DREADNOUGHTS OF THE DOGGER (continued 4)

"Here comes our old man," Mark intimated, seeing Harry Snowling approaching from the direction of the naval base, where he had been to receive his sailing orders.

"He's got some new charts under his arm; so I suppose we're bound to some place where we've never been before. I hope it's not up north to the Orkneys or Shetlands. We had our share of storms and snow when we went through the Pentland Firth."

The two Sea Scouts saluted their skipper as he came swinging along with an empty pipe in his mouth.

"Right you are, bors," he said cheerily. "Lay aboard and cast off."

When they had cleared the harbour and were out in the blue water, Mark took his trick at the steering-wheel. The course given him was E.S.E., but after a while it was changed to south-east, the change being indicated to the three trawlers that were following by signals from the syren.

"Dessay you're a-wonderin' where we're goin', bor?" said the skipper, glancing into Mark's face, which was lighted by the dim glow from the binnacle. "And so am I. But we're a-sailin' under sealed orders this trip, and shan't know till the stroke of midnight."

At midnight Mark and Darby were both in their bunks, and they saw the skipper come below, seat himself under the hanging lamp, break open a sealed envelope, and take out a slip of typewritten paper.

"Um!" murmured the skipper, "dunno as how they need have kep' it a secret. Seems to me they keeps things secret just for the fun of it, sometimes—same as our Sally. You c'n goo to sleep, bors," he added, glancing towards the bunks.

He stood up, and, quitting the cabin, went on deck, leaving the slip of paper on the flap-table, knowing that neither of the boys would look at it. He had implicit trust in them.

From the engine-room came the tinkle of the telegraph, the syren was blown, the engines stopped, and then there came the grunting of the winch and the noisy rattle of the anchor chain through the hawse hole.

"We're anchored for the night," said Mark, turning over on his pillow.

The Dainty was still at anchor in the early morning when the two Scouts jumped out of their bunks and climbed up on deck in their pyjamas, with towels round their necks. They opened the side gangway and put out the ladder, then stripped and dived off into the cold, clear waves, Darby leading. They swam round the nearest of the three other trawlers, shouted a "good-morning" to the watch, and had a race back, Mark being left far behind; for Darby Catchpole was by far the better swimmer.

While they were drying themselves, they looked round about them.

There were several vessels lying at anchor within sight. About a mile away was a magnificent American clipper, with four tall masts and an amazing webwork of standing and running rigging, and with the stars and stripes painted on her beautiful hull. A tug lay near her, getting up steam to tow her farther on her voyage to some North Sea port with her cargo of American timber. Farther away there were two British destroyers and a light cruiser.

Mark got into his pyjamas and went aft to get a pair of binoculars from the wheel-house; but found the skipper using them.

"Look slippy and get your warm clothes on, bor," said Snowling. "I expect I shall want you, soon as it's light enough, to do a bit of signallin'."

Mark and Darby were both quickly dressed. They returned on deck munching some of Mrs. Catchpole's home-made currant cake. All four of the mine-sweepers were by this time getting up steam.

"Keep your eye on the light cruiser yonder," ordered the skipper, "and be ready to take down her semaphore message when she starts signallin'."

The two boys waited very patiently for about half an hour, when at length the semaphore on the cruiser's bridge began to move.

"What's he a-sayin'?" Harry Snowling asked.

"He says: 'How old are you?'" Mark answered. "Tell him ninety-nine," the skipper gravely pursued, giving his ship's number.

Mark spelt out the reply with his flags, knowing that the inquiry and the expected response were merely preliminary. There was a pause; then again the semaphore was worked, and Darby read the message:

You will proceed at once to the position marked Z on your chart, and begin operations, working in parallels from N.E. to S.W. Please repeat.

Mark repeated the message, doing it much quicker then the semaphore had done. The skipper then signalled to his consorts to lift their anchors, and in a very little time the flotilla of mine-sweepers was steaming away between the Forelands and the Goodwins and across the Straits.

The position marked on the chart was to the southward of the British mine-field and off the Belgian coast.

Other trawlers joined in the work of sweeping for explosive mines which were believed to have been laid by the enemy from boats sent out secretly from Zeebrugge and Ostend. For a long time none were found, but as the searchers drew nearer to the Belgian coast one after another was brought up and exploded. On the second day three were exploded by the Dainty and her sweeping partner, the Veronica, and Darby Catchpole realised by experience that mine-sweeping was in actuality a sternly-strenuous, arduous, and exceedingly hazardous calling.

As they worked nearer and nearer to the Belgian coast, ominous sounds came to them across the intervening sea; sounds that told them of the ceaseless warfare on the land. The air was filled with the deep-throated booming of heavy guns, the bursting of high-explosive shells and of shrapnel.

With an almost superhuman effort, the Germans were attempting to make themselves masters of the coast and seaports of Northern France. They had concentrated enormous forces of men and heavy artillery, and were making a tremendous forward movement with the intention of getting round the Allies' left flank and cutting off their communications with England and the Channel.

If, by taking Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne, they could command the Straits of Dover, an invasion of Great Britain would, they believed, be simple. They might lay a double field of mines across from shore to shore with a clear way between, through which their crowded transport barges could pass under cover of their batteries of enormous guns.

It was the narrowest part of the straits, between Calais and Dover, which they most earnestly coveted. Calais was their great objective, and they had begun to boast of the victory which they felt certain they must soon achieve. They were already in possession of the Belgian coast. Their trenches were dug close to the sea, supported by their big guns concealed among the sand dunes. From the sea itself there could be no danger, since the water was too shallow to admit of British battleships coming within range, and, besides, the sea was thickly sown with German explosive mines.

It was in counting upon the shallowness of the water off the coast that they made their great mistake. No Dreadnought could come within range, it is true; but there are other vessels than Dreadnoughts capable of carrying heavy guns, though perhaps the Germans had not thought to find them off Nieuport.

The crew of the mine-sweeper Dainty had had their curiosity aroused by the sight of three peculiar-looking steamers flying the White Ensign, which came to anchor near them one Saturday evening.

Darby Catchpole was particularly interested in them. They were small vessels, of hardly more than a thousand tons. Their low hulls and their upper works, including the funnel and ventilators, were oddly painted in grey and white to confuse the eye and add to their invisibility.

"They look like river craft," said Darby. "I shouldn't wonder if they drew no more than four feet of water, even with the weight of their guns."

He was right about their being river craft. They had been built for the Brazilian Government for use in shoal water. Their sides were heavily armoured. Each mounted an armament of two 6-inch guns, two howitzers, four 3-pounders, and six quick-firing guns, and she could discharge a ton and a half of metal every minute.

These were the ships—monitors they were called—with which the British Navy was prepared to prove that the waters off the Flemish coast were not too shallow to admit of heavy guns coming within range of the German trenches. With their shallow draught they could defy the enemy's submarines, whose torpedoes were set to run about twelve feet below the surface, and they could move to and fro, confusing the aim of the Germans' heavy artillery.

The monitors were supported by several old cruisers, gunboats, and destroyers, French as well as British, and, much to the surprise of Harry Snowling and his crew, the trawlers also were ordered to take their part in the operations. They formed the advance guard to search for hostile submarines or possible mines, and to spy out the positions of the German batteries by drawing their fire, while the Allies' aeroplanes made observations from the air.

Suddenly the three monitors, coming within range, opened fire with their 6-inch guns and howitzers, and it was then that the Germans had the surprise of their lives.

Steaming backward and forward parallel with the coast, the ships kept up a constant cannonade, dropping their lyddite shells with precision into the enemy's trenches, smashing their batteries and spreading havoc and destruction.

The Germans brought down their heaviest guns to the shore and returned the fire in an attempt to drive off the ships. But all their efforts against moving targets were in vain.

They sent out submarines from their hiding places in the Belgian canals; but these, too, were of no avail. The crushing cannonade from the British ships could not be silenced, and there was no alternative but for the Germans to abandon their positions and evacuate a large extent of the country, after suffering terrible losses in material and men.

In the course of this bombardment of the enemy's right flank, the British trawlers were active in sweeping for mines sown by the German submarines. This was perilous work, as it brought the little vessels into the zone of fire. Only one of them, however, was hit, and this happened to be the Dainty.

An enemy aeroplane had been flying over the ships, trying to drop bombs on them. Mark Redisham and Darby Catchpole were watching when they saw a French monoplane rise from the Allies' lines beyond a point of the land and give chase to the German Taube.

The two machines circled about like a pair of swallows, mounting and descending, swooping this way and that. The pursuit lasted fully half an hour when at length the Taube made a determined dash at the monoplane as if to ram it.

Very dexterously the French pilot swerved and ranged his machine up beside his adversary, the expanded wings almost touching. Four spurts of fire were seen. Then the monoplane ascended in a spiral, while the Taube began to drop, quivering like a wounded bird.

Plunging sideways, it turned over and fell down, down with a splash into the sea, midway between the Dainty and the land.

Skipper Snowling put on full steam and steered towards it, to rescue the pilot if he should still be alive.

Immediately one of the German heavy guns on the shore opened fire upon the trawler. Snowling altered his course and bore outward. This saved his boat from the first shell, which fell astern; but a second, from a smaller gun, crashed into her frail hull, and that was the end of her.

