.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 50914
   :PG.Title: Dreadnoughts of the Dogger
   :PG.Released: 2016-01-13
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Robert Leighton
   :DC.Title: Dreadnoughts of the Dogger
              A Story of the War on the North Sea
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1916
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

==========================
DREADNOUGHTS OF THE DOGGER
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   .. _`"The boy was brought alongside and lifted to the grating" (Page 34)`:

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      :alt: "The boy was brought alongside and lifted to the grating" (Page 34)

      "The boy was brought alongside and lifted to the grating" (Page `34`_)

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      DREADNOUGHTS
      OF THE DOGGER

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      *A Story of the War on the
      North Sea*

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      BY

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      ROBERT LEIGHTON

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      *Author of "The Golden Galleon," "The Thirsty Sword," etc.*

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      WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
      LONDON AND MELBOURNE
      1916

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      *Made and printed in Great Britain by*
      WARD, LOCK & Co., LIMITED, LONDON.

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   CONTENTS.

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   CHAPTER

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I.—`WHAT'S BRED IN THE BONE`_
II.—`THE PERIL OF THE SILVER PIT`_
III.—`WATCHERS OF THE SEA`_
IV.—`THE MENACE OF THE MINES`_
V.—`UNDER THE SYCAMORE`_
VI.—`WHAT MARK FOUND IN THE PIGEON LOFT`_
VII.—`UNDER THE WHITE ENSIGN`_
VIII.—`HOW MARK MADE HIMSELF SMALL`_
IX.—`AN EXPERT IN MINE-SWEEPING`_
X.—`DARBY CATCHPOLE'S DISCOVERY`_
XI.—`THE ESCAPE`_
XII.—`A FLEET IN HIDING`_
XIII.—`THE GERMAN ADMIRAL`_
XIV.—`BRAVE AS A BRITON`_
XV.—`TREASURE TROVE`_
XVI.—`THE BOMB-PROOF SHELTER`_
XVII.—`TOLD THROUGH THE TELEPHONE`_
XVIII.—`A SHRIMPING ADVENTURE`_
XIX.—`U50`_
XX.—`PUT TO THE TEST`_
XXI.—`THE RAIDERS`_
XXII.—`CUT AND RUN`_
XXIII.—`STRIKING THE BALANCE`_
XXIV.—`THE MEETING ON THE CLIFF`_
XXV.—`MAX HILLIGER'S SATISFACTION`_
XXVI.—`THE GUIDING LIGHT`_
XXVII.—`SURVIVORS`_
XXVIII.—`THE WAY TO CALAIS`_
XXIX.—`MAX MEETS THE ADMIRAL`_
XXX.—`DREADNOUGHT AGAINST DREADNOUGHT`_
XXXI.—`SUBMARINES AT WORK`_
XXXII.—`U50'S WORST CRIME`_
XXXIII.—`MAX RENOUNCES THE FATHERLAND`_
XXXIV.—`THE SUPPLY SHIP`_
XXXV.—`PRISONERS OF WAR`_

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.. _`WHAT'S BRED IN THE BONE`:

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   DREADNOUGHTS OF
   THE DOGGER.

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   CHAPTER I.

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   WHAT'S BRED IN THE BONE.

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The Scoutmaster paused in his work of opening
a tin of condensed milk on the top of a
packing-case.  Glancing upwards to the shoulder of the
cliff, he caught sight of a figure partly concealed
beyond a dark clump of gorse and bramble.  He
could see the shining brass tube of a telescope
beneath a naval cap.  The telescope was levelled
at the slate-grey shape of a light cruiser riding at
anchor in Haddisport Roads, abreast of the camp.

"Your brother's out early, Redisham," said the
Scoutmaster, turning again to the milk tin.  "I
hope he'll come down to us.  I expect he can tell
us a lot about that cruiser out there.  He looks well
in his cadet's uniform!"

Mark Redisham was bending over the fire, frying
eggs and bacon.  Some of his companions were in
the tent, dressing after their morning swim, while
others of the patrol were variously occupied in
preparing the camp breakfast.

"Yes, sir," he answered.  "Lucky chap, isn't
he?  I envy him being in the navy.  And he's more
than a cadet now, Mr. Bilverstone.  He's a
full-fledged midshipman—or soon will be, when he steps
aboard his ship."

One of the Sea Scouts near to him, a tall,
loose-limbed youth with a budding moustache, stood
watching the lithe young fellow in naval uniform, now
approaching with his telescope under his arm.

"Lucky?" he repeated with a sneer.  "I don't
see where the luck comes in.  I don't envy him."

"Indeed!" said Mark.  "You don't envy a
chap who is going to be an officer in the British
Navy?  Why?  Oh, but I was forgetting——"

Most of the Sea Scouts in the Lion Patrol were in
the habit of overlooking the fact that Max Hilliger
was not British.  He had been amongst them so long,
first as a playfellow, then as a Scout, that they
had almost come to think of him as a native of
Haddisport.  In reality, he was a German, his father,
Heinrich Hilliger, being German Vice-Consul in the
port, as well as a wealthy fish merchant, doing a big
business with Germany.

"Why?" Max repeated, shrugging his shoulders.
"It isn't good enough.  You fellows are always
boasting about your British Navy, as if it were the
only fleet on the seas.  You seem to forget that
Germany has a navy as good, if not better."  He
laughed derisively.  "You'll discover your mistake
if Germany and England come to grips.  Your
boasted navy'll be licked into a cocked hat.  Half
your cruisers are only fit to be scrapped.  Those that
are not obsolete couldn't hold their own against the
Kaiser's High Sea Fleet."

Here a diversion was caused by the arrival of
Midshipman Rodney Redisham, who shook hands
with Mr. Bilverstone, and nodded recognition to
such of the patrol as he remembered.

"You've grown, Catchpole," he said to one,
"and you, too, Quester.  Hullo, Max, you here?
You've changed since we met last."

"Max has just been arguing that the Kaiser's
Fleet is better than ours," remarked the Scout
master.

"Germany has some jolly good fighting ships,"
acknowledged the midshipman; "but I believe our
guns have a longer range, and, of course, we've got
more ships."

Max Hilliger seemed disposed to dispute the point,
but at that moment there came to the sharp ears of
the Scouts a peculiar buzzing sound from beyond
the houses on the cliff.  All eyes were turned
expectantly skyward in the one direction.  Presently
an aeroplane appeared above the trees, and, sinking
rapidly, skimmed the level ground of the denes,
and alighted like a great bird on a patch of grass
within fifty yards of the camp.

At a word from Mr. Bilverstone, two of the Scouts
ran forward; but they had hardly reached the
machine before the pilot had leapt to his feet.

"Don't handle anything, boys," he said, pushing
his goggles up over his forehead.  "She's all right.
But I see there's a crowd of people on the cliff.
They'll be coming down to nose around.  Keep
guard here, while I step along to your camp and get
some warmth into me."

Rodney Redisham strode forward to meet him,
and, seeing the two gold stripes on his sleeve, greeted
him with a very formal naval salute.

"Why, it's Lieutenant Aldiss!" he cried.
"Where have you come from, sir?"

"Dover," returned the officer.  "And what are
you doing here?  Why aren't you in your ship?
Any news?"

"News?" Redisham repeated.  "Do you mean
about the ultimatum to Germany?"

"Yes, of course.  Is it to be war?"

"I don't know.  It looks precious like it.  But
we haven't heard yet."

"It's beastly cold up there this morning," said
the lieutenant, indicating the sky.  "Have these
Scouts got any hot coffee?  Ah, I see one of them
is fetching some.  That's nice."

"But won't you come up to my home and have
a proper breakfast, sir?" Rodney invited.  "It's
that red house with the tower, on the cliff."

Lieutenant Aldiss shook his head.

"Thank you, but I'm due at Buremouth at eight
o'clock," he explained, and, taking the steaming
cup which Max Hilliger had brought to him, he
added: "So you're appointed to the *Atreus*, out
there, are you?"

Rodney looked across at the grey-painted cruiser.

"Yes," he answered proudly, "I am to join to-day."

In the meantime a crowd was gathering around
the aeroplane, eager to see it start on its renewed
flight.  A police-constable was approaching hurriedly
down the slope of the cliff, no doubt with the
intention of keeping off the curious crowd.  As he came
near to the camp, Rodney Redisham called out
to him:

"Any news, Challis?"

"News, sir," responded Constable Challis,
producing a journal from the front of his tunic, "I
should just think so.  Look here!"  He opened
the newspaper.  "England has declared war," he
announced.

Lieutenant Aldiss gave a quick glance at the
prominently printed lines, handed his empty cup
to Hilliger, and, swinging round, made a bee-line
for his aeroplane, accompanied by Rodney Redisham,
who helped him to start.

"Yes," continued Constable Challis, excitedly,
"it's war—war against Germany—war to the knife.
We're going to be put to the test.  It'll be tough
while it lasts.  But you can take it from me, we shall
win.  We shall sweep the Germans off the face of
the seas, and make an end of 'em!"

"Not a bit of it!" cried Max Hilliger exultantly.
"It will be the other way about.  Ha, ha!  England's
done for now!  She's doomed.  Every cockboat in
her rotten fleet will be sent to the bottom.  D'you
hear?  She's doomed!  She'll be smashed—smashed
like that!"

He dashed the empty cup in fury to the ground.
There was a hearty burst of laughter, for the cup
fell upon the soft sand and was not even cracked.
Enraged at the failure of his illustration, and the
laughter which seemed to mock him, Max snatched
his Sea Scout's cap from his head and deliberately
flung it full into the face of Mark Redisham.

Mark caught it with a quickly uplifted hand, and
politely offered it back to him.

"Don't make a silly ass of yourself," he smiled,
"even if you have become our enemy."

But instead of taking it, Hilliger turned away,
strode sullenly to his bicycle, mounted it, and rode
off in the direction of the town and the harbour.





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.. _`THE PERIL OF THE SILVER PIT`:

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   CHAPTER II.


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   THE PERIL OF THE SILVER PIT.

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"Ah, this is just what I like!" declared Mark
Redisham from his elevated perch on the
trawler's windward bulwark.  "It's heaps better
than being ashore in camp!"

Darby Catchpole, seated beside him, clapped his
feet together in delight.

"It's lovely," he agreed; "I wouldn't have missed
it for anything."

They were far out on the blue waters of the North
Sea, steaming towards the fishing grounds of the
Dogger Bank in the trawler *What's Wanted*, an
entirely new craft, owned by Catchpole's father
and now making her first working trip.

"It's a pity none of the other chaps are with us,"
regretted Redisham.

"You needn't be sorry Max Hilliger isn't here,"
Darby responded.  "He turned ridiculously crusty
yesterday morning when the constable spoke about
our beating the Germans.  I suppose it was natural,
since he's a German himself.  Of course, he couldn't
have stopped in the troop, even if he'd wanted to,
being one of the enemy.  But he might have had
the grace to pay his debts.  Mr. Bilverstone will
never get the three shillings he owed him."

"Why?  Max hasn't left the town, has he?"

"Yes, he has.  He went off by the afternoon tide
in that Dutch ketch that has been lying in the Roads
so long.  I suppose we've seen the last of him."

Redisham glanced round the wide stretch of
sea, as if in search of the ketch, but there was no
sign of her.

Darby jumped down from his perch, and Mark
followed him aft, past the wheel-house, to find the
skipper giving instructions for the trawl to be put out.
They were now near the fishing grounds of the Silver
Pit, a favourite spot for longshore soles and turbot.

When the trawling gear was out, the skipper
and his two guests went below for breakfast in the
tiny compartment which did service as a cabin.
In taking his seat at the narrow flap table, Mark
Redisham had to make room for himself by removing
a gun.  He examined the weapon, and, recognising
it, looked across at Darby Catchpole.

"Why on earth have you brought your fowling-piece
with you?" he asked in surprise.  "Do you
expect that you may need to defend yourself against
the enemy?"

Darby laughed.

"No," he explained.  "I told you once that I'm
helping to complete the collection of East Coast
birds for the Haddisport Museum.  They don't
possess a specimen of the common or North Sea
tern.  I thought perhaps I might get one."

He took his fowling-piece on deck with him.
There were many sea birds—gannets, mews, and
fulmars—flying about, but the graceful sea swallow
was absent, and he transferred his interest to the
work of hauling in the trawl.

The first take was disappointing; the second
more fortunate.  Time after time the gear was
brought in, and gradually a considerable number
of fish accumulated.

Redisham had brought with him a pair of marine
glasses, of which he was especially proud.  They
were particularly powerful, and he was constantly
testing them by trying to read the names on distant
ships.  At about nine o'clock he was idly searching
the horizon, when his attention was arrested by
a strange sail to the far north-east.

"Darby!" he cried.  "There's that Dutch ketch!
Have a look at her."

Darby took up the skipper's telescope from the
top of the skylight and adjusted the focus.

"Yes," he agreed, after a while.  "It's the
same, no doubt.  I know her by her weatherboard.
But what's she up to?  She's bang in the
track of the steamer bearing down on her!  Hullo!
The steamer's stopped!  Wait a bit.  The Dutchman's
putting out a boat."

The two Scouts watched what was going on across
the sea—the rowing boat pulling alongside the
steamship and returning to the ketch, having
apparently disposed of some of its passengers.

Why should this transfer of passengers be made
in the open sea?  And had Max Hilliger anything
to do with it?

Mark made out the steamer to be a vessel of about
2,000 tons.  She had two cream-coloured funnels, and
was furnished with many lifeboats and deckhouses,
like a liner.  He tried to read her name, but it was
hidden by the anchor chain.  It satisfied him,
however, that she was flying the Red Ensign, and
he took no further notice of her as she continued on
her course south by west.

Shortly afterwards he was startled by the report
of Darby's fowling-piece.

"Got him!" cried Catchpole.  "It's a tern."

Darby was a good shot, and he had brought down
the bird, which had fluttered into the sea hardly
a score of yards from the trawler's starboard side.

The skipper made no demur when asked to
reverse the engines.  The boat was lowered, and
Darby secured his prize.  But his disappointment
was great when he discovered that the bird was not a
tern, or a web-footed sea bird of any species, but
an ordinary domestic pigeon.  He was on the point
of casting it back into the sea when Redisham
checked him.

"Wait!" cried Mark.  "Which way was it flying?"

Darby looked at him in perplexity.

"What's your idea?" he questioned.  "It was
flying from north-east to south-west."

"Just what I guessed," returned Mark, with a
significant nod.  "It was going towards Haddisport
from the Dutch ketch.  It's one of Max Hilliger's
pigeons.  Let's have a look at it."

They examined the dead bird, and sure enough
they discovered a strip of thin paper bandaged round
one of the legs.  The writing upon it was in minute
shorthand.

"It's German!" declared Mark.  "We must give
it up to some naval officer to translate.  I'll keep it
in my pocket-book, shall I—till we get home?"

"Perhaps it came off the steamer, and not the
ketch," suggested Darby.

They turned to look for the steamship, and saw
her steaming southward, across their own wake.
Although she was many miles away, it was possible
now to distinguish her name, for the sunlight was
upon her.  They spelled out the words *Minna von
Barnhelm*.

"Why, she's a German!" cried Mark, "and
now she's flying the German naval ensign!  Hullo!
That's queer!  There's something gone wrong with
her.  She's sprung a leak, surely!  She's jettisoning
her cargo.  Have a squint at her!"

A large, dark object, like a cask or packing case,
fell with a light splash into the sea under the steamer's
counter.  It seemed to have dropped from an
inclined plank put out under her taffrail.  She was
going slowly while this was being done, but
presently she put on steam and moved off, gathering
speed, and was soon a mere speck in the far south.

The *What's Wanted* now altered her course to
the westward, steered by Mark Redisham, for the
two Sea Scouts were allowed to take each a spell
at the wheel.

During every moment they were learning
something new.  What Darby enjoyed as much as
anything was to work the winch which hauled in the
loaded trawl; but always when the gear was brought
inboard there was the excitement of emptying the
pocket of the net and seeing what varieties of fish
and strange marine creatures had been dredged up.

Darby was at the winch one moment, while Mark
was pricking off the trawler's course on the chart,
when the mate at the stern shouted excitedly:

"Belay there!  Stop the winch, sir!  Hold hard.
We've fetched up a bit of wreck!"

Mark Redisham ran aft and looked over the side.
The trawl beam was against the quarter bulwark,
and a curious big, oval object, which at first glance
looked like the back of a huge fish, was jammed
between the beam and the vessel's side.

Mark leant over, and looked at the thing more
closely; then he leapt back, trembling from head
to foot.

"Steady all!" he cried hoarsely.  "Don't move
that winch, Darby!  For the life of you, keep it
still!  Leave it, and come here—quick!"

Darby, the skipper, the mate, the engineer, the
whole crew went up to him, staring at the thing
which had so filled him with alarm.  He alone
seemed to know what it was.

"Stand back!" he cried.  "Don't touch it!
Don't go near it!  It's a mine—a contact mine!
If it's moved only an inch there'll be an explosion.
See those spikes on the top of it?  They're the
detonators.  One of them's resting on the rail!  If it
breaks—it's glass—if it breaks, we're all done for!"

The skipper, pocketing his pipe, looked through
screwed-up eyes into the boy's face.

"Any c'nection with this yer war, Mester
Redisham?" he coolly inquired.

"It has every connection with it," Mark answered
calmly.

He went cautiously nearer to examine the exact
position of the mine.  It was balanced on its own
circumference, held against the side by the trawl
board; but every slightest movement of the ship
threatened to explode it.

"We can't cut it away," he decided.  He turned
to the mate.  "Dick," he ordered, "launch the
boat very carefully and let us all quit."

Fortunately the boat was at the farther end,
hanging outward from the davits.  Mark advised
the skipper exactly what to do.  He pointed out
that by passing a warp round the trawl gear and
hauling upon it from seaward the mine might be
released and slip back into the sea.  This was the
only chance, and in case it should fail, every one
was to get into the boat.

He was himself the last to leave the ship.  They
took the longest rope, and, rowing round, contrived
at great risk to lash an end of it to the lower
extremity of the trawl beam.  Four men were at the oars.
Paying out the rope over the stern as they rowed away,
they hauled upon it until it became fairly taut.

"Steady!" commanded the skipper.  "Back
'er a bit—belay—row starboard!"

He manoeuvred the boat until the pull of the
rope was at the proper angle, then the tension was
slowly tightened.  The trawl beam swayed very
slightly at first; but suddenly there was a heavy
jerk, the mine moved, but it was not dislodged.
Mark Redisham saw one of the detonators bending.

"Look out!" he shouted.

Instantly the air and sea together were torn by
a terrific crash, which must have been heard a score
of miles away.  In that instant Mark saw the whole
fabric of the trawler burst open.  The boat heaved
under him, and he was flung forward, stunned and
unconscious.





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.. _`WATCHERS OF THE SEA`:

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   CHAPTER III.


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   WATCHERS OF THE SEA.

.. vspace:: 2

The sound of that explosion carried its warning
far over the fishing grounds of the Silver
Pit.  It reached tramps and colliers plying their
ceaseless traffic along the coast.  Nearer at hand
it alarmed the crew of the trawler *Mignonette*,
who saw the column of smoke and wreckage shot
skyward as from the crater of a volcano, and who,
regardless of their own danger from floating mines,
hastened to the spot to pick up the dazed survivors
huddled together in the open boat.  It reached
the officers and men on a patrol of destroyers speeding
northward within sight of the English shores.  On
the cruiser *Atreus* it was distinctly heard, coming
like a challenge across the waves.

"Oho!" exclaimed the astonished commander,
arresting his pacing of the quarter-deck.  "Gunfire,
eh?  Hostilities are opening even earlier than
we expected!"

He stood by the binnacle, listening for a second
"boom."

"Seemed to me almost more like the explosion
of a contact mine than a gun, sir," ventured the
signal lieutenant, halting beside him.

"A mine?" protested the commander.  "No,
no, impossible!  We have laid no mines.  It is not
in our programme to lay mines; and certainly not
on the high seas.  The enemy cannot have laid any,
either—not over here; not so promptly, hardly
thirty hours after the declaration of war.  It cannot
have been a mine.  And yet there was only one
detonation.  If it had been a naval gun, it would
have been answered.  However, we shall soon know.
We must go and see.  Send out the signal to change
course eight points to starboard."

It chanced that Rodney Redisham was midshipman
of the watch, and that it fell to him to help
in transmitting this signal.

With the precision of a battalion of soldiers at
drill, the flotilla of destroyers and their guide ship
wheeled first into line abreast formation and then
into line ahead.  The *Atreus*, which before had
been leading, now held the rear station, following
in the wake of the destroyers; and it was in this
order that they appeared an hour later when sighted
by Mark Redisham and Darby Catchpole from the
deck of the *Mignonette*.

Mark was unhurt, excepting for a few bruises
about the shins.  Darby had a scar across his
fore-head, and the skipper's head was badly cut; the
mate's right arm was fractured, and all others of the
crew had tested Mark's skill in first-aid.  But they
had escaped with their lives, even though the *What's
Wanted* had disappeared.

"The blamed Germans!" complained the skipper,
nursing his bandaged head.  "And it was her
maiden trip!  The mean cowards to come sneakin'
over here a-sowin' of their mines on the open sea for
harmless fishin' craft to run foul of!  'T'aren't
accordin' to any fightin' rules as ever I've heard on.
'T'aren't fightin' at all, nor honest warfare, look at
it how you will!"

As the destroyers drew nearer, Mark Redisham
grew more and more apprehensive lest they should
run into the unsuspected danger of the mine-field,
and he wanted to warn them of their peril.  He
urged the engineer to put on more steam and get
close up, so that they might see their signals.

Already he had hoisted a flag signifying "I want
to speak to you," and Darby was busy fashioning
a pair of semaphore flags.

When the flotilla was near enough, Darby went
to the steam whistle and opened the valve, giving a
long, shrill blast to attract attention; following
it with short and long blasts in the Morse code to
form the message:

"You are running into danger.  Steamer flying
German ensign has been laying mines.  Trawler
sunk.  Survivors on board me."

At the same time, Mark, taking the two flags,
climbed upon the wheel-house, and, standing firmly,
began to wave them, signalling very rapidly.

For a long time there was no response; but
unknown to him, the leading destroyer had flashed
its wireless message back to the cruiser.  Presently
the whole line came to a stop, and Mark saw that
the semaphore on the *Atreus* was at work, questioning
him.  He answered, telling the whole story of the
German mine-layer, and the loss of the *What's
Wanted*.

Even while he was speaking, the motor-pinnace
of the cruiser was launched, and the message came
to him:

   
   "If you, the Sea Scout, who are signalling,
   are one of the survivors, come aboard us
   immediately.  Let your shipmates be taken into
   Haddisport."


Mark was not altogether surprised when he saw
that the midshipman in charge of the pinnace
was his own brother Rodney.  They shook hands as
he stepped into the stern sheets, but preserved a
discreet silence before the men.

Saluting the quarter-deck as they boarded the
*Atreus*, Mark found himself face to face with a group
of officers.  He advanced towards the commander.

"If you will lend me a chart, sir," he began, "I
will show you exactly the way the mine-layer went.
She has been sowing mines all along her track."

A chart was at once opened on top of the skylight,
and with a pencil Mark traced as nearly as he could
the *Minna von Barnhelm's* course, from the time
when he first saw her until she disappeared.

"It was just here where she began laying mines,"
he explained, indicating the spot, "about three
miles to the east of where we are now.  If you keep
well to the westward, you will escape them, sir.  But
I can't say which way she steered after we lost sight
of her."

"Of course not," nodded the commander.  "You
have done very well as it is.  I'm tremendously
obliged to you for the information."

He turned to his officers and gave orders for the
squadron to proceed at full speed in pursuit, handing
the navigation officer the marked chart.

"There's another thing," resumed Mark, fumbling
in his pocket-book, and producing the strip of paper
taken from Darby Catchpole's pigeon.  He explained
how he had come by it, adding: "It seems to be
written in German shorthand.  Perhaps you will
take charge of it, sir."

"Excellent," smiled the commander.  "You
have your wits about you, my lad.  You have acted
with commendable good sense and promptitude.
This matter of the mine-field is most important.
What is your name?"

"Redisham, sir—Mark Redisham.  I am the
brother of Midshipman Redisham."

"Indeed!  Oh, then, just see if you can find him,
and tell him from me to look after you until I want
you again.  Tell him he may show you over the ship!"

For a couple of hours or so Mark was in his glory
going about the cruiser, examining the engines, the
guns, the torpedo-tubes, inquiring into the mechanism
of the water-tight doors, visiting the seamen's
quarters, the conning-tower, and even watching the
stokers at their grim work.

As they returned to the deck, a petty officer
touched Mark's elbow.

"Captain Damant wishes you to go up to him
on the bridge," he said.

