Danger! and Other Stories | Page 7

in! I could imagine the London evening papers and the
howling in Fleet Street. We saw the result of our actions, for it was
quite laughable to see the torpedo-boats buzzing like angry wasps out
of Sheerness in the evening. They were darting in every direction
across the estuary, and the aeroplanes and hydroplanes were like flights
of crows, black dots against the red western sky. They quartered the
whole river mouth, until they discovered us at last. Some sharp-sighted
fellow with a telescope on board of a destroyer got a sight of our
periscope, and came for us full speed. No doubt he would very gladly
have rammed us, even if it had meant his own destruction, but that was
not part of our programme at all. I sank her and ran her east-south-east
with an occasional rise. Finally we brought her to, not very far from the
Kentish coast, and the search- lights of our pursuers were far on the
western skyline. There we lay quietly all night, for a submarine at night
is nothing more than a very third-rate surface torpedo-boat. Besides, we
were all weary and needed rest. Do not forget, you captains of men,
when you grease and trim your pumps and compressors and rotators,
that the human machine needs some tending also.
I had put up the wireless mast above the conning-tower, and had no
difficulty in calling up Captain Stephan. He was lying, he said, off
Ventnor and had been unable to reach his station, on account of engine
trouble, which he had now set right. Next morning he proposed to
block the Southampton approach. He had destroyed one large Indian

boat on his way down Channel. We exchanged good wishes. Like
myself, he needed rest. I was up at four in the morning, however, and
called all hands to overhaul the boat. She was somewhat up by the head,
owing to the forward torpedoes having been used, so we trimmed her
by opening the forward compensating tank, admitting as much water as
the torpedoes had weighed. We also overhauled the starboard
air-compressor and one of the periscope motors which had been jarred
by the shock of the first explosion. We had hardly got ourselves
shipshape when the morning dawned.
I have no doubt that a good many ships which had taken refuge in the
French ports at the first alarm had run across and got safely up the river
in the night. Of course I could have attacked them, but I do not care to
take risks--and there are always risks for a submarine at night. But one
had miscalculated his time, and there she was, just abreast of Warden
Point, when the daylight disclosed her to us. In an instant we were after
her. It was a near thing, for she was a flier, and could do two miles to
our one; but we just reached her as she went swashing by. She saw us
at the last moment, for I attacked her awash, since otherwise we could
not have had the pace to reach her. She swung away and the first
torpedo missed, but the second took her full under the counter. Heavens,
what a smash! The whole stern seemed to go aloft. I drew off and
watched her sink. She went down in seven minutes, leaving her masts
and funnels over the water and a cluster of her people holding on to
them. She was the Virginia, of the Bibby Line--twelve thousand
tons--and laden, like the others, with foodstuffs from the East. The
whole surface of the sea was covered with the floating grain. "John
Bull will have to take up a hole or two of his belt if this goes on," said
Vornal, as we watched the scene.
And it was at that moment that the very worst danger occurred that
could befall us. I tremble now when I think how our glorious voyage
might have been nipped in the bud. I had freed the hatch of my tower,
and was looking at the boats of the Virginia with Vornal near me, when
there was a swish and a terrific splash in the water beside us, which
covered us both with spray. We looked up, and you can imagine our
feelings when we saw an aeroplane hovering a few hundred feet above

us like a hawk. With its silencer, it was perfectly noiseless, and had its
bomb not fallen into the sea we should never have known what had
destroyed us. She was circling round in the hope of dropping a second
one, but we shoved on all speed ahead, crammed down the rudders, and
vanished into the side of a roller. I kept the deflection indicator falling
until I had put fifty good feet of water between the aeroplane