In a cloud of smoke and escaping steam Darby and Mark found themselves struggling to swim clear of the wreckage. Neither of them was hurt. They both wore their safety collars and life-belts, and both were good swimmers. But what of their shipmates?

One of the deck hands came to the surface and Darby grabbed at his arm.

"All right, bor," the man cried, shaking the water from his hair. "Look arter yourself. Make for the monitor that's bearin' down on us."

Mark and Darby swam about for a while and soon discovered the skipper trying to raise the cook's head above water.

"He's done for," said Snowling. "We can only leave him, poor fellow. But Tom Beckett's behind you, see if you can help him and keep him afloat."

The monitor was close at hand now, firing her howitzers landward as she approached. She dropped a boat, and five of the Dainty's crew were picked up. Eight were either drowned or killed. The survivors were transferred to the Veronica and taken home to Haddisport, while the ships continued their bombardment of the enemy's batteries, although already there was reason to believe that the German plan of seizing Dunkirk and Calais had been successfully frustrated.

The Royal Navy had proved once again the truth of the old saying that it can go anywhere and do anything. But it was soon to prove in a yet more signal manner that Britain's sovereignty of the seas was no mere idle boast, but a glorious reality.

CHAPTER XXIX.

MAX MEETS THE ADMIRAL.

"Ach, my dear Max, how it rejoices me once again to see you!"

Ever since the perilous moment on board the doomed German battleship in the Bight of Heligoland, when Max Hilliger had saved his uncle's life, Admiral von Hilliger had shown a peculiarly affectionate regard for his nephew. In his estimation Max was not only a relative to be proud of, but a hero worthy of high favour, an officer whose knowledge of seamanship, whose patriotism and resourcefulness made him of inestimable value in the Kaiser's naval service.

Had Max happened to be a few years older, he might have counted upon rapid promotion; he might even, in spite of his inexperience and lack of technical training, have been given the full command of a submarine, or been appointed as a Zeppelin officer, charged with the duty of voyaging in an airship across to England to drop incendiary bombs upon enemy towns.

But owing to his extreme youth he could not at present hold a higher rank than that of midshipman, even though his actual duties were those of a sub-lieutenant.

Still, as Max himself realised, it was better to be serving as a junior officer in a submarine and doing important work for the Fatherland than to be tramping the quarter-deck of an idle battleship with no immediate chance of fighting.

They had met now, quite unexpectedly, on the quay at Brunsbuttel, at the western outlet of the Kiel Canal. Max had just come ashore from the U50, which had entered from the sea and been moored alongside of other submarines within the massive lock gates. He had been marching along the stone parapet, feeling very important in his naval uniform, with its gold lace and brass buttons, and proudly conscious of the Iron Cross which dangled conspicuously from his expanded chest.

Seamen and marines saluted him ceremoniously as he strode proudly past them; he, himself, saluted all officers of higher rank than his own. As he turned sharply round the corner of the custom-house, he came almost full tilt against Admiral von Hilliger, resplendent in gold lace, medals, epaulettes, and cocked hat, and escorted by two flag officers.

Max clipped his heels together and saluted. The admiral flung out his arms.

"Ach, my dear Max," he cried, embracing the embarrassed midshipman, "how it rejoices me once again to see you! It is good we have met. In one hour I should have been gone across to Wilhelmshaven, and you would have missed me. Come! You will take midday eating with me. There is much that we have to say to each other."

Max followed him and the two officers through intricate passages between huge stacks of ammunition boxes and naval stores, and across an open pavement to the front of an hotel. Here the two officers stood aside, and Max went past them with his uncle up the steps and into a little room whose windows looked out upon the grey estuary of the Elbe and the distant fleet.

Admiral von Hilliger turned the key of the door, glanced behind a curtain, and even into a cupboard, to assure himself that he was alone with his nephew; then took his stand in front of the stove and lighted a very long cigar.

"During the seven minutes before lunch," he began, "we will talk business. What have you been doing in the past two weeks? How many more of the mischievous enemy's ships have you sunk with your brave submarine?"

Max did not answer immediately.

"Lieutenant Körner has prepared his report," he said presently. "I am his subordinate. It is not for me to account for what he has done. We have not been idle."

"But Lieutenant Körner is not here," pursued the admiral, "and I wish to know what ships have been sunk. How many of their dreadnoughts have you sent to the bottom of the German Ocean since last we met?"

"None, sir," Max answered. "Those which we have seen have been too well guarded for us to approach them within striking distance. We sank a Swedish steamer carrying timber to the Thames, a British collier coming out of the Tyne. We lay in wait three days to torpedo a Harwich passenger boat, which slipped past us, after all. Many steamers have escaped us by their higher speed and their manoeuvring. Even the English patrol-trawlers now carry guns; but we have accounted for four of them."

"Good," nodded the admiral. "I would have every one of their wretched fishing boats swept off the seas. They are our worst enemies. Do not be deceived by their seeming innocence, my dear Max. While they are fishing, they are also watching and carrying information. Sink them—sink them without warning, without mercy. Naturally you have not allowed any of their crews to escape?"

Max glanced into the admiral's red-bearded face.

"But yes," he admitted. "In each case we have given them time to take to their boats."

"Thunder and lightning!" exclaimed his uncle, stamping a heavy foot. "This will not do. You must not permit your ridiculous scruples of humanity to interfere with your duty—the duty of sinking every vessel you can find, with every one in her. Let none escape. Remember that every ship now sailing the seas is either an enemy or a friend of the enemy, whose purpose it is to help the hateful English and to do harm to our beloved Fatherland!"

He puffed desperately at his cigar as if with the intention of finishing it as speedily as possible.

"Listen, my dear Max," he went on. "In future you shall put aside all scruple. Give no warning of your intentions, give no time for escape; but with gun or torpedo, sink, sink, sink without a moment's mercy!"

Max had fixed his gaze into the glowing coals of the open stove. Suddenly he looked up once again into his uncle's face.

"But, suppose, sir, that there are women and children in the ship; are they, too, to be sacrificed?" he quietly asked.

Admiral von Hilliger gasped in astonishment at the suggestion.

"Women?" he cried. "Will you never understand that women can be as mischievous as men? Do you not realise that our enemies' children will grow up to be enemy men and women? Bah! Do not make such a mistake. We are engaged in war, and war has its necessities. The British people know their own danger. If they go upon the seas, it is at their own risks. We cannot discriminate between the innocent and the guilty. All, indeed, are guilty if they so much as set foot upon a British ship."

He strode to and fro restlessly in front of the stove.

"And now," he pursued, after a pause, "what else have you done? What have you learnt of the enemy's navy? You have been along their coasts; you have entered their rivers and peeped into their harbours. Where are their battleships?"

"It would be easier to tell you where they are not," returned Max. "They are not assembled in the Straits of Dover, or off the Dogger Bank, or off Haddisport. We have not been able to find them. And yet, mein Herr, I will undertake to say that if our own Great High Sea Fleet were to sally out beyond the protection of our mine-fields it would not go far before a squadron of British Dreadnoughts flashed out to give battle."

Admiral von Hilliger laughed awkwardly.

"My dear Max," he said with forced lightness, "I perceive that you are still tainted with your false ideas of Britain's strength upon the seas. You must remember that our German fleet is as yet practically intact. We are as strong as we were at the beginning of the war, and as ready to meet the British whenever they choose to come out of their hiding-places. What you tell me is satisfactory, however. You assure me once again that the enemy are in close hiding and that they are afraid to come out and meet us in a pitched battle. Your remark that they will pounce upon us, once we leave the protection of our mine-fields, is very funny. Already they have proved many times that they prefer the security of their own harbours rather than the risk of facing our guns. We have given them chances; we will give them chances again. But not in the way they would wish. Listen, my dear Max, I will tell you something."

Max went nearer to him. The admiral cautiously lowered his voice.

"Our agents have been doing good work," he said. "Helped by your all-knowing father, they have given away information upon which the British Admiralty will act. The information, I need hardly tell you, is false and misleading. But what would you? War is war, and to deceive and mislead your enemy is one of the essentials of successful strategy. Is it not true? Well, then, we have to-day issued a secret report that a squadron of our battleships has crept out, and is now cruising off the coast of Norway. The Norwegian people have helped us by declaring that already they have heard the thunder of our naval guns at sea. An hour ago, we received word that the British Fleet has gone off in force towards Norway."

"Yes," Max nodded. "It has gone out on what we call a wild-goose chase, you mean? But in what way shall we benefit?"

Admiral von Hilliger puffed more vigorously than ever at his cigar.

"Is it not obvious to you, my dear?" he questioned. "By alluring them out of their harbours, we make our path clear. We take our great ships across to England and do our worst. It is all arranged. We start to-day—this evening. To-morrow morning, while their gunboats are vainly searching for a phantom fleet in Norwegian waters, our invincible battleships will be engaged in firing their shells into the fortified seaports of Newcastle and Hull."

Max Hilliger allowed himself to smile.

