Little Grey Ships

Front matter

LITTLE GREY SHIPS

By J. J. BELL AUTHOR OF “THE WHALERS,” ETC.

LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1916

The Price of Fish

LITTLE GREY SHIPS

THE PRICE OF FISH

But never you think as I’m likely to sink, Nor bid me a fond adoo— Jist lemme alone, an’ I’ll come home, Flappin’ my faithful screw.

The cabin was cosy with radiated steam-heat and bright with acetylene gas. The polished panels of the bunks shone; brass rails and knobs glittered. And the whole scene rose and fell, swung to and fro, in the most erratic fashion imaginable to the muffled sound of many waters and the drumming of the propeller.

Speechless Tom, skipper of the trawler Sapphire, appeared quite unconscious of any commotion. As if glued to his seat on the locker, his feet in tall sea-boots seemingly clamped to the floor, his chest hard against the table's edge, he was as one of the cabin fixtures. Unrolled and pinned to the table was a chart, recently revised, of the North Sea. Its lower portion was well-nigh covered with oblongs and triangles of pink—prohibited and dangerous areas. The Sapphire was among them now, towards the end of her voyage from the Iceland banks, a record catch in her freezing holds.

Fingering the pencil which had just marked the ship's position and future course, the skipper looked up at the clock. His lips moved in silent calculation, his brows drew together in a frown. He was a man of about forty, possibly on the wrong side, with kindly blue eyes, a short bristling red moustache, a generous mouth, and a decidedly stubborn chin. At first thought his nickname would seem appropriate, for he uttered words remarkably seldom; but a trained lip-reader would probably describe him as a talkative man. Once, in a moment of expansion, he had informed Johnny, the mate, that he had gradually become silent through endeavouring to master a habit of swearing. Johnny, however, who has sailed with him for a good number of years, is still disinclined to accept the explanation, for Johnny, having learned to “read” a little, can generally detect the bad language with his eyes. He is of opinion that Tom was born with the soundless habit, and believes that Tom's mother, were she alive, would testify that Tom as an infant never cried—made faces instead.

The same Johnny now came clattering down the ladder and blundered into the doorway, halting there and steadying himself against the jamb. Water, fresh and salt, streamed from his sou'wester and oilskins, and dripped from his beard.

“Gettin' worse—and goin' to be worser,” he said. “She's shippin' it solid now, and the rain's turnin' to sleet. We're in for a hell o' a night.” He glanced at the clock. “Only five hours! Why, Tom, she can't do it!” His gaze sought the other's lips. “'Got to do it,' says you? How?... 'Tisn't possible. The old Sapphire can stand a queer lot o' drivin', but she has her limit. She's at it now. That's why I run down to ask ye to change yer mind and let me give Bob the word to ease her a bit.” He flung up his free hand. “Hark to that! Feel it!”

A shock, a universal quivering, a roaring and sluicing of waters. The vessel heaved up and up, then sank back with a sidelong, wobbling roll. As she began to recover, another breaker swiped her port bow and swept her deck.

“Something's bound to give,” said the mate, “if we keeps on drivin' her like this. Them tons o' seas2”

Tom's lips moved. “All right. I'll be up in a minute.”

“Ho, there's no need for that—if ye'll give me the authority. I thought ye was goin' to turn in for an hour or so2”

Tom spoke aloud at last. “The Sapphire's goin' to be at the quay in time for the market. Ye know as well as I do she'll be 'bout the only trawler there in the mornin'. Ye counted the trawlers we sighted up yonder—not one o' them ready for home. Ye heard what Big Ben o' the Gladys said when we hailed him this mornin' on his way north—leastways, ye heard enough. 'Fish famine,' says he; 'buyers payin' anything. The Cygnet's fish fetched sixteen hundred pound. Hurry up, and yours'll fetch two thousand!' That's what he said, Johnny, and that's all I've got to say.”

It was the longest utterance the mate had heard from his skipper's mouth for many a day. After a moment he said quietly:

“Two thousand pound is a biggish temptation, 'specially when ye happens to hold a goodish share in the trawler, Tom. Still2”

“I'll be up in a minute.”

With a shake of his head the mate turned and departed. He was no coward, only a moderately cautious man.

