completely
as if the tide had come up and swallowed him."
"That's queer!" murmured Seth. "Very queer. There must have been
somebody working the hand-lamp, sir."
"Not necessarily a hand-lamp," Mr. Bilverstone smiled. "None of the
patrol thought of it, but it's easy to imagine how a tricky German, such
as Fritz Seligmann, could plant an electric bulb in the sand or shingle,
or even among the timbers of the groin, and work the switch from the top
of the cliff by means of a long-distance connection. A spy was caught
three nights ago signalling from the air. He flew a kite with an
electric current running through the string. Spies wouldn't be much
good if they weren't tricky."
Slowly the dawning light in the eastern sky grew brighter, changing from
steel grey to gold, tinged with a rosy glow. Again and again Mr.
Bilverstone put out the gear. No one seeing the two occupants of the
little boat, with its brown lugsail, would have believed them to be
anything else than ordinary shrimpers. They both wore tanned canvas
overalls and oilskin sou'-westers, and their manner of working
contributed to their disguise.
Twice they passed along the leeward fringe of the shoal. Seth Newruck's
eyes searched the ruffled water where the waves broke here and there
above the shallows; but he saw nothing unusual.
"I'm afraid we shall have only the shrimps for our trouble, sir," he
remarked with a shiver, for the morning was very cold.
"Don't be impatient," nodded his companion, opening a Thermos flask.
"We haven't finished our job yet. Here, have a drink of warm tea; and
there are some biscuits in the locker behind you. Come forward here,
and I will take the tiller for a spell."
He took the boat outward, as if he were making for the lightship,
leaving the shoal in his wake.
"Don't look round, sir," Seth whispered agitatedly. "I can see two
periscopes, close together. And there's a sort of commotion in the
water round about them, as if the submarine were rising."
Mr. Bilverstone put over the tiller, so that the boat yawed and her sail
began to flutter. He left the tiller and crept forward over the
thwarts, seized the halliard, and lowered the sail, then hauled it up
again, returned to the tiller and brought her up to the wind, going on
as before.
"What did you do that for, sir?" Seth inquired, amazed at what he took
to be an example of bad seamanship. "She was going on all right."
Mr. Bilverstone took a drink of tea.
"It was a signal," he explained. "All the time while we've been out
they've been watching us from the naval base. The _Kingfisher_ has had
her steam up ready to come out as soon as we should give the sign. We
have given it. You will see her presently. What about the periscopes?"
"They're still there, sir," Seth answered. "I can see the top of her
conning-tower above water. She's moving. I believe I can hear her
engines grunting. So she's got some petrol left. Hullo! I can see a
man's head and shoulders."
"She's bound to come up and work her petrol engines to generate
electricity," said Mr. Bilverstone, going on a fresh tack. "Haul in the
net, quick! Those Germans will guess we had a hand in it when they see
the gunboat coming after them."
Seth got the gear inboard, and again his companion tacked. The boat was
making for home, with both wind and tide in her favour.
Mr. Bilverstone could now watch the submarine. She was awash, and her
petrol engines, making a great clatter, were evidently working up to
full speed. Two of her crew had come out on the platform of her
conning-tower. One was in officer's uniform. The sun, piercing the
mist, shone upon his brass buttons and the gold badge on his cap. He
stood looking southward to where two plumes of smoke from a steamer's
funnels rose into the morning air over the lighthouse point. It could
be seen that he had his left arm in a sling.
"She's coming after us, sir!" cried Seth. "She'll sink us!"
"She's trying to escape from the gunboat," declared Mr. Bilverstone.
"You see, she can't submerge until her electric batteries are charged,
and she can go quicker on the surface. Look! There comes the
_Kingfisher_!"
The officer disappeared for some moments, but returned with a pair of
binoculars, which he levelled upon the gunboat. The submarine quickly
increased her speed, sending up a great fountain of foam as she cut
through the water. She passed so close to the shrimp boat that it
rocked on the waves she left in her wake. Seth Newruck saw the number
on her side--U50. He also caught a glimpse of the face of the young
officer on the deck of her conning-tower.