"It is a mere detail that neither Hull nor Newcastle happens to be a fortified town," he ventured. "But there will be no military advantage in such a bombardment. The sinking of one battle cruiser would be to us worth the destruction of half a dozen towns. What good did we do by smashing a few windows in Haddisport? We gained nothing to balance the waste of ammunition and the loss of one of our own ships that ran up against one of our own floating mines! Believe me, my uncle, the English people are not easily frightened. It will take more than an hour's bombardment of their seaside villas to put them in a state of panic."

"In that case," returned the admiral, "we shall take yet stronger measures to convince them of our frightfulness. This time, we shall take with us our most powerful battleships. We shall show them that it is we and not they who hold command of the seas."

He flung his unfinished cigar into the stove and drew his nephew to the window.

"Look once out there," he said, pointing across the sea to where the Kaiser's fleet could be dimly seen on the far horizon. "If the contemptible English could but open their eyes upon those ships, do you suppose that they would any longer dare to boast of their own paltry navy? Ach, my dear Max, wait! To-morrow you shall see!"

CHAPTER XXX.

DREADNOUGHT AGAINST DREADNOUGHT.

In the afternoon of that same bleak January day the U50 was warped out of the Kiel Canal. Her petrol tanks had been filled, she had taken in fresh water and stores, and now she was bound for Heligoland, there to receive a new supply of torpedoes and explosive bombs before resuming her work of preying upon merchant shipping in the British Seas.

From the cliffs of the fortified island, Max Hilliger watched the squadron of German battleships going out. There were four great Dreadnought cruisers—Brandenburg, Lessing, Mozart, and Goethe—with six light cruisers of the Kotzbue class, and a flotilla of torpedo-boat destroyers. As they threaded their way through the secret lanes of the mine-field, he could hear their bands playing patriotic German music. He watched them until they disappeared into the night darkness.

They were timed so that by steaming across the North Sea at twenty-five knot speed they would be within gun-range of the English coast at earliest dawn.

Until shortly after midnight, when, with all lights out, they were crossing the Dogger Bank, the German commanders had no suspicion that their movements had been observed. Even with the most careful watch they failed to detect the low black shapes of a patrol of British destroyers rushing westward in advance of them.

At half-past seven on that wintry Sunday morning, the destroyers were already in communication with a great squadron of British Dreadnoughts and cruisers assembled, with steam up, hardly a score of miles ahead of them to the north-west. Signals were flashed back to the flotilla to give chase to the enemy, and, while keeping him in sight, report his movements.

Rodney Redisham was in his bunk in the light cruiser Dauntless when the bugle sounded "General Quarters." He dressed quickly in his warmest winter clothing and went up on deck. There was a film of mist across the sea. The air was very cold, and a powder of rime frost lay white upon the rails, the gun covers, and all upper works.

"The enemy is out!" one of his fellow midshipmen gleefully told him. "I believe we have nabbed him, this time."

Every man of the ship's company was alert and inwardly excited at the prospect of an engagement. The decks were cleared for action, guns were loaded; everything was got ready. Rodney climbed up to the forward fire-control platform.

From this position he could see the whole of the British battle squadron as the ships took their places in the line of pursuit, led by the vice-admiral's big flagship, the Saturn. She was closely followed by the Avenger, the Patroclus, the Tremendous, and the Auckland—five formidable floating fortresses, each carrying eight 13.5-inch guns. Supporting these Dreadnoughts were the Sarpedon, the Athene, the Rutland, and other light cruisers, escorted by destroyers. They were steering to the south-east, working up their speed to a uniform twenty-five knots.

Word soon came back from the advance scouts that the enemy had turned tail. The Germans had rightly judged that a small flotilla of destroyers would not alone and unsupported give chase to a squadron of great battleships, but that they were the screen of a larger force.

Admiral von Hilliger had boasted that he was thirsty to come to grips with the British fleet, but he was less eager now that his valour was put to the test. He could bring out a squadron to bombard undefended towns, but, menaced by an enemy who could hit back, he realised that his game was up. And so, turning tail, he ran off on a bee line for the shelter of Heligoland and its protecting mine-fields.

The black smoke from his squadron's funnels was seen blurring the clean line of the horizon. There were about a hundred and twenty miles of open sea between him and safety, and behind him, like a pack of vengeful wolves at his heels, rushed an enemy squadron swifter and more formidable than his own.

And now the British ships, forming into line abreast and avoiding the immediate wake of the Germans, piled up yet more steam, tearing through the water with their bows smothered in white spray as their whirling turbines worked up their speed to the twenty-eight knot gait of which the slowest vessel was capable.

Long before they came within sight of their quarry, every man was at his battle station. All were behind armour: the fire-control parties at their instruments, the gun-layers with their guns ready to train upon the first visible target, the hydraulic engines in the turrets pumping and grunting.

The chase across the Dogger Bank was a long one; but the greater speed of the British ships steadily lessened the dividing distance, the confused cloud of smoke gradually separated into distinct plumes, masts and funnels took shape, and at length the enemy's hulls loomed into view and the guns began to speak.

The ranges were sent down from the fire-control platforms, the dials indicated what projectiles were to be used. It was each ship to its kind, Dreadnought against Dreadnought, cruiser against cruiser, destroyer against destroyer.

The Saturn, leading the British line, opened fire upon the Goethe, the slowest and rearmost, as well as the biggest of the German battleships. With a crimson flash and a dense burst of smoke from their muzzles, the two great guns in the flagship's forward turret thundered forth, and two monster lyddite shells seemed to tear the very air into ribbons as they went screeching through the mist with their message of challenge.

Following the flagship came the mighty Avenger, with the Patroclus close on her heels, the Tremendous next, and then the Auckland.

Very soon the Saturn overhauled the slow Goethe, and in passing gave her a broadside, which carried away her bridge and caused frightful damage on board. But the Saturn's chosen quarry was far ahead, and she sped on with ever-increasing speed with the object of bringing to action the fastest ships of the fugitive enemy.

Already it was obvious that the Goethe was doomed. Each of the British battleships as she passed gave her a broadside, leaving her to be finally dealt with by the light cruisers.

The chase had continued for over two hours. Far in advance, the British Dreadnoughts were engaged in a fierce running fight with the German battleships, pounding them incessantly.

The fire of the Brandenburg and the Lessing grew weaker and weaker. Masses of flames were sweeping their decks, their upper works were a confusion of wreckage. All that their commanders could hope for now was to reach the sanctuary of the German mine-field before their relentless foes should overtake and totally destroy them.

The third vessel in the German line, the Mozart, suffered even more severely. She had come under the long-range fire of each of the British battleships in turn. One after another her guns had been smashed out of action until she was silenced and could do no more than steam desperately for shelter, with the whole of her after-deck ablaze. Boats were launched, and many of her people jumped overboard to escape the awful inferno.

In the meantime, the British flagship was running perilously near to the German mine-field. At any moment there might be a terrific explosion under her keel. Yet still she went on. So thick was the air around her with black oil-smoke and the dense fumes from her guns that she sent out her signals by flashlight.

One of the Mozart's crowded lifeboats fell into her track. Her course was promptly altered, and there was the curious spectacle of a great battleship, while firing death and destruction into an enemy, steering aside to avoid running down one of that enemy's boats.

To the risk of hitting an explosive mine was added the danger from several submarines which had come out from Heligoland to cover the retreat of the battleships. The U50 was amongst them, and Max Hilliger, helping Lieutenant Körner, very nearly succeeded in planting a torpedo in the Saturn's hull.

The pursuit could not be continued with safety, and accordingly the three damaged Dreadnoughts were allowed to escape beyond range, while the Saturn turned her attention to the enemy cruisers in their wake, working round to head them off and drive them down upon the English light cruisers hotly pursuing them.

It was while the British flagship was thus engaged that a shell from the Wurzburg struck her below the water-line, so damaging one of her feed tanks that her speed was reduced and she was obliged to call for assistance. The Patroclus at once took her in tow, and her withdrawal from the battle enabled the German light cruisers to escape.

There was no ship in the whole of the British squadron which was not at some time engaged with an opponent; but not one German vessel gave as much as she received. Most of them were seriously crippled, and many of them had the greatest difficulty in limping home.

The fate of the Goethe was sealed from the first. Although she was the biggest of the German ships, she was at the same time the slowest, and she had been left behind to bear her own burden unhelped.

The guns of ship after ship had been turned upon her with terrible effect. Shells had been poured upon her from all quarters, spreading devastation on board and death amongst her crew. It was only the great strength of her armoured belt which enabled her for so long to withstand the battering she received from the British heavy guns, and still to keep afloat.

Her upper works were smashed out of all semblance to the fittings of a ship. Amidships, she was a raging furnace; yet she still floated on an even keel, sinking very slowly, while from her bent and shattered mast her flag bravely fluttered.

The Dauntless approached her, circling round. From his post in the fire-control, Rodney Redisham could see the men crowded on the doomed battleship's after-decks. They were waiting for the expected end, all wearing lifebelts. Then, as the Dauntless came abreast of her, a torpedo was fired. It crashed through the thick plates amidships.

The Goethe shuddered, and heeled over until her decks were almost awash. There was a sudden roar as she turned on her side. Then with a plunge she went to the bottom.

This was the end of the great battle, and the British light cruisers and destroyers devoted themselves to the work of picking up survivors.

