Part 25 (1/2)

Again a display of palmistry. Leslie's hands, though grubby, were also unmistakably unused to rough work.

”How old?”

”Fifteen?”

”You lie.”

”On my word of honour,” declared Leslie.

”No matter,” rejoined the unter-leutnant. ”You old enough to fight.

Suppose----”

A hail came from the U boat. Herr Kapitan had mounted the platform in the wake of the conning-tower and was calling attention to the mist that was bearing down in detached patches. Already the rest of the fis.h.i.+ng-boats were lost to sight.

”You go on board there,” continued the German unter-leutnant, indicating the submarine. Then, turning to Old Garge, he added:

”We let you go. Too much trouble to sink your little fischer-boat, and you have no skiff. Stop here one hour. If you move or make signal, then we return and blow you to pieces. You onderstan'?”

Without condescending to notice Tim, who was watching the course of events with wide-open eyes, the unter-leutnant signalled to the two Seftons to board the submarine. Then, followed by his men, the Hun regained his own craft.

A minute later, with Jack and Leslie prisoners of war, the U boat slid quietly beneath the surface.

Old Garge obeyed instructions until the tips of the periscopes vanished.

Then he began to gather in the mainsheet.

”Trim your heads'ls, Tim,” he ordered. ”Us'll be off as hard as we can.”

”How about the nets, grandfer?” asked Tim.

”Can bide,” declared the old man as the _Fidelity_, gathering way, sped to give the alarm that another U boat had been active in the Channel.

Three-quarters of an hour later, the smack ran alongside one of the patrol-boats operating in Christchurch Bay, and reported the incident.

Quickly the news was wirelessed, and a regular fleet of swift motor-boats was soon upon the scene, while overhead a couple of sea-planes hovered, in the hope of detecting the shadow of the U boat against the white sandy bottom.

But in vain. The unter-leutnant's threat that he purposed remaining in the vicinity for an hour was a mere piece of bluff. Without loss of time, the submarine was running at her maximum submerged speed in a south-westerly direction, intent upon putting as great a distance as possible between her and the hornets whose activities had already taken a heavy toll from these modern pirates of the Black Cross Ensign.

U99 was one of the most recent type of _unterseebooten_. Possessing a great radius of action, she combined the roles of mine-layer and submerged torpedo-craft. She was one of nine detailed for operations in the English Channel, and, since the pa.s.sage through the Straits of Dover had long been regarded as ”unhealthy” by the German Admiralty, the flotilla had been ordered to proceed and return via the Faroe Isles and the west coast of Ireland.

Although the U99 had disposed of her cargo of mines without mishap--several of the German submarines having been ”hoist with their own petards”--her efforts had not met with marked success. Beyond torpedoing a tramp, and sinking another by gun-fire, she had failed to carry out the work of frightfulness that had been expected of her.

Having exhausted her stock of torpedoes, and making only one effective hit, she was on her way home.

After three hours of terrible suspense, when she found herself enmeshed in a net somewhere off the back of the Wight--a predicament from which she freed herself by means of the specially-devised wire-cutters on her bows--U99 was forced to come up for a breather early in the morning.

Provisions were running short, and the sight of the solitary fis.h.i.+ng-smack tempted her commander to investigate, with the result that Sub-lieutenant Sefton and his brother found themselves in the unenviable position of prisoners in the hands of the enemy. More, they were cooped up in a wretched U boat, faced with the possibility of being hunted by their fellow-countrymen and consigned to Davy Jones in the undesirable company of a crew of piratical Huns.

No wonder that Jack felt like kicking himself for having embarked upon the ill-starred voyage in the smack _Fidelity_.

”Yes, by Jove!” he muttered. ”Here's a pretty kettle of fish--and the lid on with a vengeance.”