A brief, final consultation of the chart, and then the skipper unpinned and rolled it up, and stowed it in the rack overhead. He rose, steadying himself by anything handy, donned his muffler, and struggled into his still wet oilskins. Presently he ascended the ladder and stood for a little space gazing through the doorway of the deckhouse. Undoubtedly the gale had increased, even within the twenty minutes he had spent below over the chart. The lamp on the wall behind him cast a faint shine on the streaming deck, the slanting sleet, and he had glimpses of seething whiteness when a billow foamed level with the trawler's stern. A roaring filled his ears. His lips moved—” She's got to do it!”

He stepped forth, slamming the door behind him, swung round the corner, and braced himself against the bitter blast. The wind yelled among the shrouds, howled over the fire-tufted funnel, thundered in his ears. The sea crashed in its fury. Spray and sleet rattled against his oilskins. He had just fought his way past the battened skylights of the engine-room when the Sapphire gave a prodigious lurch. He clutched a stay of the funnel. Over she went; over, until the surge rushed along the rim of her bulwarks. A little further, and a cataract poured upon her deck. Then, righting herself, she scooped in a mass of water that buried him to the waist. Ere it subsided, he let go and made a dash for the bridge ladder. As he set foot on the first rung a sea bursting over the bow swept diagonally across the ship and half smothered him. He gasped, shook himself, and scrambled up to the wheel-house. It was occupied by the mate and a man steering. The tiny place seemed a haven of warmth and shelter.

The mate regarded him more in sorrow than in anger. “Takin' it over her lee now, is she?” he remarked, bawling above the din.

With a sign of dismissal, Tom took the wheel from the seaman. When the man had gone he glanced at the compass, then gave the wheel a turn.

“Great God!” softly said the mate.

Five seconds later a crested mountain of water, like snow in the blackness, rose up, and tumbled on board. The trawler shuddered, and lay over at an alarming angle. But she rolled back readily enough—to receive another thundering deluge.

Johnny, the mate, appeared to be intent on the white-rifted blackness ahead. He knew that his skipper, having altered the course a trifle, was for slipping nearer the unlighted coast, in order to save a knot or two on the remainder of the trip, and he wondered just how near that coast and the minefields the Sapphire might be at the moment. They say the trawlmen can smell their way in the dark, yet for all that they miss the friendly lights that war has extinguished.

“Even if we do 'scape rocks and them blasted mines,” Johnny was thinking, “something's bound to give.” A movement behind him made him look round.

Tom was leaning over and speaking into the tube to the engine-room.

“Bob, can't ye give her a bit more?” he said, pleasantly.

“More!” It was a screech of astonishment.

“Just so.” Tom replaced the whistle in the tube.

The mate stepped back and shouted at his ear: “Even s'posin' ye could do it in time, ye'll get stopped outside the minefields. Ye know fine ye can't take her through wi'out a pilot.”

“Can't?” queried Tom's lips.

“Dursn't, then... Who'll stop ye?... Why, the patrol.”

Tom laughed. He was warm now, steaming under wet garments.

“Ye think they won't spot us on a dirty night like this? ”

Tom spoke aloud. “I'd bet on us gettin' past. 'Tis a fair chance, anyway. Keep yer hair on, Johnny. We'll sure be at the quay in good time, and 'twill be made worth while for every man on board. Why, I do believe Bob's lettin' her have a bit more!”

“Then something is 2 well bound to give!” the mate repeated, but under his breath, as he returned to peering ahead.

The skipper also peered ahead, watching, and perhaps measuring the lines and patches of white that seemed to flash from the darkness—breakers charging to assault, batter, and board his ship.

Suddenly, with a hiss-in of breath, he spun the wheel hard.... Too late. A gigantic sea caught the Sapphire a staggering buffet, then overwhelmed her, bridge, wheel-house, funnel and all. The mate turned his back, the skipper ducked his head only just in time. A shattering shock, and the wheel-house was alive with stinging brine and flying glass.

Presently the mate, gingerly removing a sharp fragment from the inside of his loosened collar, looked at the skipper, whose dripping sou'wester had a jagged triangle stuck in it. Tom set his teeth and proceeded to bring the reeling Sapphire back to her appointed course. Johnny showed no resentment; he did not even attempt to say, “I told ye something was bound to give.” He simply gave his head a wag of resignation, equivalent to remarking, “In for a penny, in for a pound,” and, buttoning up his collar and turning down his sou'wester, he faced the savage wind, the sleet, and whatever the storm might send him.

A couple of concerned-looking seamen appeared on the scene, but were dismissed by a gesture from the skipper.