They were thus occupied when a huge airship and a number of aeroplanes came out from Heligoland. Avoiding the battleships and cruisers, which might have turned their guns upon them, the aircraft made for the destroyers and attacked them by dropping bombs into their midst. The work of rescue could not be continued under such an attack, and the destroyers scattered, each with its party of rescued Germans.

None of the British ships had been damaged beyond repair, and the number of casualties was very small. An officer and fourteen men had been killed, and three officers and about thirty men were wounded. Greater speed, greater weight and range of guns, and better marksmanship had told in favour of the British.

The Germans, indeed, had received a very sound and thorough whipping in punishment for their attempt to rush over to England and bombard undefended towns. But more than all they received a proof of Great Britain's invincible power upon the seas.

It was not until many days afterwards that Max Hilliger again met his uncle in one of the corridors of the German naval headquarters in Wilhelmshaven.

"Well, my dear Max," began the admiral, "and what is now your opinion of your friends the English? We gave them a pretty run for their money, eh?"

Max nodded, not being quite sure of his uncle's humour.

"And they appear to have caught you, mein Herr," he responded. "Our ships have not such speed as theirs. That is a grave disadvantage."

Admiral von Hilliger shrugged his shoulders.

"In future we shall use oil fuel," he said. "The necessary alteration in our machinery will be quite easy."

"Then there is their superiority in guns, sir," ventured Max. "Their guns not only throw a heavier shell than ours, but they are also of much longer range. I am told that the Goethe was smashed almost to pieces before she could so much as touch one of the British Dreadnoughts."

"That fault can be remedied," declared the admiral. "Already we are having larger guns made. And, remember, we are having many new ships built. They will have guns such as the English have never dreamt of."

"And in the meantime," said Max, "I suppose our great fleet will lie idle in the Kiel Canal?"

"In the meantime," rejoined the admiral, "we have our Zeppelins and our submarines. Make no mistake, my dear Max, Great Britain's attempt to blockade our ports will not affect us in the least. We, on the contrary, can starve Great Britain. We shall throw a ring of submarines all round their wretched islands, so that no single ship can enter or leave their seaports."

Max smiled.

"They will be equal with us, even then," he boldly declared. "With submarines you cannot hope to hold command of the seas. Besides, to prey upon merchant shipping—neutral ships as well as British—is not war, it is rank piracy."

Admiral von Hilliger laughed.

"Piracy?" he repeated. "In that case, you shall yourself be one of our pirate chiefs. You shall fly the Jolly Roger. But I do not care what you call yourself so long as you make yourself a terror of the seas. It is what His Majesty the Kaiser wishes you to be. He wishes you to sink their hateful Dreadnoughts, their troopships, their fishing boats, their cargo steamers, and even their passenger liners, wherever they can be found."

Max looked up into his uncle's puffy blue eyes.

"Their passenger liners?" he repeated in amazement. "Do you say that such is the Kaiser's wish? But that would be murder!"

"Hush! my dear Max," cried the admiral. "We must not call it by so unpleasant a name as that. The whole thing is very different if we call it simply submarine warfare."

"And suppose I refuse?" demanded Max.

Again Admiral von Hilliger shrugged his shoulders.

"Then you will be arrested for mutiny," he declared coldly. "And the penalty for mutiny is death. Do you understand? The penalty is an ignominious death."

Max was silent for some moments. At last he said:

"I prefer to suffer the penalty."

But already the admiral had turned away, not hearing the words.

CHAPTER XXXI.

SUBMARINES AT WORK.

"Glad to see as you're able to get about again, sir."

Constable Challis, patrolling the esplanade, had come to a halt beside an invalid's bath-chair in which old Mr. Croucher sat, gripping an unopened newspaper in his thin, white fingers. The bath-chair had been drawn up against the rail so that the invalid might have an uninterrupted view of the sea. Not far from it a boy in Sea Scout's uniform stood watching a company of Territorials busily digging trenches on the lower level of the denes.

"It must be quite a couple of months since you was out here last," continued the policeman.

"It is just two months and three days," returned Mr. Croucher, leaning back with a weary sigh. "It was on the morning after the first Zeppelin raid, you remember. Yes, I am much better; but this last attack has been quite the worst I have known—rheumatism, Challis, rheumatism. I should hardly have come out even on a fine morning like this, only that Seth Newruck, here, kindly offered to wheel my bath-chair, my man having enlisted."

He paused as if exhausted by so long a speech.

"I see changes, Challis," he resumed. "Many changes. Most of the villas are tenantless. People are at last realising the danger of an invasion. Even Mrs. Daplin-Gennery has taken flight. Where has she gone, Challis?"

"Buxton, sir," the constable answered.

"Ah, well inland! The enemy will not reach so far as that until England is conquered."

"Which isn't at all likely," added Challis.

"I don't feel so sure about that," retorted Mr. Croucher. "Everything seems to point to the probability that the Germans will land sooner or later. Look at what the War Office are doing here! Look at that long line of trenches and the breastworks. Look at all these soldiers!"

"Yes, sir," nodded the constable, "we're beginnin' to look quite military, aren't we?"

"Military? I call it desperately warlike," declared the invalid. "Those trenches are not being so carefully dug merely to give training to the Territorials. They are being made for military use. Such elaborate defences would be a waste of time and material if there were not grave danger. It is clear that the authorities expect them to land just here."

Constable Challis leant his folded arms on the rail.

"You may take it from me, sir," he said, reassuringly, "that it's only a reasonable precaution. The same sort of defence work is going on at other places—at Buremouth and Eastwold."

But Mr. Croucher shook his head obstinately.

"Not to the same extent, Challis," he insisted. "I am told that there are twenty thousand soldiers assembled within easy reach of Haddisport. That is not simple precaution. It is preparation—preparation for an armed resistance. And look at these stockades and redoubts, or whatever they call them—battlements—fortifications! Look at the loopholes for heavy guns, and the sandbags! I suppose the guns themselves are lying ready somewhere close at hand, with the shells to fire them with."

"Yes, sir," Challis nodded. "They are all handy in the grounds of Sunnydene. Tons of 'em."

"Dear me, dear me!" said Mr. Croucher in consternation.

Seth Newruck had turned the bath-chair so that its occupant could have a fuller view of the embrasures and their connecting palisades of corrugated iron. "It isn't so very long ago, sir," Seth reminded him mischievously, "since you argued that there ought to be heavy guns stationed all along the East Coast. And now that they are putting up a few fortifications, you take alarm."

"Alarm?" repeated Mr. Croucher. "But isn't it enough to cause alarm? Why, it's just as good as an advertisement of the fact that the enemy's transports and cruisers may be expected any day, any hour!"

"What amuses me," added Constable Challis, "is that all those packin' cases which they have filled with sea sand, makin' them like blocks of granite, are really fish boxes belongin' to the Germans themselves. Before the war they were the property of a firm of German fish curers. You can read the name of 'Hilliger and Co.' on every one of 'em!"

"Hilliger? Ah!" cried Mr. Croucher, "That man Hilliger, I am convinced, has been working towards this war for years past. He ought never to have been allowed to carry on his business in Haddisport. It was only a blind—a blind to cover his underhand work of spying and intrigue. Where is he now, Challis—do you know?"

"Over in his own country, I suppose," answered the constable. "But here's young Mark Redisham comin' along. He knows a lot more about these things than I do."

Mark Redisham had paused to look out upon the sea at a patrol trawler in which he appeared to be greatly interested. When he came nearer and saw Seth Newruck and the two men he saluted and again paused.

"The enemy seem to have been pretty close," he observed, speaking especially to his fellow scout.

"Yes," returned Seth. "It looks as if there were a submarine somewhere near."

"And it has been doing some damage," rejoined Mark.

"Eh? What's that?" interrogated Mr. Croucher. "A German submarine? Where? How do you know?"

Mark explained, indicating the trawler.

"Well, sir," he said. "She's flying the signal to say so. That red flag with the ball beneath it means that there's a submarine in the neighbourhood. But as well as that, she has more men in her than her own crew. I expect she has rescued them from some ship that the submarine has torpedoed."

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mr. Croucher. "We shall have no ships left soon if this sort of thing goes on much longer! Can't the navy put a stop to it? Even the enemy's battleships are doing less harm than their submarines. It's simply terrible!"

"Between ourselves," remarked Constable Challis, "it's nothing but silly spite and disappointment that makes them sink our ships. They can't touch our cruisers now, so they sneak about sendin' our merchant vessels to the bottom. Yesterday I came upon some boys tryin' to get at a bird's nest. When they saw they couldn't manage it, they began to throw stones at it. That's the way the Germans do. Silly spite; that's all."

Mark Redisham went down the town, keeping step with a battalion of Territorials marching behind their band. When he arrived at the harbour the trawler which he had watched from the cliff was coming in. She had picked up sixteen men drifting in open boats. Their ship, the Priscilla, a cargo steamer bound for one of the northern ports, had been sunk by an enemy submarine.

Early in the morning the Priscilla had been going under easy steam when a submarine had come to the surface a little distance away on the starboard side, hoisting the German flag and signalling to the steamer to stop.

Instead of obeying, the English captain put on full speed and steered a zig-zag course with such skill that the submarine soon dropped astern, unable to keep pace with him or to aim at him with her torpedoes or even her deck guns.