"Look!" he cried excitedly. "Look, sir! It's Max Hilliger himself!"
Hardly had he spoken when there was a spurt of fire and smoke from one
of the _Kingfisher's_ 4.7 guns; a shell whistled through the air and
sent up a tall column of spray as it fell midway between the submarine
and the shrimping boat. The submarine, now fully on the surface and
racing along at eighteen-knot speed, offered a good target; but she
manoeuvred, steering a zig-zag course, seldom exposing her broadside. A
gun was raised from its concealed hatchway on her after platform, and
she replied to the _Kingfisher's_ fire without visible effect.
Arnold Bilverstone, nervously gripping the boat's gunwale, was leaning
forward, gazing fixedly northward along the coast.
"That's good!" he exclaimed. "There's a couple of destroyers coming out
from Buremouth. They'll head her off."
The chase continued. Suddenly the submarine's gun disappeared. The two
men on her conning-tower went below. She seemed to be slowing down. A
shell from one of the two destroyers fell perilously near her, deluging
her with spray.
"She's hit!" cried Seth Newruck. "See! she's sinking!"
"Submerging," corrected Mr. Bilverstone, watching the conning-tower
slowly disappear.
The _Kingfisher_, going at her best speed of twenty knots, was soon
abreast of the shrimper, separated by hardly more than fifty yards.
Just in time her course was altered; she went abruptly to starboard, and
so luckily avoided the torpedo which was aimed at her from the submerged
enemy. Seth saw the disturbance of the water as the deadly weapon sped
on its fruitless errand.
The gunboat gave up the dangerous chase and steamed a confusing,
irregular course until she rounded the southern extremity of Alderwick
Shoal, and thus got the protection of the sandbank between her and the
submarine. But of the submarine herself and her periscopes no more was
seen.
Arnold Bilverstone steered alongside the gunboat. Both he and Seth
Newruck were taken on board, their boat being hoisted on deck with its
catch of shrimps, which were consigned to the seamen's quarters. Later
on that same day, on his way home up the High Street, Seth Newruck
encountered Constable Challis.
"I thought you'd be interested to knew," said the constable, "as that
dug-out at Green Croft came into use this mornin', when them naval guns
were firin'. Mrs. Daplin-Gennery made sure it was the Germans comin' to
make an invasion. She got all her household, includin' three Belgian
refugees, into the shelter in double quick time; and there they remained
until long after the firin' had ceased. Between ourselves, they might
have remained comfortable in their beds. There was no cause for alarm.
It was only that the _Kingfisher_ discovered an enemy ship layin'
explosive mines off the coast and gave chase and sent her to the
bottom."
Seth smiled to himself. Constable Challis was curiously astray in his
information.
"Did you see what took place, constable?" he inquired, assuming
ignorance.
Challis shook his head regretfully.
"I wasn't on duty at the time," he answered. "Anyhow, Mrs.
Daplin-Gennery had a rare fright. I'm told, indeed, that she's had a
disturbed night from beginnin' to end. No sooner had she got her
refugees to bed, when somebody or other had the impudence to knock her
up askin' to use her telephone. At two o'clock in the mornin' she was
again alarmed by hearin' a rifle shot on the denes. Then there was the
naval guns. What the rifle shot was about I don't know. Inspector
Jenner was up there on special duty shortly afterwards, but knew nothin'
about it."
"Oh!" nodded Seth, with new interest. "And what was the special duty?"
Constable Challis bent nearer to the boy and lowered his voice.
"Strictly between ourselves," he said. "There's a rumour goin' about
that one of the Germans has come back to Sunnydene--that secretary--and
that he's been up to some spyin' tricks. Inspector Jenner, with
assistance, went to arrest him. They broke into the house and made a
thorough search, but he wasn't there. There wasn't a trace of him on
the premises."
"Still," said Seth, "I suppose the police will keep a watch?"
"You may take it from me," declared Challis, "if that there Seligmann is
anywhere about Haddisport, we shall nab him."
*CHAPTER XIX.*
*U50.*
"_Dainty_, ahoy! Show a light at your gangway while I come aboard of
you."
