CHAPTER XX--Captured
For a few seconds the optics of the submerged craft remained trainedupon the isolated smack. Although the submarine was forging slowlyahead, the periscopes rose no higher out of the water. Evidently thosein charge of the vessel were not anxious to rise to the surface untilthey had satisfied themselves that it was fairly safe to do so.
His attention attracted by his brother's fixed gaze, Leslie sprang tohis feet and grasped the weather shrouds.
"What's that, Jack?" he asked.
"What you wanted to see--a submarine."
"One of ours?"
"Hope so," replied the sub laconically; but he had great misgivings onthat score. Had it been a British submarine making for Portsmouth, shewould almost certainly be running on the surface, in order to make hernumber before approaching the heavily-defended Needles channel.
Wildly excited, Tim forgot that he was steering and, putting the helmdown, allowed the smack to gybe "all standing". The thud of the heavyboom as it swung across and brought up with a violent jerk, had theeffect of making Old Garge emerge from the cuddy in a state of nauticalprofanity.
"What be you up to, you young lubber?" he shouted.
"Submarine, granfer," replied his youthful relative.
"No excuse for gybing," continued the skipper. "Do you mind what you areup to. Where be she?"
He shaded his eyes, expecting to see one of the British "C" or "E" classrunning awash. Instead, he saw only the tips of the periscopes.
"Drat it!" he ejaculated. "'Tain't for no good. Anyways, we're toosmall for her to trouble about we."
Apparently his conjectures were correct, for, with a feather of whitefoam, and a sullen swirl well in the wake of the periscope, thesubmarine disappeared wholly from sight.
"'Er's afeard of fouling our nets," declared Old Garge. "Now, if wegives the patrol-boat notice, an' that submarine is done for, there'sfifty pun' at least for me. A matter of a couple o' months back myfriend Peter----"
But what happened to Peter was a story that Jack Sefton was notpermitted to hear, for with a quick, unhesitating motion the submarinereappeared at less than three cables' lengths ahead of the smack.Shaking herself clear of the water, she displayed the unmistakableoutlines of a German _unterseeboot_, although no number was visible onher grey conning-tower.
With remarkable celerity an officer and half a dozen seamen appearedfrom below, while at the same time a quick-firer was raised from its"housing", for'ard of the conning-tower, and trained upon the luckless_Fidelity_.
Steadily the U boat approached within hailing distance, then, making ahalf-circle, slowed down on a parallel course to that of the smack.
"Fishing-boat ahoy!" shouted the German officer. "Cut adrift your netsand run alongside, or I'll have to sink you."
Old Garge gave a gasp of astonishment and looked enquiringly at JackSefton.
"Them nets cost a sight o' money," he exclaimed ruefully. "Now if I hada gun----"
"Hurry, there!" came the stern mandate from the U boat.
"You'll have to obey, I fancy," said the sub. "There's no escape.Perhaps they'll let you off, as the smack is only a very small one. Ifyou give them any lip they'll cut up rough."
Deliberately Old Garge cut the trailing line of nets, bent the outwardpart to a life-buoy and cast it overboard. As he had remarked, netswere expensive affairs, and he was not going to cut them adrift withouta means of recovering the gear should the Huns let him off lightly.
"Back your head-sails, Tim!" ordered the skipper, at the same timeputting the helm hard down and allowing the _Fidelity_ to come upmotionless into the wind, within a couple of yards of the bulging sideof the U boat.
"Throw us a line!" was the peremptory greeting.
Agilely a fair-haired unter-leutnant boarded the smack, followed bythree of his men. Giving a cursory glance at the fish-well, he saidsomething in German to one of the seamen. In less than a minute thenight's haul had been transferred to the captor.
"Low-down robbers!" muttered Old Garge under his breath, but theunter-leutnant caught the imprecation.
"Have a care," he said sternly, "or we sink your boat. What these men?You carry a large crew for a little ship, Captain."
"They are my men," declared Old Garge loyally.
"Perhaps," drawled the German, then, suddenly turning, he strode up toSefton and his brother.
"Hold your hand out!" he ordered.
Leslie sniggered. In his opinion the uniformed Hun ought to have addedthe words "Naughty boy". The lad was enjoying the novel experience. Hisone regret was that George Crosthwaite was not present to share in theadventure.