Again and again the wheel-house was flooded, the men were drenched. The cold was intense. The skipper no longer steamed in his soaking garments. Later the sleet turned to snow—crisp, thick, blinding, stabbing snow. In the feeble light from the binnacle the two men soon appeared like white statues. During the next three hours the skipper frequently looked at his watch, but never a word did he utter. Now and then, however, he grinned. The snow might help him after all.

At last, like a man who has come to a final decision, he spun the wheel rapidly. The Sapphire fell away until she was broadside to the gale and rolling as if in agony; further round she went until the sea was on her quarter; then straight ahead she flew, wallowing.

“Lights!” cried the mate, pointing.

The skipper looked, discovered the faint sparks, which must have been near to be visible in that blizzard. He nodded calmly.

“Patrol, sure,” said Johnny. “If they signal2”

“Pretend ye're blind and deaf.” Tom bent over the speaking-tube. “Give her all ye can, Bob.” He laughed and turned to his companion. “How the devil could they send us a pilot in this? Do they think to keep us hangin' around outside till the weather moderates?”

Johnny said nothing then. Already the sparks had gone out, as it seemed. At the end of a long hour he opened his bluish lips.

“Tom, are we 'mong the mines now, think ye?”

“God knows,” shouted Tom, soberly enough, “but I sorter reckon we've won through them.”

In good time for the market the Sapphire yawed into port. How the skipper found his way in, the mate still wonders, and the former's explanations are extremely vague. As soon as the Sapphire was warped to the quay, an official accompanied by a lantern-bearer came on board.

“Where's your pilot, skipper? What? Speak out, man!”

“Too dark to see him, I s'pose,” said Tom, with an involuntary yawn.

“Are you aware that you have come through the minefields?”

“If you say so, sir.

“I'm bound to report you.”

Tom nodded politely.

The Sapphire was the only arrival that black morning. Her fish fetched £2,000 and £156 more.

On the following day Tom appeared in court, charged with bringing his vessel into 2 without a pilot. He pleaded guilty, listened respectfully to a solemn admonition and warning, and in silence paid the modified penalty of three guineas—a mere fraction of what he would have to pay were he caught playing the game a second time.

His crew cheered him as he left the courthouse. His shore friends cheered him. Strangers, including a policeman, five soldiers and a little boy with a pop-gun, cheered him. His mate wrung his hand, and led him away for refreshments. All of which was, of course, utterly wrong treatment for a man who had risked his ship, not to mention half a score of precious lives, for the sake of gain and mere adventure. But we are a wrong-headed, thoughtless people, and not even moderately consistent. For we go about complaining that fish is scandalously dear.

Patrol

PATROL

There's snow, there's hail wi' the nor'east gale, There's sleet and there's rattling rain, There's many a gust o' the spindrift dust On the dim, rough watery plain....

“Wow!” exclaimed the young seaman just come on deck. “Wish I was in Egypt. How's this for cold, old Bill?”

“'Ellish,” was the feeling, if unappropriate, reply from the man who had been on look-out for a couple of hours.

“Anything doin'?”

Bill spat neatly over the port bow without moving his gaze from the heaving grey stretch of North Sea. The long-continued fall of sleet had at last exhausted itself; breaks appeared in the livid cloud. The slushy deck was becoming icy. The patrol boat, a graceful, rakish craft of tapering spars, slim funnel, and clipper bow, was wallowing before the bitter wind, a whiff of smoke preceding her.

The newcomer, whose business it was to relieve Bill, began to wind about his neck a dark blue muffler, a fathom and a half in length, of new appearance. His movements attracted a glance from the other.

“Best girl, Tommy?”

“She's a good 'un, anyway, God bless her!”

“One o' the kind lydies, I s'pose, which we'll never meet, 'cause they're bound for Upstairs.”

“Speak for yerself, Bill, and”—Thomas drew something from his pocket—“open yer fish-trap.”

Solemnly Bill gaped at space while his companion inserted a small cake of chocolate in the gap.

“Ye young scallywag,” he mumbled presently, “ye've been gettin' more'n yer share!”

Thomas smiled. “How many lovely body-belts have ye on at this blessed minute, old Bill?”

“'Ush! Don't be so undelicate!”

“Well,” said Thomas, after a long stare ahead, “ain't ye goin' below? Thought ye'd ha' been hungry for yer tea.”

Bill did not respond at once, and when he did so his tone was confidential, mysterious. “I got a curious sorter feelin',” he said, “that something's a-going to 'appen.”

“Ye've had that curious sorter feelin' for days an' days!”