The captain was congratulating himself and his engineer on their lucky escape when suddenly a second submarine popped up right in front of his vessel's bows. This time he was obliged to stop his engines, for he saw a gun rise from its chamber on the submarine's deck. Two officers stood on the platform of the conning-tower.

One of them called out in perfect English, asking where the steamer was bound for, what was her cargo, and where was the British fleet?

"I'm sorry to cause inconvenience," the German added, "but you must remember this is war. I shall have to sink you. I will give you ten minutes to get clear of the steamer. Get as many of your belongings together as you can and take to your boats."

While the crew were hastily putting their clothing and personal possessions into their kit bags, and launching the two boats, the captain was ordered to produce his ship's papers. He observed as the submarine drew alongside that both officers wore the Iron Cross, and that one of them was hardly more than a boy.

"You can take some food and water with you," said the younger, "and if you steer north-west you will probably come upon some fishing boats that may help you."

The crew had rowed a short distance away from their steamer when they saw a couple of German sailors go on board of her with what looked like explosive bombs. A few minutes afterwards they returned empty-handed, the submarine backed away. There was a loud explosion on board the Priscilla and she rapidly sank.

The submarine then went off at high speed, and as she did so a couple of dummy funnels were raised on her deck, false bulwarks at bow and stern were rigged up, and with a pair of masts and with smoke curling from the funnels she had all the appearance of a heavily laden steamer.

"You didn't happen to notice her number, did you, captain?" Arnold Bilverstone inquired, when the master of the Priscilla was narrating his experience to the officers in the naval base at Haddisport.

"Well, it was painted over," the captain explained, "and an eye was painted in its stead. But under the paint I could make out the raised figures U50."

"Then the younger of those two officers was Max Hilliger," decided Mark Redisham; and Mr. Bilverstone agreed.

Later on that same day, or rather in the evening, Mark Redisham was again at the naval base. Just at about dusk a wireless message was received, intimating that two enemy submarines were in the neighbourhood.

The air was calm and clear and the sea smooth. Half a dozen of the most powerful telescopes and marine glasses were engaged by as many expert watchers in sweeping the sea, while at the end of the pier a naval gun was charged and a crew of experienced marksmen were at the breech ready to train it on the instant if the Germans' periscopes should be sighted.

Mark Redisham was the first to discover a ripple on the water some three miles away, but it was one of the officers who determined that the ripple was caused by the movement of a half-submerged submarine. It was apparently making towards Alderwick Roads, where half a dozen patrol trawlers lay at anchor.

The light was gradually fading, but the moving target was still visible. The gun was laid. For months back, at intervals, it had been brought into practice upon a mark less easily seen than the one upon which it was pointed at this moment, and the gunner who now controlled its aim had never been known to fail.

The lever was pressed. The shell shrieked forth. Then there was a terrific explosion which shook the windows of the town as the submarine was struck and sent to its doom.

An electric launch was sent out to pick up possible survivors, but all that could be seen was a slimy film of oil on the water's surface.

From the pier as the boat went out, the periscopes of the second submarine were sighted, but before the gun could be trained it had disappeared.

CHAPTER XXXII.

U50'S WORST CRIME.

"This second submarine was the U50.

"It's that naval gun on Haddisport pier that I warned you of," said Max Hilliger, as the vessel submerged and her electric motors were turned on. "We ought not to have come in so close. I believe those mine-sweepers in the Roads must have discovered us. Most of them are fitted with wireless masts. No, it's no use trying to rescue our friends. They couldn't have escaped after an explosion like that. We had better remain submerged and get away from the coast as quickly as we can."

Lieutenant Körner was inconsolable over the loss of the other submarine. They had been working in partnership for several days past, sinking fishing boats more especially and using explosive bombs rather than wasting expensive torpedoes.

This use of bombs had necessitated the stopping of their intended victims. Having stopped and boarded them, there had always come the difficulty of dealing with their crews.

If you send a torpedo into an enemy ship from a discreet distance there is no question of sparing life. A submarine could not in any case encumber herself with prisoners. But when you have to speak to the vessel's skipper and have been polite to him, the matter is different. Even a German commander can hardly refuse to give him and his ship's company a chance of saving their lives.

Max Hilliger was greatly in favour of using bombs. He did not advance any serious scruples against the destruction of property; but he had been educated in England, he still retained a sense of honour and fairness, and he drew the line at taking the lives of innocent and unoffending seamen.

This was the rock upon which he and Lieutenant Hermann Körner split. Körner was not burdened with any of his subordinate's English ideas of humanity. He hated the English, and everything British. Like most Germans, he had persuaded himself that the war had been begun entirely by Great Britain; that Germany had never wanted to go to war. He resolutely closed his mind to the fact that his country had for many years been preparing for war, and seeking for a cause to pick a quarrel with Great Britain so that, being fully prepared, she might fall upon her and smash her.

Above all, he hated Great Britain because of her supremacy upon the seas. She had put a stop to German commerce and held Germany's great navy in a firm grip; therefore he considered that it was his highest patriotic duty to go about stealthily in his submarine destroying British shipping regardless of whether the ships he sank were armed for defence or were peaceful, unoffending fishing smacks.

He would have preferred it if all the vessels which came within reach of his torpedoes were ships of war; so that by sinking them he might lessen the overpowering strength of the British Navy.

But he had discovered long ago that the British naval officers and seamen were even more clever in protecting themselves from sudden attack than the Germans were in taking them by surprise.

Many times the U50 had been taken with other German submarines and torpedo boats to lie concealed in the narrow seas in the hope of being able to sink some of our transports carrying troops and munitions across to France; but they had always been frustrated or outwitted.

Lieutenant Körner found that it was much more easy to lurk submerged in the tideways of commerce and to attack undefended merchant ships or fishing boats. Had not Max Hilliger sometimes opposed him, he would never have allowed a crew to escape. Max, however, held to one unvarying argument.

"What we are ordered to do," he declared, "is to help to overcome the enemy by starvation—preventing their ships from carrying food and other merchandise into their seaports. And if we sink the ships and their cargoes there is no further advantage to be gained by taking also the lives of their crews. Give their men at least a chance to escape in their boats."

Sometimes when the vessel attacked was of little importance, and especially if she happened to be a neutral, Körner yielded and gave the crew time to abandon their doomed ship. But if the vessel were fitted with wireless masts, if she appeared to be armed, or if she offered any resistance, he showed no mercy, but came within gun range and opened fire upon her. It was only the very large ships against which he fired a torpedo. It is of one such exploit that I am now going to tell you.

Leaving the neighbourhood of Haddisport, the U50 crossed the North Sea and made her secret way down the Dutch coast to Flanders. Avoiding the British mine-field and keeping carefully out of the way of the British naval patrols, she was taken into the German submarine harbour at Zeebrugge, where she remained for some days, having her instruments cleaned and tested, her torpedo chambers replenished, and taking in stores for a long voyage.

Lieutenant Körner behaved rather mysteriously towards Max Hilliger during this time. He had many consultations with staff officers and with the commanders of other submarines, and refused to inform Max what was in the wind. All that he would admit was the fact that they were going out under sealed orders, which were not to be opened until they should reach a point somewhere to the westward of Land's End.

The point indicated on their chart was in the midst of the Scilly Islands. Here, on a certain very dark night, the U50 lay motionless in a calm channel, with only the upper part of her conning-tower above the surface, hardly distinguishable from the surrounding rocks. Hermann Körner was on watch with a pair of powerful binoculars.

"You appear to be expecting something," remarked Max Hilliger from below. "There can be no enemy ships in a dangerous corner like this."

"It is for that reason that I am watching," returned Körner. "Since there can be no enemy near, it is safe for us to enter into communication with our friends."

"Spies, I suppose," conjectured Max, peering upward through the darkness.

"Ah!" exclaimed Körner. "At last; I was searching in the wrong direction."

He drew an electric torch from his pocket and began to flash it. It was a wan, green light, which could not have been seen from a great distance. Körner returned the torch to his pocket, closed the trap door of the conning-tower, and descended into the cabin, humming the air of a German folk-song.

"Well?" said Max.

"It is all right," nodded Körner. "You can enjoy a good sleep, my friend. You will need it; because for some days and nights to come it is probable we shall both require to have very good eyesight."

Max turned into his bunk, but did not at once fall asleep. The intense silence and darkness kept him wakeful. He would much rather have been listening to the busy humming of the electric engines. At about midnight he turned on his pillow and spoke.

"Hermann!" he called.

There was no answer. He lay listening, and from one of the distant compartments there came to him the faint tap-tapping sound of the wireless instrument. It was too faint for him to hear distinctly enough to follow the message; and just as he was beginning to catch a word here and there, it stopped, and there was a long interval of silence, during which he fell asleep, not to be awakened again until late on the following morning. The petrol engines were at work, a dim gleam of daylight came in through the thick glass of an uncovered skylight. A servant was busy laying breakfast on the little table in the middle of the cabin.

"We are under weigh, then?" cried Max, speaking to the man in German.

"Ja, mein Herr. Since eight o'clock."

Max glanced up at the tell-tale compass above the table, and saw that the course was due west.