Mark found his way, and climbed up to the
commander's side.

"Take my binoculars and have a look at the
steamer yonder," the commander told him, "and
see if you identify her."

"I can identify her without the binoculars, sir,"
returned Mark.  "It's the *Minna von Barnhelm*."

"Good," nodded Captain Damant.  "I wanted
to be sure.  You can go now.  Go and make yourself
as small as you can in that corner of the conning-tower,
and watch our destroyers.  Don't be alarmed
at the noise."

The destroyers were now stretched far in advance
of the cruiser, bearing down upon the German in
line ahead.  Hardly had Mark settled himself in
his corner, when the foremost of them fired a shot
across the bows of the mine-layer.

The *Minna von Barnhelm* at once answered from
small guns mounted on her upper deck, her shells
falling short.  Each of the destroyers fired a shot
in turn, and every shot got home.

Within a few moments the mine-layer showed
the terrible effects of the British guns.  Her
after-funnel fell over; one of her ventilators followed;
her bridge was torn to shreds, and her top works
were wrecked.

For a while it seemed to Mark that she was going
to be left with this punishment, for the destroyers
were continuing on their course, passing her on
their port-beam.  But presently he saw the immense
four-inch guns of the *Atreus* herself being trained
upon her from the forward barbette.  Mark held his
breath and waited, watching the long steel tubes
moving as easily as if they were mere muskets
taking aim.

Suddenly from one of them there was a great gush
of fire and smoke, a staggering, deafening roar,
which shook the whole ship, and a monster lyddite
shell struck the *Minna von Barnhelm* on her quarter,
exploding there with terrific violence.

Mark saw the gaping hole which it tore in the
steamer's hull, and he knew that no further shots
would be needed.  She was sinking by the stern,
the men at the same time leaping into the sea.

The British ships, with one accord, converged
towards her, and from each of them boats were being
launched to pick up the survivors.  The *Atreus*
was the nearest, and just as her first boat pushed
off the *Minna von Barnhelm* heeled over, shuddered,
and sank in a riot of foam.

Mark and Rodney Redisham stood together at the
gangway of the cruiser as the first boatload of
survivors were brought on board.

As the last of them came up the ladder, it was
seen that he was hardly more than a boy, wearing a
fisherman's guernsey and heavy sea boots.  He held
up his head unashamed, almost insolently.

"Why, it's Max!" Rodney Redisham exclaimed.

Max Hilliger stared at the two brothers, a spasm
of hatred on his face.  He clenched his fist to strike
at one of them, when a couple of seamen, with a
loaded stretcher, marched in between.

The Germans were at once led below to have
their wounds dressed, and to be provided with dry
clothing.

"You had better slip down to the petty officers'
mess now, Mark, and get some grub," Rodney
advised.  "I will see you later on.  We're going into
Haddisport, I believe, so you'll be put ashore.  The
destroyers are to be sent off on another job, up
north."

It was two or three hours before they again met.
Mark had had dinner, and was sitting chatting with
a company of petty officers, when Rodney came
to him.

"You're wanted in the chart-room," he
announced.  "Come along!"  And as they were
passing aft through one of the alley-ways, he added:
"Captain Damant has had that pigeon message
translated, and it seems to be important.  He's going
to ask you something about it."

Mark followed him up a flight of stairs to the deck.

At that moment there came a low, rumbling
sound from under the bows of the *Atreus*.  Then the
frightful, ear-splitting crash of an exploding mine.
A sheet of flame instantly enveloped the bridge.
The vessel's back seemed to be broken.  She listed
over to the port side with such a jerk that all who
were on deck were flung off their feet.  Mark
Redisham was pitched bodily over a machine-gun
and flung far out into the sea.

He sank down, down into the depths.  It seemed
an age before he felt himself rising.  At length, when
he came to the surface, gasping, it was to find the
air filled with falling splinters and a dense yellow
smoke which almost choked him as he tried to
breathe.  He saw the doomed cruiser some distance
away settling down by the bows.

He looked around him.  Most of the debris from
the explosion had been of metal and had sunk.
But he caught sight of a floating spar.  He swam
towards it.  It was not large enough to support him,
but it would help to keep him afloat until the
poisonous fumes should clear.

He reached it and stretched forth a hand to grasp
it, when another swimmer, coming behind him,
shoved him violently aside and seized it.

Mark went under for a moment, rose again with
his throat full of sea water, and grabbed the nearer
end of the spar.  As he did so he saw the other's
face.  It was the face of Max Hilliger.

They stared at each other.  Both knew that one
must yield.

"It's my life or yours," said Mark.  "Which
is it to be?"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE MENACE OF THE MINES`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE MENACE OF THE MINES.

.. vspace:: 2

Hardly had Mark Redisham spoken the
challenging words, when he realised that
even if Max Hilliger should choose to yield to
him the coveted chance of safety, he could not
accept it.  How could he afterwards forgive himself
if he saved his own life at the cost of another's—even
though that other were an enemy of his
country?

The instinct of self-preservation was strong
within him.  He knew that by a turn of the hand
he could take possession of the spar which would
keep him afloat; he knew, too, that Hilliger was
the better swimmer.  But he did not hesitate.

"Take it," he said, pushing the spar from him.

He waited to see Hilliger seize and rest his arms
over the support.  Then he turned over on his side
and struck out, swimming more easily among the
waves than he had expected to do in his clothes and
heavy boots.  He could breathe more freely now, for
the stifling fumes from the exploded mine no longer
caught at his throat.

Uncertain of his best direction, striving only to
keep his head above water, he glanced from side to
side.  In a ragged cloud of brown smoke and escaping
steam he could dimly see the stricken cruiser, now
about half a mile away.

She was perilously low in the bows, her afterpart
tilted up, the blades of her propellers showing.
Yet she did not seem to be sinking deeper.  He
supposed that her water-tight bulkheads had been
promptly closed, that she still might keep afloat
for hours.

Turning to see if Max Hilliger were following him,
he caught sight of the destroyers rushing to the
rescue, in spite of the danger from mines.  He had
not known that they were so close in the wake of the
*Atreus*.  Rodney had told him that they were going
off on another job.  He wondered if they would be
able to save the ship by towing her into shoal water.

The shrill blast of a bugle reached him from
the cruiser.  As the smoke lifted for a moment he
saw a throng of men on her decks, throwing things
overboard—booms, hammocks, baulks of timber,
crates, wooden gratings—anything that might help
in saving life.  Her boats appeared to have been
smashed by the explosion.  Everything beyond the
bridge was wrecked—a funnel had fallen, the
fire-control platform was down.  He could see a gap in
the forward turret, from which the great guns had
been dislodged.

He thought of the stokers and engineers.  None
of the crew who had been in the forepart of the
vessel when she struck the mine could have had
any chance of life.  Even as he swam, he passed
many gruesome signs of the terrible destruction.
He turned abruptly at sight of an uplifted hand
and a young seaman's blood-stained face, which
appeared immediately in front of him.  He stretched
out and caught at the man's wrist.

"Can I help you, mate?" he panted.

"No use, sonny," the seaman answered feebly.
"Never you mind me.  I've lost a leg, and I reckon
my starboard side's stove in."

Mark held on, trying to get his free arm round the
man's body.  But he was drawn under, struggling,
losing his grip.

When again he rose exhausted to the surface,
and began once more to swim for his life, he was
himself seized by the shoulder and pushed from
behind.  He made a spurt to free himself, and his
right hand came down upon something solid, at
which he grabbed with desperate fingers.  It was
one of the gratings that had been thrown overboard.

"Hold on to it!"

He heard the words confusedly through the buzzing
of the sea water in his ears.  He did not recognise
the voice as that of his brother.  Before he could
turn to speak, his rescuer was swimming off
again to the help of other possible survivors.

Mark reached over and managed to get a shin
against the edge of the grating, pulling himself up
until he rested bodily across the support.  Thus
raised above the surface, clinging with hands and
knees, he could look round in search of swimmers
who might share his refuge.

.. _`34`:

A little distance away he saw, and now recognised,
his brother Rodney, swimming back to him with a
hand under the chin of a wounded midshipman.
The boy was brought alongside and lifted to the
grating; but Mark Redisham saw that he was already
beyond all need of human help.

Rodney clambered upon the raft, and saw what
Mark had seen.

"He was one of my pals at Dartmouth," he
said.  "Look around and see if there are any
others."

"Max Hilliger is somewhere about," Mark
answered; "but I see no sign of him."

"I expect he will be picked up," returned Rodney.
"See!  There's one of the destroyers putting
out her boats."

The leading destroyer had meanwhile come close
up to the *Atreus*, and was sending out a hawser,
with the intention of getting her in tow by the
stern.  It was soon obvious, however, that this
attempt to save the vessel was useless.  She was
settling down, the waves washing over her bows,
her stern tilted high.

It was clearly time to abandon the ship.  The
order to do so was given; the men were falling in
on her steeply sloping quarter-deck.  Boats from
the destroyers were pulled alongside, and without
hurry or confusion men, officers, and captain left
her to her fate.

A boat from the destroyer *Levity* picked up Rodney
and Mark Redisham.  Still in their wet clothes,
they gave help in attending to the wounded.  All of
the survivors who were not hurt had been in the
afterpart of the ship when she struck the mine.
Those who had been below in the stokeholds and
seamen's quarters were killed to the number of a
hundred and forty men, apart from some thirty
of the German prisoners taken from the *Minna
von Barnhelm*.

Nor was this the end of the disaster.  The
destroyer's boats had barely drawn off from the
sinking cruiser when she struck a second mine.  It
exploded the fore magazine.  Two of the rescue
boats were smashed; wreckage, falling from a great
height, struck others, and one of the cruiser's shells,
bursting on the deck of the *Levity*, killed three men.

When this happened, Mark was giving first-aid
to a wounded signal-boy who had been carried below
into the temporary cockpit.  The shell exploded
with a deafening crash just above his head.  It
seemed as if the stout deck plates were burst asunder.
He betrayed no alarm, but went on with his work
of attending to the signal-boy, until the surgeon
came with his instruments and bandages.

Mark returned on deck, wondering what had
happened, and was in time to watch the shattered
*Atreus* taking her final plunge—the third ship which
he had seen sent to the bottom of the North Sea
on that memorable day!

Captain Damant stood near him, also watching.

"I should not have regretted it so much if she
had been sunk in fair fight," the captain was saying
to one of the officers.  "This wholesale mine-laying,
however, is something unexampled, and contrary
to all international law.  It is clear, too, that the
enemy must have begun the work days before the
declaration of war."

Mark saluted him.

"You wished to see me, sir," he reminded him.

"Yes," the captain nodded; "I wanted to
know if the *Minna von Barnhelm* was the only
suspicious-looking craft you saw this morning.
But it is now obvious that she was not alone.  I
don't suppose," he added, "that you quite realise
how important it was that you should give such
prompt information."

"We didn't save the *Atreus*, sir," Mark regretted.

"That is true," acknowledged Captain Damant,
"because, as a matter of fact, we altered our course,
and ran into another mine-field.  The important
thing is that our wireless message was picked up by
a squadron of our Dreadnoughts off the Dogger
Bank.  They were steaming towards the danger.
What do you suppose would have been the result if
they, as well as we, had run foul of those German
mines?  It is thanks to you that the Navy has
been saved an even greater disaster than the loss of
the *Atreus*.  You may be sure I will see that your
good services are recognised."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`UNDER THE SYCAMORE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V.


.. class:: center medium bold

   UNDER THE SYCAMORE.

.. vspace:: 2

Long before the smoke of the destroyer flotilla
blurred the clean line of the horizon, it was
known in Haddisport that H.M.S. *Atreus*
had been sunk by a floating mine.  Among the
first of the townspeople to hear the news was Darby
Catchpole.

Darby had come ashore from the *Mignonette*,
and had hastened to the naval signal station at the
end of the pier to report what he personally knew
of the mine-layer.  His Sea Scout's uniform gave
him a passport, and he entered the pavilion,
undeterred by the armed bluejacket on guard at
the door.

He found himself in a large room, in which were
several officers and seamen.  The officers were
discussing a wireless message received from Captain
Damant.  He heard one of them transmitting the
message by telephone.  Another was working at the
telegraph instrument.  From an inner room came
the busy clicking of a typewriter.

An officer whom he knew by sight as Lieutenant
Ingoldsby, commander of a submarine, came up
to him, and Darby told him of the loss of the *What's
Wanted*, adding that another steam trawler, the
*Pied Piper*, had met a similar fate, with the loss of
all hands.

"I suppose the fishing will be stopped, won't it,
sir?" Darby ventured anxiously.  His father was
an owner of several trawlers, and he foresaw the
possibility of ruin.

"Not necessarily," the officer assured him.  "We
shall soon clear the sea of mines.  If you are not
otherwise on duty, you can be useful here."

Darby's eyes brightened.

"I'm ready now, sir, this minute, to do anything
I can," he said.

"Good!"  Lieutenant Ingoldsby nodded approval
of this prompt willingness.  "Go into the farther
room, there.  They'll tell you what to do."

Darby entered the tiny, sunlit room, from which
he had heard the clicking of the typewriter.  Two
bluejackets stood between him and the table.  One
of them moved aside.

"A Sea Scout just come in, sir," he announced
to the man at the typewriter.

The operator wheeled round, and Darby was
astonished to recognise his own Scoutmaster,
Mr. Arnold Bilverstone.  He was aware that
Mr. Bilverstone was in the Royal Naval Reserve.  What
surprised him was that Mr. Bilverstone had so
quickly been installed in naval duties, and that he
should already be wearing the uniform of a petty
officer.

Responding to Darby's salute, Mr. Bilverstone
questioned him concerning himself and his adventure,
and, gathering a sheaf of papers, said:

"Take these to the Harbour-master.  They are
lists of selected steam trawlers that are to be brought
at once into the inner harbour to be turned into
mine-sweepers, flying the White Ensign."

Not Darby Catchpole alone, but several other Sea
Scouts of the Lion Patrol were occupied about the
town and harbour that afternoon, helping to convert
a fleet of fishing boats into a fleet of naval auxiliaries.

Instead of trawling for fish, these stout little vessels
were to engage in the perilous pursuit of picking up
explosive mines from the waters of the North Sea.
It only needed that their funnels and hulls should
be painted grey, and that some alterations should
be made in their dredging gear, and they were
ready for their new and dangerous work, each with
her daring crew of naval reserve men.

In the late afternoon, Darby watched the first
of them going out, under the escort of a gunboat.
It was astonishing how wicked looking a coat of war
paint had made them.

He lingered at the naval base until the survivors
of the *Atreus* were landed in boats from the
destroyers, and with other Sea Scouts he helped in
conveying the wounded to the hospital.  On his
return he met Mark Redisham, who told him of
how Max Hilliger had been on board the German
mine-layer.

"I've been looking and asking for him," said
Mark, as they walked together across the
swing-bridge.  "I supposed he'd been picked up by one
of the destroyers; but nobody seems to know
anything about him.  I'm afraid he is drowned.  We'd
better call and tell his people."

Darby Catchpole shook his head.

"I've just heard that his people have left the
neighbourhood," he explained.  "Mr. Hilliger,
being a German, couldn't very well stay in Haddisport.
Of course, the consulate has ceased to exist.
He has had to shut up his office and apply for his
passports.  I shouldn't be at all surprised if he, as
well as Max, was aboard that Dutch ketch—the
*Thor*—that we spotted off the Silver Pit.  Perhaps
he even went with Max on board the mine-layer.
Anyhow, he's said to have sold his business and
gone off."

"It looks as if he'd known long beforehand
that there was going to be war," Mark observed.

"That is what the men in the trawl market are
saying," resumed Darby.  "They are saying, too,
that for years past he has been acting as an agent
of the German Navy against Great Britain, using
his fishing boats to fetch and carry information.
What about that pigeon message?  Had it anything
to do with him?  Did you get at what was in it?"

"Yes."  Mark Redisham gave a cautious glance
at his companion.  "But I've got to keep it a
secret."

"Right," nodded Darby.  "Then I won't refer
to it again.  Are you going to call at Sunnydene?
I don't suppose you will find any one there, except
perhaps a caretaker.  The German servants were
dismissed quite a week ago."

Sunnydene was the name of the Hilligers' luxurious
mansion on the edge of the cliff, to the north of
the town.  It was a conspicuous, stone-built house,
with gables and turrets overgrown with creepers,
flanked by fir trees grotesquely bent by the harsh
winds of winter.  In the middle of the front lawn
there was a tall flagstaff, rigged like a schooner's
mast, from which, on occasion, the German ensign
was displayed.  The lower as well as the upper
windows commanded a wide expanse of the North
Sea, and it was from one of them, opening upon the
terrace, that Herr Hilliger had watched the *Thor*
setting out, with his son on board.

Time and again during this day he had stood
looking out towards the far horizon, as if he expected
something to happen.  And now in the dusk of the
evening he was once more gazing outward, with an
expression of grave anxiety in his watery, blue eyes.

"The pigeon has not yet come home, Seligmann!"
he said, turning sharply and speaking in German to
his secretary, who had just entered the room carrying
an overcoat and a yellow leather handbag.

"No, *mein herr*," the secretary answered, "I
have again been into the loft.  It has not returned.
And already the car is at the door.  It is time that
we start."

"Strange!" ejaculated Heir Hilliger.  "I cannot
understand it.  Max was to set it free at ten o'clock
this morning.  A bird that has so often found its
way across from Heligoland is not likely to have
lost itself on a shorter journey.  It cannot be that
the *Minna von Barnhelm* failed to come out from
Cuxhaven.  She was to have been at sea, equipped
and ready to begin her work at once when Max
should signal to her that war had been declared.
Nothing can have gone wrong—nothing!"

He strode impatiently to and fro about the room.

"There is no help for it, Fritz," he resumed.
"You must go without me.  You have your passport.
You will go by motor-car to Harwich, catch the
night boat for the Hook of Holland, and join Max
at Wilhelmshaven.  You understand?"

"I understand, *mein herr*," returned Fritz
Seligmann.  "I have everything ready—the money,
the secret code book, the plans, the letter to Admiral
von Hilliger.  But it is unfortunate that you come
not also.  If already our brave battleships are
coming over for the great invasion, it will be better
that you are in Germany rather than here in
England."

"Very true," agreed Herr Hilliger.  "But before
three days I shall no longer be in England.  I shall
be on board the Admiral's flagship.  Why should I
remain in the enemy's country when I can be over
there in my own, doing my duty for the Fatherland?"

An hour later, when the loaded car had gone off
on its journey to Harwich and the house was in
darkness, he was out in the grounds, prowling among
the deep shadows of the trees.  He seemed to have
no object in his wanderings; but presently he
entered the stables, empty now of both horses and
motor-cars.  He looked up into the blackness of the
rafters, where the open square of a trap-door showed
dimly.  Then he determined to climb up into the
pigeon loft.  He clutched the sides of the ladder, his
foot was on the lowest rung, when the sound of a
footstep startled him.  A hand caught agitatedly at
his elbow.  He turned with a nervous gasp, and
drew back in amazement, as if he had seen a
ghost.

"Max!" he cried.  "You!  Here?  How is this?
What has happened?"

Max stood facing his father, disguised in the
engineer's cap and jumper that he had borrowed in
place of his own wet garments on the destroyer
which had brought him to land.  He was breathing
heavily, as if he had been running; as, indeed, he
had, all the way from the harbour.

"I'm in time, then," he panted.  "In time to
stop you.  But why are you not gone, hours ago?
You got the message?"

"The message," his father repeated, recovering
his composure.  "It has not come.  The bird is not
yet home.  You failed me.  You did not set it free!"

"But I did, father!" protested Max.  "It ought
to have been here long since.  I don't understand."

"Nor I," returned his father.  "It was the best
homing bird we ever had.  Some one—why, what
is the matter?"

Max was standing rigid, staring dazedly in front
of him.

"I was thinking," he said slowly, "wondering—wondering
if Mark Redisham——But no, it couldn't
be.  It's not possible.  And yet there was that shot
that I heard—a rifle shot—from across the sea!  Are
you sure the pigeon is not in the loft, father?"

"Never mind the pigeon now."  Herr Hilliger
drew him out into the stable yard.  "Tell me what
has happened.  What of the *Minna von Barnhelm*?
You signalled her?  You went aboard?  Why have
you come ashore?"

"What?" cried Max in astonishment.  "You
have not heard?  You have not been told?  But
she is sunk—sunk by the guns of a British
cruiser—the *Atreus*.  I was aboard of her—yes.  I was picked
up.  And then the cruiser herself was blown up,
sky-high, by one of our floating mines."

"Ah!" exclaimed Herr Hilliger, with a new
eagerness.  "Then the mines were laid?"

"Hundreds of them!" Max declared.  "All along
the coast."

"Good!" nodded his father, moving out from
the yard into the drive.  "We shall succeed."

He came to a halt under the shadow of a sycamore-tree.

"Listen, my son," he resumed, speaking very low.
"This morning I have had a secret dispatch from
Berlin.  Everything goes well.  Our brave soldiers
are sweeping their way through Belgium.  In a week
they will march triumphantly into Paris.  We shall
have taken possession of Calais.  The way to England
will then be easy.  Our battleships and submarines
will command the Channel, and all the seas; cutting
off supplies so effectually that Great Britain will be
starved into submission, even before our transports
and Zeppelins land their invading forces.  Your
opportunities, my dear Max, are even brighter than
I had dared to dream."

He paused, drawing his son closer into the shielding
shadows of the tree.

"But this delay in our getting over to Wilhelmshaven
is most unfortunate," he continued.  "As it
happens, you had better have gone right across in
the ketch, instead of changing into the *Minna*.
As for myself——"

"Why didn't you go by the mail-boat from
Harwich?" Max interrupted.

"My dear boy," exclaimed his father, "I waited
for your message.  All our plans—everything—depended
upon my knowing the bearings of the
*Minna* and my getting on board of her, as we
planned."

"And now," pursued Max, "what do you propose
to do?"

"Listen!" rejoined Herr Hilliger, still speaking
in a cautiously low voice.  "Everything that we
now do must be in the service of the Emperor
and the Fatherland.  You and I are no longer
concerned with England, in any way whatever,
excepting in hastening her complete downfall.
Great Britain must be beaten to the dust.  And I
have come to the determination that for the present
we can best serve the Kaiser's cause by my going
at once to Wilhelmshaven, leaving you here in
England."

"Leaving me here?" cried Max in surprise.  "But
why?  Why should I, a German, remain here among
our enemies?"

"To be of the greatest use to his Majesty the
Kaiser," returned Herr Hilliger.  "You have been
associated with the English people.  You know
them; you speak like one of them; you can pass
yourself off anywhere as English.  You can look
about you without being suspected, seeing things
which it is important that the Admiral and his
captains should know."

"What?"  Max ground his heel into the gravel.
"You want me to stop here and find out the secrets
of our enemies—to continue your underhand work
of sending private information to Germany about
the British fleet?  You want me to betray the people
who have been my friends?  No, my father, I cannot
do that.  I am a German; I will fight for Germany.
I will give up my life for the Fatherland.  But I
will not pretend to be what I am not.  I will not
be a spy."

Herr Hilliger laughed, a low, contemptuous laugh.

"My dear Max," he said, "since when did you
learn that to be a true patriot it is necessary to
consider the advantages of your country's enemies?
It is nonsense.  Your highest duty, as my son and
as a German, is to do all you can against the arrogant
English.  You shall obey me.  Do you understand?
Tell me, once: how many people know that you
are here in Haddisport?  How many know that
your life was saved when the British cruiser was
blown to pieces by our faithful explosive mine?"

"Nobody knows," Max answered sullenly.  "Nobody
on board the destroyer which picked me up
knew me, even by sight.  I did not intend that
any one should guess I was a German.  Nobody who
was on board the *Atreus* knows that I was not blown
to bits—except—yes, except Mark Redisham.  He
saw me swimming.  But he doesn't know that I
was saved."

"Ah!" nodded Herr Hilliger.  "And he need
never know.  He must never know—never.  It is
better that he should believe that you were drowned."

Max clutched at his father's arm, pressing him
back upon the grass behind the tree.

"Some one comes!" he whispered agitatedly.

They both saw the lithe figure of a youth approaching
silently up the drive.  He paused for a moment,
looking at the front door of the dark, deserted
house, strode to the porchway, and quickly ran up
the steps.  In the silence the two watchers heard
the tinkling of an electric bell; but neither moved.
Strange that they should thus hide themselves in
their own garden!

They waited, knowing that the door would not
be opened.  Herr Hilliger ventured to lean out
and look towards the porch.  As he did so, the
revolving beam of light from the lighthouse, half
a mile away, illumined the trees, travelled slowly
over the towers and gables of the dwelling, glinted
for an instant on the upper windows, then spread
its glow across the sea.  Against this glow he saw
the figure on the doorstep, clearly defined.