It was a dark, boisterous night, with fiercely driving rain. Mark
Redisham in his dripping oilskins was pacing the wet deck of the
mine-sweeper, lying at anchor in a land-locked bay on the north-east
coast.
The _Dainty_ and her consorts had been at their perilous work dredging
for explosive mines off the north of Ireland and in the Pentland Firth,
battling day by day with stormy seas, incessant rains, and bitterly cold
winds. It had been a most uncomfortable trip, and Mark and his
shipmates were rejoicing in the prospect of a few days' rest at home.
Even the necessity of anchoring at night irritated them because of the
delay.
The trawlers were lying now in the midst of a large flotilla of
destroyers and light cruisers. Mark had read a flashlight signal from
the bridge of one of the cruisers, inquiring which was the commodore of
the mine-sweepers, and he had answered it with his electric torch. A
pinnace was approaching the _Dainty_, and it was an officer in the stern
sheets who had hailed him.
Mark held a lighted lamp in the open gangway, and the pinnace came
alongside. The officer, a sub-lieutenant, climbed on board to speak
with the skipper in the shelter of the wheel-house, leaving a midshipman
in charge of the boat. Mark was about to enter into conversation with
the bluejackets when the midshipman stood up. The lamplight shone in
his face.
"Hullo, Rodney!" cried Mark in astonishment, recognising his brother.
"What an unexpected meeting! How are you? Have you come off the
_Levity_?"
They clasped hands.
"No," Rodney answered. "No, the _Levity_ is in the repair yard. She
got a bit knocked about in the scrap we had with the enemy off
Heligoland. But in any case, I was only aboard her temporarily.
Destroyers don't carry midshipmen as a rule, you know. I've been
appointed to the _Dauntless_, the new light cruiser out there. Captain
Damant is in command of her. She's heaps better than the _Atreus_; in
fact, she's about the best light cruiser in the service. I thought
you'd heard of my luck. I wrote to mother about it."
"But I haven't seen mother for over a week." Mark explained. "I expect
to see her to-morrow, though."
"I'm afraid you won't," Rodney told him. "I believe you've got to sweep
up a new mine-field that the Germans have laid south of the Dogger.
That's where the _Rapid_ was sunk this morning."
"The _Rapid_! Was she mined?"
"Yes, worse luck. No lives were lost, though; and, of course, she was
obsolete, and no good for fighting, so it's not very serious. We'd
already paid the enemy in advance, seeing that Lieutenant Ingoldsby
torpedoed one of their newest destroyers yesterday afternoon. I'm
awfully glad to have met you. Give my love to mother and the girls when
you get home, and tell them I'm getting to know the North Sea as well as
I know our own garden. Good night."
Mark drew back to make way for the lieutenant, who had been giving the
skipper instructions for the sweeping of the new mine-field.
At daylight the next morning, having taken in fresh stores, the _Dainty_
and her consorts steamed off.
On arriving at the scene of their duties they found another fleet of
trawlers already at work, helped by an aeroplane. They combined in a
systematic sweep of the known area and exploded some scores of mines
without an accident. The new picking-up net lately introduced was
doubtless the reason of this freedom from disaster.
Sweeping the seas for explosive mines indiscriminately laid by the enemy
for the destruction of any ship which might run up against them, was not
the only work in which the British steam trawlers and drifters were
engaged. These stout little vessels, with their hardy crews of North
Sea fishermen, were also engaged to act as scouts and messengers
patrolling the coasts. Many of them were fitted with wireless masts, by
means of which they sent out reports by code of anything suspicious
which might be observed.
Thus, while the _Dainty_ was still in the neighbourhood of the Dogger
Bank, threading her way through a fleet of English herring smacks, Mark
Redisham was able to send out a wireless message intimating that a
German submarine of the largest and newest type had been seen. He gave
her number as U50, and added that she had been watched taking in a
supply of petrol and other stores from a captured English trawler manned
by Germans.
Less than an hour afterwards two British destroyers were seen racing at
top speed in the direction in which the enemy trawler had disappeared.
They went out of sight. There came the sound of gun firing, and Mark
afterwards heard that the trawler had been sunk and her German crew
taken prisoners.