“'Tis stronger'n ever.”

Thomas took a glance at the bridge and down the deck. “I do believe,” he slowly declared, “as I'm the only livin' soul on board which hasn't that curious sorter feelin'.” He groaned. “Nothin' 'll ever happen on this here boat. 'Twill always be the same: goin' to an' fro, speakin' to trawlers, pullin' up ships which is innocent as infants, passin' the time o' day wi' destroyers an' so forth—but never anything really doin'.... That's why I wish I was in Egypt2 Holy William! what's that?”

“Whale, stoopid!” said Bill, with some acerbity of tone. “Wot do you want to be doin'? Good thing I 'adn't gone below for my tea, or ye'd 'ave been bawlin' 'fire!' 'police!' an' the like to the bridge.”

“But it might ha' been a submarine,” the abashed Thomas ventured. “I says it might ha' been.”

The other preserved a depressing silence until Thomas proceeded to solace his injured feelings with chocolate, whereupon he generously admitted the possibility.

“But what I wants to know,” said Thomas, who was not greedy, “is what this pretty ship 'ud do if a submarine was to appear at close quarters.”

“Ram.”

“But could she? Is she fit?”

“We'd know all 'bout that afterwards. But, my lad, we're bound to try it. I knows! Tell ye, I 'ad it from cook, an' 'e 'ad it from second engineer, and 'e 'ad it from the bridge. So there ye are!”

“Guess we'll bust ourself as well's the sub,” Thomas remarked reflectively.

“Ho, well, we gets a chance. 'Tis the sub chaps who gets none, if we 'ave the luck to crack 'er.”

“An' serve 'em 2 well right, too!”

“Why, 'tis dirty work indeed, but what if they're only obeyin' orders—like you an me?”

“Some folks 'ud have 'em hung, Bill.”

“Some folks on shore is terrible bloodthirsty. I ain't no use at lovin' me enemies, but I'd draw the line at 'angin' 'em. It might look all right at the time, but 'twould look dash bad in the 'istory books. I'm open for any other sorter killin'.”

“Ye'd be for the bangin', too, if ye'd been torpedoed wi'out warnin',” said Thomas, anxious to get upon his favourite subject.

But Bill heard him not. His seaward gaze suddenly changed from that of a searcher's to a discoverer's. Next moment he wheeled about, clapped his hands to his mouth trumpet-wise, and bawled at the bridge:

“Small black objeck port beam, sir!”

Other eager eyes had detected the speck almost simultaneously, but Bill's was the first hail. He turned to his companion with a sort of subdued triumph.

“Told ye something was a-goin' to 'appen, young Tommy!”

“Same old whale, I do believe,” said Thomas flippantly.

“No, my lad. Yer eyes deceives ye this time. 'Tis merely an 'addock.” Bill planted his feet more firmly on the slippery deck as the ship, her course altered, began to roll heavily.

Conversation lapsed while the small object grew to the shape of a ship's boat, until it was seen to carry a crew.

“Ten souls,” said Bill, who was noted for his sight. “They'll be coldish, poor chaps.”

“Bet ye their ship's been torpedoed,” Thomas remarked.

“Mined.”

“Torpedoed, or, leastways, sunk by a sub.”

“I says mined. What'll ye bet?”

“Stick o' chocklet to a body-belt,” said Thomas, promptly.

“Done wi' ye! I'll lay the one I've round me neck, it 'avin' washed in.”

An order came from the bridge; the cook and others fell to work to prepare comforts for the unfortunates. The order was timeous, as was made manifest by the appearance of the boat's crew at closer quarters. All were more or less miserably benumbed; several seemed incapable of movement save the most feeble; one lay in the bottom as if dead.

The man at the tiller, evidently the skipper, vainly attempted to rise. His mouth worked, but the words had no carrying power. With a shake of his head he dropped back and held his peace until the boat, with difficulty and danger, was got alongside the rescuer.

“Why,” cried Bill, softly, “if it ain't old Dawson o' the trawler Buzzard! 'E's a genuwine 'ero, so 'e is!”

Old Dawson touched his cap to the lieutenant looking down sympathetically from the end of the bridge.

“Trawler Buzzard , of 2, sir,” he shouted huskily. “Mined, 7.15 this mornin'.”

“All your crew safe, Captain?”

“Yes, sir. One's hurt pretty bad.”

The men who could help themselves were already coming aboard; the weaker were being carried or guided. A fine tenderness was displayed for the injured man.