"It is one of your Sea Scouts," he whispered.

The Sea Scout ran lightly down the steps, turned,
and came quickly nearer, walking so quietly on the
gravel that Max could only believe that he wore
tennis shoes.  Then, as he came yet closer, to within
a couple of yards of the two Germans, again the
beam from the lighthouse swung round and shone
in his face.

It was the face of Mark Redisham.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`WHAT MARK FOUND IN THE PIGEON LOFT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   WHAT MARK FOUND IN THE PIGEON-LOFT.

.. vspace:: 2

The two watchers under the sycamore-tree
held themselves so very still and silent that
even if he had been searching for them Mark
Redisham might have passed by without a suspicion
that they were so near.  His well-trained senses
were alert, but he was not consciously listening for
any betraying sound or looking for any movement.

He went on along the gravel drive with confident
stride until he reached the stables.  Here he paused,
glancing backward before entering the gateway of
the yard.  He had expected to find the gate shut
and bolted, and was surprised to see that the door
of the motor-garage also was open.

The place was in darkness, but he noticed that
the motor-car was not there.  This appeared to
indicate that, although the family might have gone
home to Germany, yet they had not dismissed all
their servants.  Mark reflected that probably the
chauffeur, who acted also as gardener, had been
left in charge of the house and grounds until the
property should be sold or otherwise disposed of.

Mark had no intention of asking the caretaker's
sanction to do what he had come to do.  Indeed,
it gratified him that his precautionary ringing of
the hall hell had not been answered.  He went
boldly into the stables.

Knowing that he was about to use his electric
torch, he closed the door behind him, lest the light
should be seen.  He knew the place well.  Even in
this past summer the Lion Patrol had had a scout
game at Sunnydene.  Pickets had been stationed at
various points, and it had been his own part to steal
into the grounds and make his way in the darkness
into the harness-room without being caught.

He was now engaged in no ordinary scouting game,
but in a serious duty imposed upon him by the
officer in command at the naval base, and it was
even more important that he should not be detected.

Feeling along the whitewashed wall, he touched
the ladder leading to the loft.  Up this he climbed
through the trap-door.

He stood for some moments looking about him
in the darkness of the loft.  In the high door by
which hay and straw were brought in there was a
small hole, on a level with his eyes.  Swallows used
it as an entrance to their nests in the rafters.  Going
up to it and peering outward, he could distinguish
the dark level of the sea, and presently the ruby
gleam of the Alderwick lightship appeared, grew
brighter, and faded against the dim horizon.

Mark realised that, if from here he could see that
ruby gleam, it was certain that the crew of the
lightship could equally well see the flash of his
electric torch.  Was it not possible that Heinrich
Hilliger had used this hole in the loft door through
which to flash his signals?  Mark covered the hole
by hanging his cap on a nail just above it.

Then he turned and closed the trap in the floor.
It made more noise in falling than he had intended.
Whether it was the displacement of air or his own
fancy, there seemed to be a corresponding sound
down below, as if another door had been suddenly
shut, and as if the key of that other door had been
turned in the lock.

"I suppose I'm a bit nervous," he said to himself.
"It couldn't have been anything."  He drew out his
torch, pressed the switch, and turned the shaft of
light upon the partition beyond which Hilliger's
pigeons were kept.  The key was in the door.
Feeling like a guilty burglar, he turned it and
entered, shielding the light from the open space
in the gable by which the pigeons flew in and out.

There were no pigeons here now.  The coops and
perches were empty.  He supposed that Herr Hilliger
had taken the birds away with him, to use them in
carrying secret messages back to England; although,
as yet, there was no proof that Herr Hilliger
had ever actually used any of his pigeons for this
purpose.

Mark made a rapid survey of the untidy loft,
with its lumber of old harness, rusty garden tools,
bundles of sacking, broken fishing-rods, and discarded
cricket bats.  On a low shelf were some model yachts
with torn sails and tangled rigging.  He looked at
the rough model of a steam trawler.  The boat was
curiously constructed with a boxed-in and bottomless
well.  Inside this well there was a crude model of a
submarine.  Some one—Max Hilliger, perhaps—had
evidently attempted to invent a device by which a
real submarine might be hidden within the casement
of a larger vessel, thus enabling it to be brought
close to an enemy without being discovered.  The
idea was ingenious, but obviously not practical.

In a corner cupboard he discovered a box of
electric light bulbs of various colours.  The sight
of these led him to search for electric wires.  He
saw none; but what he did find was a portable
electric lamp coiled round with a wire so exceedingly
long that, as he estimated, the switch might be
worked here in the loft while the bulb could be
cunningly planted amongst the gorse bushes halfway
down the cliff, there to flash its signals of coloured
light.

Mark wondered if he should take the lamp away
with him, but decided to leave it untouched.  If
as he believed, Herr Hilliger was already on his way
back to Germany, and if Max were drowned, there
could be no more risk of their communicating with
the enemy.

He turned his torch upon the long trestle table
at the far end of the loft.  It was littered with
feathers and grain, and thick with dust.  But in
the midst of the litter were several things which he
considered it his duty to examine.  The first article he
touched was a match-box, half full of very small
elastic bands.  Beside it was a spool of thin, narrow
paper.

"Here's proof enough!" he reflected with satisfaction.
For he recognised the paper and the elastic
bands as being precisely similar to the material
found on the leg of the pigeon shot by Darby
Catchpole from the deck of the *What's Wanted*.

For a little while longer he continued his search.
From a pile of old newspapers and tattered books,
he idly drew forth a long, tin cylinder, thinking
at first it was a telescope case.  The lid had been
jammed on crookedly, and he had difficulty in
pulling it off with the help of his knife.  When he
succeeded at last in opening the canister, he saw
that it contained several tightly-rolled sheets of
paper.  He spread them out on the table.  They
were maps, plans, and charts, very carefully drawn.

The uppermost one was a general map of the coast,
including Haddisport and Buremouth, with the
villages between and a wide strip of the sea, divided
into numbered sections.  The others—and there were
some twenty of them—were detailed enlargements
of the same sections, upon which were shown the
principal buildings of the two towns, the particulars
of the harbours and railways, with every road and
lane and bridge, every field and coppice and house,
distinctly indicated.

Mark Redisham had never seen such wonderful
maps, or imagined that any existed so complete
and correct.  Nothing seemed to have been
overlooked.  On the margins of each sheet were notes,
written in German, with numbers referring to certain
features in the plans.

Mark saw much that he did not then understand;
but there was one sheet in particular which was
perfectly clear to him.  It was a large scale chart
of the section of the North Sea immediately facing
Haddisport, giving the exact soundings of the
channels and shallows and showing an outline of
the coast, with every altitude measured.

The soundings of Alderwick Knoll were so precise
and plentiful that it was evident to him that some
important purpose was connected with this
sand-bank.  He could hardly doubt, indeed, that the
chart had been prepared for the guidance of an
enemy attempting an invasion!

So greatly was he impressed by this idea, that he
became nervously excited over his discovery.  What
was he to do?  Should he carry these charts and
maps away with him, now—to-night?  He had not
been instructed to take anything away with him;
but only to "have a look round" and report upon
any discovery he might happen to make.

Thinking over the situation for a few swift
moments, he determined to obey his orders to the
letter.  Accordingly, he returned the sheets to the
map-case, put the case back where he had found it,
and prepared to leave the loft.

He left no trace of his secret visit.  Taking his
cap and pocketing his torch, he climbed down the
ladder into the garage.  He pushed lightly at the
door; but it did not swing open.  He pushed it
harder; still it resisted.  Then he put his shoulder
to it and gave it a shove.  It did not move.  He
grappled with it, trying with all his strength to
force it open and, realised, to his alarm, that it had
been locked from the outside!

He grew hot and cold by turns.  Had he been
watched, stealing into these stables where he had
no business which he could truthfully explain?  If
so, who could it be that had watched and trapped
him?  It could not be Heinrich Hilliger himself,
or Max.  Herr Hilliger had gone back to Germany.
Max was drowned.  The chauffeur had not returned
with the car.  Once more he put his shoulder to the
door.  No.  It was certainly locked!  He was a
prisoner!

But Mark Redisham was not a Sea Scout for
nothing.  There were more ways than one of getting
out.  He tried the door of the harness-room.  That,
too, was locked.  Yet there was still another door,
leading into the stable.  It opened with a simple
latch and he crossed to the door giving on to the
yard.  Again he was foiled.

He looked to the window.  It was heavily barred.

But not even now did he despair.  Beyond the
vacant horse-boxes was a small opening in the
wall—a hatch through which the stable refuse was forked
out.  This hatch, he knew, was fastened only on the
inside by a hook and staple.  In a moment he
had flung it open, to climb out without further
hindrances and make his way among the fruit
trees and across the tennis lawn to the back gate of
the Sunnydene property, and into the Alderwick road.

Five minutes after his escape, he was at home in
his father's library, sending his report by telephone
to the naval base.

His father, Major Redisham, had gone off to join
his regiment, and the family supper was in
consequence a melancholy meal.  Mark said nothing
of his visit to Sunnydene; but he was at liberty to
tell his mother and sisters of the exciting events of
the day—the loss of the *What's Wanted*, the sinking
of the German mine-layer, and the terrible disaster
to the *Atreus*.

"So you see," he concluded, "Rod was present
at the firing of the first naval gun of the war!"

"Yes," said his mother; "but unfortunately
Rodney's ship cannot be replaced, or the brave men
who went down with her.  He may not get another
appointment for a long time.  Is he coming home
to-night, Mark?"

Mark shook his head.

"No, mother," he answered.  "He was kept
aboard the destroyer—the *Levity*.  The whole
flotilla went off to sea again as soon as the wounded
were put ashore for hospital."

"I suppose they've gone to join the main fleet,"
his sister Vera conjectured.  "Of course, the
German battleships are out, and there'll be a
great battle."

"The destroyers went south, however," Mark
explained, "and the enemy fleet is much more
likely to be hanging round off the Dogger Bank than
down there in the narrow seas.  It's my idea that
the destroyers have gone into the Channel."

"Why?" questioned Vera.  "What's the good
of their going into the Channel when the Germans
are in the North Sea?  We want to fight them,
don't we?"

"Well, you see," resumed Mark, "the British
Army will be crossing to France.  You don't suppose
that ever so many of our transports—big liners
crowded with troops—will be allowed to go over by
themselves, at the risk of being sunk by German
submarines?  They've got to be protected on both
flanks.  I expect they'll steam across through quite
an avenue of cruisers and destroyers."

Later, when Mark was saying good-night before
going sleepily to bed, there was a ring at the
front-door bell.

"Master Mark is wanted," the parlourmaid
announced agitatedly.  "There's a policeman and
a lot of soldiers."

No longer sleepy, Mark hurried into the hall, where
he found Constable Challis, Mr. Bilverstone, and two
men in khaki.

"What's up?" he cried, seeing that the two
soldiers were armed with rifles and fixed bayonets.
"Are the Germans coming?"

"We want you to go with us," Arnold Bilverstone
explained.  "Get on your overcoat, and bring your
electric torch.  We're going to make a raid on Herr
Hilliger's pigeon-loft."

Mark was quickly ready to march off at the head
of the company.  As they filed into the Sunnydene
ground they saw that the house was in total darkness.

Leaving one of the sentries posted outside the
stable yard, Mr. Bilverstone led the way round to the
rear of the outhouses, where he posted the second
sentry.  Mark crossed the tennis-court, dodged
under the fruit trees, and crawled through the hatch
door which he had left unfastened.  Mr. Bilverstone
and Constable Challis followed him through the
stable and into the garage.  They mounted one by
one into the loft.  Mark flashed his torchlight along
the floor, up into the rafters, and again along the
floor.  Then he stooped and picked up the stub of
a cigarette, sniffed at it and shook his head.

"Somebody has been here!" he cried.  "The
end of this cigarette's still wet."

He went beyond the partition and began to search.
But his search was in vain.  The maps, the electric
signalling-lamp and coloured bulbs, the model of the
submarine, the spool of paper, the elastic bands—all
had been cleared away.  Nothing remained to
show that the place was more than an abandoned
pigeon-loft.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`UNDER THE WHITE ENSIGN`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   UNDER THE WHITE ENSIGN.

.. vspace:: 2

Because he was a Sea Scout, clever at
semaphore signalling, with a knowledge of
seamanship, resourceful, and generally handy,
Mark Redisham had no difficulty in entering the
Royal Naval Reserve, the more especially as he was
strongly recommended by Captain Damant.  It
satisfied him greatly to be appointed at once as
signal-boy and wireless operator on board His
Majesty's steam trawler *Dainty*.

She was named the *Dainty* when launched, and
as the *Dainty* she had toiled and battled for three
stormy winters on the wild North Sea.  But now
her impudent white and red funnel and her gaudy
hull were painted a sombre war grey, her trawling
gear had been altered, her fish-well turned into a
cabin, and the name on her bows had given place to
the number 99.  She was no longer a mere fishing
craft, but classed as one of the great new fleet of
naval mine-sweepers, flying the white ensign, and
manned by a crew of sturdy East Coast fishermen
wearing the blue jacket and loose trousers and
flat-topped caps of the British Navy.

It was a proud moment for Mark when early on
the morning following the "raid" on the pigeon-loft
he went on duty, and the *Dainty* steamed out of
Haddisport harbour and bore northward abreast of
the lighthouse and past his home on the cliff.  She
was one of a squadron of twelve, and they went out
in the company of the torpedo gunboat *Rapid*.

Word had come that the Germans had sown an
extensive mine-field to the west and south of the
Dogger Bank, scattering their deadly explosives over
the seas, to the peril of peaceful trading vessels as
well as of any British battleships and cruisers that
might enter the area of danger.  Two Danish cargo
steamers and half a dozen English fishing boats had
already been blown up, and our busy scavengers of
the sea were now to go out and rake up the
carefully-sown seedlings of death.

The work was dangerous, for at any moment one
of the stout little vessels of the squadron might find
a mine with her keel instead of with her stretched
wire hawser, which meant ten more good men sent
to the bottom.  And there was always the risk of a
premature explosion if a mine had to be handled in
releasing it from its moorings.

Mines are not pleasant things to handle at any
time—certainly not such powerful ones as the
Germans employ, with glass "beards," or projecting
spikes, the breaking of one of which results in an
explosion great enough to sink a Dreadnought!
They are charged, not with gun-cotton, but with the
even stronger explosive known as T.N.T., which
has the quality that if the mine filled with it strikes
a ship it blows in the side of the vessel and then
continues its destructive work in the interior.

The skipper of mine-sweeper 99 was Harry Snowling,
R.N.R., an old salt who had fished for thirty
years on the North Sea, and knew its deeps and
shallows as well as he knew the lines on his own
honest, weather-beaten face.  But, of course, he had
had no experience of mine-sweeping, and had only
vague ideas as to how the mines were to be located.

"What's she doin' of, bor?" he questioned, when
they were far out in the blue water, watching a
seaplane sweeping overhead and flying to and fro
athwart the gunboat's course.

"Well," said Mark Redisham, "I'm not certain;
but I suppose she's looking for mines.  They're not
floating right on the surface, you know.  They're
held just about a foot below low water level, so that
when a vessel passes she'll go bang on to them.  But
the pilot up there can see them, as a gannet sees
a fish, and I expect he'll drop a signal when he
spots one."

For something like an hour the seaplane searched,
followed by the gunboat, with the trawlers moving
in pairs in her wake.

When at length a signal was sent down that mines
had been sighted, "dans," or small buoys with
flags attached, were put out to mark the spot from
which operations were to begin.  Each couple of
trawlers got ready their dredge tackle, dropping over
the stern a long wire rope, heavily weighted.  The
weight drawn by each boat was connected with that
of its partner by a yet longer wire hawser, weighted
to keep it submerged and stretched below the level
of the floating mines.  The two vessels, ranging
themselves on either side of the mine-field, steamed
ahead on a parallel course, so that their submerged
gear should catch upon the mooring-lines and sweep
up the mines floating between them.

This process was carried on simultaneously by the
other trawlers, clearing a wide lane through the
mine-field, while the gunboat and the seaplane
continued their searching for new fields.

When the mines were thus caught and brought to
the surface, they were exploded from a safe distance
by gunfire.  You may be sure there were many
narrow escapes from serious accident.

During the first afternoon, the *Dainty* and her
working partner, the *Ripple*, brought up two mines
together.  They came into violent contact with each
other, exploding so close astern of the *Ripple* that
she was caught in the edge of the upheaval and
badly damaged.  Her crew made for the boat,
thinking that all was over with them; but her
skipper controlled them, and himself crawled below
into the narrow space near the screw shaft, discovered
the damage, and stopped the leak sufficiently to
enable the pumps to keep the water down and save
the ship.

Within a quarter of an hour of this accident, one
of the other trawlers struck a mine and was shattered
to fragments.

At the end of two days, the field having been
cleared, the gunboat returned to port.  Shortly after
she had gone, Mark Redisham and his companions
watched a squadron of British dreadnoughts and
cruisers steaming safely across the area from which
the danger had been so industriously removed.

Their trails of smoke had hardly faded from the
horizon when Mark, still looking in the direction
in which they had disappeared, noticed a curious
disturbance in the calm water, about a couple of
miles away.

At first he thought it was a school of gambolling
porpoises showing their fins, but presently the
periscopes and conning-tower of a submarine rose to
the surface.  The conning-tower was marked "U15,"
and he knew by this that she was German.

It seemed to him that she had probably been
lurking in wait for the battleships that had just
passed.  If so, she had certainly missed her chance of
doing them any damage.  One of her officers climbed
out to the conning-tower platform, looked searchingly
around the sea, but quickly disappeared again, and
the submarine dived, having paid no attention to
the trawlers.

Mark, taking counsel with the skipper, went into
the wireless operating-room and sent out a message,
reporting what he had seen and giving the position.
He did not expect his message to be picked up;
but within an hour a British light cruiser came
racing down from the north at twenty-five knot
speed.  The skipper and Mark watched her through
their binoculars as she drew nearer, and identified
her as H.M.S. *Carlisle*.  They saw her suddenly alter
her course, as though to avoid the mine-sweepers
and possible floating mines.

"Her needn't be afeared," said Snowling.  "Thar
aren't no mines here now.  Suppose you signals her,
bor, and tells her it's all right!"

"Hold hard!" cried Mark.  "Look!  Look what
she's after!"

In direct advance of the cruiser, he distinguished
for a moment the two periscopes of the enemy
submarine making a ripple as they moved through
the calm water.  In that same moment there was a
gush of fire and smoke from one of the warship's
6-inch guns.  A fountain of spray rose high into the
sunlit air from where the shell had fallen.  One of
the periscopes seemed to have been struck.  The
submarine, evidently crippled, was emptying her
ballast tanks to rise to the surface when a second
shell struck her half-submerged conning-tower,
smashing it like an egg.

"That's what I calls good marksmanship,"
declared old Harry Snowling.  And going to
the flag-halyard, he dipped his white ensign in
salute.

The nearest of the trawlers hastened to the spot
where the shattered submarine had gone down,
hoping to save some lives; but nothing was found
but a slimy patch of floating oil.

The *Carlisle* came within speaking distance of the
trawlers, standing by for about an hour, and gave
information of a new mine-field sown between the
Dogger Bank and the Bight of Heligoland.  Ten
British trawlers, it was stated, had been captured by
a German cruiser—the *Schwalbe*—which had taken
them in to Emden.  Their crews had been kept
prisoners, and the boats had been fitted out as
mine-layers to scatter mines indiscriminately
wherever ships could sail.

The mine-sweepers were supposed to work in
stretches of ten days at sea and six in port; but the
*Dainty* and her companions continued at their task
a longer time, for the danger was greater than ever
the Royal Navy had counted upon.

Many neutral ships and fishing craft had been
blown up, a British gunboat had been sunk, another
badly damaged, and it was imperative that the seas
should be kept clear.  But at length a relief squadron
from Grimsby came out to take over the work, and
the Haddisport boats were dismissed for home.

Early on the next morning, Mark Redisham started
up in his bunk, hearing the engines coming to a
dead stop.  He dressed himself in his oilskins and
went out upon the rain-splashed deck.  To his
surprise he saw that a submarine had come close
alongside.  It was the H29, of which, as he
remembered, his friend, Lieutenant Ingoldsby, was the
commanding officer.  One of her crew had been taken
ill, and Lieutenant Ingoldsby wished the *Dainty* to
take the man on board and nurse him until he could
be put ashore in Haddisport.

The sick man had been carried over a gangway
thrown across between the two vessels when Mark,
happening to glance over the *Dainty's* farther
bulwark, in search of the rest of the squadron which
had gone on in advance, saw instead the dim shape
of a three-funnelled cruiser looming ghostlike through
the rain mist.  She was flying no ensign, but by the
look of her he was almost sure she was not British.

Not asking himself why he did so, he strode across
the gangway to where Lieutenant Ingoldsby knelt,
doing something with a spanner, on the narrow
deck abaft the conning-tower.

"Good-morning, sir," he began.  "I think the
cruiser over there is signalling."

"Cruiser?" repeated Lieutenant Ingoldsby,
springing to his feet.  He climbed a few rungs up the
ladder of the conning-tower, and looked out over the
wheel-house of the *Dainty*, behind which the
submarine was well hidden.

"Just slip below and ask Jardine for my glasses,
Redisham," he ordered.  "I believe it's the *Schwalbe*—the
ship we've been stalking!  In fact, I'm sure!"

Mark had never before been on board a submarine,
and when he got to the foot of the perpendicular
ladder of the hatchway, he became confused by the
strange complexity of tanks and machinery.  An
electric light shone in the far end of a narrow passage.
He was making his difficult way towards it when the
great boom of a naval gun startled him.  The
*Schwalbe* was opening fire on the mine-sweepers.

He stood still.  The silence following the gun
shot was broken by the banging of an iron door above
his head, and the sharply-spoken command rang out
in Lieutenant Ingoldsby's voice:

"Prepare to dive!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HOW MARK MADE HIMSELF SMALL`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   HOW MARK MADE HIMSELF SMALL.

.. vspace:: 2

On hearing the gun shot, followed so quickly by
the command, "Prepare to dive!" Mark
Redisham knew that the strange cruiser he had
seen was unquestionably an enemy, firing upon the
mine-sweepers.

An electric bell buzzed insistently; some one sang
out: "Diving stations!" and there was a scurrying
of bare feet along the narrow deck.  It was useless
now for him to go in search of Lieutenant Ingoldsby's
binoculars.  His impulse was to get off the submarine
and aboard his own ship as quickly as possible.  Yet
for an instant he hesitated, lost in the confusion of
dark passages and intricate machinery.

A second shot sounded.  He turned and scrambled
blindly back to the companion-hatch.  But here he
was stopped.  The steep iron ladder was occupied by
an officer who was even then screwing down the
fastening of the watertight hatch-cover above his
head.

"Can't I get off, sir?" Mark cried desperately.
He had no fear, even though already he heard the
gurgling of the water in the ballast tanks and knew
that the submarine was on the point of being
submerged.  He clutched at the officer's naked ankles
and repeated his question:

"Can't I get off, sir—on to my own ship—the
*Dainty*?"

The officer, a sub-lieutenant in working kit,
descended to the iron grating at the foot of the ladder.

"Not now," he answered quietly, as he pressed
an electric switch, flooding the whole ship with light.
"You must stop where you are.  Sit down in that
corner.  Make yourself small.  Don't touch anything,
or you may get a nasty shock."

He bent down and disappeared through what
looked like an oven door in the bulkhead.  Mark
could see the men hurrying to their posts.  Two
went forward to the torpedo-tubes, one to each
main ballast-tank kingston, one to the hydroplane
wheel, another to the motor switches.  An engineer
took charge of the air-escape vents.

Each kingston being opened and the water
rushing in, the boat began to sink.  Mark felt an
uncomfortable, heaving motion beneath him.  He
heard the hum of machinery—the whirr of well-oiled
wheels, the chunking of pistons and cranks.  The
Diesel engine was working whilst the conning-tower
remained above the surface for the ship to get clear
of the trawler alongside.  Electric bells trilled their
messages from the commander to the men at their
various stations.

"Close everything!" he called aloud.

The petrol engine stopped.  The ballast tanks
were full, and the electric motors now took up the
work of sending her along.  To Mark Redisham it
seemed that she was going round and round in a
dizzy circle, already many fathoms deep under the
sea.  The smell of hot oil and the heaviness of the
compressed air stifled him.  Yet in his eager interest
in all that was happening he would not have
exchanged the discomfort for ease, or the possible
danger for assured safety.

