The Submarine Hunters

Jan, who was now on the bridge, had his attention called to the disconcerting fact. He beckoned to his two passengers.

"You had better go below and stow yourselves away," he suggested. "We will be boarded before long."

"Not I," replied the Flight-Sub. "They've marked us already. If they do take us they won't have to dig us out of a coal-bunker."

The submarine was emerging. At a pace that more than held its own with the Hoorn, she shook herself clear of the water, although green seas were breaking across the flat deck as far aft as the conning-tower.

Then muffled forms clambered through the hatchway; a young, yellow-bearded officer appeared on the navigation platform and hailed the Hoorn in Dutch to heave to instantly.

Even then the tough old Dutch skipper was not going to give in without a protest.

"For what reason?" he shouted back. "This is a Netherlands ship."

"That I do not doubt," rejoined the officer of the submarine. "But you have two Englishmen on board who have broken their parole——"

"You lie!" interrupted the skipper vehemently.

"Not a word more!" exclaimed the German fiercely. "Heave to, or we sink you!"

Reluctantly the "old man" gave the order to stop the engines. Jan, sliding down the bridge ladder, communicated to the British officers the text of the conversation.

"Some rascal of a German spy has betrayed you," he added. "If I could lay my hands upon him——"

There was a look on the Dutchman's face which showed that his anger was genuine.

"All right, Jan," said the Flight-Sub. "It's the fortune of war."

"Deucedly rotten morning," remarked Sub-lieutenant Fox as he greeted the officer of the watch, whom he was about to relieve.

Eccles, the Lieutenant, who had been on the Capella's bridge for four long and dreary hours, merely nodded sleepily. He was thinking, with feelings of satisfaction, of the hot coffee and fragrant bacon and eggs awaiting him below. Three minutes had to elapse before eight bells. Wearily he rubbed his salt-rimmed eyelids with a heavily gloved hand.

"Taurus wirelessed twenty minutes ago," he reported, as the two officers entered the chart-room. "She was then at the extreme limit of her northerly course. You ought to sight her very shortly. Here's our course"—he indicated the pencilled line on the chart. "Nothing to report: there never is when I'm officer of the watch. It's this infernal monotony that plays havoc with a fellow's nerves."

Noel Fox nodded sympathetically. Although the Capella had been only six days on her new station—keeping a watch on the Dutch coast between the Texel and the North Hinder Lightship—he, too, was mightily "fed up" with the task of "treading on the tail of Germany's coat".

Not so much as the periscope of a hostile submarine had been sighted. The German torpedo-boats that occasionally sneaked southwards from Borkum were taking an enforced holiday. Perhaps it was in sympathy with the "High Seas Fleet" skulking in the Kiel Canal. In any case, the six motor craft of the Capella class had a full share of wintry conditions in the North Sea without any compensating adventures to mitigate the monotony.

As Eccles descended from the bridge, a great-coated muffled-up figure, followed by a large dog, swung himself up the ladder.

"Morning, Haye," was Noel Fox's salutation, as he stooped to pat Shrap, the chartered libertine of the Capella. "Dash it all, it is cold! Makes a fellow wish he were a sheep-dog. Here, Shrap, off you go and get your whiskers trimmed. I can see Tomkins waiting for you."

The dog needed no second order. Every morning just after eight bells Shrap would be taken over by the watch below. Every man took a delight in combing the animal's long hair, until Shrap's coat was the pride of the Capella's crew and the envy of the rest of the flotilla, whose mascots never aspired to be more than a tame rat, parrot, or canary.

"Sail on the port bow, sir," bawled the look-out.

The Sub and the midshipman promptly levelled their telescopes. A small cargo-steamer was pitching and rolling as she forged slowly ahead on a westerly course. Although she was fairly discernible against the pale grey of the eastern sky, it could be taken for granted that from the Dutchman's bridge the neutral-grey-painted Capella would be practically invisible.

"She's slowing down," declared Vernon.

"What on earth for?" enquired the Sub. "She couldn't possibly have spotted us. Starboard your helm, quartermaster. Good! Keep her at that. We'll get her to make her number, if nothing else."

Again Noel Fox levelled his telescope. Then he thrust it into a rack on the side of the chart-room, and bellowed:

"Turn up, both watches. Action stations. Submarine ahead."

His quick glance had discerned the after part of a large unterseeboot as she ranged alongside the Dutchman, whose high sides screened most of the submarine from the Capella, and conversely prevented the Germans clustered amidships from noticing the approach of the swift British patrol-vessel.