"It is the direction of America, mein Herr," said the servant, following his glance.

Max dressed and went out on deck. The dummy funnels and the false bulwarks were raised. There was a ragged red ensign flying from the mast. No land was in sight, and the sea was clear of shipping; but in the wake he presently discovered the swiftly moving periscopes of two other submarines. Lieutenant Körner was on deck, but there were seamen about, and Max suppressed his desire to go up to him and question him.

When they were alone together at breakfast, however, he leant across the table and said:

"Is there any particular reason why I should not know something of our destination, Herr Körner? I see that there are two others of our undersea boats in our company. Our purpose, whatever it is, must therefore be of importance."

"If it succeeds," returned Körner, breaking the top of an egg, "it will be the biggest, most important thing we have ever done, or are ever likely to do. It will send a thrill of astonishment over the whole world. It will prove that the Kaiser's brave submarines are more powerful weapons than any dreadnought that ever was built."

"You amaze me," said Max. "I do not understand. I cannot guess. We are making a course westward, leaving England behind. We appear to be going out into the Atlantic Ocean. It is not there that we shall find any British battleships."

Lieutenant Körner laughed.

"Let us hope not," he rejoined. "No, my dear friend. Believe me, it is not battleships that we seek."

"What then?" cried Max, nervously clutching at the edge of the table. "You do not mean—you cannot mean—that it is your intention to try to sink an Atlantic liner!"

"Well guessed!" laughed Körner. "We shall torpedo her—a great liner—the greatest liner—the Ruritania."

Max Hilliger leapt from his chair.

"What?" he cried. "Impossible! You cannot be serious."

"I was never more serious in my life," Körner assured him. "I tell you we are going to lie in her track—we and our two companion submarines. We shall station ourselves at three different points, one of which she must surely pass. And then, when she comes in sight, we shall creep nearer, unseen, unsuspected, and wait until she draws within range, when we shall take careful aim, making no mistake; and send our torpedoes into her. You see, it is war, my dear child; it is war."

Max Hilliger had turned suddenly pale; his eyes were staring wildly, his hands trembled.

"War?" he repeated. "Do you call it an act of war to sink a great steamship like that—a ship carrying no protective armour, no defensive guns, a ship crowded with innocent passengers, not all English, many of them Americans no doubt, probably scores of women and children. War? War? That is not war, Hermann Körner. It would have no excuse, no justification. It would be crime, I tell you—a horrible, fiendish crime. It would be murder."

Lieutenant Körner looked up at him with his egg-spoon poised.

"Calm yourself, my friend," he urged. "Call it what you will, that has nothing to do with you or with me. It is our part to do our duty by obeying our orders. And we have orders to sink this Ruritania. We shall obey."

Max shrugged his shoulders and sat down again, but not to eat.

"Oh, well!" he said presently. "After all, I need not distress myself perhaps. Her owners, her captain, her passengers have been warned. We shall not even see her. She will steam by another way, and even then be escorted by British cruisers. Otherwise—if I thought there was the merest chance of your doing this horrible thing—I should ask you to put me ashore on the nearest land, or I should pray that we ourselves should be sent to the bottom of the sea."

All the rest of that day and through the next night, while the U50 went on her way to take up her appointed position on the steamship route, Max Hilliger thought and brooded, wondering by what possible means he could avert the contemplated crime, even by the sacrifice of his own life.

He wondered if he could open some valve so that the submarine should never again rise to the surface; if he could secretly smash or disable some important piece of mechanism, or jam the torpedo tubes. But all the time he knew that if he should attempt such a thing there still remained the other two submarines, either of which might succeed where Hermann Körner had failed.

At length the appointed position was reached. The commander occupied himself in making calculations of time and distance. Again and again he examined his instruments and controls, again and again he went through a rehearsal of every act and movement which would be put into practice when, if at all, the fatal moment arrived. Had Max Hilliger tried to disable any of the mechanism he could not have succeeded, so carefully was everything watched, so constantly was he himself kept under observation.

He contrived as often as he could to be in the conning-tower; but Körner and the quarter-master were usually at the periscopes, and Max could only watch the two men, hoping, always hoping, that they would discover no sign of the expected liner. By their hardly suppressed excitement he knew that should she be keeping to her usual course and time, she was already due.

Suddenly Lieutenant Körner ordered "diving stations." The tanks were filled—the vessel was submerged, and she sped through the dark depths at the fullest speed of her electric motors for about a quarter of an hour, when she again rose. Telegraph signals were rung. The torpedo tubes were charged.

"Is it the Ruritania?" Max panted. He saw that the moment had come.

"Yes. Quick! Get down into the torpedo chamber."

Instead of obeying the command, Max Hilliger snatched his loaded automatic pistol from his belt and leapt like a maddened animal at the commander.

"Stop!" he shouted. "Stop! Touch that lever and I will shoot you!" He flung himself forward, but a blow from the quarter-master's fist struck him in the face and he wheeled round, lost his balance, and fell. The pistol dropped from his grasp. His brain reeled, yet half consciously he heard the command given: "Fire!" He felt the vessel give a jump as the torpedo left its tube. From somewhere far away he heard a deep, dull explosion. Then, as a second torpedo was discharged, he came to his fuller senses.

"It is done!" cried Lieutenant Körner with an exultant laugh as he drew back from his periscope.

Max Hilliger had risen to his knees. He had seized his fallen pistol and now he levelled the weapon at the commander.

"God forgive me," he murmured. "But it is less than you deserve."

And with that he pressed the trigger, firing point blank at a spot beside the Iron Cross on his companion's breast.

Hermann Körner flung up his arms, tumbled backward, and lay upon the grating very still.

Dropping his weapon, Max stepped over him and made his way to the periscope. Trembling from head to foot, he yet controlled himself sufficiently to bend over the instrument to adjust its disturbed focus. Reflected in the mirror he saw the image of an immense Atlantic liner with four red funnels, and many decks crowded with people. Her whole vast fabric was heeling over. She seemed to have been struck by the torpedo somewhere amidships.

"How awful!" he exclaimed.

He turned to look once again at the commander lying dead at his feet.

"God forgive me," he repeated. "But it is less than you deserve."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

MAX RENOUNCES THE FATHERLAND.

Max Hilliger was now alone in the submarine's conning-tower and in charge of its controls. He was shaking violently as he began to realise the horror of what he had done.

He had deliberately fired a bullet into the heart of his superior officer, who had also been his companion and his friend. It was a terrible thing to have done; yet he believed that the act was justified. He only regretted that he had not committed it sooner, before Hermann Körner had had time to give the fatal command for the discharging of the torpedo.

Had he done so, had he fired his shot at the right instant, how many hundreds of precious lives he might have saved! He would have had no haunting regrets in taking one man's life, if by taking it he had been able to prevent a far greater crime.

What he had seen in the mirror of the periscope was far more awful than the sight of Hermann Körner's dead body. That the great liner was doomed he could have no possible doubt. He had heard the explosion as the torpedo struck its intended mark. He had seen the immense vessel heeling over, the passengers thronging her decks and scrambling for the boats.

There were no other ships in sight to rush to the rescue. He, Max Hilliger, himself, could do nothing to help. Even if the U50 had been capable of picking up survivors, he was well aware that, in spite of their peril, there was not a soul in that sinking leviathan who would accept help from a German submarine.

Steadying himself, he took Lieutenant Körner's place and gave the command for the U50 to dive. Below in the engine-room they seemed not to have heard the sharp report of his automatic pistol, or, if they had heard it, they probably attributed the sound to some ordinary and innocent cause. But at length the quarter-master, who had been occupied in the torpedo chamber, climbed up the communication hatch to inquire into the result of the attempt upon the great liner.

"What luck, Herr Körner?" he cried excitedly. "We have struck her—yes?" He crawled into the conning-tower and at the top of the ladder stumbled over the body of the dead commander. "Ach!" he ejaculated in consternation. "What is this? What is this?"

The submarine was going down at a sharp angle, propelled by her electric motors. Max Hilliger remained at his post to give the signal when she should be deep enough, and to control the steering gear.

By the light from an electric bulb the quartermaster saw the commander's body lying grimly motionless at his feet. At first he believed it was Max Hilliger, but he was quickly undeceived. Hilliger was still at work among the instruments and switches where a few minutes earlier Hermann Körner had been. And now Hermann Körner lay dead!

"There has been an accident?" the quartermaster questioned in agitation. "How did it happen, Herr Hilliger?"

Max Hilliger rang the telegraph indicator to the engine-room, he adjusted the rudders, and turned round to answer nervously and in a trembling voice:

"No. It was not an accident. I have killed him. I need not tell you why. You know. You heard me warn him that if he touched that lever I would shoot him. You had better send up one of the other officers to take command and make me your prisoner. I will suffer the punishment for what I have done."

The quarter-master glanced swiftly at the dead officer and then back again at Hilliger. "You killed him!" he cried in amazement. "You!"

He was staring at the Iron Cross on the midshipman's breast. Max was conscious of the fixed gaze, and his hand went up to the decoration. He gripped it in his fingers, and tearing it off, threw the medal contemptuously from him.

"But he was your friend," continued the quartermaster. "He was your superior officer. He was doing his duty to the Fatherland. He was obeying his orders!"

