The Submarine Hunters

He found himself outside a small cottage by the side of a canal. Katje was on her knees washing a bundle of clothes; the operation assisted, with disastrous results to the interned officers' effects, by means of two large stones with which she pounded the saturated garments. Without even turning her head to watch the midshipman's exit from the basket, she proceeded vigorously with her task.

Jan led him into the cottage and pointed to a heap of clothes.

"Put these on you," he said. "I will now go for your friend."

Before the Flight-Sub rejoined him, Ross was rigged out as a Dutch youth, in voluminous trousers, long coat, stock, tall cylindrical hat, green stockings, and wooden shoes. His companion had to look twice before he recognized him.

"Now you come with me to Mynheer Guit," said Jan. "He is a bulb merchant, and lives just outside Ymuiden. You will then go on board a barge that brings the boxes of bulbs from Mynheer Guit's warehouse to the ship. I will be with you. The men in the barge will say nothing. Before to-night you will be safe on board the Hoorn."

Jan was as good as his word. That night the fugitives slept comfortably in the cabin of the mate of the steamship Hoorn; and at tide-time, early on Saturday morning while it was still dark, the vessel glided between the breakwater of Ymuiden, and shaped a course for the mouth of the Thames.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Almost Recaptured

"What's that light, Jan?" asked the Flight-Sub.

The Hoorn was now well beyond the three-mile limit. Ross and his fellow-passenger were standing aft, sheltering from the keen south-westerly wind. The mate of the vessel was with them, the skipper being on the bridge.

"Those lights?" corrected Jan. "They have been visible all the time. They are the two white leading-lights to Ymuiden harbour."

"No, I don't mean those," said the Flight-Sub. "Away to the south'ard, quite a mile from the harbour. See, it's showing again."

From the dunes a white light blinked thrice and then disappeared.

"I do not know," answered Jan gravely. He thought for a moment and then said: "Half a mo'. I will speak to the skipper."

"Hanged if I like it," muttered the Flight-Sub. "I say, Trefusis, that light blinking away looks very fishy. It would mean a fifty-pound fine in England; but here, apparently, it is not objected to."

The skipper and the mate were talking rapidly. Both men were leaning over the after side of the bridge-rails, with their eyes fixed upon the dark shore from which the mysterious light flickered at regular intervals.

"Light on the port bow," reported the helmsman. Both of the Hoorn's officers turned just in time to catch sight of a steady white light before it disappeared. Whatever its meaning, it was remarkable that from that moment the shore light ceased to blink.

"Put out our navigation lamps, Jan," said the skipper. "Someone has betrayed your English friends. Nevertheless I will do all in my power to aid them. We'll steer south-west for an hour. Perhaps we may outwit yon craft, whatever she may be, before dawn."

Ross and his companion were quick to note the alteration of helm. They knew, too, that the removal of the steaming-lights was for the purpose of baffling what must be, to a dead certainty, a German craft—a submarine, or perhaps a torpedo-boat, since the latter frequently ventured out of Borkum and crept stealthily towards the Schelde, keeping close to the Dutch territorial waters in order to avoid being snapped by the vigilant British destroyer flotilla.

Slowly the wintry day dawned. Anxiously the British officers scanned the horizon. The low-lying Dutch coast was now invisible. All around was a waste of grey, tumbling waves, unbroken by a sail of any description.

The Hoorn was ploughing her way at a modest ten knots. Short, beamy, and deep-draughted, she was pitching heavily, sending a frothy bow wave far to leeward each time she dipped her nose into the steep seas.

"I'd give a fiver for the sight of a good old White Ensign at the present moment," remarked the Flight-Sub anxiously. "Good heavens, what's that?"

Ten seconds later he laughed mirthlessly.

"Nerves going to blazes," he muttered. "A bit of wreckage gave me the jumps. By Jove, don't we look a pair of comical objects?"

They had discarded their grotesque head-dress. Ross had a woollen muffler wrapped round his head, while his companion had been given the loan of a red stocking-cap, but they still retained the weird garb in which they had made their journey down the ship canal.

Suddenly Ross gripped his companion's arm and pointed with his right hand to a spar-like object projecting a few feet, close to the waves, at less than a cable's length on the port quarter.

"A periscope!" ejaculated the Flight-Sub.

"Let's hope it's one of our own submarines," said Ross.

"We'll soon find out," added his companion. "It's forging ahead. Whatever it is, they've got us under observation."