The skipper was the last to reach the deck. There the lieutenant met him and gently shook his half-frozen hand.

“Glad we had the luck, Captain. They're waiting to look after you below.”

The skipper's blue lips quivered; he shuddered from head to foot—but not altogether with cold. Suddenly he exploded:

“Sir, 'tisn't the loss o' the old Buzzard; 'tisn't the blasted mine, neither. But 'tis the way it happened.”

“You'll tell us about it after you get warmed up.”

But Dawson could not contain himself. “'Tis the softness of it!” he cried. “Why, sir, we brought the 2 mine up of our own accord in the blessed trawl ... an it blowed the stern out o' her!”

“Hard luck, indeed, Captain!”

“The softness of it! I wish to God it had been a torpedo!” And with something like a sob he allowed himself to be taken below.

Later on Bill and Thomas discussed the whole matter, and finally agreed that, since the trawler had not been mined in “legitimate” fashion, the bet should be considered “off.”

“Poor old Dawson ain't no 'ero after all,” Bill regretfully remarked. “But 'e 'as my sympathy. 'Twas a sickenin' sorter way to get blowed up.”

”Strikes me one way's as good's another,” said Thomas, “so long's ye don't get killed. The old man'll feel better in the mornin'. Shouldn't wonder if he soon starts to talk big about it—after he's read the solemn account in the newspapers. The newspapers always do make them things look so splendid.”

Bill shook his grizzled head. “To fish up the very mine wot dished ye—'tis too annoyin'! Near as bad as failin' over yer own umburella.... 'Owever, we'll 'ope for the best for poor old Dawson's sake. Anyway, 'twas a good job we was 'andy when their boat come along.” He gazed into the gathering gloom with those wonderful eyes of his, and his voice came very gently:

“'Appen to 'ave any more o' that nice chocklet, Tommy?”

Lusitania

LUSITANIA

THE MORNING AFTER

The sun of May shone on the great shipyard, on the narrow reach of river, on the green pastures beyond. It shone on the toil of man and his handiwork, on the quietly-flowing lane leading to the war-ridden ocean highway, on the peace that seemed a dream of long ago.

Clamour of human labour in all its harshness rose to pale blue skies kept clear by a light, steady breeze, while tall chimneys breathed forth their blackness, and short chimneys spewed fire, and slender chimneys gasped their vapours. For here were the powers of earth and air and water gathered together and harnessed in man's service, to work his will at the touch of a finger, the pressure of a foot. Fiery furnaces, compressed gases escaping, thundering pumps, prodigious flywheels, droning, buzzing, crackling dynamos—all, and a hundred others—swelled the chorus of work.

Tons of iron ran like ruddy water; masses of metal were hammered and shaped, under a lad's control, to the forms ordained. Brass shrieked in vain against a whirling saw, and suffered trimming under a pitiless plane. Guided by a goggled youth, a little roaring flame ate clean through a slab of steel, with no more disturbance than the sputtering of a squib; electric and pneumatic tools did their wonderful shares.

But men also wrought with brawn, sinew and hands alone, feeding fires, tending engines, heaving and hauling till the sweat dropped, or doing tiny tasks as daintily as a surgeon operating on a brain. Sheer brute strength was spent alongside intelligent precision in its utmost delicacy. And every ounce of force, every gleam of eye, every stir of muscle and move of mind was spent to one and the same end—Munitions of War.

Under the acres of glazed roof stood boilers and engines that seemed to have been almost finished and then forgotten. But hundreds of men toiled on other boilers and turbines for warships, carriages for field guns, mine cases, shells, aeroplanes...

Outside, shabby and forlorn in the sunshine, a vessel towered on the stocks, not far from completion, yet utterly deserted. She was designed to be a peaceful merchantman for a neutral Power. But her near neighbours, two destroyers, resounded with a deluge of blows. And further away a battleship was coming to life in an agony of noise, while a batch of submarines were taking shape amid a frantic uproar of metal.

At the dockside reposed a pair of 12-inch guns in all their tremendous, shapely majesty. One would have liked to know whence they had come and whither they were going, but one refrains from unnecessary questions in these days. To the breech of one of the guns an oldish man was doing something with an odd-looking tool, sweating with his exertions. I watched his work till he paused, from weariness, I thought, for never had I seen human eyes appear more tired. He gazed at me while he patted the breech gently, caressingly, as one might pat a child, and said abruptly:

“I helped to build her.”