Suddenly, in answer to a turn of the horizontal
rudder, she began to rise.  Mark saw the
sub-lieutenant crawl swiftly past him to the forward
torpedo-chambers.  Bending over, and lying on his
elbows, he managed to get a sidelong glimpse into
the conning-tower with its complicated network of
wires, its confusion of switches, handles, levers, and
brightly-polished instruments.  The commander was
there, he knew, although it was only now and again
that Mark caught sight of the gold braid on his sleeve
as he stretched out his hand to touch some switch
or lever.

"Charge firing-tanks; flood torpedo-tubes; stand
by to fire!" commanded Lieutenant Ingoldsby.

The periscope was now above the surface and his
eyes were upon the image of his target reflected in
the mirror.  He was taking aim, manoeuvring the
submarine into position as if she herself were a gun.
For some tense moments all was quiet but for the
purr of the motor and the working of the
air-compressors for charging the torpedo-tubes.  Then
there came a thumping sound as of a heavy door
being shut.  This was repeated.  Two torpedoes
with their mechanism adjusted had been thrust into
the breach of their tubes.  Mark would have given
much to see how it was done.  But he did not dare
to move.  Obeying the recommendation to make
himself small, he waited breathlessly.

"Number one—fire!" came the sharp command.

There was a violent gush as a torpedo was
discharged on its errand of destruction.  The whole
vessel shuddered and was alarmingly unsteady until
the compensating-tanks were filled and the true
balance was regained.  Then a second torpedo was
fired.  Mark listened, wondering, as the submarine
dived with her nose down, if either of her weapons
would strike the target at which it had been aimed.
They had been fired at long range, but their rush
through the water was quickly over.  A low, rumbling
explosion told that one of them had struck and
burst against the German cruiser's bilge.

The H29 remained deeply submerged, her electric
motor driving her forward at ten knots speed for
something like a quarter of an hour, when once more
the water was blown from the tanks and she rose to
bring her periscope above the surface.

The sub-lieutenant was now in the conning-tower
with the commander.

"We got her under the forward magazine,"
Mark heard Lieutenant Ingoldsby announce.  "She's
sinking by the bows.  The German collier that we
saw yesterday is standing by, picking up survivors.
She's fitted with wireless, so we may as well keep
out of sight.  Carry on just as we are for another
half-hour, Desmond, and shape a course for
Haddisport Roads."

"Yes, sir," returned Mr. Desmond.  "And what
about our mine-sweepers?"

"Oh, they are all right!" the commander signified.
"I've just counted them.  I don't believe any of
them was hit.  Lucky for them that we turned up.
She'd have sunk the lot."

"We've got one of the crew of the *Dainty* aboard
of us, sir," the sub-lieutenant told him.

"Yes, I know," nodded the commander; "it's
young Redisham.  I sent him below for my binoculars.
If you sight his ship, we'll put him back."

Mark stood up and saluted him as he came out
into the hatchway.

"I hope I'm not very much in your way, sir," he
faltered.

"Not at all," smiled Mr. Ingoldsby; "although
we haven't much room to spare on a ship like this,
as you can see.  But don't stay here in the gangway.
Come along with me.  Mind you don't knock your
head, and don't touch any of the switches."

He led the way through an intricate passage into
the engine-room: an open space that could hardly
be called a cabin, where men were at work with the
electric motors.  Here he paused to glance at a
gauge.

"You've done very well, shipmates," he said,
nodding his approval.  "You've sent a German
cruiser to the bottom—an old ship, it is true; but
she'll do no more mine-laying mischief, and I'm just
as pleased with you all as if she had been a
Dreadnought.  Jardine," he added, pushing open the door
that gave entrance to his cabin.  "Shaving water,
and then breakfast."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AN EXPERT IN MINE-SWEEPING`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX.


.. class:: center medium bold

   AN EXPERT IN MINE-SWEEPING.

.. vspace:: 2

Mark took up his stand in the only corner he
could see where there was no machinery, and
feasted his curious eyes on everything within
their range—the hammocks slung from the steel
cross-beams, the safety-helmets hanging near, the
controls of a multitude of electrical devices, the
wheels governing the rudders, and the great array
of enclosed cylinders and accumulators.

At the far end was an electric cooking apparatus
at which the cook had already resumed his interrupted
work of preparing the officers' breakfast.  From a
small boiler, Jardine filled a silver jug with hot water,
which he carried into the commander's cabin.

On his return, Jardine went up to Mark and said:
"The commander wants you."

Mark was shown into the state-room and was
surprised to find it so large and comfortable.
Lieutenant Ingoldsby stood before a tiny
dressing-table, lathering his face.

"Have you seen my aunt lately, Mark?" he
questioned.  "Is she nervous, living alone there on
the cliff?"

"I saw her the night before we sailed," Mark
answered.  "She came in to bid good-bye to father.
Yes, sir, I believe she is a bit nervous.  She thinks
there's sure to be an invasion, and that a whole army
of Germans will come over in Zeppelins and
flat-bottomed boats, guarded by submarines and
Dreadnoughts.  She said something about going
inland to Bath or Buxton."

"Not very complimentary to the British Navy,
eh?" laughed Mr. Ingoldsby, stropping his razor.
"I hope Major Redisham reassured her.  Tell me
something about this mine-sweeping business, will
you?  The Admiralty don't seem to be altogether
satisfied with the process.  Too many precious lives
are being sacrificed."

Mark described his work and told of the difficulties
and dangers of dealing with contact-mines.

"The worst part of it is when we come bow-on
to one of them," he said.  "I've been thinking a lot
about it.  I don't know if there's anything in my idea,
but it seems to me that the sweepers ought to be
fitted with some sort of protective net in front, to
ward off the mines, or even to pick them
up—something like the cow-catcher on an American
locomotive, you know."

Lieutenant Ingoldsby turned round sharply in the
middle of shaving his left cheek.

"Good!" he exclaimed.  "Very good.  You've
certainly hit upon the right notion, if you think it
can be worked—and at once."

"It ought to be quite easy," Mark averred.
"Just a steel-wire net in the shape of a fan, hinged
from the trawler's cutwater and supported from
pulleys at the end of beams shoved out like catheads
over the bows.  It would be lowered in front of her,
below her water-line, to scoop up the mines, or drive
them aside.  There'd be scores of lives saved, sir."

"So I should think," assented the commander,
proceeding with his shaving.  "You ought to make
a working model of the contrivance and submit it
to the authorities.  They're almost sure to adopt it,
recognising you as a kind of expert on mine-sweeping.
And now, there's something else I want to ask you.
What has become of Heinrich Hilliger and his son,
do you know?  I have heard of your raid on the
pigeon-loft at Sunnydene, and of the maps and charts
that you found, and failed to bring away with you.'

"Max was drowned when the *Atreus* was mined,"
Mark explained.  "And his father is believed to have
gone back to Germany."

"Then whom do you suspect of having taken
off the charts and things?" pursued Lieutenant
Ingoldsby.

Mark could not explain this mystery.  It had
puzzled him ever since the night of its occurrence.

"You will be doing a service to your country,"
said the officer, "if you make a point of finding out
exactly where those two are, and what they are
doing.  For my own part, I don't believe for a
moment that Max Hilliger was drowned, or that his
father has gone home to Germany.  They are alien
enemies, you know, and it is not to be wondered at
if they are still in England—still even in Haddisport—working
their level best to bring about the downfall
of Great Britain."

Mark pondered over this recommendation while
he was at breakfast in the engine-room, and resolved
to make some investigations during his time of leave
on shore.  He also gave some thought to his invention
for picking up explosive mines.

While he was drawing a plan of it, Lieutenant
Ingoldsby, again at his post in the conning-tower,
called out the command:

"Diving stations!"

The H29 was once more submerged.  There was a
cloud of smoke on the horizon which might be from
the funnels of an enemy cruiser.  Seen afterwards in
the periscope mirror, however, the stranger turned
out to be a British liner.  The ballast tanks were
blown out, and the submarine rose awash.  The
electric motor had stopped and the petrol engine had
not yet been set in motion.  Instead of the telegraph
signifying "go ahead!" there came an ominous
rasping sound from the neighbourhood of the
forward torpedo-chamber.  Something was wrong!

"Sounds as if we'd fouled some wreckage,"
conjectured the chief engineer, standing by his
cranks and levers with his eye on the dial.

Mark Redisham was astonished to hear his name
called from the conning-tower.  He followed three
of the men who also had been summoned.  When
he came out into the open air he discovered
Mr. Ingoldsby and Mr. Desmond standing together
looking forward along the narrow strip of deck to
where a great round shape lay jammed between
the hydroplane and its guard.

"It's a German mine!" cried Mark.  "Don't let
it be moved, sir.  Wait!  Keep the engines stopped!
You've fouled its mooring; but it won't go off—it
won't explode—unless one of the horns gets broken
or bent."

"That's what I judged," nodded Lieutenant
Ingoldsby, looking very grim.  "But how is the
thing to be cleared away if we don't move it?  You
know the tricks of these things.  What do you
advise?"

"Wait a bit, sir," urged Mark.  He stooped and
quickly took off his boots and stockings.  "Let me
go along and have a close look at it."

"No, I can't let you," objected the commander.
"It's too dangerous."

"Then let one of the men come with me, sir,"
Mark suggested, not at all alarmed.

Before he could be stopped, he had slipped past
the men and was making his way along the wet and
slippery platform.  Mr. Desmond, also in bare feet,
went after him.  They reached the place where the
mine was lodged.  The horns of the deadly machine
were fortunately all pointed outward.  The mooring
line of flexible wire rope had been caught as the
submarine rose to the surface and was securely
fixed in the hydroplane bearings, held by its own
weight and the weight of the sinker.

Mark went down on his hands and knees and
examined the thing most carefully, seeing exactly
how it was held, calculating how it would fall when
released, estimating how it would be kept in position
while the mooring-line was being severed.  All his
scout-craft was exercised.  He looked round at the
sub-lieutenant.

"We shall manage all right, sir," he declared
calmly.  "We want a couple of hammocks to pack
round the base of the mine for a fender, a strong man
with a crowbar to hold it from slipping, while another
with a sharp file and a pair of pliers cuts through the
mooring warp.  When it's cut, you submerge the
ship a couple of feet, let go, and the mine will float
off.  Then the gunner can fire at it and explode it.
Do you understand, sir?  Excuse my making these
suggestions; but I've had a lot to do with handling
explosive contact-mines during the last week."

His directions were followed in every detail.  In
half an hour the work was done without mishap,
and the submarine and her crew were saved.  The
mine, released from its sinker, floated with its
rounded top and horns above the surface.  The ship
stood off, her fourteen-pounder quick-firing gun was
raised from its chamber, and the gunner's skill
brought about the explosion.

Late in the afternoon of that same day the H29
appeared abreast of Alderwick Knoll.  Darby
Catchpole saw her from the cliff.  Watching her
through his telescope, he made out that the flag
flying from her mast bore the sign of the skull and
crossbones, and by this he knew that she had been
in action and had come out victorious.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`DARBY CATCHPOLE'S DISCOVERY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER X.


.. class:: center medium bold

   DARBY CATCHPOLE'S DISCOVERY.

.. vspace:: 2

"I expect she has been putting a torpedo
into some German mine-layer," said Darby,
speaking to Constable Challis, who stood
beside him.  "It's the H29."

"Ah!" nodded Constable Challis, "that's the
submarine that Lieutenant Ingoldsby's in command
of, isn't it?  I wish I'd known when I saw his aunt,
Mrs. Daplin-Gennery, along the parade just now."

Turning to see if that lady were still in sight, he
saluted an elderly gentleman who was hobbling past
with the aid of two sticks and with a folded
newspaper under one arm.

"Good-evenin', Mr. Croucher," he said.  "Any
news in the evenin' newspaper, sir?"

"Worse and worse," responded Mr. Croucher,
coming to a stop.  "Liège has fallen.  It will be
Namur next, and then Paris.  France hasn't a
chance.  Neither has Russia."  He gazed searchingly
across the sea.  "And then, if the enemy's
ships slip out from the Kiel Canal, we're doomed."

"You think so, sir?" questioned Challis, easing
the collar of his tunic as if it choked him.

"Think so?" cried Mr. Croucher almost resentfully.
"I know!  There is nothing more certain.
Don't you make any mistake, constable.  We've
lived long enough in a fool's paradise.  I tell you, the
Germans have been preparing for this for years and
years, only awaiting their chance.  And they've got
it, now.  Nothing can stop them—nothing!  Look
how they're sweeping through Belgium!  Those
siege guns of theirs are simply awful.  No fortress
can resist them, and their naval guns are even
greater.  What our people have been thinking of
over here I don't know.  They don't seem to realise
our danger.  Why, we've no home army worth
speaking of, now that the only soldiers we had have
gone over to France, leaving us defenceless.  We're
at the enemy's mercy, Challis."

Constable Challis glanced aside at Darby Catchpole,
who was closing his telescope, the submarine
having passed beyond sight.

"And how could we hope to prevent their landing
on an open coast like this?" pursued Mr. Croucher,
bending forward on the support of his two sticks.
"I tell you, if their ships break through the cordon
of our fleet, we're doomed."

"Indeed, sir?" said Challis with composure.  "I
wasn't reckonin' on the Germans comin' over here
to Haddisport, sir.  How will they land their cavalry
and artillery through shoal water?  They can't
bring transport liners across Alderwick Sands."

"Liners?" repeated Mr. Croucher.  "Who spoke
of liners?  They've got hundreds and thousands of
flat-bottomed barges lying in the shallows behind the
Frisian Islands, ready to be filled with troops and
towed over here and beached.  They don't need any
liners."

Darby Catchpole here ventured to intervene.  "And
are our Dreadnoughts and cruisers going to hang
back while the enemy troops are crossing, sir?" he
inquired.  "Won't our submarines have a chance?"

"Strictly between ourselves," observed Constable
Challis, "I don't believe that a single German soldier
will ever set foot in England, except as a prisoner
of war."

"Nonsense, Challis, nonsense!" retorted
Mr. Croucher.  "I've no patience with such childish
hopefulness.  We're at war against the greatest army
the world has ever known, and we're not prepared
for it.  The Germans will treat us just as they are
now treating the Belgians.  We've got no army
capable of facing them.  Even our navy is weaker
than it ought to be.  The Germans have their
Dreadnoughts as well as we, and quite as powerful.
They've got crowds of them, and——"

"Not like the *Iron Duke*," Challis interrupted.
"Not like the *Queen Elizabeth* or the *Lion*.  What
about our 13.5 and 15-inch guns, sir?"

"Our guns are not much good against explosive
mines and submarines," rejoined Mr. Croucher.
"Look what the enemy have done already with their
mines!  Catchpole, here, can tell you about the loss
of the *Atreus*.  And now one of their submarines has
sunk another cruiser—the *Pathfinder*.  Didn't you
read about it in the paper?  They've got their spies
everywhere, too.  They know what we're doing as
well as we know it ourselves!  Spies, Challis?
Why——"  He lowered his voice as he glanced along
the cliff to the turrets and gables of
Sunnydene.  "I've been watching that house," he went
on, mysteriously.  "It's supposed to be empty.  No
postman goes there, no trade-carts stop at the gate,
no gardener looks after the grounds.  And yet, only
yesterday there was smoke from one of the
chimneys—puffs of white smoke, long and short.  What was
the meaning of it?  Signals, Challis, signals!"

"Was there any ship passing, to take up
the message, sir?" questioned Darby Catchpole.

Mr. Croucher looked at the boy severely.

"Do you think they'd make signals to seagulls?"
he asked.  "Of course, there were ships—plenty of
them—tramps, coasting schooners, fishing boats.
Any one of them might take a message over to
Heligoland, telling secrets about the movements of our
warships.  The house is a perfect nest of spies, in the
pay of the enemy.  It's all very well for them to
pretend to have gone away to Germany.  But they
haven't.  Depend upon it they're living in some
subterranean chamber, where they've stored arms
and munitions of war, lying low there to join the
enemy troops when they come over to murder us all.
I tell you, we're doomed, Challis—doomed!"

"Strictly between ourselves," said Constable
Challis, when the old man had gone beyond hearing,
"I'm not so sure he isn't right about Sunnydene.
Mrs. Daplin-Gennery declares she's seen Herr
Hilliger prowlin' around at night, likewise his son,
Max, who's supposed to be drowned.  And young
Mark Redisham, who's a Sea Scout like yourself,
has found out a thing or two in the pigeon-loft.
Strictly between ourselves, I may tell you that we
made a raid on the place a few nights ago.  Somebody
had been there in front of us, however, and cleared
everything suspicious away.  You may take it from
me, as that somebody was either Herr Hilliger or
his son."

Darby could have said something concerning his
own suspicions of a message sent by pigeon post;
but he knew that Constable Challis was a gossip, and
he held his own counsel.  Nevertheless, he thought
it in some way his duty as a Sea Scout to keep an eye
upon Sunnydene, and he seldom passed the house
without glancing up at the windows and the chimneys
to see if there were any sign of habitation.

He was beginning to be assured in his belief that
there was no real foundation for further suspicion,
when, returning one moonlight night along the cliff
from the Alderwick Coastguard Station, he saw
something which renewed all his doubts.

During his absence, several tramps and coasters
had anchored for the night in the roads; for the
coastwise navigation lights were not now lighted to
guide ships on their way, and general traffic on the
sea ceased after dusk.

Amongst other vessels lying in the fairway inside
of Alderwick Knoll, one in particular attracted his
notice.  It was a foreign-looking ketch.  The moon
was not high, and he could see the vessel plainly
outlined against the track of light across the waves.

At night time, one ketch-rigged boat is very much
like another; but there was something in the angle
of her bowsprit, in the rake of her two masts, as well
as in the clumsy lines of her hull which made him
almost certain that she was the *Thor*—the same
Dutchman in which Max Hilliger had sailed for
Germany hardly more than a fortnight ago.
Furthermore, she was anchored in precisely the
same spot as on the earlier occasion, directly opposite
Sunnydene, and visible from any one of the many
front windows.  Her riding-light was hung low on
her foremast, and there was a second light abaft her
mizzen.

Having no pressing need to get home to his supper,
Darby lingered, anxious to make certain of the
identity of the ketch.  He could get into the town as
easily by walking along the beach as going by the
cliff path or the main road.

For some minutes he stood by the side of a tall
gorse bush.  Nothing happened.  But at length as
he watched, the vessel's stern light went out, then
reappeared and continued to go in and out with
curious regularity.

A person ignorant of the Morse code might have
believed that a message was being flashed; but
Darby Catchpole knew that it was only that one of
the crew was pacing the deck and passing to and fro
in front of the lantern.

While he waited in the silence, however, he heard
the unmistakable sound of a boat's keel crunching
on the shingle.  He turned and glanced back at
Sunnydene.  Only the roof and towers could be seen
over the edge of the cliff; but from a small window
in the east gable there came a quick flash of light.
Was it a signal?

Darby crept upwards a few feet and watched for
a repetition of the flash.  How long he waited he did
not know; but when he stepped back three or four
paces he again saw the light and almost laughed
aloud when he discovered that it was no more than
a reflection of the moon in the glass.  Yet it had
seemed to move.  He was not sure even now that it
was not a signal to the ketch.

Wondering if the casement were swinging loose
on its hinges, he mounted to the top of the cliff and
crossed the road to get the window between him and
the light of the moon.  An owl flew silently over the
tops of the intervening fir trees.  The house seemed
indeed to be deserted.  The idea that there still were
alien enemies living in it was, after all, ridiculous,
and it was only a waste of time to hang around the
place any longer.

Beyond the long front garden wall was a pathway
leading amongst the gorse and bracken to the main
road.  Darby determined to take this way back to
the town.

He turned into the dark shadows of the path;
but stopped abruptly, hearing the click of a gate
latch.  Some one was coming out by the side gate
of Sunnydene.  Quick footsteps were approaching,
rustling in the dry bracken.  He drew back and
looked out from his ambush to see a cloaked figure
dart past him in the clear light of the moon.

"Max!"

Darby leapt forward, clutching at a wing of the
cloak.  But it was wrenched violently away, and the
hand beneath it was flung out, striking him a blow
in the face that sent him reeling to the ground, while
Max Hilliger, with a tin case full of maps and charts
under his arm, stole downward to the beach.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE ESCAPE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE ESCAPE.

.. vspace:: 2

Max Hilliger had not waited to ascertain
who it was that had leapt out upon him
from the shadows.

Against the light of the moon he had caught a
glimpse of a Sea Scout's flat-topped cap, and the
young voice that had uttered his name was no doubt
the voice of one of his former companions of the
Lion Patrol, who had been lurking in ambush to
detain him, and perhaps bring about his arrest.

Max could only believe that his assailant was
Mark Redisham, who lived near, and who had
already shown inconvenient vigilance against him.

Mark Redisham had by some means intercepted
the pigeon with the message which he, Max, had
sent to his father from on board the *Minna von
Barnhelm*.  He had dared also to enter the
pigeon-loft at Sunnydene, and perhaps to examine these
special maps and charts that were now going over
to Germany.

"Yes," Max ruminated as he made his way down
the slopes of the cliff towards the beach, "it could
only have been Mark Redisham.  But whoever it
was, I have given him a stinging knockdown blow
that he won't forget in a hurry!"

By paths well known to him, he reached the foot
of the cliff, and started off across the grassy denes,
taking cover in the hollows and in the shadows of
the gorse bushes, tightly gripping the tin case of
charts under his arm and the small bag which he
carried in his left hand.  His right hand went to his
belt, where there was a loaded revolver.

"If he'd shown fight," he reflected, fingering the
weapon, "I might have used this.  But it's a good
thing I didn't.  The noise would have alarmed the
whole neighbourhood, and the Tommies on sentry-go
along the beach would have nabbed me."

He knew that there were armed sentries on the
beach.  Since the beginning of the war, the whole of
the east coast of Great Britain had been patrolled
and watched at night by men in khaki with loaded
rifles and fixed bayonets.

He was running the risk even now of being seen
and made to give an account of himself.  It was for
this reason that he was so careful to take cover and
to make no betraying sound as he went at Scouts'
pace towards the sea.

For himself he had no fear, excepting that, if
caught, he would be compelled to explain the
compromising contents of his bag and the tin canister.
It was the men in the waiting boat about whom he
was anxious.  They were Germans, and although
one of them, Hermann Körner, could speak excellent
English, yet the others might easily betray
themselves as foreigners and enemies.

When he reached the higher ridges of sand that
intervened as a natural barrier between the beach
and the level grass land, he went down on his elbows
and knees and crept over the loose sand until he could
look down upon the foreshore.  He had come out,
as he had intended to do, directly opposite one of the
groins of black timber that reared their protecting
walls across the beach.  The deep-driven piles at
the near end were covered with sand; at the far
end they were washed by the tide.  Many a time had
Max dived into the deep water from the end of this
same groin.  As he looked at it searchingly now, he
distinguished the dark shape of the boat against
the blackness.  It was about fifty yards away from
him, with only an open slope of sea sand and
shingle between.  In a few moments he might be
seated in the boat, when the rowers would push off.

But on that stretch of moonlit beach two figures
had suddenly appeared.  They were striding quickly
towards the boat.  He could see the moonshine
glinting on their bayonets, and hear their heavy
tread on the sand.  One of them lowered his rifle,
with a hand on the lever, as he called out a loud
challenge to the boat:

"Who comes there?"

Max Hilliger's plan was working just as he had
hoped.  A tall man stood up from the boat and
strode towards the two sentries.

"Friends!" he answered.  And Max recognised
the voice of Hermann Körner.  "It's all right, boys."

The patrol saw only indistinctly that he wore the
uniform of a naval officer.  Never doubting that he
was British, they drew to a halt in front of him.

"We've got strict orders not to let anybody come
ashore," one of them said.

"Yes, well," was the ready response, "you do
your duty.  But I have my duty also.  I come ashore
from ze revenue schooner out there.  I report
something.  Listen!"  He had seen their regimental
badges in the moonlight, and noticed that one wore
a corporal's stripe.  "You are not local men," he
went on; "you are probably strangers on the coast."  He
pointed to the cliff.  "What sort of peoples live
in the third house?" he questioned.  It was Major
Redisham's house which he indicated.  "You don't
know?  Well, I recommend you keep a watch on it.
Half an hour ago there was signals flashed from one
of ze upper windows.  It is well you go up and make
inquiry into the matter."

The two men in khaki were now standing with
their backs to the groin, beyond which Max Hilliger
was crawling stealthily to the boat.

"Do you say they're alien spies, signallin' to some
ship out at sea?" the corporal asked.

The stranger shrugged his shoulders in a way
which to any one suspicious must at once have
betrayed that he was a foreigner.

"Such is my impression, corporal," he answered,
watching Max Hilliger step into the boat.  "And
knowing that there was a military patrol here,
naturally I come ashore to warn you.  Good night."

They waited until he had returned to his
companions and pushed off.  Then they crossed the
denes together, and climbed the cliff path to the
suspected house.

