Where? How do you know?"
Mark explained, indicating the trawler.
"Well, sir," he said. "She's flying the signal to say so. That red
flag with the ball beneath it means that there's a submarine in the
neighbourhood. But as well as that, she has more men in her than her own
crew. I expect she has rescued them from some ship that the submarine
has torpedoed."
"Dear me!" exclaimed Mr. Croucher. "We shall have no ships left soon if
this sort of thing goes on much longer! Can't the navy put a stop to
it? Even the enemy's battleships are doing less harm than their
submarines. It's simply terrible!"
"Between ourselves," remarked Constable Challis, "it's nothing but silly
spite and disappointment that makes them sink our ships. They can't
touch our cruisers now, so they sneak about sendin' our merchant vessels
to the bottom. Yesterday I came upon some boys tryin' to get at a
bird's nest. When they saw they couldn't manage it, they began to throw
stones at it. That's the way the Germans do. Silly spite; that's all."
Mark Redisham went down the town, keeping step with a battalion of
Territorials marching behind their band. When he arrived at the harbour
the trawler which he had watched from the cliff was coming in. She had
picked up sixteen men drifting in open boats. Their ship, the
_Priscilla_, a cargo steamer bound for one of the northern ports, had
been sunk by an enemy submarine.
Early in the morning the _Priscilla_ had been going under easy steam
when a submarine had come to the surface a little distance away on the
starboard side, hoisting the German flag and signalling to the steamer
to stop.
Instead of obeying, the English captain put on full speed and steered a
zig-zag course with such skill that the submarine soon dropped astern,
unable to keep pace with him or to aim at him with her torpedoes or even
her deck guns.
The captain was congratulating himself and his engineer on their lucky
escape when suddenly a second submarine popped up right in front of his
vessel's bows. This time he was obliged to stop his engines, for he saw
a gun rise from its chamber on the submarine's deck. Two officers stood
on the platform of the conning-tower.
One of them called out in perfect English, asking where the steamer was
bound for, what was her cargo, and where was the British fleet?
"I'm sorry to cause inconvenience," the German added, "but you must
remember this is war. I shall have to sink you. I will give you ten
minutes to get clear of the steamer. Get as many of your belongings
together as you can and take to your boats."
While the crew were hastily putting their clothing and personal
possessions into their kit bags, and launching the two boats, the
captain was ordered to produce his ship's papers. He observed as the
submarine drew alongside that both officers wore the Iron Cross, and
that one of them was hardly more than a boy.
"You can take some food and water with you," said the younger, "and if
you steer north-west you will probably come upon some fishing boats that
may help you."
The crew had rowed a short distance away from their steamer when they
saw a couple of German sailors go on board of her with what looked like
explosive bombs. A few minutes afterwards they returned empty-handed,
the submarine backed away. There was a loud explosion on board the
_Priscilla_ and she rapidly sank.
The submarine then went off at high speed, and as she did so a couple of
dummy funnels were raised on her deck, false bulwarks at bow and stern
were rigged up, and with a pair of masts and with smoke curling from the
funnels she had all the appearance of a heavily laden steamer.
"You didn't happen to notice her number, did you, captain?" Arnold
Bilverstone inquired, when the master of the _Priscilla_ was narrating
his experience to the officers in the naval base at Haddisport.
"Well, it was painted over," the captain explained, "and an eye was
painted in its stead. But under the paint I could make out the raised
figures U50."
"Then the younger of those two officers was Max Hilliger," decided Mark
Redisham; and Mr. Bilverstone agreed.
Later on that same day, or rather in the evening, Mark Redisham was
again at the naval base. Just at about dusk a wireless message was
received, intimating that two enemy submarines were in the
neighbourhood.
The air was calm and clear and the sea smooth. Half a dozen of the most
powerful telescopes and marine glasses were engaged by as many expert
watchers in sweeping the sea, while at the end of the pier a naval gun
was charged and a crew of experienced marksmen were at the breech ready
to train it on the instant if the Germans' periscopes should be sighted.
Mark Redisham was the first to discover a ripple on the water some three
miles away, but it was one of the officers who determined that the
ripple was caused by the movement of a half-submerged submarine. It was
apparently making towards Alderwick Roads, where half a dozen patrol
trawlers lay at anchor.