"He was not bound to obey an order to take the lives of hundreds of innocent people—peaceful, unarmed travellers," Max objected warmly.

"But you did not prevent him," rejoined the quarter-master. "The torpedo was discharged. I, myself, discharged it."

"Yes, unfortunately it was discharged." Max nodded gravely. "It was discharged, and it struck the target at which it was aimed. Even at this moment that great ship is sinking and her passengers and crew are struggling to save themselves."

"That is good," said the quarter-master with a chuckle of satisfaction. "It is a blow from which our English enemies will not soon recover. The whole world will now know that our enterprising submarines are more powerful than all Great Britain's boasted battleships." He returned to the engine-room and told his expectant companions that the mighty Atlantic liner had been sent to the bottom. They cheered noisily and started singing, and their singing and cheering only ceased when they learned that their commander was dead.

Many of them deserted their stations to make a rush at Max Hilliger. They called him an assassin, a traitor. They declared that he was at heart a contemptible Englishman, and that he ought never to have been allowed to enter the Kaiser's navy.

But while they clamoured for his life they realised that in their present situation they could not well do without him. There was only one other of their officers capable of assuming the command and navigating them home—a sub-lieutenant named Adolf von Wiebe. It was necessary, therefore, that Max Hilliger should continue to act as an officer, taking watch and watch about with Lieutenant von Wiebe, until they should join the main fleet beyond Heligoland, and hand him over for punishment.

"In the meantime," said Lieutenant von Wiebe, "you will consider yourself under arrest."

"Naturally," returned Max. "And you need not suppose that I wish to escape the penalty for what I have done. I told Hermann Körner that if he fired that torpedo I would shoot him. Instead of warning him I ought to have shot him as soon as I knew that the liner had come in sight. It was he who was the murderer, not I."

"He did his duty," argued Wiebe. "He obeyed his instructions. It was to sink that liner that we came out here into the open sea. The whole thing was planned and arranged weeks ago. The owners of the ship were warned. The passengers were told before they left America that they would sail in that steamer at their own risk. The captain could have escaped us if he had taken a different course. Why did not the British Navy protect her by sending a cruiser convoy with her?"

"Because," Max reported, "the British Navy trusted that Germany had still a little honour and humanity left, and that no German submarine commander would be so brutal and cowardly as to fire a torpedo into an unarmed passenger steamer, carrying neutral Americans and women and little children. But that is where Great Britain and all other civilised nations have made the mistake. They have given Germany more credit than she deserved. She has no honour and no humanity, but only deceit and falsehood and cruelty."

"Be careful what you are saying," cautioned Lieutenant von Wiebe. "Remember that we are at war, and that our whole existence as a nation depends upon our conquest of Great Britain."

"War?" rejoined Max. "But war has its laws as well as peace. We Germans have broken those laws. Our enemies—Russia, France, and Great Britain—are playing the game fairly and honestly; but we are not. You know this as well as I do, only you shut your eyes to it all. From the very start, when we invaded Belgium, we've been worse than savages, robbing and murdering peaceful citizens, destroying their beautiful cathedrals, wrecking their homes. We've gone out of our way to bombard unfortified towns; we've hit below the belt. When we couldn't break through our enemies' lines, we have forced them back by using poison gas; when we've been too cowardly to engage their battleships in open fight we have sunk their merchant vessels and helpless fishing boats. And now there is this greatest crime of all—the sinking of the Ruritania. I tell you, Adolf, I am sick of it all, and I hope, as I firmly believe, that Germany will be beaten."

Adolf von Wiebe forced himself to laugh.

"You are hoping for the impossible," he said. "Germany can never be beaten. Do you think that we have been preparing for this war all these years only to be defeated in the end? Why, this very sinking of the liner—one of the biggest ships that ever sailed the seas—is a proof of our power. As for Great Britain—she is not worth talking about. You, who have lived in England, should know better than to imagine that she could have a ghost of a chance against so mighty an empire as ours! Sooner than you suppose, Great Britain will have ceased to exist."

"It is because I have lived in England that I am so sure that she will be victorious," persisted Max. "And if I could escape——"

"Escape? Escape from a submarine? Oh, no, I shall see to it that you don't escape, my fine fellow! You are as safe here as if you were imprisoned in a fortress. And since you cannot escape, there is no need to put you in irons. I will allow you to continue with your duties, and, notwithstanding your silly prejudices and scruples, I shall trust you not to put any obstacles in our way when it is a question of sinking a few more ships. We still have some torpedoes left, and I intend to use them."

"We shall need more petrol," Max told him sullenly.

"That will be forthcoming," returned Lieutenant von Wiebe. "A supply ship will meet us."

"Where?" Max asked.

"Never mind where. It is perhaps as well that you should be kept in ignorance of the situation."

Max could only very vaguely guess at the course which the U50 was now taking. He was not allowed to handle the charts or to know more than the general direction as indicated by the compass, which usually pointed northward.

As previously arranged, the submarine's two consorts separated from her when the Ruritania had been dealt with. Their instructions were that they were to proceed across the Bay of Biscay and through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean to attack British and French warships operating in the Dardanelles; but the U50 had not been fitted for so long a voyage.

As much as possible she was kept submerged, or with only her periscopes above the surface. No ships were chased or attacked. It seemed to Max that it was the purpose of Lieutenant von Wiebe to get as far away as possible from the scene of the foundering of the Ruritania, and to avoid all accidents which might bring him under suspicion of having been concerned in that disaster.

Once, when the submarine was passing abreast of a wild, rocky coast, Max was at the periscope. In the mirror he saw reflected the grey shape of a small British cruiser lying at anchor within easy torpedo range.

In ordinary circumstances he would have rejoiced at the opportunity of doing damage to an enemy ship; he would instantly have commanded the crew to their firing stations and manoeuvred to take aim.

But now he told himself that, as he was practically a condemned prisoner, a mutineer who had disavowed his loyalty to Germany, it was no longer a part of his duty even to report the fact that the cruiser was within striking distance. So he kept silent, and the U50 proceeded on her secret way, and Max Hilliger was never suspected of his duplicity.

On the following morning he heard the chief engineer announcing to the commander that they were becoming perilously short of petrol. Lieutenant von Wiebe showed no concern.

"Within two hours," he said, "we shall be in touch with the supply ship. We will creep into one of these bays and get into communication with our wireless."

And in the stated time the Marconi aerials were at work.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE SUPPLY SHIP.

The British cruiser which Max Hilliger had seen through the periscope of the U50 was H.M.S. Dauntless. She had been on coast patrol duty for some days in northern waters, watching for neutral ships and boarding them to examine their papers and inquire into the nature of their cargoes.

Most of them had given a satisfactory account of themselves, and had been allowed to pass on to their intended destinations. But one of them, an old green-painted barque flying the Swedish flag, had at once aroused suspicion by the fact that she was fitted with wireless aerials.

A shot was fired across her bow, and she shortened sail. Captain Damant sent a boat aboard of her in charge of a second lieutenant, who was accompanied by Midshipman Rodney Redisham.

Rodney Redisham read the name Olaf Triggvason on the vessel's side, but he did not take any great interest in her while he waited for the lieutenant's return into the boat. The examination seemed to take an unusually long time, and he wondered if anything contraband had been discovered.

Presently the lieutenant appeared in the open gangway, and began to signal back by semaphore to the Dauntless. Rodney understood the message that was sent. It was that a quantity of naphtha and benzine had been discovered in the barque's cargo; that the captain was a German, and that his secret purpose was to supply a German submarine, which he confessed that he expected.

An answer came back from the cruiser:

"Stay where you are, and we will come alongside."

The Dauntless steamed slowly up, and the German captain was taken on board of her as a prisoner, to be interrogated by Captain Damant. Shortly afterwards the whole of the crew were taken off and sent below into the seamen's quarters.

The proceedings were quite unusual, and Rodney Redisham did not understand them. Enlightenment came to him, however, when, instead of the barque's own crew, the same number of British seamen dressed up in the foreigners' clothes were put on board the Olaf. He himself was ordered to exchange his midshipman's uniform for canvas breeches and an engineer's jumper. Two lieutenants were similarly disguised, and put in command of the barque.

Rodney began to experience the excitement of a prospective adventure. The excitement was increased when three machine guns were transferred from the Dauntless to the decks of the Olaf Triggvason.

When all was ready the cruiser steamed away and the barque's sails were braced. Her German captain, under pressure, had given the bearings of the spot near which he had been instructed to lie in wait for the submarine, and for this spot the course was set.

It was in a secluded bay between two barren headlands, far away from any habitation. Outside this bay the vessel tacked to and fro and back and forth; but there was no sign of any submarine.

At the end of the first day the senior lieutenant shook his head and declared his belief that the German captain had deceived them. He anchored, knowing that no submarine would expect to find the ship in darkness. But at dawn he again set sail, and cruised within a radius of about a dozen miles. Returning towards the headlands at noon he was about to tack out again when his Marconi operator called him below. Some ship was trying to open communications.

The lieutenant went to the instrument-room, and a message came to him in international code asking the name of his ship. He purposely delayed his answer until the question had been repeated several times, then, giving the name of the ship, he added a guarded question in German.