Pushing open the gate, they entered the drive,
where they were confronted by Mark Redisham and
Darby Catchpole.  Mark's greatcoat covered his
naval clothes.  Darby wore his Sea Scout's uniform,
and he was dabbing his swollen nose with a
blood-stained handkerchief.

"Signal lights have been seen flashing from the
windows of this house," began the corporal.

"Who said so?" demanded Mark.  "I'm sure
no light of any sort has been seen.  All the windows
are thickly curtained.  You're making a mistake."

"Oh, no, we're not!" insisted the corporal.  "A
naval officer from the revenue ship out there came
ashore to tell us about it."  He indicated the *Thor*.

"There's no revenue boat out there," declared
Darby Catchpole.  "That ship's not even British.
You've been hoodwinked."  He turned to Mark.
"Do you see how the trick has been played?" he
cried.  "It's quite plain.  While one of the boat's
crew, speaking English, came ashore and kept the
patrol off the scent, Max Hilliger slipped into the
boat unseen!  What's to be done?"

"If Max has gone aboard the ketch, we can't do
much more than we've done already," declared
Mark.  "I've telephoned to the naval base, telling
them to send out and capture the ketch while she's
still at anchor.  But are you certain sure that it was
Max Hilliger you saw?"

Darby dabbed his handkerchief to his nose, which
was still bleeding.

"What's the good of asking such a question?"
he objected warmly.  "I saw him as clearly as I see
you now.  He rounded on me when I called his name,
and then fetched me a blow in the face that sent me
sprawling.  I saw what he carried, too—a long sort
of tin box under his left arm and a bag in his left
hand."

"The charts!" Mark Redisham ejaculated.  "The
charts!"  Then to the corporal he added: "It's
clear you've been had.  The men in that boat were
Germans, and a young German has escaped with
them, taking a lot of charts and maps that will be
no end of help to the enemy if they should attempt
to land an invading army on this coast.  That chap
who kidded you about signal lights only wanted to
draw your attention off the boat for a minute.  You
wouldn't have committed a crime if you had put a
bullet into him.  Haven't you been ordered not to
let any boat come ashore?"

"Yes, of course," admitted the corporal.  "But
he was in uniform.  He looked and talked like a
British naval officer."

"Anyhow, you'll have to report the matter to
your colonel," rejoined Mark.

The corporal seemed to have a sudden inspiration.

"How am I to know what you're tellin' me is
true?" he demanded.  "Who are you?  What are
you doin', spyin' round out here at this time of
night?"

"I am the son of Major Redisham, who is now with
his regiment in France," Mark answered.  "I am,
myself, in the Royal Naval Reserve, serving the
King.  My chum, here, is a Sea Scout.  If that isn't
enough, you can go up to the house and see my
mother."

"Listen!" cried Darby Catchpole excitedly.
"The ketch is lifting her anchor!  She's making sail!
Come along—quick!  Don't stand jawing here."

The patrol shouldered their rifles and followed the
two boys down to the beach.  There came to them a
curious, spluttering sound, like that of a motor-car
being started.  Mark Redisham stood still, listening
and watching.  The *Thor's* sails were up, but there
was very little wind to fill them.  Nevertheless, she
was moving.  There was a commotion of water under
her stern.

"She's got petrol engines!" Mark declared.
"Look!  Look, she's off!"

The corporal, realising the gravity of his former
omission, now attempted to repair it.  He threw
himself forward on a knoll of sand, and levelling
his rifle, took aim and fired at the escaping ketch.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A FLEET IN HIDING`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A FLEET IN HIDING.

.. vspace:: 2

Standing at the vessel's stern beside the
steersman, Max Hilliger saw the flash and
heard the sharp report.  He laughed.  There
was a second shot.  A bullet whistled over his head
and tore through the canvas of the mizzen sail.

"Hard a-starboard!" he ordered; and when she
turned with her bow to the north-east, he added:
"Steady!"

He glanced astern, taking his bearings by the
familiar landmarks.

"Be careful, my friend," said Lieutenant Körner,
at his side.  "There is the sandbank."

"That is why I am careful," returned Max.
"We're going to cross it.  It's our only safe way.
If you keep to the channel, you must either risk a
shot from the naval gun on Haddisport pier, or else
run up against the destroyer anchored off Buremouth.
I'm going to take her across the shoal, through a
gap that's used only by the lifeboatmen.  Leave it
to me, Hermann."

It was a feat in seamanship which no local
fisherman, familiar with the dangers of the Alderwick
shoal, would have believed possible.  But Max
Hilliger knew every fathom over the sunken bank,
and he brought the boat through so skilfully that
no one on board even guessed how narrow was their
escape from disaster.

When at length she was safe beyond the reef, her
course was set and she sped along, driven by her
powerful motor.

The sea was clear of all traffic during the
night, and there were no ships in sight to notice
her unusual speed or to question her business.
And if there were mine-fields to fear, those
on the British side of the North Sea were known
to Max Hilliger, while Lieutenant Körner knew
equally well how to avoid those sown by the
Germans in their own waters.  So they went on
in safety.

On the following morning, when they were off the
Dogger Bank, heavy rain was falling.  A fleet of
fishing craft at work loomed dimly through the mist.
As a precaution against suspicion, Körner stopped
the petrol engine, depending upon the sails.  The
rain mist was still thick at mid-day, when, as from
behind a curtain, a squadron of British battle
cruisers and light cruisers appeared, accompanied by
a patrol flotilla of destroyers and submarines.  They
passed within a mile of the *Thor*, and challenged
her by signal.  The Dutch colours were run up
to her masthead and she was allowed to go on
unmolested.

During the short time the warships were in sight,
Max Hilliger was busy taking notes concerning them.
With the help of an English book of reference, he
was able to identify each one of them and to discover
all particulars as to her speed, tonnage, and
armament.  He noted with particular interest that
one of the destroyers was the *Lupin*, by which he
had himself been rescued when the *Atreus* was mined,
and that another was the *Levity*, upon which, as he
had lately learned, Rodney Redisham was serving
as a midshipman.

"Ah!" he regretted, gazing at the formidable
bulk of the nearest battleship, "if this tub were
only your submarine, Hermann, how you could
distribute your torpedoes and send every one of
them to the bottom!  Look at their great guns—as
great even as some of our own!  We shall not
easily beat them in a pitched battle.  And they
outnumber our High Sea Fleet.  It must be by our
submarines that we conquer them.  Hermann, I
want you to get me on board your submarine.  Then
we can get about the seas, sinking every English
warship that we can find!"

"Very well, my friend," returned Lieutenant
Körner.  "For you it will not be difficult.  It needs
only that you mention the ambition to your uncle,
Admiral von Hilliger, and the thing is settled.  Is it
not so?"

It was to Admiral von Hilliger's flagship, the
armoured cruiser *Schiller*, that Max was now bound.
She was known to be lying behind the island of
Heligoland, protected by the fortress and by the
mine-fields of the Bight.

Lieutenant Körner made a course by secret
passages through the mines and under the lee of the
Frisian Islands, and it was just before sunset that
the *Thor* entered the estuary of the Elbe and came
into the midst of the Kaiser's High Sea Fleet.

Max Hilliger had constantly heard and read of the
huge navy, the construction of which had played so
prominent a part in Germany's plan of world-dominion;
but his dreams had never presented
anything to compare with the vast number and
might of the warships now arrayed before his
wondering eyes.

They stretched in an almost unbroken line across
from Cuxhaven to Brunsbuttel—battleships which
appeared to him far more powerful than any of the
British Dreadnoughts that he had seen passing in
the distance from the cliffs of Haddisport; armoured
cruisers that looked like impregnable floating
fortresses; light cruisers built for speed; and a vast
multitude of destroyers, submarines, mine-layers,
troopships, and armed liners.

His heart seemed to swell within him in patriotic
pride.  This was the fleet designed for the conquest
of Britain, and he could not imagine how its purpose
could fail.

Believing that the sea power of Great Britain was
doomed to be broken, and that the future of the
Fatherland was fated to be one of shining glory and
greatness, he was thankful that he was a German;
thankful that it was now to be his privilege to fight
for her in the conquest of her worst enemy.

Lieutenant Körner steered the ketch to her
anchorage beside his submarine at the rear of the
main fleet; and, in the deepening dusk of a rainy
evening, Max was conveyed in a motor-launch to
Admiral von Hilliger's flagship.

The admiral was at dinner and could not be
interrupted even to receive his nephew from England,
but Max found friends amongst the junior officers,
and at length he was admitted.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE GERMAN ADMIRAL`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE GERMAN ADMIRAL.

.. vspace:: 2

In the admiral's state-room, Max quickly won
his uncle's favour by producing his collection
of special maps and charts—the same collection
which Mark Redisham had discovered in the
pigeon-loft at Sunnydene.

On the charts of the North Sea were clearly shown
not only the depths in fathoms and the positions of
newly-placed buoys and lightships for the guidance
of pilots, but also the areas which the British
Admiralty had sown with defensive mines.

Admiral von Hilliger examined them with keen
scrutiny, stroking his long, fair beard with satisfaction
as he observed particular features which were new
to him.

"*Ja*," he nodded, making a mark with his pencil.
"We shall use this channel when we go to bombard
their fortified coast towns.  It is just here that our
invading troops can make a landing.  You have two
and a quarter fathoms of water close up to the beach
at low tide—a lonely piece of exposed coast, within
easy reach of a railway junction, and three cathedral
cities.  There are no fortifications to oppose us;
and the little English Army is already in France!
But first, my dear Max, we shall annihilate their
miserable North Sea Fleet.  Once we have got rid
of their boasted Dreadnoughts and secured command
of the seas, the rest will be as simple as eating your
breakfast."

"If there is going to be a sea battle, uncle," Max
ventured boldly, "I should not like to miss seeing it,
and perhaps taking a small part in it."

The admiral shrugged his decorated shoulders and
took up the chart of Alderwick Knoll.

"As a holiday entertainment it would be
interesting," he responded.  "And certainly there
are ways in which your knowledge of the enemy
may be useful."

"Also my knowledge of submarines," Max added.

"So?" returned his uncle, studying the chart.
"And you have the wish to fight under the sea,
eh?  Well, my dear child, that is perhaps possible!
We have many under-sea boats in commission, and
many more building, for which we shall require
crews.  I will arrange it.  In the meantime, you
will be provided with a midshipman's uniform and
remain on board the *Schiller*.  But what is this so
carefully prepared chart?"

"It is a reef off the English coast, sir," Max
explained, "a place convenient for our submarines
to lie safely hidden, to pounce out upon enemy ships
and sink them.  Also, there is a secret store of
petrol buried in the sand dunes quite near.  My
father has not been idle."

"Good!" said the admiral.  "Yes, we shall
sink their ships—merchant ships as well as vessels
of war.  We shall blockade their coasts, and so,
stopping their food supplies, starve the contemptible
English.  But that will be when we have destroyed
their battle fleets, as we shall do as soon as they
choose to come out from their fortified harbours,
where at present they remain in close hiding."

Max Hilliger very well knew that Sir John Jellicoe's
Grand Fleet was not in hiding; but he did not wish
just now to contradict his uncle.  He simply said:

"Some of their cruiser squadrons are nevertheless
venturing nearer to our mine-fields than is good for
them, sir.  To-day, for example, we passed a squadron
hardly a score of miles from the south-west of
Heligoland."

"Ha!" cried the admiral, growing excited.
"So near?  Why did you not inform me at once,
instead of wasting my time and our opportunity?
Already we might have sent out a flotilla of our
faithful submarines to torpedo them!  A squadron,
you say?  Of what strength?"

Max produced the notes that he had taken.

"Thunder and lightning!" exclaimed his uncle, at
sight of the precise details.  And, gathering the charts
and the notes, he got into his oilskins and hurried out
of the cabin to hold a council of war with several of
his fellow admirals and captains on board the
cruiser *Klopstock*.

Max saw no more of him that night; but by the
bustle and excitement and incessant noise that kept
him from sleeping, he knew that the ship was being
prepared for action.

Early in the morning he was awakened by the
chunking of the engines and the noisy working of
the ammunition hoists.  He got up and dressed in
his midshipman's uniform and went out to the
upper deck.  The rain had ceased, but there was a
thick mist over the sea, through which he could
only dimly make out the cliffs of Heligoland with
their concrete battlements and bristling guns.

As the cruiser drew nearer, he could see the forts
more clearly, with the naval harbour, from which a
large flotilla of destroyers and submarines had just
come out.  Here the *Schiller* came to a stop beside
other cruisers—the *Klopstock* with her four tall
funnels, the *Goethe*, the *Ariadne*, the *Coblentz*, and the
great *Derfflinger*, with her five pairs of 12-inch
guns—while twenty destroyers, accompanied by six
submarines, disappeared in the mist on their way
out to sea.

On board the *Schiller* all was cleared for action,
everything inflammable was left behind, and the
decks were flooded in case of fire, the guns were
loaded and the men at their stations all ready for
fighting, waiting only for a wireless message to
come back from the advance scouts to say that the
enemy had been found.

Instead of a Marconi message, there came the
distant booming of British 4-inch guns, mingling
with the sound of the drums as the bands on the
German cruisers played "Der Wacht am Rhein."

"Ha!" cried Admiral von Hilliger, rubbing his
hands together as he paced his quarter-deck.
"Now we have them!"

A signal was sent out to two of the cruisers,
the *Klopstock* and the *Coblentz*, which immediately
steamed off, to be followed a little later by the
*Schiller* herself and the *Ariadne*, which took a
slightly different direction, in order, as was intended,
to take the enemy on the opposite flank and so
envelop them.

In the open sea, outside Heligoland, and beyond
the area of the German mines, British destroyers
and submarines, supported by light cruisers and
battle cruisers had for a week past been busily
reconnoitring, showing themselves boldly, and
inviting the Kaiser's ships to come out.  But until
this morning the invitation had been ignored.

Now, however, as the flotilla of German torpedo
boats sallied forth to give chase to what they
supposed was a mere patrol of light craft which
they might easily deal with, a strong, picked force
of our destroyers, headed by the new light cruiser
*Athene*, dashed out from the mist to cut off the
German boats from home and engage them at leisure
in the open sea.

The action was begun by the *Levity* and the *Lupin*
in a running fight, and so well were their 4-inch guns
served that one of the enemy destroyers was crippled
in trying to escape, and shortly afterwards a second
was seen to sink.  The *Athene* manoeuvred to get
clear of Hermann Körner's submarine, which was
within torpedo range.

Then the German destroyers scattered, drawing
back to the mine-field, and to the support of the
*Klopstock* and the *Coblentz*, which were now coming
out.

The *Athene*, leading the line of destroyers, met the
heavy gunfire of the *Klopstock*, and engaged her at a
range of about three thousand yards.

For half an hour the two cruisers fought, the
*Athene* holding her own against a ship more than
double her size.  She sustained some damage and a
few casualties, and the situation was becoming
critical when a second British light cruiser, the
*Sarpedon*, steamed up to her support.  Three
destroyers joined in the attack with their torpedoes,
whereupon the German turned tail and disappeared
in the mist.

The *Athene* and the *Sarpedon*, followed by the
destroyers *Levity* and *Lupin*, now gave chase to the
German *Coblentz*, and drove her, seriously injured,
to the protection of the mine-field.  Ten minutes
later the armoured cruiser *Schiller* came out, with
Admiral von Hilliger in command, and his nephew,
Max, on board.

She at once opened her guns on the *Athene* and
the *Sarpedon*.  Salvo after salvo was directed
towards the two British cruisers, but every shell fell
short, while many of the *Athene's* 6-inch shells
battered her sides.  A division of our destroyers
joined in the fray with their deck-guns, and the
*Levity* in particular annoyed the Germans by the
accuracy of her aim.

Max Hilliger watched her through a pair of
powerful binoculars, and once, when the air was
momentarily clear of smoke, he caught sight of Rodney
Redisham in a prominent position on her high bridge.

He went up to the admiral.

"Turn your guns on that destroyer, sir," he
implored.  "Sink her!  Sink her!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`BRAVE AS A BRITON`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   BRAVE AS A BRITON.

.. vspace:: 2

Whether it was that Admiral von Hilliger
supposed that his nephew had some vital
reason for drawing his attention to the *Levity*,
or that his executive officers had resolved independently
to punish this particularly bold and annoying
destroyer, it is certain that the *Levity* became for
some minutes a special mark for the *Schiller's*
big guns.

Shells fell around the little vessel like a storm of
hail, and many must have hit her but that she
remained end on, thus making herself a smaller
target.  At length one fell between her funnels,
crashed through her deck-plates, and exploded in her
engine-room, leaving her helpless.

The *Athene* and the *Sarpedon* continued to send
their 6-inch lyddite shells into the German cruiser,
their forward guns firing at the rate of half a dozen
rounds a minute.

These two British light cruisers were themselves
receiving a large share of the *Schiller's* fire at long
range, and were being constantly aimed at by
torpedoes from the enemy submarines and destroyers,
while there was always the danger of their running
foul of floating mines.  They were being hard
pressed.  Already the *Athene* had sent out wireless
messages to the British battle cruiser squadron in
the rear, reporting that she was in need of help.

The German cruiser *Klopstock* had by this time
reappeared from the mist, and was steaming down
to join battle.  The situation was critical, yet the
British ships stood their ground, and a well-placed
shell from the *Sarpedon* smashed the forward bridge
of the *Schiller* and injured her foremost funnel,
while another from the *Athene* burst through her port
bulwarks amidships and so damaged her internally
that her engines stopped and she was seen to be
on fire.

At this moment the four-funnelled *Stein* loomed
out of the fog.  The *Athene* signalled to her consort
and the destroyers to withdraw and accompany her
to cut off this new enemy cruiser.

All followed her excepting the disabled *Levity*,
which remained rolling helplessly within point blank
range of the *Schiller's* guns.  The explosion of the
shell in her engine-room had burst one of her main
steam-pipes, crippling her for the time.  Her own
4-inch guns were served, but her shells fell short.
Below decks the men kept grimly at their work
in their efforts to repair the damaged machinery,
and all the time shells fell fast and thick round the
wounded vessel.

"It looks as if we were done for, this time," the
commander admitted to one of his lieutenants,
as Rodney Redisham mounted to the bridge to give
a report from the chief engineer.  "We can't live
long through this."

"Unless one of the flotilla should return and take
us in tow," suggested the lieutenant.  "They don't
seem to realise that we are crippled, sir."

"I am not going to ask for help, however," the
commander resolved.  "It would be too risky for
one of them to come back now."  He lighted a
cigarette.  "We will just hold on with our flag flying
until we sink.  Anyhow, we have done our duty."

"The chief engineer says he can't repair the
steam-pipe without drawing the fires, sir,"
Rodney reported.

"Thank you, Redisham," nodded the captain,
"We will stick to the ship, but see that every one
wears a life collar."

He continued to pace the bridge.  The officers
stood each at his post waiting for the end.  No
mercy could be expected from the Germans.  The
*Schiller* had now only one small target within range,
and although her gunners were aiming badly, yet
here and there a sailor dropped wounded by flying
shrapnel, and more than one shell burst inboard,
wrecking cabins and killing two men.

Ah!  Suddenly the *Lupin*, with magnificent
British pluck, was seen bearing down upon the
*Levity* at full speed, little heeding the fact that she
was charging into an inferno, and that at any
moment a well-placed shot might sink her.  She was
coming to the help of her sorely-tried consort.

With splendid seamanship she was brought
round.  Not a shot touched her.  She came close
alongside.  A rope was thrown to the *Levity*; a
hawser was quickly passed and secured.  In another
minute both destroyers would have been out of
danger; but just as the *Levity* was hauled round
broadside on to the German guns, the strained cable
snapped.

All seemed over now.  There could be no escape
for either the stricken *Levity* or her daring rescuer.
The gunlayers on board the *Schiller*, fearing that they
were being baulked of their prey, redoubled their
efforts to sink her.

"Every man for himself!" shouted the British
commander.

From the *Lupin*, now standing off, there came a
tremendous cheer.

Rodney Redisham, coming up on deck through
the splintered companion, heard the cheer repeated,
and saw his commander and fellow officers gravely
raising their hands aloft in a last farewell salute.
He turned and glanced round to the westward,
and to his amazement there came plunging out of the
mist the giant shape of a British Dreadnought
cruiser, flying a vice-admiral's pennant.

It was the *Saturn*, the first of the battle line.

The mighty 13-inch guns of the cruiser boomed
out across the sea, and with the first salvo the
*Schiller* was hit in a vital part.  The hail of shells
round the two destroyers suddenly ceased.  Another
hawser was shipped, and the *Levity* was towed away.

With the battle cruiser squadron the light cruiser
squadron also appeared and joined in the confused
fighting.  The *Saturn* and her immediate consorts
gave chase to the *Stein*, very quickly sank her, and
set the *Klopstock* on fire.  A second of the German
destroyers was sent to the bottom, whilst many
others were badly damaged.

In the meantime, the *Athene* and the *Sarpedon*
had driven one of the enemy cruisers, the *Coblentz*,
back towards the *Schiller*, where she turned and
engaged them hotly at long range.  Both of the
British ships received a good deal of injury themselves
before they succeeded in sinking her.

The crippled *Schiller* was still above water,
trying to escape with all the speed which her damaged
engines would allow.  The *Sarpedon* gave chase and
opened fire upon her at a range of about ten thousand
yards.

Admiral von Hilliger replied feebly with his
after-turret guns and attempted further to check
his pursuer by dropping explosive mines in his wake.
But the British ship, with her greater speed, quickly
overhauled him and exchanged broadsides with him.

Flames and thick smoke were still rising from
the *Schiller*, when a shell, falling close beside her,
sent up a great fountain of water which deluged her
decks and extinguished the fire.

Shortly afterwards, a beautifully-placed shot took
away two of her funnels, and again she was seen to
be on fire.  All amidships became a raging furnace;
her mainmast fell by the board.  Then there was
a sudden silence on both sides.  It was now only a
question of saving lives.

The *Sarpedon* bore down upon her stricken
enemy, going close up to her on the windward side
and launching two of her boats.

At close quarters the devastating effect of the
British 6-inch lyddite shells was plainly apparent.
The German flagship's thickly armoured hull was
like a sieve.  Her fore-bridge was a tangled mass of
ironwork; the wire stays of her foremast were
swinging in the air.  Her guns were smashed and bent,
some looking round corners, some lying on their
sides.  Her upper decks were in a state of chaos;
her fallen funnels and ventilators were red hot,
and every boat was burnt.  She was sinking in a
cloud of smoke and flame and hissing steam.

Unnoticed by any one near, the periscope of a
submarine was moving in the midst of the drowning
Germans who had jumped into the sea from the
doomed cruiser.  The submarine was the British H29.


Below, at his post in the conning-tower, Lieutenant
Ingoldsby watched all that was going on about him.
He had been prepared to send his last remaining
torpedo into the *Schiller*, but this was now
unnecessary.  He watched the *Sarpedon's* boats coming
to the rescue of the struggling Germans, whom he
could not himself attempt to save.  He watched the
cruiser sinking.

There appeared to be only a very few living beings
left on board of her.  A couple of officers stood under
the wreckage of her fore-bridge.  There was a lonely
figure on her quarter-deck, dimly visible amid the
smoke and flames.  He, too, looked like an officer,
though little could be seen of his uniform, excepting
a broad band of gold on his sleeve.  His head was
bare.  He held his hands pressed to his eyes, as
if he were blinded by the smoke, or as if he
were unwilling to look upon what little remained
of the ship.

Suddenly, while Ingoldsby watched, he saw one of
the officers under the bridge climb up by a stanchion
and leap over into the sea.  The other ran aft into
the smoke, disappeared for a moment, and then again
was seen staggering along the red hot deck with his
cap held over his mouth, dodging in and out amongst
the wreckage.

For an instant he stood in hesitation, and Ingoldsby
saw that he was only a youth, a midshipman.  Then
again he ran as with some madly hopeless purpose
aft towards the quarter-deck.  He was lost in the
smoke for a while, but once more he appeared,
crawling perilously along the narrow strip of coaming
at the edge of the flame-swept deck.

Had the boy wanted to save his own life he might
have done so many times by leaping down into the
sea.  But such most surely was not his design.
Lieutenant Ingoldsby understood his intention,
and thrilled with admiration as he saw it most
bravely fulfilled.  Dashing through the smoke,
the lad at last reached the officer who had stood alone
on the quarter-deck; caught him by the arm, spoke
to him imploringly, and then led him gently to the
vessel's side.  They stood together, an admiral
and a midshipman.  Together they leapt into the waves.

"About the pluckiest act I've ever witnessed!"
declared Lieutenant Ingoldsby.  "Desmond, you
ought to have seen it."

"Seen what, sir?" Lieutenant Desmond inquired.