The light was gradually fading, but the moving target was still visible.
The gun was laid. For months back, at intervals, it had been brought
into practice upon a mark less easily seen than the one upon which it
was pointed at this moment, and the gunner who now controlled its aim
had never been known to fail.
The lever was pressed. The shell shrieked forth. Then there was a
terrific explosion which shook the windows of the town as the submarine
was struck and sent to its doom.
An electric launch was sent out to pick up possible survivors, but all
that could be seen was a slimy film of oil on the water's surface.
From the pier as the boat went out, the periscopes of the second
submarine were sighted, but before the gun could be trained it had
disappeared.
*CHAPTER XXXII.*
*U50'S WORST CRIME.*
"This second submarine was the U50.
"It's that naval gun on Haddisport pier that I warned you of," said Max
Hilliger, as the vessel submerged and her electric motors were turned
on. "We ought not to have come in so close. I believe those
mine-sweepers in the Roads must have discovered us. Most of them are
fitted with wireless masts. No, it's no use trying to rescue our
friends. They couldn't have escaped after an explosion like that. We
had better remain submerged and get away from the coast as quickly as we
can."
Lieutenant Koerner was inconsolable over the loss of the other
submarine. They had been working in partnership for several days past,
sinking fishing boats more especially and using explosive bombs rather
than wasting expensive torpedoes.
This use of bombs had necessitated the stopping of their intended
victims. Having stopped and boarded them, there had always come the
difficulty of dealing with their crews.
If you send a torpedo into an enemy ship from a discreet distance there
is no question of sparing life. A submarine could not in any case
encumber herself with prisoners. But when you have to speak to the
vessel's skipper and have been polite to him, the matter is different.
Even a German commander can hardly refuse to give him and his ship's
company a chance of saving their lives.
Max Hilliger was greatly in favour of using bombs. He did not advance
any serious scruples against the destruction of property; but he had
been educated in England, he still retained a sense of honour and
fairness, and he drew the line at taking the lives of innocent and
unoffending seamen.
This was the rock upon which he and Lieutenant Hermann Koerner split.
Koerner was not burdened with any of his subordinate's English ideas of
humanity. He hated the English, and everything British. Like most
Germans, he had persuaded himself that the war had been begun entirely
by Great Britain; that Germany had never wanted to go to war. He
resolutely closed his mind to the fact that his country had for many
years been preparing for war, and seeking for a cause to pick a quarrel
with Great Britain so that, being fully prepared, she might fall upon
her and smash her.
Above all, he hated Great Britain because of her supremacy upon the
seas. She had put a stop to German commerce and held Germany's great
navy in a firm grip; therefore he considered that it was his highest
patriotic duty to go about stealthily in his submarine destroying
British shipping regardless of whether the ships he sank were armed for
defence or were peaceful, unoffending fishing smacks.
He would have preferred it if all the vessels which came within reach of
his torpedoes were ships of war; so that by sinking them he might lessen
the overpowering strength of the British Navy.
But he had discovered long ago that the British naval officers and
seamen were even more clever in protecting themselves from sudden attack
than the Germans were in taking them by surprise.
Many times the U50 had been taken with other German submarines and
torpedo boats to lie concealed in the narrow seas in the hope of being
able to sink some of our transports carrying troops and munitions across
to France; but they had always been frustrated or outwitted.
Lieutenant Koerner found that it was much more easy to lurk submerged in
the tideways of commerce and to attack undefended merchant ships or
fishing boats. Had not Max Hilliger sometimes opposed him, he would
never have allowed a crew to escape. Max, however, held to one unvarying
argument.
"What we are ordered to do," he declared, "is to help to overcome the
enemy by starvation--preventing their ships from carrying food and other
merchandise into their seaports. And if we sink the ships and their
cargoes there is no further advantage to be gained by taking also the
lives of their crews. Give their men at least a chance to escape in
their boats."