Critically the unter-leutnant examined Jack's extended hand. In spiteof the fact that it was discoloured with tar, and reeked of fish, thesub's hand showed that it belonged to a person not of the ordinaryworking class. The long, tapering fingers, manicured nails, and absenceof horny protuberances on the palm "gave him away".
"What is your name?" demanded the German.
"Smith," replied Sefton promptly.
Again the irritating, dubious, and speculative "Per-haps". The subrealized that he was in a tight corner.
"What this wound--how caused?" enquired the unter-leutnant, indicatingthe white scar on the young officer's wrist--the legacy of the affairoff Jutland. "Ach! Shell wound, hein? You are of military age. Standaside."
In spite of the brown jersey and the soiled serge trousers, thekeen-witted Hun had come to the correct conclusion, that the tall,bronzed man was not a genuine smack hand. Not satisfied with theself-styled Smith's replies, he decided to interrogate his companion.
"Your name?" he demanded of Leslie, with a fierceness that effectuallyquenched all further inclination on the part of the youth to snigger.
"Smith, too," replied Leslie. "He's my brother."
Again a display of palmistry. Leslie's hands, though grubby, were alsounmistakably 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 inthe wake of the conning-tower and was calling attention to the mist thatwas bearing down in detached patches. Already the rest of thefishing-boats were lost to sight.
"You go on board there," continued the German unter-leutnant, indicatingthe submarine. Then, turning to Old Garge, he added:
"We let you go. Too much trouble to sink your little fischer-boat, andyou have no skiff. Stop here one hour. If you move or make signal, thenwe return and blow you to pieces. You onderstan'?"
Without condescending to notice Tim, who was watching the course ofevents with wide-open eyes, the unter-leutnant signalled to the twoSeftons to board the submarine. Then, followed by his men, the Hunregained his own craft.
A minute later, with Jack and Leslie prisoners of war, the U boat slidquietly 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 wecan."
"How about the nets, grandfer?" asked Tim.
"Can bide," declared the old man as the _Fidelity_, gathering way, spedto 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 thepatrol-boats operating in Christchurch Bay, and reported the incident.Quickly the news was wirelessed, and a regular fleet of swiftmotor-boats was soon upon the scene, while overhead a couple ofsea-planes hovered, in the hope of detecting the shadow of the U boatagainst the white sandy bottom.
But in vain. The unter-leutnant's threat that he purposed remaining inthe vicinity for an hour was a mere piece of bluff. Without loss oftime, the submarine was running at her maximum submerged speed in asouth-westerly direction, intent up
on putting as great a distance aspossible between her and the hornets whose activities had already takena heavy toll from these modern pirates of the Black Cross Ensign.
U99 was one of the most recent type of _unterseebooten_. Possessing agreat radius of action, she combined the roles of mine-layer andsubmerged torpedo-craft. She was one of nine detailed for operations inthe English Channel, and, since the passage through the Straits of Doverhad long been regarded as "unhealthy" by the German Admiralty, theflotilla had been ordered to proceed and return via the Faroe Isles andthe west coast of Ireland.
Although the U99 had disposed of her cargo of mines withoutmishap--several of the German submarines having been "hoist with theirown petards"--her efforts had not met with marked success. Beyondtorpedoing a tramp, and sinking another by gun-fire, she had failed tocarry out the work of frightfulness that had been expected of her.Having exhausted her stock of torpedoes, and making only one effectivehit, she was on her way home.
After three hours of terrible suspense, when she found herself enmeshedin a net somewhere off the back of the Wight--a predicament from whichshe freed herself by means of the specially-devised wire-cutters on herbows--U99 was forced to come up for a breather early in the morning.Provisions were running short, and the sight of the solitaryfishing-smack tempted her commander to investigate, with the result thatSub-lieutenant Sefton and his brother found themselves in the unenviableposition of prisoners in the hands of the enemy. More, they were coopedup in a wretched U boat, faced with the possibility of being hunted bytheir fellow-countrymen and consigned to Davy Jones in the undesirablecompany of a crew of piratical Huns.
No wonder that Jack felt like kicking himself for having embarked uponthe ill-starred voyage in the smack _Fidelity_.
"Yes, by Jove!" he muttered. "Here's a pretty kettle of fish--and thelid on with a vengeance."