"I'll tell you about it afterwards," returned
Ingoldsby, still gazing intently into the periscope
mirror.  "Hullo!  She's gone down!"

Just at this juncture, as the *Schiller* sank, a large
German armoured cruiser, coming out of the mist,
opened fire upon the *Sarpedon*, whose two boats were
busy picking up survivors.  To save his ship, and
in obedience to orders he had received to retire,
the British commanding officer steamed off, abandoning
his two boats with the officer in charge of them,
nine seamen, and the prisoners whom they had so
far rescued.

Lieutenant Ingoldsby set his electric motor to
work and started off to attack the enemy cruiser,
but the latter altered course to the northward before
the submarine could be brought within torpedo
range.  Ingoldsby thereupon returned to the boats,
emptying his ballast tanks and rising awash close
beside them, greatly to the astonishment of their
occupants.

He stepped out on the deck of the conning-tower,
followed by his sub-lieutenant and quarter-master.

"I'm sorry I haven't got anything like room for
the lot of you, sir," he said to the officer in charge of
the boats.  "What had we better do?"

"We have twenty-five survivors," the other
answered, "most of them badly wounded.  Three
of them are officers.  One, indeed, is an admiral.
You'd better make sure of him, in any case."

"I think I shall be justified in making sure of
my own countrymen first," returned Ingoldsby.
"Yourself and your men.  That's ten all told.
Well, perhaps I can make room for the admiral
and his two officers; but no more.  You see, we
may have to submerge.  We can let the rest of them
have the boats.  I can give them water, biscuits,
and a compass, and set them a course back to
Heligoland.  They're not all of them wounded, are
they?  Some of them look as if they could work the
oars.  Which is the admiral?"

He looked across at the farther boat and saw a
red-bearded man at the stern lying back with his head
resting on the gunwale, while a youth in midshipman's
uniform, kneeling at his side, was bathing his
eyes with a bit of rag dipped in sea water.  Like the
rest of the rescued Germans, they were woefully
bedraggled and wet, their scorched clothes hanging
in tatters.

"Ah!" exclaimed Lieutenant Ingoldsby, recognising
the man whom he had seen on the quarterdeck.
"It's the same.  And that's the boy who
saved him.  I'm glad you picked them up.  Draw
the boat alongside and let us get them aboard."

The midshipman turned a wan face towards him,
gazed at him with red and swollen eyes, and shrank
back.

"Queer!" murmured Lieutenant Ingoldsby in
perplexity.  "I'm almost certain I've seen that boy
before, somewhere!"

He went below to plan how the additions to his
ship's company could be accommodated and to send
up provisions for the boats.  The British sailors
were brought on board.

"The admiral will share my cabin," he said.
"Bring him down, Desmond."

"He refuses to come, sir," declared Lieutenant
Desmond, "or, rather, the middy refuses for him.
The middy speaks wonderfully good English."

Ingoldsby, still more puzzled, went back on deck.
The admiral was now sitting up in the stern sheets of
the boat, blinking his inflamed eyes, and looking
exceedingly miserable.

"Won't you come on board, sir?" Ingoldsby
invited, speaking in the best German he could
muster.

It was the midshipman who answered.

"No," he said.  "We will not be indebted to
our enemies.  It would be better for us to die here
and now."

Lieutenant Ingoldsby gave a curious start of
recognition and stood staring into the youth's
haggard face.

"Max Hilliger!" he cried.  "You—here!  Why,
you were at home in Haddisport only a couple of
days ago!  How did you come to be aboard a German
cruiser—and dressed as an officer, too?  You used
to be a Scout—an English Sea Scout.  You haven't
the right to wear the uniform of an officer, even an
officer in the German navy."

"I have the right to fight for my own country,"
Max answered boldly.  "And if I wear an officer's
uniform, that is my affair and the affair of my uncle,
Admiral von Hilliger."

"Ah!" rejoined Ingoldsby.  "He is your uncle.
is he?  That explains.  I had forgotten you had an
uncle in the Kaiser's service.  But you did a jolly
plucky thing when you saved him just now, Max;
as plucky a thing as I've ever seen.  While I watched
you doing it I was wishing that you were British.
You were really as brave as a Briton.  I hope you
didn't get badly burnt."

Max glanced downward to his left leg.  The
bare skin was scorched.  His left arm, too, was
blistered from elbow to wrist.

"You had better come aboard here and I will
give you some dressing," Lieutenant Ingoldsby
advised.  "Bring Admiral von Hilliger with you.
We haven't much accommodation.  But we shall
not be very long getting across to England."

Max Hilliger frowned.

"I suppose you mean us to go aboard as your
prisoners of war?" he said.  "Perhaps you could
force us, since we are helpless.  But you cannot take
us all.  It would be better if you took some of our
severely wounded.  My uncle and I very much prefer
to stay where we are and to find our own way back
to Germany, or die on the way."

"Oh, I'm not going to force you!" returned
Lieutenant Ingoldsby.  "A submarine is not
supposed to carry passengers or to take prisoners.
Remain in the boat if you wish.  But at least
you will not object to our attending to the wounded
before we part."

So shockingly hurt were many of the Germans
that it seemed almost a hopeless task to give them
even ordinary first-aid.  But for half an hour or so
the British officers and men were occupied in doing
the best they could.  They were short of bandages,
but with true British sympathy for their unfortunate
enemies, they stripped themselves of everything
but their trousers, and tore up their clothes with
which to bind the wounds.

In the circumstances, Lieutenant Ingoldsby could
not have been blamed for giving Admiral von
Hilliger and his nephew their liberty.  But had he
foreseen what their freedom was to cost in innocent
lives it is probable that he would have acted
differently.





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.. _`TREASURE TROVE`:

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   CHAPTER XV.


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   TREASURE TROVE.

.. vspace:: 2

"In the very probable event of an invasion,"
asserted Mr. Croucher, addressing a group of
four Sea Scouts who had gathered at the lookout
station on the sea-front, "in the very probable
event of an invasion, we are totally unprepared and
defenceless.  As I was saying to Mrs. Daplin-Gennery
only the other day, we ought to have big
guns stationed at intervals all along the coast.  A
few newly-enlisted Territorials are billeted in the
town; but what good will they be when the Germans
come over here in force?"

"They could give the alarm, sir," suggested Ned
Quester, whose brother was a Territorial.

"Give the alarm?" repeated Mr. Croucher with
contempt.  "And what then?  No amount of
alarm would repel an invading army.  We want
guns—guns, and men who can handle them.  Civilians
are not allowed to take up arms.  Look at what has
happened in Belgium!  We ought to have realised
long ago that the Germans intended to make war on
us.  They've been planning it for years.  My
argument is that we ought to have batteries posted
all along the coast."

"Aren't warships, that can move about, as
good as fixed batteries, sir?" questioned Darby
Catchpole.

"Warships are no good against Zeppelins,"
declared Mr. Croucher.  "Take my word for it,
the enemy have got many more airships than we've
any idea of; and every one of them capable of
carrying a company of soldiers with heavy artillery.
Then they have their flat-bottomed barges; hundreds
of them, which they will use as transports."

"But we have our battleships and submarines,
sir," interposed Mark Redisham, "and it isn't
at all likely that the enemy can get past them."

"Don't be too sure, Redisham," urged Mr. Croucher.
"Don't be too sure.  They can slip past them in a
sea mist and land troops here on Haddisport beach.
And when they do, we shall be annihilated.  It's no
good thinking that our dwelling houses are any
protection.  One shell from a German cruiser, one
explosive bomb from a Zeppelin, would smash any of
the houses along this esplanade.  I wonder people
are so callous as to live in houses that are little
better than targets to be aimed at from both sea
and air!"

Darby Catchpole ran his eye along the exposed
dwellings.

"Sunnydene is about the best target of the lot,"
he smiled.  "It would be funny if the enemy were
to bombard the property of the brother of one of
their own admirals!"

Mr. Croucher shook his head wisely.

"They won't bombard Sunnydene," he affirmed.
"Young Max Hilliger, who, it seems, was rescued
with his uncle from the *Schiller*, will see to it that
the house is not harmed."

"In that case, Sunnydene would be a safe refuge
for us," Mark Redisham declared.  "At the first
alarm we ought to round up all the women and
children and corral them in the grounds."

"The chances are that the Germans would batter
Sunnydene to bits in aiming at your own house,
Mark," laughed Darby.

"For my own part," resumed Mr. Croucher,
"I am getting a man to dig a refuge trench in my
back garden.  He'd nearly finished it yesterday,
only unfortunately in the heavy rain last night the
sides fell in for want of supports.  The corporation
ought to have proper trenches dug on the denes where
the inhabitants could fly in case of danger."

"And get killed while they're flying," mischievously
suggested Seth Newruck.

"Mrs. Daplin-Gennery is going to have one dug
in her kitchen-garden," observed Mark Redisham.
"Her gardener has enlisted, however, so we Scouts
are going to do a good turn by digging it.  Indeed,
we are now on our way down to the beach to have a
bit of practice and plan out the thing."

"Ah!" said Mr. Croucher, "I expect you'll do
it so well that you'll have all the neighbourhood
asking you to dig trenches in their gardens.  Well,
it's for the good of the community.  If the War Office
and the Admiralty together won't look after us, we
must look after ourselves."

Mark got three spades from his own tool shed and
borrowed another from Mrs. Daplin-Gennery's
chauffeur.  Armed with these implements, he and
his companions went down to the foot of the cliff.

It was useless to think of digging even an
experimental trench in the loose sand of the beach, so
they selected a piece of more solid ground between the
foreshore and the grass land.  They chose the spot
almost at random.  Even Darby Catchpole did
not realise at first how near they were to the groin
from which Max Hilliger had escaped into the boat
with his case of charts.

Mark Redisham staked out the ground and they
began to dig, piling the soil on the side nearest the sea.
It was decided that when the trench was deep enough,
it should be roofed in with cross planks and brushwood,
upon which the soil should be heaped to resist
the impact of bombs from the air or shells from the
sea; but at present the work was only undertaken
as practice in excavation.  The cross planks, the
sap trench, and the means of entrance and exit
would be properly applied when the dug-out came
to be made in Mrs. Daplin-Gennery's garden.

They had been digging for about half an hour,
when Seth Newruck's spade chipped against something
that was neither soil nor stone.  He looked
down at the thing in wonder, then grabbed at it.

"Darby!  Mark!" he cried.  "See what I've
found!  A cigarette case!  It's silver!"

His companions all crowded up to him to look
at it over his shoulder.  Certainly it was a silver
cigarette-case, and a very handsome one.  There was
a monogram engraved in the centre of its chased
surface.

"It isn't even tarnished," declared Mark Redisham.
in surprise.  "It's almost new.  It can't have been
buried very long.  How deep did you find it?"

"Just here," Seth explained, pointing out the
spot about two feet down.

"That's queer!" resumed Mark.  "I can't
understand—unless some one has been digging here before
us, quite lately, and dropped it by accident.  Some
of the Territorials, perhaps."

"Now that I come to think of it," said Darby
Catchpole, "the ground did look as if it had been
disturbed.  There was no grass growing on top."

Mark Redisham had opened the case.  It contained
three cigarettes, held in place by a band
of blue elastic.  He took one of them out and
examined it.

"I've seen a cigarette like this before," he averred.
"They're Egyptian, see!  'Vafiadi, Cairo.'  Who was
it that I saw smoking one?  Not Lieutenant
Ingoldsby: not Captain Damant."  He looked again
at the monogram, and gave a long, low whistle of
astonishment.  "Oh, I know, I know now!  Keep
on digging, you chaps," he ordered.  "Here you
are, Seth.  Findings are keepings."

He seized his spade and continued digging until
his back ached and the perspiration rolled down his
sunburnt cheeks.  He moved from place to place
in the trench, keeping it at a uniform depth.  They
had got below the dark soil to the soft sea sand.

"You're making it too wide, Mark," Darby objected.

Mark went down on his knees and began to
sniff about.

"Don't you smell something?" he questioned,
scratching at the sand with his hands.  Then he
pulled and tugged at something heavy.  "Eureka!"
he shouted.  "Look here, Darby!  Petrol! a tin of
petrol! two tins—a whole lot of them!"

Darby leant over from the side of the trench and
saw the exposed tops of a number of square red
canisters.

"Enough to keep a motor-car going for a year,"
he declared.

"Yes," added Mark, "or a German submarine
for a month."

"Why German?" Darby asked.

Mark laughed.

"Because," he answered, "I don't suppose Herr
Hilliger would have been so considerate as to keep a
secret store of petrol for the accommodation of his
enemies.  Yes, you may stare.  But even if the
letters 'H.H.' on that silver case didn't stand for
Heinrich Hilliger, I should still have known that the
cigarettes were of the same brand as the remains
of one that I found on the floor of his pigeon-loft."

He vaulted out of the trench.

"Newruck and Quester will keep watch here,"
he said to Darby.  "I want you to come along with
me to the naval base."





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.. _`THE BOMB-PROOF SHELTER`:

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   CHAPTER XVI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE BOMB-PROOF SHELTER.

.. vspace:: 2

Nothing was said in Haddisport concerning
the discovery and removal of the secret store
of petrol buried in the sand on Alderwick Denes.
The reason for the silence was that no one
unconnected with the naval base knew anything about
the matter.

Any day during the herring season carts may be
seen on the denes carrying to and fro the fleets of
nets that are spread out to dry on the grass; and
if two heavily-laden carts in particular were noticed
being drawn along the lower road towards the town,
no one was any the wiser as to their contents,
since the red-painted tins of petrol which they carried
were successfully hidden under cover of herring nets.
Mark Redisham and his fellow scouts knew too well
the importance of their discovery to say anything
about it, even in their homes.

One thing which the members of the Lion Patrol
had especially laid to heart from the beginning
of the war was the necessity of keeping silence
when in the performance of their duties they chanced
to come into possession of a naval or a military
secret.

They had shown that they could be trusted with
information which never came to the knowledge of
the ordinary reader of newspapers or of local gossips
such as Constable Challis and old Mr. Croucher.
Amongst themselves they might indeed talk and
compare notes; but only within limits.  Mark
Redisham, for example, knew many things which he
never mentioned to Darby Catchpole, while Darby
was similarly silent towards Mark.

"Strictly between ourselves, sir," said Constable
Challis, meeting Mr. Croucher on the esplanade,
"I believe young Mark Redisham knows exactly
where Sir John Jellicoe's Grand Fleet is at this
moment, and what our submarines are doin' across
there under the very noses of the enemy's forts.
He knows a lot, sir.  But you can take it from me,
you might as well try to get blood out of a stone
as information out of him."

"It's the same with young Catchpole," nodded
Mr. Croucher significantly.  "Time after time I've
asked that boy to tell me in confidence things which
I'm certain he knows—things about our ships and
their mysterious movements, things about our awful
disasters at sea which are being systematically
hidden from us; but it's useless, Challis—useless, and
we are kept in the dark; always kept in the dark."

"Talking about bein' in the dark, sir," resumed
the constable, "have you seen the trench as the
Scouts have been makin' in Mrs. Daplin-Gennery's
kitchen-garden?  You ought to.  It's a room that you
could live in, with four feet of sand piled on the roof
as a refuge from bombs and shells.  It's so comfortable
and safe, sir, that Mrs. Daplin-Gennery threatens
to invite her friends to take afternoon tea with her in
it.  And there's what they calls a sap trench—a tunnel
leadin' from it right up to the kitchen door, so
that the household can escape into it on the first
alarm, and be as safe as a rabbit in its burrow."

"Indeed?" said Mr. Croucher.  "But mightn't
it fall in, as mine did?"

"Not a bit of it, sir," declared Chain's.  "You
could mount a 6-inch gun on top of it.  Those Sea
Scouts knew what they was doin' when they planned
and built it.  It's not an ordinary dug-out, sir,
like yours and the vicar's.  First of all they quarried
a deep pit and shifted the bicycle shed into it.
They packed the shed round with sandbags, roofed
it with cross planks, covered it with brushwood,
and then piled a mound of sea sand on top.  Even
supposin' a Zeppelin bomb was to drop on it, there'd
be no explosion.  If a shell from an enemy ship
was to smash the house, the people in the underground
shed would be safe, bein' too far off for the
chimneys and bricks and things to fall on them.
Of course, it can never be really needed.  The
Germans'll never come here."

"Don't be too sure about that, Challis,"
Mr. Croucher retorted warmly.  "Mrs. Daplin-Gennery
and her household may have to go into their refuge
any day, any night.  As I have argued all along, if the
enemy's battleships break through, we are doomed.
We can't resist them, either on sea or land, let alone
the air.  We are in constant danger.  Look at what
they're doing on the Continent!  They've already
occupied Brussels, you know.  Antwerp has fallen,
too.  They will take the Channel ports next—Ostend,
Calais, and Boulogne—and then, Challis,
it will be the invasion of England, and they will
serve us just as they have served the poor
Belgians—perhaps worse."

Constable Challis shook his head and smiled
compassionately upon the timid, old gentleman.

"You may take it from me, sir," he averred,
"the Germans will never get to Calais.  The Allies
won't let 'em.  And try how they will, they'll
always be brought up against the British Navy.
Not but what Mrs. Daplin-Gennery is quite right
to have that trench made.  It comforts her and her
servants to know that it's there."

"They may have need for it much sooner than
you think, Constable," declared Mr. Croucher,
turning in at Mrs. Daplin-Gennery's gateway.

In the garden he encountered Seth Newruck.

"Is Redisham in the trench?" he inquired.
"I have come to have a look at it."

"There is nobody there now, sir," Seth answered.
"Mark Redisham is out at sea with the mine-sweepers.
I've just been making things a bit tidy.
I'm sorry I haven't time to stay, sir; but I've got to
go down to the naval base to see our Scoutmaster.
Mrs. Daplin-Gennery has gone into the town in her
motor-car; but I daresay if you ask the cook she
will show you into the trench, or," he reflected that
Mr. Croucher was lame, "you could get into it
yourself easily enough if you're careful about how
you go down the ladder."

Mr. Croucher looked somewhat disappointed.
He had resolved to ask Mark Redisham to dig a
similar refuge in his garden at Rose Cottage.

"Gone out mine-sweeping, has he?" he ruminated.
"When will he be back?"

"I don't know, sir.  Perhaps in a week; perhaps
in a day or two."

"That reminds me," pursued Mr. Croucher,
detaining Seth with a grip on the boy's shoulder.
"Is it true that Redisham has invented a new
contrivance for picking up German mines, and that the
Admiralty have adopted it?"

"They're always making improvements of one
sort or another," Seth answered evasively.

"Yes, I suppose so.  But I understand that this
invention of Redisham's is not only an improvement,
but an entirely new idea, on the principle of a
torpedo net, and that it's the means of saving dozens
of valuable lives.  I have noticed some of the
mine-sweeping boats going out with curious gear at their
prows.  How is it worked?"

Seth Newruck was not quite sure whether or not he
was expected to regard the matter as a naval secret.

"How is it worked, eh?" repeated Mr. Croucher.
"I am sure you know."

"I'm afraid it would take too long to explain,
sir," Seth answered guardedly.  "You should go
down to the harbour and get one of the naval officers
to show you.  But there's the cook at the kitchen
door, sir.  I must be off.  Good-morning, sir."

Mr. Croucher's puffy eyes followed the boy as he
ran off.

"Just the same as the rest of them," he complained.
"There's no worming information out of any of
them.  One would think that they were all bound
down by an oath of secrecy."

Seth Newruck had spoken quite truthfully when
he said that he had no time to spare.  He was glad
to have such a valid excuse to escape from the
inquisitive questioning of the old gossip.  He was due
to report himself for duty at the naval base at eleven
o'clock, when Mr. Bilverstone would probably
send him on some errand to the coastguards or
to the police-station, or give him some piece of
clerical work to perform.  It was already half-past
ten, and he had a long walk through the town.

As he went at scout's pace along the esplanade,
he glanced eastward across the sea to a grey-painted
gunboat which he quickly recognised as H.M.S. *Rapid*.
She was steaming northward, followed by a
flotilla of mine-sweepers.  He wished that he might
be on board of her, little dreaming that she was
destined never again to return to her moorings in
Haddisport harbour.  He heard a whirring in the
air and looked back for a moment to watch a
seaplane flying overhead.  Very soon the seaplane
passed above him, and by something in its colour
and structure he knew it to be the machine of
which Lieutenant Aldiss was the pilot—Lieutenant
Aldiss who had lately done such wonderful, daring
things in the aerial raid over Düsseldorf.  The
aeroplane presently circled round and seemed to hover
above some dark-sailed boats outside of Haddisport,
as if the pilot were inspecting them with suspicion.

Seth Newruck looked at the boats curiously as he
ran, but they were soon hidden from view beyond
the trees of the park.  He walked through the park
and down the long High Street.  At the top of each
of the narrow scores leading downward to the beach,
there was a group of people, eagerly looking out to sea.
Beyond the Town Hall, Seth paused and mingled
with a group at the top of Fisherman's Score.

"What are they looking at?" he questioned
of a man in khaki.  "Is it a wreck?"

"Nobody seems to know," the soldier answered.
"It's something about those boats out there."

The boats were certainly curious enough to excite
interest.  Seth Newruck had never seen any exactly
like them before, although he prided himself on
his knowledge of sailing craft and the varieties
of rig.  The nearest resemblance to them that he
knew were galliots in a Dutch picture at home.
They were clumsy, untidy-looking vessels, with bluff
bows and weather boards, tall masts, and patched,
ill-fitting sails.  He counted thirty at the least.

He thought for an instant of Mr. Croucher's
often-repeated statement about the flat-bottomed boats
in which the Germans were expected to bring over
their invading troops.  Could these be raiding
Germans? he wondered.  Then, as one of the sloops
turned shoreward, he saw a flag at the peak of her
mast.  It was black, yellow, and red.

"They're Belgian!" he cried, and ran off down
the town.

While he ran he recollected something which
he had read in the newspaper that morning.
Antwerp had fallen and was occupied by the Germans.
The Belgian Army and British troops had retired.
The Belgian people, driven from their homes, had fled
to the coast, and now the enemy had reached Ostend.

A glimmer of the truth was revealed to him.
These boats which he had seen making for Haddisport
were surely Flemish fishing smacks bringing the
hard-pressed, homeless Belgians across to the friendly
refuge of England.





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.. _`TOLD THROUGH THE TELEPHONE`:

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   CHAPTER XVII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   TOLD THROUGH THE TELEPHONE.

.. vspace:: 2

Seth Newruck's belief was confirmed when
he reached the harbour and met his
Scoutmaster and Darby Catchpole.

"Give whatever help you can, Newruck," said
Mr. Bilverstone.  "These boats coming in are from
Ostend, with Belgian refugees, who will want food.
Many of them will be ill, some wounded.  The boats
will be brought up alongside the *Kingfisher*, first of
all.  Then the people will be taken to the public hall."

The jetties and quays were crowded with townsfolk,
watching the trawlers drift slowly in to the
outer harbour.  As the first boat came alongside
the quay there was an audible gasp of pity for the
forlorn victims of war.  The little craft was thronged
with women and children, looking miserably ill
and hungry, and still showing in their grim faces
the lingering horror of all they had gone through,
mingled with doubt as to the manner in which they
would be received in a foreign land.

Then caps were raised in silent salute, handkerchiefs
were waved in welcome, and the townsfolk
pressed forward eagerly to throw down tins of
biscuits, bags of buns, bananas, and chocolate, and
to pass cans of hot coffee and milk.

Among the most eager was Mrs. Daplin-Gennery,
who had loaded her motor-car with food from a
neighbouring confectioner's and got Darby Catchpole
to help her to distribute it as each boat was
warped in.  All the time, tears of sympathy and
sorrow were running down her cheeks, and she spoke
to the Belgians in French, which some of them
understood.  Once, when a particular boat was
passing, crowded with women, all of whom seemed
to be ill, she took off her rich coat and threw it down
to one of them and then returned to her car to
buy yet more food.

There were over fifty boats in all, bringing
considerably more than a thousand of the poorest
refugees from all parts of Belgium, with such little
treasures as they had been able to snatch from their
desolated homes.  Many of them had brought their
dogs, their cats, and their canaries.  Many were
wounded, and had to be taken to the hospitals.
Some were taken to houses in the town, but most of
them were driven in cars to the public hall, where
they were well cared for.

Mr. Arnold Bilverstone, taking temporary leave
from his duties at the naval base, had mustered all
the Scouts in the town to give help in attending
to the distressed refugees.  He was busy in the
public hall, making a list of the Belgians' names,
when Seth Newruck went hurriedly up to him and
plucked at his sleeve.

"Mr. Bilverstone, I've got something to tell you,
sir," began Seth.

Mr. Bilverstone laid aside his fountain pen and
prepared to listen.