Sometimes when the vessel attacked was of little importance, and
especially if she happened to be a neutral, Koerner yielded and gave the
crew time to abandon their doomed ship. But if the vessel were fitted
with wireless masts, if she appeared to be armed, or if she offered any
resistance, he showed no mercy, but came within gun range and opened
fire upon her. It was only the very large ships against which he fired
a torpedo. It is of one such exploit that I am now going to tell you.
Leaving the neighbourhood of Haddisport, the U50 crossed the North Sea
and made her secret way down the Dutch coast to Flanders. Avoiding the
British mine-field and keeping carefully out of the way of the British
naval patrols, she was taken into the German submarine harbour at
Zeebrugge, where she remained for some days, having her instruments
cleaned and tested, her torpedo chambers replenished, and taking in
stores for a long voyage.
Lieutenant Koerner behaved rather mysteriously towards Max Hilliger
during this time. He had many consultations with staff officers and
with the commanders of other submarines, and refused to inform Max what
was in the wind. All that he would admit was the fact that they were
going out under sealed orders, which were not to be opened until they
should reach a point somewhere to the westward of Land's End.
The point indicated on their chart was in the midst of the Scilly
Islands. Here, on a certain very dark night, the U50 lay motionless in
a calm channel, with only the upper part of her conning-tower above the
surface, hardly distinguishable from the surrounding rocks. Hermann
Koerner was on watch with a pair of powerful binoculars.
"You appear to be expecting something," remarked Max Hilliger from
below. "There can be no enemy ships in a dangerous corner like this."
"It is for that reason that I am watching," returned Koerner. "Since
there can be no enemy near, it is safe for us to enter into
communication with our friends."
"Spies, I suppose," conjectured Max, peering upward through the
darkness.
"Ah!" exclaimed Koerner. "At last; I was searching in the wrong
direction."
He drew an electric torch from his pocket and began to flash it. It was
a wan, green light, which could not have been seen from a great
distance. Koerner returned the torch to his pocket, closed the trap door
of the conning-tower, and descended into the cabin, humming the air of a
German folk-song.
"Well?" said Max.
"It is all right," nodded Koerner. "You can enjoy a good sleep, my
friend. You will need it; because for some days and nights to come it
is probable we shall both require to have very good eyesight."
Max turned into his bunk, but did not at once fall asleep. The intense
silence and darkness kept him wakeful. He would much rather have been
listening to the busy humming of the electric engines. At about midnight
he turned on his pillow and spoke.
"Hermann!" he called.
There was no answer. He lay listening, and from one of the distant
compartments there came to him the faint tap-tapping sound of the
wireless instrument. It was too faint for him to hear distinctly enough
to follow the message; and just as he was beginning to catch a word here
and there, it stopped, and there was a long interval of silence, during
which he fell asleep, not to be awakened again until late on the
following morning. The petrol engines were at work, a dim gleam of
daylight came in through the thick glass of an uncovered skylight. A
servant was busy laying breakfast on the little table in the middle of
the cabin.
"We are under weigh, then?" cried Max, speaking to the man in German.
"_Ja, mein Herr_. Since eight o'clock."
Max glanced up at the tell-tale compass above the table, and saw that
the course was due west.
"It is the direction of America, _mein Herr_," said the servant,
following his glance.
Max dressed and went out on deck. The dummy funnels and the false
bulwarks were raised. There was a ragged red ensign flying from the
mast. No land was in sight, and the sea was clear of shipping; but in
the wake he presently discovered the swiftly moving periscopes of two
other submarines. Lieutenant Koerner was on deck, but there were seamen
about, and Max suppressed his desire to go up to him and question him.
When they were alone together at breakfast, however, he leant across the
table and said:
"Is there any particular reason why I should not know something of our
destination, Herr Koerner? I see that there are two others of our
undersea boats in our company. Our purpose, whatever it is, must
therefore be of importance."
"If it succeeds," returned Koerner, breaking the top of an egg, "it will
be the biggest, most important thing we have ever done, or are ever
likely to do. It will send a thrill of astonishment over the whole
world. It will prove that the Kaiser's brave submarines are more
powerful weapons than any dreadnought that ever was built."
"You amaze me," said Max. "I do not understand. I cannot guess. We are
making a course westward, leaving England behind. We appear to be going
out into the Atlantic Ocean. It is not there that we shall find any
British battleships."