While the guns were firing and the _Dainty_ was yet within sight of the
drifters, Mark again saw the submarine, or, rather, he saw her
periscopes moving above the surface about a mile away. At the same time
the skipper was watching a confused cloud of black smoke through the
rain mist on the western horizon.
"Looks like a big liner," Snowling conjectured. "Give her a signal that
there's an enemy submarine prowlin' around."
Before going to his instrument room Mark looked searchingly at the
smoke.
"That's not a liner," he decided. "There's too much smoke for a liner.
And there's more than one. It looks like a patrol of cruisers."
He sent off his wireless message and got one back to say that it had
been received and understood. On returning to the deck he searched for
signs of the submarine, but found none. The funnels of three British
cruisers were now visible above the line of the sea. The _Dainty_ was
steered towards them. When their turrets and hulls came into view, Mark
succeeded in identifying the ships as the armoured cruisers _Pomona_,
_Graemsay_, and _Ronaldsay_. They were followed by a light cruiser and a
division of destroyers. He signalled to them:
"Keep to the eastward of the fishing fleet."
But his warning advice did not divert the warships from their course.
They approached at easy speed in line-ahead formation, the _Pomona_
leading.
"They're all right, don't you trouble," observed Skipper Snowling. "I
expect that that submarine has made off to Heligoland. They're all of
'em afraid of the very sight of the White Ensign."
The great, three-funnelled cruisers were a noble sight as they steamed
along so steadily. Mark Redisham watched them through his binoculars,
paying his attention to each one in turn and trying to discover in what
small details of structure they differed one from another; for they were
all three of the same class. Each was of twelve thousand tons
displacement, each carried the same number of heavy guns, and each, as
he knew, had the same complement of seven hundred and fifty officers and
men.
As the _Pomona_ came nearer he looked at the officers on the bridge.
They wore their greatcoats, but he could still make out their respective
ranks by their stripes and badges.
Suddenly one of them at the starboard end of the bridge pointed
excitedly into the sea and shouted. Instantly there was a loud crash, an
explosion. The whole ship staggered.
"Glory be!" cried Skipper Snowling. "That's a torpedo! It struck her
amidships!"
In the excitement of the next two hours Mark Redisham got a confused
impression of all that happened. He saw the _Pomona_ listing over in a
cloud of smoke and escaping steam. She was sinking. The _Graemsay_ and
the _Ronaldsay_ were putting out their boats as they closed upon her.
Their engines were stopped as they took up positions about four hundred
yards apart from her to give assistance.
Hardly had they stopped when there was a second heavy explosion,
followed by a third. The _Ronaldsay_ had been torpedoed under her
after-magazine. The air was filled with flying wreckage, which fell
among her boats.
The _Dainty_ and her consorts, as well as the fishing smacks and steam
drifters, hastened to the rescue. Already the cruisers' picket boats and
cutters had picked up many survivors from the _Pomona_. Some were
returning to the _Graemsay_, when she, too, was hit by a fourth torpedo
from the hidden enemy.
Looking round in the direction from which, as it seemed to him, the
weapons had been fired, Mark Redisham saw the submarine's two periscopes
moving along the surface some three hundred yards away. Then the upper
part of her conning-tower rose. The gunners on the stricken _Graemsay_
immediately opened fire upon it, and their ship's engines were put full
steam ahead with the intention of running her down. But the cruiser was
badly holed below water; she heeled rapidly and finally turned keel up.
In the meantime, the light cruiser and her flotilla of destroyers were
coming down at racing speed, and the smacks and trawlers were drawing
nearer. There were boats in plenty to give help to those who could swim
or who had managed to seize upon floating wreckage; but, unfortunately,
many had been killed or hopelessly maimed by the explosions, whilst
others had not been able to escape from the stokeholds and lower decks,
the loss amounting to the terrible total of sixty officers and fourteen
hundred men.
"Seems to me," said Harry Snowling, helping Mark Redisham to lift a
wounded stoker from the dinghy to the _Dainty's_ deck, "as there must
have been a whole crowd of submarines lyin' in wait to do this.
'Taren't proper warfare, like gunfire in an open action."