Instinctively you would have known that he referred not to the gun, but to the Lusitania.

“I stood by when she took the water,” he added, his grizzled head shaking slightly.

He turned away, possibly to watch a grey liner with guns fore and aft go slowly past in charge of a couple of tugs, though I hardly think he saw her, for he continued:

“Almighty! an' she's at the bottom o' the sea, an' hundreds o' dear souls...”

He turned fiercely upon me, and there was more than sweat on his cheeks.

“God blast the German pirates,” said he, “an' God blast the workin' man here that doesn't do his best now!”...

Ten Per Cent.

TEN PER CENT.

In the trawler's snug cabin the supper-time talk had turned to woman as a substitute for man in the nation's hour of need.

The skipper, who weighed nineteen stones, and who had lately wedded for the third time, allowed that a woman might even be made into a policeman of sorts. “But,” he added ponderously, “never a seaman.”

“Hasn't the strength, ye mean?” the mate remarked in a voice impeded by toast.

“Nor the brains,” said the engineer.

“Not so sure 'bout the brains.” The mate, as if to prepare for an argument, swallowed hurriedly. He was not married, but there was a girl...

The engineer smiled wearily and said: “After you wi' the sugar.”

“Henry,” the skipper slowly and solemnly declared,“is right. You, Teddy, are too full o' what they call sentiments. Now, listen! By a strange co-in-side-ence I read all about it in a paper last night. Respectable paper, too; nothin' funny about it; sent to me in mistake. It said 'twas a Gospel truth—leastways, a fact—that a man's brains was ten times heavier 'n a woman's.”

The silence which followed this remarkable statement was broken by the entrance of the elderly cook bearing a large relay of fish which had been drawn from the depths of the North Sea not four hours earlier.

“'Scuse me for overhearin' ye, Captain,” he said in his best manner, “but I happened to see that paper, an' what it said was not ten times, but only ten per cent.” Smiling benevolently he withdrew.

“An' what's ten per cent.?” the mate exclaimed with a scornful laugh.

The skipper winced, scratched his plump brown neck, and looked for help to the engineer.

“Ten per cent.,” the latter pleasantly replied, “is merely—all the difference in the world!”

The skipper brightened. “Just so! That's really what I meant by my little anecdote.” He smiled upon the sulky mate. “Listen! One pound itself is not a terrible large sum o' money; but s'posin' ye had ten pound, Teddy, an' I borrowed one—ye'd miss that pound, wouldn't ye?”

“To me dyin' day! But I don't see2”

The engineer interposed. “S'posin' this old boat had ten per cent. less speed, would she be as fit for her job?”

Teddy grunted impatiently. “Ye both talk as if a 2 o' a lot o' brains was needed to make a seaman, whereas, from what I've seen on this here ship2”

“Here, my lad,” the skipper smartly commanded, “keep yer sauce for yer fish! There's more brains needed on the sea than—Hullo, what's that?”

A commotion had sprung up on deck—a rush of heavily-booted feet, shouts, a blast on the foghorn.

Considering his bulk the skipper's exit from the cabin was a marvel of speed. As he reached the ladder a hoarse voice bawled down:

“—starb'd beam.”

Up in the little wheel-house the skipper took the wheel from the young steersman, and brought the trawler round. He swept the surrounding ocean with narrowed, anxious eyes. Dusk was intensifying the bleakness and vacancy of that white-flecked heaving desert. Nothing to be seen—nothing save, less than half a mile astern, that stealthily moving, sinister shaft with its lurking, all-seeing eye. He spoke into the tube.

“Give her all ye can, Henry.... What? Ay, I'll let ye know if we spot anything comin'. Teddy's aloft on the look-out.” He replaced the whistle. “But surely to God she won't go for a peaceful trawler!” To the young seaman, who was pale under his tan, “Get yer life-belt, lad, an' keep yer hair on,” he said kindly. Already, on his way to the bridge, he had given orders for the safety of his crew. Most of them had donned life-belts and some were busy at the two small boats.

The submarine was still astern, but no longer submerged. Yet, though her conning-tower showed above the surge, no signal came from her. She began to move faster—much faster.

Black smoke rolled from the trawler's slim funnel. She was doing her level best now. Within ten minutes, however, the U-boat was once more on her flank and horribly near. Still no signal.

“If we only had a gun!” muttered the skipper, wrenching at the wheel. He would have been the last to deny that he was afraid.

From the mate clinging to the mast came a yell. He pointed down at the water.