Lieutenant Koerner laughed.
"Let us hope not," he rejoined. "No, my dear friend. Believe me, it is
not battleships that we seek."
"What then?" cried Max, nervously clutching at the edge of the table.
"You do not mean--you cannot mean--that it is your intention to try to
sink an Atlantic liner!"
"Well guessed!" laughed Koerner. "We shall torpedo her--a great
liner--the greatest liner--the _Ruritania_."
Max Hilliger leapt from his chair.
"What?" he cried. "Impossible! You cannot be serious."
"I was never more serious in my life," Koerner assured him. "I tell you
we are going to lie in her track--we and our two companion submarines.
We shall station ourselves at three different points, one of which she
must surely pass. And then, when she comes in sight, we shall creep
nearer, unseen, unsuspected, and wait until she draws within range, when
we shall take careful aim, making no mistake; and send our torpedoes
into her. You see, it is war, my dear child; it is war."
Max Hilliger had turned suddenly pale; his eyes were staring wildly, his
hands trembled.
"War?" he repeated. "Do you call it an act of war to sink a great
steamship like that--a ship carrying no protective armour, no defensive
guns, a ship crowded with innocent passengers, not all English, many of
them Americans no doubt, probably scores of women and children. War?
War? That is not war, Hermann Koerner. It would have no excuse, no
justification. It would be crime, I tell you--a horrible, fiendish
crime. It would be murder."
Lieutenant Koerner looked up at him with his egg-spoon poised.
"Calm yourself, my friend," he urged. "Call it what you will, that has
nothing to do with you or with me. It is our part to do our duty by
obeying our orders. And we have orders to sink this _Ruritania_. We
shall obey."
Max shrugged his shoulders and sat down again, but not to eat.
"Oh, well!" he said presently. "After all, I need not distress myself
perhaps. Her owners, her captain, her passengers have been warned. We
shall not even see her. She will steam by another way, and even then be
escorted by British cruisers. Otherwise--if I thought there was the
merest chance of your doing this horrible thing--I should ask you to put
me ashore on the nearest land, or I should pray that we ourselves should
be sent to the bottom of the sea."
All the rest of that day and through the next night, while the U50 went
on her way to take up her appointed position on the steamship route, Max
Hilliger thought and brooded, wondering by what possible means he could
avert the contemplated crime, even by the sacrifice of his own life.
He wondered if he could open some valve so that the submarine should
never again rise to the surface; if he could secretly smash or disable
some important piece of mechanism, or jam the torpedo tubes. But all the
time he knew that if he should attempt such a thing there still remained
the other two submarines, either of which might succeed where Hermann
Koerner had failed.
At length the appointed position was reached. The commander occupied
himself in making calculations of time and distance. Again and again he
examined his instruments and controls, again and again he went through a
rehearsal of every act and movement which would be put into practice
when, if at all, the fatal moment arrived. Had Max Hilliger tried to
disable any of the mechanism he could not have succeeded, so carefully
was everything watched, so constantly was he himself kept under
observation.
He contrived as often as he could to be in the conning-tower; but
Koerner and the quarter-master were usually at the periscopes, and Max
could only watch the two men, hoping, always hoping, that they would
discover no sign of the expected liner. By their hardly suppressed
excitement he knew that should she be keeping to her usual course and
time, she was already due.
Suddenly Lieutenant Koerner ordered "diving stations." The tanks were
filled--the vessel was submerged, and she sped through the dark depths
at the fullest speed of her electric motors for about a quarter of an
hour, when she again rose. Telegraph signals were rung. The torpedo
tubes were charged.
"Is it the _Ruritania_?" Max panted. He saw that the moment had come.
"Yes. Quick! Get down into the torpedo chamber."
Instead of obeying the command, Max Hilliger snatched his loaded
automatic pistol from his belt and leapt like a maddened animal at the
commander.
"Stop!" he shouted. "Stop! Touch that lever and I will shoot you!" He
flung himself forward, but a blow from the quarter-master's fist struck
him in the face and he wheeled round, lost his balance, and fell. The
pistol dropped from his grasp. His brain reeled, yet half consciously
he heard the command given: "Fire!" He felt the vessel give a jump as
the torpedo left its tube. From somewhere far away he heard a deep,
dull explosion. Then, as a second torpedo was discharged, he came to
his fuller senses.