"Yes," he smiled, "what is it?  Some more families
got accidentally mixed up?  Children separated
from their mothers and sent to the wrong billets?"

"No, sir, it's not that," Seth went on haltingly,
as if fearing that after all his communication was of
no importance.  "It's something I've seen.  I don't
know if you noticed one of the Belgian boats, a
small, yawl-rigged vessel, called *La Belle Pucelle*,
of Blankenberghe?  She was one of the last that
came in, and about the most untidy of the lot.  She
was like a floating rag-bag."

"I didn't see her to my knowledge," returned
Mr. Bilverstone, turning back a page of his list,
"but I wrote her name within the last half-hour.
Here it is, *La Belle Pucelle*, with the names of the
thirty-nine refugees who crossed in her—twenty-two
women, five children, four infants in arm's, three
men, apart from a crew of four men and a boy, and
two dogs of doubtful breed.  That's the lot."

Seth Newruck was looking at the list over the
Scoutmaster's shoulder.

"That is eight men, including the boy," he said.
"But as a matter of fact, sir, there were nine, and
you haven't got the ninth man's name, because he
didn't get registered.  He didn't come ashore in the
same way as the rest of them.  I watched him, sir.
The reason why I took particular notice of him was
that he looked of a different class from the others,
and was about the only refugee of military age, apart
from the fishermen who did the seamen's work."

"Well?" urged Mr. Bilverstone.

"He wore a very shabby overcoat," Seth continued,
"but beneath it he had a good tweed suit.
Just as the boat came alongside the quay he slipped
behind the mainsail; and when he appeared again,
he had taken off the overcoat, changed his cloth
cap for a bowler, and was carrying a brown leather
handbag.  While the other refugees were pressing
forward to receive the food that was handed down
to them, he got round to the stern, stepped on
the quarter rail, and from that on to the quay,
where he quickly disappeared in the crowd."

"I expect he was an Englishman who had missed
the passenger steamers and come over by the only
way possible," suggested Mr. Bilverstone.

"No, sir," insisted Newruck, "he wasn't an
Englishman, nor yet a Belgian.  He wasn't even
a genuine refugee.  I'm rather good at remembering
faces, sir, and I knew I'd seen his face before,
somewhere; though it wasn't until he'd gone that I
realised who he was.  I'm certain, now, however,
I know that he was an alien enemy, a German, and a
spy.  I know that he was Fritz Seligmann—Herr
Hilliger's secretary."

Mr. Bilverstone looked up sharply.

"Indeed?" he cried.  "You are sure?"

"Certain."  Seth Newruck nodded emphatically.
"I believe he has smuggled himself over here to do
some spying work."

The Scoutmaster was silent for some moments.
He took up his pen, but did not use it.

"Look here, Seth," he said presently.  "There
may be more in this than appears on the surface.
That man has come over here for no good.  He ought
to be tracked.  Unfortunately, I can't leave this
work just now.  But you can be spared, I think.
Suppose you go up to Sunnydene.  That's where he'll
make for.  Go up and have a look at the house.  If
you see anything to show that some one has entered—any
smoke from the chimneys, if the gate has been
left open, if there are any new footprints on the
garden path—let me know at once.  Mrs. Daplin-Gennery
will let you use her telephone.  I expect I
shall be at the naval base until about midnight.
If I don't hear from you before then, I shall
understand that nothing has happened, or that you have
made a mistake in supposing that the man was
Hilliger's secretary."

Mrs. Daplin-Gennery had taken into her home a
family of the Belgian refugees.  They were people
of good class, from Bruges; and after all the misery
they had endured in their flight to Ostend, and the
hardships of their crossing the North Sea in a crowded,
open boat, she was unwilling to allow them to undergo
the further discomfort of being, as she said, "herded"
in the public hall.  So she had brought them, a
mother and two daughters, to Green Croft, providing
them with new clothes, giving up to them two of her
best bedrooms, and entertaining them with the
most dainty dinner that her cook could serve.

During the meal they had told her so many thrilling
and shocking stories of the German invasion and
occupation of Belgium that she was worked up into a
condition of extreme nervousness and began to dread
more than ever the possibility of the enemy extending
their march of ruthless conquest and destruction
by coming over to England.

When her three guests had retired for the night,
and she was left alone, her nervousness increased;
she started at every little sound that broke the silence
of the house, and when at length there came a violent
ring at an electric bell, she clutched the arms of her
chair, trembling.

The ring was repeated.  Some one was at the front
door.  She tried to master her fears.  Rising
unsteadily from her chair, she crept silently out into
the unlighted hall and stood listening.

Again came a ring.  She strode across to the hall
table, opened its drawer and took out the loaded
revolver which she had kept there since the beginning
of the war in case of emergency.  Gripping the weapon
tightly, she approached the door and drew the bolt.

"Who's there?" she demanded.  "What do
you want at this time of night?"

"It's Seth Newruck," came the answer.  "I
want to know if you will allow me to use your
telephone, ma'am, to speak to the naval base?"

With all her courage coming back to her,
Mrs. Daplin-Gennery flung open the door.

"Goodness gracious, boy!" she cried, hardly able
to see him in the pitch darkness.  "Whatever are
you doing out alone at such an hour?  Come inside,
quick!  Yes, of course you can use the telephone."

She led him into the morning-room, where she
lighted a candle, bright lights being prohibited.  There
she left him with the telephone receiver at his ear.

He was not long in getting into communication
with Mr. Bilverstone.

"I've been watching Sunnydene since dusk, sir,"
he reported.  "One of the window blinds had been
moved.  I knew there was some one in the house.
But nothing happened for hours, until, at last, just
as I was thinking of going home to bed, I saw a man
come out of the grounds by the side gate with a spade
over his shoulder.  He went down the cliff to the
denes.  I took cover and followed him.  He was
making straight for the place where we discovered
the petrol, but stopped half way.  There was a
patrol of Territorials on the beach.  He'd seen or
heard them, and he had to turn back.  As he passed
the bush where I was hiding, I saw him more
distinctly; but it's fearfully dark, and I could only
judge by his figure and walk that he was Fritz
Seligmann."

"That's all right, so far," Mr. Bilverstone interposed
across the telephone.  "Did he go back to the
house?"

"Well, sir," Seth continued, "he went by a round-about
way, and I lost sight of him for a long time and
couldn't move for fear he should see me.  While I
waited, a very queer thing happened, sir.  There
were no ships anchored in the Roads, and of course
there were none under weigh; and yet when I looked
out to sea, I noticed a tiny, green light somewhere
about the middle of Alderwick shoal.  It
disappeared as suddenly as it came.  And then, sir,
there was a curious grunting noise from the same
spot.  Are you listening, sir?"

"Yes.  What sort of a noise do you say it was?"

"I said grunting, sir; but if it had come from
deeper water I should have said that it was the sound
made by a submarine emptying or filling her ballast
tanks.  Do you think it could have been?"

"Wait.  Let me consider."  There was a long
pause.  "It's just possible.  You've to remember
that secret store of petrol.  There is no doubt that
Heinrich Hilliger intended it to be used by a German
submarine.  In that case it's not wildly improbable
that a German submarine is hanging round with the
intention of lifting it, not knowing that it has already
been removed.  But they can't very well come ashore
for it while the sentries are patrolling the beach.
Neither can Seligmann do any digging, unless he's
desperate enough to shoot the sentries first, and so
get them out of the way.  Now, if it was indeed a
submarine that you heard—a German submarine—and
if she is short of petrol, she will wait there,
submerged.  In that case we may be able to drop on
her.  Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," returned Seth.  "And I understand,
or rather guess, something else.  I guess that if she
has come to fill her petrol tanks from Alderwick
beach, she must have been piloted there by some one
who knows every fathom of that shoal.  Don't you
think it's likely that Max Hilliger is aboard of
her, sir?"

"Listen!" Mr. Bilverstone's voice responded.
"I will send a couple of marines along to keep watch,
while you cut home and dress yourself up as a fisher
boy and come down to me here at the naval base."

"A fisher boy, sir?" Seth inquired in wonder.

"Yes," came the answer.  "At the first gleam of
daylight you are going out with me in a shrimping
boat, to fish for shrimps round about Alderwick
shoal.  You understand?  Right."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A SHRIMPING ADVENTURE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A SHRIMPING ADVENTURE.

.. vspace:: 2

"Not such a bad take for the first, eh?" said
Arnold Bilverstone, emptying the pocket
of the shrimping net into the basket between
the thwarts.  "If you're fond of shrimps, Seth,
you can have a good feed at teatime."

Seth Newruck, astern at the tiller, bent forward
to examine the catch of the dim light of the early
dawn.

"I should like them very much better if they
weren't so beastly difficult to peel, sir," he answered.
"I nearly always break them."

"That is probably because you don't go the right
way about it," rejoined Mr. Bilverstone, glancing
shoreward.  "You should press the head and tail
firmly towards each other, giving them a gentle
half turn.  That loosens the scales, and you can
draw the shrimp free as easily as drawing your finger
out of a glove.  Luff!"

Seth luffed, and the lugger came up to the wind
and bowled forward with a musical gurgle of water
along her strakes.

Mr. Bilverstone was in no hurry to add to the
little pile of jumping, wriggling crustaceans in the
basket.  He was much less intent upon catching
shrimps than watching the growing light in the
eastern sky and calculating the boat's distance from
Alderwick Knoll.

"When we get abreast of the lighthouse," he said,
"we'll put out the gear again and creep along the
shore.  Don't stare about too much.  We must
pretend to be tremendously interested in our work.
But keep your ears open.  When we've passed
Sunnydene we shall tack out as if we were making
for the north end of the shoal.  If a periscope pops
up, we'll just go ahead as if we hadn't noticed it.
A submarine couldn't torpedo a cockleshell like this,
and unless she comes up awash we're just as safe
from gunfire."

"What I don't understand," said Seth, "is that,
supposing a German submarine to be lying submerged
out there in the shoal water; supposing she has come
to refill her petrol tanks, how could she get the
petrol on board?  She couldn't come alongside the
beach; and submarines don't carry boats."

"The new German ones do," Mr. Bilverstone
informed him.  "They keep a collapsible boat stowed
in a hatchway abaft the conning-tower.  But, of
course, it could only be launched when the submarine
is awash.  As for getting the petrol aboard, you may
be sure they'd manage it somehow if it were still
where they think it is."

"They can't find out that we've removed it,
unless they come ashore to look," Seth reflected.

Mr. Bilverstone paid out the lugsail sheet an inch
or two and perched himself on the windward gunwale.

"As a matter of fact," he said, "I believe they
know already.  I didn't tell you; but an hour ago,
while you were having a sleep under my writing-table,
we had a report from the two marines patrolling
Alderwick beach.  At about two o'clock they saw an
electric light signal flashed from the foreshore, near
one of the groins.  There were no ships in sight, and
no answering signal was seen.  Still the light kept
on flashing.  The two marines crept up, one on either
side of the groin.  They got so near that one of them
called out a challenge.  As there was no response
he fired.  The light went out then.  There was no
cry, no sound, no movement.  Nobody was shot;
yet nobody ran away.  The two marines and two
Territorial sentries searched, but found absolutely
no trace of the chap who had been signalling.
He had vanished as completely as if the tide had
come up and swallowed him."

"That's queer!" murmured Seth.  "Very queer.
There must have been somebody working the
hand-lamp, sir."

"Not necessarily a hand-lamp," Mr. Bilverstone
smiled.  "None of the patrol thought of it, but it's
easy to imagine how a tricky German, such as Fritz
Seligmann, could plant an electric bulb in the sand or
shingle, or even among the timbers of the groin,
and work the switch from the top of the cliff by
means of a long-distance connection.  A spy was
caught three nights ago signalling from the air.
He flew a kite with an electric current running
through the string.  Spies wouldn't be much good
if they weren't tricky."

Slowly the dawning light in the eastern sky
grew brighter, changing from steel grey to gold,
tinged with a rosy glow.  Again and again
Mr. Bilverstone put out the gear.  No one seeing the
two occupants of the little boat, with its brown
lugsail, would have believed them to be anything else
than ordinary shrimpers.  They both wore tanned
canvas overalls and oilskin sou'-westers, and their
manner of working contributed to their disguise.

Twice they passed along the leeward fringe of the
shoal.  Seth Newruck's eyes searched the ruffled
water where the waves broke here and there above
the shallows; but he saw nothing unusual.

"I'm afraid we shall have only the shrimps for
our trouble, sir," he remarked with a shiver, for
the morning was very cold.

"Don't be impatient," nodded his companion,
opening a Thermos flask.  "We haven't finished
our job yet.  Here, have a drink of warm tea;
and there are some biscuits in the locker behind
you.  Come forward here, and I will take the tiller
for a spell."

He took the boat outward, as if he were
making for the lightship, leaving the shoal in
his wake.

"Don't look round, sir," Seth whispered agitatedly.
"I can see two periscopes, close together.  And
there's a sort of commotion in the water round about
them, as if the submarine were rising."

Mr. Bilverstone put over the tiller, so that the boat
yawed and her sail began to flutter.  He left the
tiller and crept forward over the thwarts, seized
the halliard, and lowered the sail, then hauled it
up again, returned to the tiller and brought her
up to the wind, going on as before.

"What did you do that for, sir?" Seth inquired,
amazed at what he took to be an example of bad
seamanship.  "She was going on all right."

Mr. Bilverstone took a drink of tea.

"It was a signal," he explained.  "All the time
while we've been out they've been watching us
from the naval base.  The *Kingfisher* has had her
steam up ready to come out as soon as we should
give the sign.  We have given it.  You will see her
presently.  What about the periscopes?"

"They're still there, sir," Seth answered.  "I can
see the top of her conning-tower above water.
She's moving.  I believe I can hear her engines
grunting.  So she's got some petrol left.  Hullo!
I can see a man's head and shoulders."

"She's bound to come up and work her petrol
engines to generate electricity," said Mr. Bilverstone,
going on a fresh tack.  "Haul in the net, quick!
Those Germans will guess we had a hand in it when
they see the gunboat coming after them."

Seth got the gear inboard, and again his companion
tacked.  The boat was making for home, with both
wind and tide in her favour.

Mr. Bilverstone could now watch the submarine.
She was awash, and her petrol engines, making a
great clatter, were evidently working up to full
speed.  Two of her crew had come out on the
platform of her conning-tower.  One was in officer's
uniform.  The sun, piercing the mist, shone upon
his brass buttons and the gold badge on his cap.
He stood looking southward to where two plumes
of smoke from a steamer's funnels rose into the
morning air over the lighthouse point.  It could
be seen that he had his left arm in a sling.

"She's coming after us, sir!" cried Seth.  "She'll
sink us!"

"She's trying to escape from the gunboat,"
declared Mr. Bilverstone.  "You see, she can't
submerge until her electric batteries are charged,
and she can go quicker on the surface.  Look!  There
comes the *Kingfisher*!"

The officer disappeared for some moments, but
returned with a pair of binoculars, which he levelled
upon the gunboat.  The submarine quickly
increased her speed, sending up a great fountain of
foam as she cut through the water.  She passed so
close to the shrimp boat that it rocked on the waves
she left in her wake.  Seth Newruck saw the number
on her side—U50.  He also caught a glimpse of
the face of the young officer on the deck of her
conning-tower.

"Look!" he cried excitedly.  "Look, sir!  It's
Max Hilliger himself!"

Hardly had he spoken when there was a spurt of
fire and smoke from one of the *Kingfisher's* 4.7
guns; a shell whistled through the air and sent up a
tall column of spray as it fell midway between the
submarine and the shrimping boat.  The submarine,
now fully on the surface and racing along at
eighteen-knot speed, offered a good target; but she
manoeuvred, steering a zig-zag course, seldom
exposing her broadside.  A gun was raised from its
concealed hatchway on her after platform, and she
replied to the *Kingfisher's* fire without visible effect.

Arnold Bilverstone, nervously gripping the boat's
gunwale, was leaning forward, gazing fixedly
northward along the coast.

"That's good!" he exclaimed.  "There's a
couple of destroyers coming out from Buremouth.
They'll head her off."

The chase continued.  Suddenly the submarine's
gun disappeared.  The two men on her conning-tower
went below.  She seemed to be slowing down.
A shell from one of the two destroyers fell perilously
near her, deluging her with spray.

"She's hit!" cried Seth Newruck.  "See! she's
sinking!"

"Submerging," corrected Mr. Bilverstone,
watching the conning-tower slowly disappear.

The *Kingfisher*, going at her best speed of twenty
knots, was soon abreast of the shrimper, separated
by hardly more than fifty yards.  Just in time her
course was altered; she went abruptly to starboard,
and so luckily avoided the torpedo which was aimed
at her from the submerged enemy.  Seth saw the
disturbance of the water as the deadly weapon sped
on its fruitless errand.

The gunboat gave up the dangerous chase and
steamed a confusing, irregular course until she
rounded the southern extremity of Alderwick Shoal,
and thus got the protection of the sandbank between
her and the submarine.  But of the submarine
herself and her periscopes no more was seen.

Arnold Bilverstone steered alongside the gunboat.
Both he and Seth Newruck were taken on board,
their boat being hoisted on deck with its catch of
shrimps, which were consigned to the seamen's
quarters.  Later on that same day, on his way
home up the High Street, Seth Newruck
encountered Constable Challis.

"I thought you'd be interested to knew," said
the constable, "as that dug-out at Green Croft came
into use this mornin', when them naval guns were
firin'.  Mrs. Daplin-Gennery made sure it was the
Germans comin' to make an invasion.  She got all
her household, includin' three Belgian refugees, into
the shelter in double quick time; and there they
remained until long after the firin' had ceased.
Between ourselves, they might have remained
comfortable in their beds.  There was no cause
for alarm.  It was only that the *Kingfisher*
discovered an enemy ship layin' explosive mines
off the coast and gave chase and sent her to the
bottom."

Seth smiled to himself.  Constable Challis was
curiously astray in his information.

"Did you see what took place, constable?"
he inquired, assuming ignorance.

Challis shook his head regretfully.

"I wasn't on duty at the time," he answered.
"Anyhow, Mrs. Daplin-Gennery had a rare fright.
I'm told, indeed, that she's had a disturbed night
from beginnin' to end.  No sooner had she got her
refugees to bed, when somebody or other had the
impudence to knock her up askin' to use her
telephone.  At two o'clock in the mornin' she was again
alarmed by hearin' a rifle shot on the denes.  Then
there was the naval guns.  What the rifle shot was
about I don't know.  Inspector Jenner was up there
on special duty shortly afterwards, but knew nothin'
about it."

"Oh!" nodded Seth, with new interest.  "And
what was the special duty?"

Constable Challis bent nearer to the boy and
lowered his voice.

"Strictly between ourselves," he said.  "There's
a rumour goin' about that one of the Germans has
come back to Sunnydene—that secretary—and
that he's been up to some spyin' tricks.  Inspector
Jenner, with assistance, went to arrest him.  They
broke into the house and made a thorough search,
but he wasn't there.  There wasn't a trace of him
on the premises."

"Still," said Seth, "I suppose the police will keep
a watch?"

"You may take it from me," declared Challis,
"if that there Seligmann is anywhere about
Haddisport, we shall nab him."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`U50`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIX.


.. class:: center medium bold

   U50.

.. vspace:: 2

"*Dainty*, ahoy!  Show a light at your gangway
while I come aboard of you."

It was a dark, boisterous night, with fiercely
driving rain.  Mark Redisham in his dripping
oilskins was pacing the wet deck of the
mine-sweeper, lying at anchor in a land-locked bay on
the north-east coast.

The *Dainty* and her consorts had been at their
perilous work dredging for explosive mines off the
north of Ireland and in the Pentland Firth, battling
day by day with stormy seas, incessant rains, and
bitterly cold winds.  It had been a most uncomfortable
trip, and Mark and his shipmates were rejoicing
in the prospect of a few days' rest at home.  Even
the necessity of anchoring at night irritated them
because of the delay.

The trawlers were lying now in the midst of a
large flotilla of destroyers and light cruisers.  Mark
had read a flashlight signal from the bridge of one
of the cruisers, inquiring which was the commodore
of the mine-sweepers, and he had answered it with
his electric torch.  A pinnace was approaching the
*Dainty*, and it was an officer in the stern sheets
who had hailed him.

Mark held a lighted lamp in the open gangway,
and the pinnace came alongside.  The officer, a
sub-lieutenant, climbed on board to speak with the
skipper in the shelter of the wheel-house, leaving a
midshipman in charge of the boat.  Mark was about
to enter into conversation with the bluejackets
when the midshipman stood up.  The lamplight
shone in his face.

"Hullo, Rodney!" cried Mark in astonishment,
recognising his brother.  "What an unexpected
meeting!  How are you?  Have you come off the
*Levity*?"

They clasped hands.

"No," Rodney answered.  "No, the *Levity* is in
the repair yard.  She got a bit knocked about in the
scrap we had with the enemy off Heligoland.  But
in any case, I was only aboard her temporarily.
Destroyers don't carry midshipmen as a rule, you
know.  I've been appointed to the *Dauntless*, the
new light cruiser out there.  Captain Damant is in
command of her.  She's heaps better than the
*Atreus*; in fact, she's about the best light cruiser
in the service.  I thought you'd heard of my luck.
I wrote to mother about it."

"But I haven't seen mother for over a week."
Mark explained.  "I expect to see her to-morrow,
though."

"I'm afraid you won't," Rodney told him.  "I
believe you've got to sweep up a new mine-field
that the Germans have laid south of the Dogger.
That's where the *Rapid* was sunk this morning."

"The *Rapid*!  Was she mined?"

"Yes, worse luck.  No lives were lost, though;
and, of course, she was obsolete, and no good for
fighting, so it's not very serious.  We'd already paid
the enemy in advance, seeing that Lieutenant
Ingoldsby torpedoed one of their newest destroyers
yesterday afternoon.  I'm awfully glad to have
met you.  Give my love to mother and the girls
when you get home, and tell them I'm getting
to know the North Sea as well as I know our own
garden.  Good night."

Mark drew back to make way for the lieutenant,
who had been giving the skipper instructions for
the sweeping of the new mine-field.

At daylight the next morning, having taken in
fresh stores, the *Dainty* and her consorts steamed off.

On arriving at the scene of their duties they found
another fleet of trawlers already at work, helped
by an aeroplane.  They combined in a systematic
sweep of the known area and exploded some scores
of mines without an accident.  The new picking-up
net lately introduced was doubtless the reason of
this freedom from disaster.

Sweeping the seas for explosive mines
indiscriminately laid by the enemy for the destruction
of any ship which might run up against them,
was not the only work in which the British steam
trawlers and drifters were engaged.  These stout little
vessels, with their hardy crews of North Sea
fishermen, were also engaged to act as scouts and
messengers patrolling the coasts.  Many of them
were fitted with wireless masts, by means of which
they sent out reports by code of anything suspicious
which might be observed.

Thus, while the *Dainty* was still in the neighbourhood
of the Dogger Bank, threading her way through
a fleet of English herring smacks, Mark Redisham
was able to send out a wireless message intimating
that a German submarine of the largest and newest
type had been seen.  He gave her number as U50,
and added that she had been watched taking in a
supply of petrol and other stores from a captured
English trawler manned by Germans.

Less than an hour afterwards two British
destroyers were seen racing at top speed in the
direction in which the enemy trawler had
disappeared.  They went out of sight.  There came
the sound of gun firing, and Mark afterwards heard
that the trawler had been sunk and her German
crew taken prisoners.

While the guns were firing and the *Dainty* was
yet within sight of the drifters, Mark again saw
the submarine, or, rather, he saw her periscopes
moving above the surface about a mile away.
At the same time the skipper was watching a
confused cloud of black smoke through the rain
mist on the western horizon.

"Looks like a big liner," Snowling conjectured.
"Give her a signal that there's an enemy submarine
prowlin' around."

Before going to his instrument room Mark looked
searchingly at the smoke.

"That's not a liner," he decided.  "There's too
much smoke for a liner.  And there's more than one.
It looks like a patrol of cruisers."

He sent off his wireless message and got one back
to say that it had been received and understood.
On returning to the deck he searched for signs of
the submarine, but found none.  The funnels of
three British cruisers were now visible above the
line of the sea.  The *Dainty* was steered towards
them.  When their turrets and hulls came into view,
Mark succeeded in identifying the ships as the
armoured cruisers *Pomona*, *Graemsay*, and *Ronaldsay*.
They were followed by a light cruiser and a division
of destroyers.  He signalled to them:

"Keep to the eastward of the fishing fleet."

But his warning advice did not divert the warships
from their course.  They approached at easy speed
in line-ahead formation, the *Pomona* leading.

"They're all right, don't you trouble," observed
Skipper Snowling.  "I expect that that submarine
has made off to Heligoland.  They're all of 'em
afraid of the very sight of the White Ensign."

