Part 26 (1/2)

Captain Whisker had been carried below unconscious. Cookson was in his own cabin, where, with the help of the s.h.i.+p's steward, he was endeavouring to bandage his hurt shoulder. As neither one nor the other had the slightest knowledge of first-aid dressing, the thing was clumsily done; and besides, the captain had lost so much blood already that he was very nearly in a fainting condition, and in no fit state to return to his post on the bridge.

Fortunately, in Captain Crouch, there was one on board capable of dealing with the situation, who saw at once that desperate measures were necessary, and was resolved to take them.

It was impossible to suppose that the ”Mondavia” could live for long under fire from the guns of such monster s.h.i.+ps as the German battle-cruisers. One well-placed sh.e.l.l--as we have said--would be sufficient to complete the business. Still, inasmuch as Captain Crouch was fleeing from the men-of-war with all the speed he could, the chances were that the fatal moment would be delayed. The German s.h.i.+ps were steaming ahead at the rate of about twenty-five knots an hour, with the result that the ”Mondavia” was being rapidly overhauled. Even now, the great sh.e.l.ls were falling in dangerous proximity to the s.h.i.+p.

The commander of the U93 saw his danger in a trice. No doubt he had thought it quite improbable that the ”Mondavia” would turn and make back upon her own wake. Had Crouch not been a man of iron, he would have endeavoured to escape towards the coast. As it was, he headed straight for the submarine with all the engine power that the old tramp had at her disposal.

The ”Blucher's” sh.e.l.ls were falling thick and fast, when quite suddenly the battle-cruiser ceased firing, so that the silence that fell upon the sea seemed strange and deathlike after the colossal uproar of the guns.

The truth was that the commander of the submarine and Rudolf Stork himself, both of whom were still together in the conning-tower, had been the first to recognize that the U93 was in danger of destruction from the ”Blucher's” sh.e.l.ls, since the submarine and the steamer were drawing closer and closer together. Accordingly, another wireless message was despatched, asking the ”Blucher” to hold back her fire.

In warfare, it often happens that deeds are accomplished so daring that even those who witness them cannot believe them true. So was it now with the commander of the U93, who could not at first bring himself to believe that it was Crouch's deliberate intention to run him down.

A torpedo, fired from the submarine, pa.s.sed through the water like a flash of light, and missed the ”Mondavia's” bows by a matter of inches.

Captain Crouch, upon the bridge, threw back his head and laughed; but it was the laugh of one who was quite beside himself with intense excitement and the savage exhilaration of the moment.

Jimmy Burke could not refrain from laughing, too. The moment was one of ecstasy. They were flying onward through the water straight for what looked like sudden death; the living sh.e.l.ls no longer plunged into the sea on either side of the s.h.i.+p, but the small quick-firing guns of the submarine had re-opened with a deadly accuracy. Indeed, the range was so decisive that it was almost impossible to miss so large a target.

The canvas screens, which guarded the bridge upon which Crouch and Jimmy Burke were standing, were torn to rags and tatters. The funnel was so riddled with shot that it was like a sieve. The teak decks were splintered right and left, and in some places the taffrails were so twisted by the sheer force of exploding sh.e.l.ls that they resembled corkscrews.

As they drew nearer to the submarine, the danger they were in became more imminent. The noise was deafening. The surface of the sea both to port and starboard was lashed by showers of shrapnel bullets, so that it was just as if hailstones were falling from the leaden skies.

At this supreme moment, Jimmy Burke could not take his eyes from Captain Crouch, who was like a man transfigured. In his very att.i.tude there was something heroic. He now stood motionless, still and silent as a statue cut in stone. He no longer laughed. He looked neither to the right nor left, but straight ahead, his great, square chin protruding more than ever, his single eye fixed and yet ablaze.

He himself was at the helm. The quartermaster, whose place he had taken, lay face downward in the welter of his blood, struck stone dead in the fulfilment of his duty.

Crouch gripped the handles of the wheel so tightly that the knuckles on his sunburnt hands showed white beneath the taut skin. The man was evidently wrought up to the very highest pitch, his iron nerves strained to the utmost. When the sh.e.l.ls burst about his ears, he never flinched, nor moved the fraction of an inch. He kept his eyes glued to the German submarine ahead, and moved the wheel, first this way and then that, so that the bows of the ”Mondavia” were ever directed straight for the U93.

The commander of the submarine saw his danger just too late. He put his helm hard a-starboard, hoping to escape across the steamer's bows, and get a broadside target for his last torpedo. The movement was fatal, for Crouch's eye was quick to see, as his hands were quick to act. The ”Mondavia” swung in upon her victim, as a half-blind rhinoceros charges when brought to bay.

Jimmy Burke, forgetful of his own great danger and the extreme peril in which all on board lay, dashed down the bridge steps, crossed the forward well-deck, and raced to the forecastle-peak.

He reached this point of vantage in time to behold the consummation of this tragedy, or epic--or whatever it may be. He looked down upon the submarine, rocking on the swell, and saw a torpedo shoot into the sea and flash into nothing in the distance. He could see those of the crew who were on deck--the men who had worked the guns. They were so close he could even distinguish the whites of their staring eyes. And there, standing at the elbow of the round-faced, young commander, was Rudolf Stork--the paid servant of the Wilhelmstra.s.se, the man who had served the Fatherland for gold.

Rage seized him when Stork saw his danger and recognized the boy who had tracked him, half by pluck and half by chance, from the close-packed streets of New York City to the sombre desolation of the Dogger Bank.

And then, fury gave place to terror--the last emotion that seizes all men who find themselves confronted by inevitable death.

There is nothing strange in that. Whatever faith we have in G.o.d, the only Over-Lord of Victory, death, standing on the threshold, must seem terrible by reason of the darkness and the mystery of the grave. All men have sinned, and this poor, desperate hireling more than most; and perhaps, at that grave, anxious moment, he saw the evil of his life take living shape and rise before him from the depths to taunt, threaten and condemn.

Be that as it may, he clasped his hands, and looked upward to the sky, as if seeking mercy there. And then, the iron bows of the steamer crashed into the U93. There was a loud bursting sound--a kind of wrench--and simultaneously a shout--human voices uplifted in anguish and dismay. And the U93 crumpled--just crumpled like a paper cap--and vanished in a thin, hissing cloud of steam, leaving upon the surface a great, gla.s.sy pool of floating oil.

CHAPTER XXVI--The t.i.tans

The U93 went to the bottom like a stone. On the surface of the water a modern submarine is as vulnerable as she is deadly underneath it. These boats, when compared to ocean-going steamers, have but little stability and strength. They are the vipers of the sea--venomous snakes whose backs may be broken with the lash of a whip, whose heads can be crushed with a stone.

No sign of the submarine remained upon the surface, except the pool of oil and the struggling forms of three men, who had somehow escaped destruction at the moment of the collision. To save the lives of these was a duty that devolved upon Captain Crouch, by dint of the fact that, though he loathed the German nation from the Kaiser downward, he was still a British seaman who could not stand by in idleness and witness the needless death even of those who had betrayed him.

Lifebuoys were cast overboard, and with a promptness which says much for the discipline on board the ”Mondavia,” a boat was lowered, into which the three drenched, exhausted men were hauled neck and crop.