There was no response for a long time; but he waited patiently, and at length a series of searching questions came to him as though they were from a British warship, demanding to know his exact position and destination and the nature of his cargo.

He knew perfectly well that there was no British warship, excepting the Dauntless, within twenty miles of him, but he answered with all the cunning which would enable his questioner to understand that the way was clear. Already he was convinced that he was speaking with the commander of a German submarine, and at length came the message:

"All right. I am the U50. I am short of oil. Stay where you are, and I will come alongside you within an hour."

That hour gave the lieutenant ample time in which to prepare a surprise for his expected visitor, to keep his men out of sight beside their concealed guns, and to place the ship in such a position that the guns would cover the submarine when it should rise to the surface and come alongside. He kept the Swedish flag flying, but had a British ensign ready to take its place at the appropriate moment.

Rodney Redisham, leaning lazily over the rail at the break of the poop, was the first to discover the movement of the submarine's periscope along the sea's ruffled surface. It was approaching on the starboard side. He reported to the lieutenant, and the helm was put over, so that the barque fell off the wind and lay with her sails swaying empty. The side gangway was opened. Then the submarine, drawing nearer, rose to the surface until her whole length was visible from stem to stern.

Lieutenant von Wiebe and the quarter-master stepped out on the conning-tower platform, and a gang of seamen emerged from the forward hatchway to be ready to take in the new supply of oil.

As they drew closer, steering to come alongside, Wiebe shouted a greeting to the Olaf Triggvason, and a couple of English sailors, looking very like Germans, climbing up the main shrouds, waved their arms and cried aloud:

"Hoch! Hoch!"

Slowing down, the submarine drifted nearer, until only a few yards of clear, green water separated her from the barque. More of her crew clambered out upon her long, narrow deck, with Max Hilliger in their midst.

Max had discarded his naval uniform. He was barefooted and bareheaded, and wore only a pair of greasy serge trousers and a grey flannel shirt.

Suddenly the Swedish flag was hauled down from the barque's mizzen, and the British ensign was run up in its place. From the opening of the gangway the shining barrel of a machine-gun was thrust out, two machine-guns appeared between gaps in the poop rail, and along the starboard bulwarks half a dozen British bluejackets levelled their rifles at the German commander and his men. The senior lieutenant, no longer disguised, but in the honourable uniform of a British officer, stood forward at the gangway.

"You will surrender, or I shall sink you," he commanded calmly, as if he were merely giving instructions as to how the submarine should come closer alongside.

Adolf von Wiebe shrank back like an animal at bay, and glanced agitatedly from side to side for a means of escape. But there was none. He could not submerge; he could not take flight. It was useless to think of fighting, and the three quick-firing guns, as well as half a dozen rifles, were levelled menacingly at his ship and his men and himself. It is clear that he had no alternative but to yield.

He shrugged his shoulders in abject despair.

"Ja wohl," he responded, with a forced laugh. "You 'ave shove me in ver' difficult corner, mein Herr. It is no good. Ze game is hup. I surrender. I mek ze salute."

Drawing his bare feet together and standing very upright, he raised his hand to his cap in formal German fashion, and his crew, one and all, followed his example.

"And now, vot next, if you please?" he asked.

"You will bring your crew on board here," he was told. "Within an hour a British cruiser will be with us to take possession of your submarine."

Ropes were thrown across, and when a gang plank was in place the thirty German prisoners marched disconsolately on board the barque.

The last in the file was Max Hilliger. As he passed by Rodney Redisham he gave a start of recognition.

"Hullo!" he cried, lifting his hand to his forehead. "I'm glad to see an English face again—one that I know. You have outwitted us this time very cleverly, but quite honestly. The English are always honest. They always play the game." And, lowering his voice, he added, "I wish I could say the same of the Germans."

"But you oughtn't to be disloyal to your own people," said Redisham.

"I can't help it," returned Max, standing in front of the midshipman. "I've been mistaken in them all along, and I've had enough of them. You see, I went to school in England, and that has made a heap of difference."

"Yes, and you became a Sea Scout," nodded Redisham, slowly putting out his hand.

Max Hilliger looked down at it, and shook his head.

"That's just like you," he said, "offering to shake hands with a beaten enemy. You're very good, but I can't do it. I am not worthy to take the hand of an English gentleman. My own isn't clean enough."

He was remembering what had happened in the conning-tower of the submarine. He was remembering how he had taken part in many an act of piracy against British ships, and his heart was heavy with remorse. He turned away, and walked aft. Rodney Redisham watched him, and wondered if his apparent humility were genuine.

Max Hilliger made his way to the poop, climbed the companion ladder, and continued his way to the taffrail. For a moment it seemed to Redisham that he was about to fling himself overboard, and so escape the payment as a prisoner of war.

Max turned and strode back to the binnacle, stood beside it, and then lifted his eyes to the ensign fluttering proudly in the breeze. He glanced round to assure himself that he was not being watched, and then, alone and, as he believed, unseen, he raised his hand to the salute.

CHAPTER XXXV.

PRISONERS OF WAR.

"Hurry up, Newruck, or we shall not get out of harbour until this ship comes in. Bring along that hamper."

Scoutmaster Arnold Bilverstone was taking the Lion Patrol out for a two days' cruise in their cutter. They had intended to be away for a week, but Mark Redisham and Darby Catchpole could not spare so much time. They had both been appointed to a new trawler to go on active service. They were not supposed to talk about it, but the whole patrol knew that the destination of their two lucky companions was the Dardanelles, where they were to engage in the work of sweeping for German and Turkish mines.

Naturally they were very much envied. They would cross the Bay of Biscay, and see the Rock of Gibraltar. They would steam the whole length of the Mediterranean, and perhaps even go as far as Constantinople. There were glorious possibilities in the adventure, but more than all was the chance they would have of really helping in the war and watching the Queen Elizabeth firing her great fifteen-inch guns into the Turkish forts.

Compared with such prospects, a trip in the Be Prepared was a very small affair indeed.

"I'm afraid we are too late already, sir," said Darby Catchpole, looking out through the harbour mouth to where a panting tug boat was bringing in a strange-looking, green-painted barque.

Mark Redisham followed his glance.

"She's a foreigner," he decided, "and yet she's flying the British flag! How's that? Hullo! look, Mr. Bilverstone! There's a naval officer on her poop deck, and there are some of our bluejackets among her crew."

Mr. Bilverstone was so much interested in the vessel that he stepped out on to the quay and strode along towards the end of the pier. Presently he signalled to the Scouts to join him.

"I expect she's been captured," he said, as the barque came nearer. "Perhaps she has been caught carrying contraband of war."

The tug glided in between the piers, and as the barque followed at the end of the towing warp Mark read the name Olaf Triggvason on her green-painted side. Looking down on her main deck he saw a crowd of foreign sailors lying or seated on the hatch cover, guarded by armed bluejackets. Some of them looked like officers; others were dressed as naval seamen.

"Prisoners of war," said Mr. Bilverstone.

Then he leant forward more eagerly. One of the prisoners, the youngest and most ragged of the lot, had stood up on the hatch cover. He looked across at the group on the quay, and smiled wanly as he raised his hand to the Scout's salute.

"Why, it's Max Hilliger!" cried Darby Catchpole. "And the others must be his shipmates off the submarine! Let us wait and see them brought ashore."

The Olaf Triggvason was warped alongside the pier before being taken through the bridge into the inner harbour. Officers from the naval base went aboard. As soon as it became known in the port that a captive ship had been brought in many of the townspeople thronged to the pier, but Police-constable Challis drove them back, and a barrier was drawn across.

In the meantime, Midshipman Rodney Redisham had stepped ashore from the barque to greet his brother Mark.

"So you've sunk a submarine?" said Mark.

"We may have captured one," returned Rodney.

"It was the U50 of course," pursued Mark. "You've got Max Hilliger a prisoner. It's a good thing to have put an end to the U50. She's done a lot of damage one way and another."

"Most of the German submarine commanders have tried to do that," said Rodney. "I suppose it was their duty. You can't blame the officers. They've got to obey their sailing orders."

"What, even when they're told to sink such a ship as the Ruritania?" questioned Darby Catchpole.

"Oh, but Max Hilliger was never concerned with a crime like that!" declared Mark Redisham.

"I should hope not," added his brother. "From what I know of him I believe he'd sooner go on strike than have a hand in sinking any but enemy ships of war. But, of course, we've never asked them any questions."

He paused for a moment, and then added:

"I've had several talks with Max Hilliger, and he isn't a bad sort of chap at heart. He's a German, but I believe he'd much rather fight for our King than for the Kaiser."

"Strictly between ourselves," interposed Constable Challis, "I don't think he'll have a chance of fightin' for either."

"Ah, they're being brought ashore now!" said Mr. Bilverstone. "I expect they're going off by the 3-20 train to one of the concentration camps. Attention, Scouts!"

The troop stood in line, and as the prisoners marched by, Max Hilliger walked with his head bowed and his hand raised to his cap. Suddenly he stopped and looked round at his former companions.

"It's jolly good of you chaps not to mock and jeer at me," he said bravely; "but I may tell you that I am glad to be here—back again in England. And—and," he stammered, "God save the King."