The Secret Service Submarine Part 21

The stars in their courses fought for Sisera! When we went out on deck, the first transport was scarcely a mile away from us on the starboard quarter. We had judged it to a tick.

But she was no longer heading west. She had turned tail. She was a Hamburg-Amerika liner converted to a transport, and thick black smoke poured out of her four funnels as she raced back towards Heligoland and safety.

"She's got nearly three thousand troops on board, I'll bet you a manhattan," Bernard said. "We _must_ get her, we simply must!"

Turning to the west, we saw at least five destroyers rushing for us like express trains. Whether they had seen us come up or not I cannot tell, but they knew well enough what our manoeuvre would be, and they were not a mile and a half away.

"Get down. Tell Bosustow to cram it all on. Increase the spark. We've got to do twenty knots if we sc.r.a.p the whole thing."

I was there in a moment, I told Bosustow what the skipper had said. The big man was quietly chewing tobacco, and he spat down on the acc.u.mulators as he made a motion to salute. He moved like a slug over his roaring engines, but even as he did so, the angry hum, the m.u.f.fled explosions, rose into a steel symphony like Tchaikovsky's "1812"! I felt the ship leap forward like a whippet out of leash. When I stumbled up on deck again, the wind was whistling all round the conning-tower. It blew my cap off into the sea.

We gained, we gained enormously, but so did the pursuing destroyers.

We soon knew that. There were sounds behind us like a little street-boy whistling to a friend. They were firing their bow machine guns, taking no careful aim, at the fearful pace they were going, but all around us fountains of foam rose in the sea as we plunged onwards.

"You know, John," said my brother, "it's a difficult thing for any gunners at all to fire their bow chasers at a little bobbing thing like a submarine. Of course, they may get us with a lucky shot, but I don't think they will."

They didn't.

The great liner saw us coming and slanted off obliquely to the north. It wasn't any use at all. We had the heels of her, though we knew that at any moment our engines might give out, owing to the fearful strain we were putting on them.

It was Scarlett who fired the torpedo--"must let the old blighter have his chance!" my brother said--and it went straight and true to the _Princessin Amalia_, as we afterwards learned she was.

I think that was the worst of all. We torpedoed her from six hundred yards. There was no explosion, as there was in the case of the battleship. We could see everything far more distinctly. She simply broke in two and sank in three minutes, defenceless, impotent.

"Poor chaps!" I said, as we watched.

"Fortune of war!" Bernard answered--"Yes, poor chaps! At the same time, remember that they're the same sort of fellows who have been crucifying flappers in Belgium and taking out the whole male population of harmless villages and shooting them before breakfast. They would have been doing that all over Norfolk in thirty hours, if"--he paused--"if you hadn't been rejected by the R.N.F.C. and also been the right hand of the late lamented Doctor Upjelly. We must get down quickly, or else ..."

He had turned and was holding his binoculars to his eyes.

"Good heavens!" he said, "what's that?"

I turned, and I saw that the five destroyers were sweeping away in a great curve to the north. They were pursuing us no longer.

"What is it?" I cried.

The answer didn't come from my brother, though I heard it plainly enough. It was like thunder many miles away--a huge, dull boom such as I had never heard before.

"Why, they're running!"

"I should rather think so, old soul!"

"Are they afraid of us? What is that noise?"

"That, my dear young friend, unless I am very much mistaken, is one of the twelve-inch guns of His Majesty's ship, _Vengeance_.

Cruiser-battleship, young John. I happen to know she's been lying off Harwich for the last week, waiting orders. Our friend, Lieutenant Murphy, has sent my wires to good purpose, and 'now we shan't be long!'"

Again the great, menacing boom, but this time we saw something.

From the deck of a submarine the range of vision is only two miles. The last destroyer was almost disappearing on the horizon, when she suddenly jumped out of the sea and fell to pieces like a pack of cards.

"That's old Snorty Bethune-Ranger!" my brother said, wagging his head gravely. "Best gunner commander in the fleet, and I know he's on board the _Vengeance_. Now don't you think we'll have the boys up and let 'em chortle a bit?"

"I'll go and call them."

I was just going in when I was gripped by the arm so hard that I winced.

"Look there!" said my brother.

I followed his pointing right arm and saw something far up in the sky, something like a crow, which grew larger every second.

"One of their hydroplanes, off the deck of the second transport. She's going to try and drop bombs on us."

"Will she do it?"

"Can a duck bark?" Bernard answered contemptuously. "Of course, she may be lucky, but it's never happened yet. The worst of it is that they can see us thirty feet below the surface. Still, old sport, she can't do much--hear her coming?"

I did. There was a noise like a motor-bicycle in the sky, and the crow grew to an eagle, developed into an aeroplane, such as I had seen so often in the ill.u.s.trated papers.

"I suppose we'd better submerge, though I don't want to run from a beastly mechanical kite, after sinking Kaiser Bill's lovin' enthusiastic soldiers, all in the box, complete, one shilling! I say, John, would you like a little bit of sport?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't suppose this fellow is going to do us any harm, and any way, it's a toss up. Now you rather pride yourself as a wild-fowler, don't you?"

"If I hadn't been a wild-fowler," I said, "we shouldn't have been where we are now."

"Quite so. Now, there's a rack of excellent rifles down below, and dozens of clips; see if you can't pick this Johnny off."

He bellowed down through the hatch.

"Bring up a magazine rifle and some ammunition. Look sharp!"

I got the rifle in a few seconds. I think we were both perfectly reckless. I know I was. I laughed as I tucked the gun into my shoulder.

There was a complicated arrangement of sights, but I never even snapped up the foresight. It did not seem worth while; the mark was so big.

The hydroplane fetched a sweep of quarter of a mile round us, and then came head on. I could see the pilot distinctly and, a little below him, the gentleman who was getting ready to drop his bombs.

It was quite delightful. They were not going at a higher speed than a flock of widgeon. To me, it was child's play.

I plugged the bomb expert with the second shot. Then, and I really rather pride myself on what I did next, I hit the long, sausage-like petrol tank and ripped it up. There was a huge roar, an overhead explosion, and as the whole beastly thing turned a somersault and fell, I am pretty certain, too, that I put the pilot out of his pain with my last shot.

We were surrounded by ships--they had come racing north out of Harwich just in time. The big _Vengeance_ was still booming away, but two snaky-like destroyers were coming up h.e.l.l for leather and a big seven thousand ton cruiser was not more than three hundred yards from us.

Puff! puff! A white pinnace, with a shining bra.s.s funnel, swirled round and came up on our quarter. My brother and myself, together with the two d.i.c.kson boys, were standing by the conning-tower.