"It is done!" cried Lieutenant Koerner with an exultant laugh as he drew
back from his periscope.
Max Hilliger had risen to his knees. He had seized his fallen pistol
and now he levelled the weapon at the commander.
"God forgive me," he murmured. "But it is less than you deserve."
And with that he pressed the trigger, firing point blank at a spot
beside the Iron Cross on his companion's breast.
Hermann Koerner flung up his arms, tumbled backward, and lay upon the
grating very still.
Dropping his weapon, Max stepped over him and made his way to the
periscope. Trembling from head to foot, he yet controlled himself
sufficiently to bend over the instrument to adjust its disturbed focus.
Reflected in the mirror he saw the image of an immense Atlantic liner
with four red funnels, and many decks crowded with people. Her whole
vast fabric was heeling over. She seemed to have been struck by the
torpedo somewhere amidships.
"How awful!" he exclaimed.
He turned to look once again at the commander lying dead at his feet.
"God forgive me," he repeated. "But it is less than you deserve."
*CHAPTER XXXIII.*
*MAX RENOUNCES THE FATHERLAND.*
Max Hilliger was now alone in the submarine's conning-tower and in
charge of its controls. He was shaking violently as he began to realise
the horror of what he had done.
He had deliberately fired a bullet into the heart of his superior
officer, who had also been his companion and his friend. It was a
terrible thing to have done; yet he believed that the act was justified.
He only regretted that he had not committed it sooner, before Hermann
Koerner had had time to give the fatal command for the discharging of
the torpedo.
Had he done so, had he fired his shot at the right instant, how many
hundreds of precious lives he might have saved! He would have had no
haunting regrets in taking one man's life, if by taking it he had been
able to prevent a far greater crime.
What he had seen in the mirror of the periscope was far more awful than
the sight of Hermann Koerner's dead body. That the great liner was
doomed he could have no possible doubt. He had heard the explosion as
the torpedo struck its intended mark. He had seen the immense vessel
heeling over, the passengers thronging her decks and scrambling for the
boats.
There were no other ships in sight to rush to the rescue. He, Max
Hilliger, himself, could do nothing to help. Even if the U50 had been
capable of picking up survivors, he was well aware that, in spite of
their peril, there was not a soul in that sinking leviathan who would
accept help from a German submarine.
Steadying himself, he took Lieutenant Koerner's place and gave the
command for the U50 to dive. Below in the engine-room they seemed not to
have heard the sharp report of his automatic pistol, or, if they had
heard it, they probably attributed the sound to some ordinary and
innocent cause. But at length the quarter-master, who had been occupied
in the torpedo chamber, climbed up the communication hatch to inquire
into the result of the attempt upon the great liner.
"What luck, Herr Koerner?" he cried excitedly. "We have struck
her--yes?" He crawled into the conning-tower and at the top of the
ladder stumbled over the body of the dead commander. "_Ach!_" he
ejaculated in consternation. "What is this? What is this?"
The submarine was going down at a sharp angle, propelled by her electric
motors. Max Hilliger remained at his post to give the signal when she
should be deep enough, and to control the steering gear.
By the light from an electric bulb the quartermaster saw the commander's
body lying grimly motionless at his feet. At first he believed it was
Max Hilliger, but he was quickly undeceived. Hilliger was still at work
among the instruments and switches where a few minutes earlier Hermann
Koerner had been. And now Hermann Koerner lay dead!
"There has been an accident?" the quartermaster questioned in agitation.
"How did it happen, Herr Hilliger?"
Max Hilliger rang the telegraph indicator to the engine-room, he
adjusted the rudders, and turned round to answer nervously and in a
trembling voice:
"No. It was not an accident. I have killed him. I need not tell you
why. You know. You heard me warn him that if he touched that lever I
would shoot him. You had better send up one of the other officers to
take command and make me your prisoner. I will suffer the punishment for
what I have done."
The quarter-master glanced swiftly at the dead officer and then back
again at Hilliger. "You killed him!" he cried in amazement. "You!"