The great, three-funnelled cruisers were a noble
sight as they steamed along so steadily.  Mark
Redisham watched them through his binoculars,
paying his attention to each one in turn and trying
to discover in what small details of structure they
differed one from another; for they were all three
of the same class.  Each was of twelve thousand
tons displacement, each carried the same number
of heavy guns, and each, as he knew, had the same
complement of seven hundred and fifty officers
and men.

As the *Pomona* came nearer he looked at the
officers on the bridge.  They wore their greatcoats,
but he could still make out their respective ranks
by their stripes and badges.

Suddenly one of them at the starboard end of the
bridge pointed excitedly into the sea and shouted.
Instantly there was a loud crash, an explosion.
The whole ship staggered.

"Glory be!" cried Skipper Snowling.  "That's
a torpedo!  It struck her amidships!"

In the excitement of the next two hours Mark
Redisham got a confused impression of all that
happened.  He saw the *Pomona* listing over in a
cloud of smoke and escaping steam.  She was
sinking.  The *Graemsay* and the *Ronaldsay* were
putting out their boats as they closed upon her.
Their engines were stopped as they took up positions
about four hundred yards apart from her to give
assistance.

Hardly had they stopped when there was a
second heavy explosion, followed by a third.  The
*Ronaldsay* had been torpedoed under her
after-magazine.  The air was filled with flying wreckage,
which fell among her boats.

The *Dainty* and her consorts, as well as the fishing
smacks and steam drifters, hastened to the rescue.
Already the cruisers' picket boats and cutters had
picked up many survivors from the *Pomona*.  Some
were returning to the *Graemsay*, when she, too, was
hit by a fourth torpedo from the hidden enemy.

Looking round in the direction from which, as it
seemed to him, the weapons had been fired, Mark
Redisham saw the submarine's two periscopes
moving along the surface some three hundred yards
away.  Then the upper part of her conning-tower rose.
The gunners on the stricken *Graemsay* immediately
opened fire upon it, and their ship's engines were
put full steam ahead with the intention of running
her down.  But the cruiser was badly holed below
water; she heeled rapidly and finally turned keel up.

In the meantime, the light cruiser and her flotilla
of destroyers were coming down at racing speed,
and the smacks and trawlers were drawing nearer.
There were boats in plenty to give help to those
who could swim or who had managed to seize
upon floating wreckage; but, unfortunately, many
had been killed or hopelessly maimed by the
explosions, whilst others had not been able to escape
from the stokeholds and lower decks, the loss
amounting to the terrible total of sixty officers and
fourteen hundred men.

"Seems to me," said Harry Snowling, helping Mark
Redisham to lift a wounded stoker from the dinghy to
the *Dainty's* deck, "as there must have been a whole
crowd of submarines lyin' in wait to do this.  'Taren't
proper warfare, like gunfire in an open action."

"I have seen only one," returned Mark, standing
up and glancing over the side.  "The same one
that we saw taking in petrol from that stolen trawler.
She's in sight even now, Harry.  I can see her
plainly, waiting, I suppose, to have a shot at the
light cruiser—if she's got any more torpedoes left.
I can make out her number.  It's the U50.  There's
a group of Germans on her conning-tower platform.
I believe they're gloating over what they've done.
One of them's a middy, with his arm in a sling.
Ah!  They're going below now!  They're going to
submerge."

He did not guess—he did not dream of the
possibility—but had he taken his binoculars, he might
have distinguished the features of the "middy"
to whom he referred, and recognised them as the
features of Max Hilliger.





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.. _`PUT TO THE TEST`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XX.


.. class:: center medium bold

   PUT TO THE TEST.

.. vspace:: 2

"It's astonishing how much more interesting
the North Sea has become since the
beginning of the war," remarked Vera Redisham,
standing at the dining-room window, busily
knitting a khaki muffler for some unknown soldier
at the Front.  "There's a steamer passing now,
a neutral, and I'm simply dying to know where
she comes from and where she's going, and if
she has been in danger from German torpedoes."

Her brother Mark, home on shore leave, was
seated at the fireside, making up arrears in his
reading of the newspapers.  He was dressed in mufti,
and looked very different from the rough-clothed
signal boy who for weeks past had been battling
with autumn storms and the perils of floating
mines on the wave-swept decks of the *Dainty*.

"What flag's she flying?" he questioned, turning
in his comfortable chair.

"I can't make out," his sister answered.  "It's
blue, with a white cross.  And the same colours are
painted on her side.  And, oh, Mark, isn't it sweet
of her?  She's saluting the *Kingfisher*!"

"So she ought to," declared Mark, dropping his
paper and rising to his feet.  "All neutrals ought
to salute the White Ensign, seeing what our Navy
is doing by keeping the seas clear of the enemy.
A Danish ship saluted our squad of mine-sweepers
the other day.  Blue with a white cross?  She
must be Greek.  I expect she's carrying a cargo of
currants.  Isn't her name painted on her side?"

He went to the window and looked out upon the sea.

"Yes, she's Greek," he decided.  "She's from
Pireus.  That's the harbour outside Athens, isn't
it?  Who's this coming in at the gate?  A policeman
delivering handbills!"

The parlourmaid presently brought in a sheet of
typewritten paper, saying that it had been left at
the door by a police sergeant.  Mark Redisham
took it from her and glanced at it.  It was an order,
issued by the Chief Constable of the county, under
the Defence of the Realm Act.

"This ought to keep silly people along the front
from showing lights from their windows," he
announced.  "Listen!"

   
   "All lights visible from seaward shall be
   effectually obscured.  No person shall show a
   light on the shore or on the land adjoining thereto,
   or visible from seaward.
   
   "The public are hereby warned that non-compliance
   with this regulation will render them
   liable to instant arrest, and that patrols have
   been instructed to fire at sight and without further
   warning on any person found signalling."


"That's what should have been done weeks ago."

"Bright lights on motor-cars ought to be
prohibited, too," pursued Vera.

"Yes," agreed Mark, "and all Germans ought
to be shut up.  If innocent Belgian refugees are not
allowed to stay in Haddisport, why should we let
Germans live in houses overlooking the coast?
They ought to be cleared out instead of being given
the chance of sending messages over to Germany.
It's certain there are spies all along the East Coast.
Otherwise, how could the enemy know so well about
the movements of our warships?"

He picked up the ball of khaki wool which Vera
had dropped.

"I believe they're only waiting their chance to
slip across and do a bit of raiding," he went on.
"The Admiralty seem to think it possible, anyhow.
That's why they have altered the positions of the
lightships and buoys.  I expect they'll continue to shift
them about, so that the enemy may be confused."

"Of course, motor-cars and bicycles, however
brightly lighted, can't send messages across the
North Sea," Vera reflected.

Mark shrugged his shoulders.

"What's to hinder a motor-car being fitted with
secret aerials?" he asked.  "The Germans are not
children.  They're up to all sorts of cunning tricks.
Why, only last week one of our Haddisport drifters
went out to the herring fishing with a splash of red
paint on her starboard bow.  Nobody knew who
put it there, the crew least of all; they didn't even
see it.  But when the boats were drifting to their
nets on the fishing ground, a German submarine
came nosing round, spotted the red splash of paint,
and then went off in a bee-line for Heligoland."

"Well?" questioned Vera, not understanding.
"What did it mean?"

"Well?" repeated Mark.  "I don't know what
it meant.  But the men on the submarine did.  It was
a pre-arranged sign—a message.  It's an old Scout
trick.  Darby Catchpole wanted to communicate
with me once, by a way we'd fixed upon.  I watched
for the postman, and when he came past this gate I
saw some flour dust on his left arm.  That meant 'No.'  If
the flour dust had been on his right arm, it would
have meant 'Yes.'  In the same way a German spy
could put a secret mark on a railway carriage or a
motor-car, going to a known destination, and give
information to hundreds of other spies along the route."

"Dear me!" exclaimed Vera.  "Perhaps it was a
spy who tied the mysterious piece of ribbon to the
handle-bar of my bicycle yesterday!"

"Likely enough," surmised Mark.  "Perhaps the
same one who daubed the paint on that fishing-boat.
There's no doubt there are spies around here.
And there's a green motor-car that goes dashing
about between here and Buremouth with lamps
shining like searchlights.  The police and the
military patrols have had instructions to capture it.
Constable Challis has been put on night duty now.
Challis is rather too fond of talking, but he's an
uncommonly smart policeman."

Mark Redisham's estimate of Constable Challis
was justified sooner than he expected.

On the very next night, indeed, Challis was on his
beat patrolling the rabbit warren and the dark lanes
to the north of the town, when his smartness was
put to the test.

Formerly he would have been watching for
tramps, suspicious loiterers, and possible burglars;
but, since the outbreak of war, crime had diminished,
even gipsies were fewer, and he could do nothing
so useful as to watch the road for unauthorised
vehicles and for spies flashing signals across the sea.

Before ten o'clock he had visited five different
houses to alarm the occupants by informing them
that lights were visible from their windows.

In three cases it was discovered that the lights
were to be seen through the chinks of imperfectly
drawn curtains or ill-fitting blinds; in one case a
nurse had left the gas burning by mistake, and in
the other, where the light came through an open
stable door, a groom was attending to a sick horse
and had not known of the new regulations.  By
midnight, however, the whole neighbourhood was
in darkness.

Yet, still there were belated cyclists carrying
lighted lamps.  The worst offenders were the
motor-cyclists, and these were mostly military men who, as
Challis reflected, ought to have known better.  Once
a large motor-car dashed along the road at high
speed with acetylene lamps which shone for many
yards in advance of the wheels, illuminating the
trees and hedges on either side of the road.

Much to Challis's surprise, when he stood and
held out a warning arm and called to the driver
to stop, he was obeyed.  Even more to his surprise,
he discovered the driver to be Mrs. Daplin-Gennery,
and that her companion was her nephew, Lieutenant
Ingoldsby.

"Very sorry, ma'am," said Challis apologetically,
"but I've got strict orders to stop all cars with
high lights.  I'm afraid I must ask you to lower
yours, or else screen them."

"Quite right, constable," laughed Lieutenant
Ingoldsby, jumping out.  "I'm glad you stopped us
without opening fire upon us."

Challis gathered that Lieutenant Ingoldsby was
on the way to Buremouth to visit a friend who
had been sent home wounded.  When the car had
gone on, with greatly reduced lights, he returned
towards Haddisport along the edge of the cliff,
then made inland to the Alderwick road.

As he approached the road through the intricate
maze of bramble and gorse, he became aware of the
sound of an approaching car.  Could it possibly
be Mrs. Daplin-Gennery returning so soon?

Instead of going into the road, he concealed
himself within the shadow of a hawthorn-tree and
watched.  The car was coming slowly—so slowly
that it made very little sound; and its lights were
exceedingly dim.  He waited, feeling instinctively
that something was about to happen.  It occurred
to him that the dimness of the lights and the quiet
slowness with which the car was moving were due
to the extreme caution on the part of the driver,
who evidently wished to escape observation.

In the darkness Challis could hardly see the
vehicle itself, only the two tiny lights which were
like the glimmer of candles.  Suddenly, just opposite
to him, it stopped, then backed and curved towards
the farther side of the road.

Only at that moment did the watcher realise
that just at that point was a narrow lane leading to
Alderwick Hall.  It was into this lane that the car
was backing, obviously for the purpose of concealment.
When its whole length was within the lane,
hidden under the overhanging trees, it stopped.

The driver got out, stood for some moments as if
listening, then went softly to the front of the car
to extinguish the lamps.  As he bent down to the
first of them, the light shone in his face.

Challis hitched his cuffs back from his wrists.
His eyesight was very keen.  He had seen the man's
face and recognised it.  It was the face of Fritz
Seligmann, the German spy!

With the stealthy softness of a cat stalking its
prey, the policeman crept forward, and, just as
Seligmann had raised his hand to turn out the
second light, leapt upon him, gripping him from
behind by the two arms.

There was a heavy gasp from the astonished
German as he went down on his knees, the
policeman's weight on top of him.  He writhed and
struggled to free himself, and succeeded in getting
his right hand to his hip pocket, from which, with
an effort, he drew his loaded revolver.

Challis guessed rather than knew what was in the
man's hand.  In an instant he had seized the
German's wrist, twisted the hand under it, and
secured the weapon from the helpless fingers.

"Now," he said, speaking for the first time, "I
think I've got you.  If you move I'm goin' to use
this here pistol.  You're an enemy, and you may
take it from me I don't care if I shoot you dead
here and now no more than if I killed you on the
field of battle."

Seligmann was lying with his face to the grass,
panting, writhing, heaving under the weight of the
constable's knee planted in the small of his back,
while the cold ring of the revolver muzzle was pressed
against the bone behind his ear and the policeman's
forefinger was twitching at the trigger.

Thus they remained for some minutes, the one
utterly helpless, the other resolute, alert, and
astonishingly strong.

In those tense minutes Challis wondered what
he was going to do.  He did not want to use the
revolver as anything else than a menace, and yet he
knew that if he should move there would be a
struggle, during which, by some trick or dexterity,
his captive might escape.

In the back pocket of his overcoat was a pair of
handcuffs.  But how could he get hold of them
without dropping the revolver?  How could he hope
to fix them on the German's wrists?

But if he could not get at the handcuffs, at least
he could summon help.  There were houses within
call.  The nearest was Sunnydene, for which
Seligmann had no doubt been shaping; the next was
Green Croft, then Major Redisham's.  He managed
to draw out his whistle, while his captive straggled
more desperately than ever to get free.  Just as he
raised the whistle to his lips, he heard the quick patter
of feet along the road.  He blew a long, shrill blast.

Seligmann heaved himself upward with a mighty
effort; but the revolver muzzle was pressed yet more
forcefully against his skull, and the constable's
knees were almost breaking his back.

The footsteps approached swiftly, and at length
the flash of an electric torch shed its slanting ray
upon the desperately struggling pair.

"What's up?  Hullo, Challis, I've been searching
for you."

It was the voice of Mark Redisham.  He had received
a telephone message from the police-station, bidding
him find Constable Challis and help him to waylay this
same suspected motor-car, coming from Buremouth.

"Quick!  Feel in my back pocket for the handcuffs,"
Challis ordered, dropping the revolver and
seizing his prisoner's two wrists.  "Right.  Now
hold his head while I put 'em on.  Then you can
drive him and me to the police-station."

There was a sharp clip as the steel rings were
locked upon the German's wrists.  Mark went to
the car, turned up the lights, and got ready.  They
bundled the prisoner into the body of the car, where
Challis sat with him, covering him with the revolver.
Mark drove off through the town, and soon brought
up at his destination.  In the car they discovered
a complete wireless outfit, a signalling lamp, and a
handbag containing certain compromising documents.

"Yes," said the Superintendent, when Seligmann
was safely locked in a cell.  "He has been busy with
that wireless apparatus to-night.  Some of his messages
were jammed, but not all of them.  Not all."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE RAIDERS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE RAIDERS.

.. vspace:: 2

Whether Seligmann's wireless messages had
anything to do with the matter or not can
only be conjectured.  But it is true that at
earliest dawn on that same misty, November morning
the fishermen of the Haddisport herring fleet, at
work with their drift nets south of the Dogger Bank,
were surprised by the sudden appearance in their
midst of a squadron of eight grey-hulled
Dreadnoughts and cruisers, bearing due westward at
breakneck speed.

Looming out of the mist, they tore onward
through the nets, regardless of the damage they
caused.  They showed no lights, even from their
cabin portholes; they flew no flags.

One of the skippers, watching them, was so sure
that they were British battleships that he waved his
morning teapot at them in greeting; but some of
the Englishmen shook their heads in doubt.  There
were peculiarities in the structure of the ships
which were not familiar.

They passed so close to the *Mignonette* that Sam
Quester, perched on the roof of the cuddy scuttle,
saw the faces of the officers on bridge and quarterdeck,
and was able afterwards to assert that he was
almost sure one of the officers on the leading
Dreadnought was Max Hilliger's father.

By the time they had passed out of sight into the
mist the fishermen had come to the correct conclusion
that the squadron was a part of the German High
Sea Fleet.  But what was their purpose?  Where
were they going at such a headlong rate?  And
where in the meantime was the British Fleet?

Twenty miles farther to the westward the Germans
were again seen, flying the White Ensign, this time
by a patrol of English mine-sweepers, which
immediately sent out a wireless message of warning.
The enemy flagship tried to jam the message.
Nevertheless it was picked up by His Majesty's
torpedo gunboat *Kingfisher*, lying at anchor in
Buremouth Roads.  The *Kingfisher* sent the warning
onward, to be repeated and repeated north and
south about the sea.

How did it happen that the Germans knew so well
that on this particular morning they were in no
danger of being intercepted by British cruisers?  Had
this been the secret of Fritz Seligmann's activity
that night?

The wireless message from the *Kingfisher* reached
the naval bases of Buremouth and Haddisport.  Off
Buremouth two destroyers were at anchor.  They
at once got up steam and pushed out in the wake
of the gunboat.  At Haddisport there was a
submarine—the H29.  She was ordered to follow.  But
where was her commander, Lieutenant Ingoldsby?

By the merest chance, Mark Redisham heard the
question asked.  He had come to the naval base to
report the arrest of Fritz Seligmann, using
Seligmann's car, which he had left at the pier-head.
Constable Challis had told him that Lieutenant
Ingoldsby had gone with Mrs. Daplin-Gennery to
Floxley Hall, outside Buremouth.

Mark gave the information to Mr. Bilverstone,
who telephoned to Green Croft and got a prompt
answer.  Mrs. Daplin-Gennery had just returned;
but had left her nephew at the bedside of his wounded
friend.

"All right, sir," said Mark, "I'll go and fetch him."

It was a journey of nineteen miles there and back,
but Seligmann's car was a powerful one, well supplied
with petrol, and Mark Redisham was an expert and
cautious driver.  He posted off to Floxley Hall at
top speed.

Meanwhile, the enemy Dreadnoughts and cruisers
were still being watched from the decks of the
patrolling trawlers.  They were racing towards the
English coast, their tall funnels belching black
clouds of smoke, their officers and men all at their
fighting quarters, their heavy guns loaded, their
torpedo-tubes charged.

"They look as if they was skelterin' away from
an enemy," observed one of the English skippers.
"But hold hard!  They'll go slap into our mine-field,
sure's a gun, the course they're makin'.  Taren't
possible they can hit the open lane."

A field of defensive contact mines had been laid
for the protection of the coast, with secret gaps
or passages which were supposed to be known only
to naval men and responsible pilots.  It was clear,
however, that the Germans were well aware, not
only of the exact locality of the mined area, but
also of the open lanes through which they might
pass in safety, for without slackening speed the
ships rushed through in an unbroken procession,
never swerving until they came within sight of the
Alderwick lightship.

Here they separated into two divisions, the
one steering direct for Buremouth, the other for
Haddisport.

The *Kingfisher*, steaming out to inquire into the
truth of the wireless message she had received,
made her presence known by flashing her searchlight
through the gloom of the early morning mist.
The enemy flagship, bearing west-by-south, instead
of answering the signal, opened fire upon the British
gunboat, at the same time showing the German flag
in place of the White Ensign.

Confronted by so formidable an antagonist, the
little *Kingfisher*, with her smaller four-inch guns,
could not attempt to engage.  She fired seven shots,
which all dropped short, while shells were falling
all round her.  One struck her foremast and smashed
her aerials, another exploded under her bridge,
fatally injuring a seaman at her steering-wheel and
cutting the compass in half.

The two destroyers raced up to her help, making
as much smoke as possible to hide her.  All three,
hopelessly outranged, could only steam about in a
zig-zag course at their fullest speed and at length
take refuge in the mist.

The battleships did not follow in pursuit.  It was
not their intention to enter into a sea fight, if one
could be avoided.  Theirs was the sinister purpose
of bombarding defenceless towns and spreading
"frightfulness" amongst unoffending civilians.

While one division of the squadron branched off
to pour their devastating shells into the houses of
Buremouth, the other steamed abreast of Alderwick
Shoal, and from the security of the deep water
sent salvo after salvo into the buildings of
Haddisport.

From the bridge of the flagship Heinrich Hilliger
bent his binoculars upon his own house to seek for
a signal which he failed to discover, or, rather,
which was never displayed, his faithful secretary
being at the time securely confined within the narrow
walls of a prisoner's cell in Haddisport
police-station.

Not finding the expected signal, Herr Hilliger
transferred his attention to the business in hand,
indicating the particular houses and buildings at
which he desired the gunlayers to take especial
aim: first, Green Croft, associated in his mind
with the mischievous submarine commander,
Lieutenant Ingoldsby, whose torpedoes had robbed the
Kaiser's High Sea Fleet of at least two important
ships; and then in turn the lighthouse, the parish
church, the town hall, the chief hotels, the harbour,
and finally the naval base, with its wireless station
and battery of guns.

Mark Redisham and Lieutenant Ingoldsby, tearing
in their motor-car along the deserted highroad, had
heard the booming of heavy guns out at sea.  The
alarming sounds drew nearer and nearer, from two
directions.

"They're bombarding Buremouth as well as
Haddisport, sir," Mark declared, leaning forward
to increase his speed.

"Faster! faster!" cried Ingoldsby.  "Give her
all she can do.  Let her rip.  But keep your
head—keep cool—keep a sharp look-out!"

Mark had no need to be urged or cautioned.  He
had perfect control of the machine; he knew every
turn and curve, every dip and rise of the road.  The
telegraph poles flashed by as if they had been park
railings set side by side, and there was no traffic to
interfere with his onward, headlong pace.

As they left Alderwick village behind, and dashed
along the open highway across the moorland, the
first shell from the German battleships shrieked over
their heads; a second crashed into one of the houses
on the esplanade; another laid the lighthouse
in ruins.

In the town shells were falling thick and fast,
exploding with deafening noise.  In the market-place
a big hotel was on fire, and the car was checked
by a crowd of excited people; but Mark made his
way through, sounding his hooter, and arrived
without hurt at the harbour, where the submarine
was waiting ready for her commander to jump
aboard.

The bombardment lasted some thirty minutes.
The ships, dimly visible through the mist and smoke,
steamed southward abreast of the town, firing their
eleven-inch shells from starboard.  Then they
returned and repeated the manoeuvre, firing from
their port sides and ending where they had begun.
It was not safe for them to continue any longer,
since every moment added to the danger of their
retreat being cut off by a squadron of British
Dreadnoughts racing towards them in response to urgent
wireless messages.

Favoured by the fog, they took to flight, the
battleships leading in order to give the smaller
cruisers in the rear the opportunity of dropping
some hundreds of explosive mines in their wake.

Already submarine H29, with Lieutenant Ingoldsby
at his post in the conning-tower, had entered
into pursuit, making for the gap in the British
mine-field through which alone the enemy ships
could pass.  But he had not counted on their hasty
retreat or calculated the speed of their flight.

As they crossed in advance of him, not seeing his
periscope, he fired his two bow torpedoes, and
missed.  He got astern of them and fired two more.
But just as the missiles left their tubes there was an
ominous crash and a fierce explosion.

The submarine had run up against one of the
Germans' floating mines, which broke her like an
egg, and the H29 and all who were in her sank
to their last resting-place at the bottom of the
North Sea.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CUT AND RUN`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   CUT AND RUN.

.. vspace:: 2

Seth Newruck, who lived at the north end
of the town, had been to Alderwick Hall
to take certain reports and accounts to the
Scout Commissioner, and was returning across the
fields when he heard the firing of naval guns from
somewhere out at sea.

He had previously seen the gunboat leave her
anchorage, and he believed at first that her gunners
were practising, or that perhaps some of the patrolling
trawlers were exploding floating mines.  He was not
alarmed.

But very soon the loud, insistent booming
convinced him that the guns were heavier than those
of the *Kingfisher*, and that some sort of naval
engagement was going on out there beyond the curtain
of sea mist.

He began to run.  Coming out upon the highway,
he crossed the warren to the edge of the cliff and
stood looking out to sea.  He could see the flashes
of the guns, flickering through the fog like summer
lightning.

If ships were firing upon the *Kingfisher*, then
assuredly they were enemies—a squadron of the
German Fleet!  Perhaps they were even engaged
with a division of our British Dreadnoughts!
The thought thrilled him in all his nerves.

After a while there was a lull.  Seth went on,
beyond the ravine, beyond Sunnydene.  When he
got close to the front gate of Green Croft, and again
looked searchingly outward, he distinguished the
shadowy forms of three great battleships, led by
two light cruisers.  They were steaming southward,
with their broadsides towards the land.

Suddenly, from the foremost battleship, there came
a flash.  She was hidden in a cloud of smoke.  He
heard a shrill shriek, and saw a high fountain of
spray rise from the deep water inside Alderwick
Shoal, where a shot had fallen.  At the same moment
there was a terrible, ear-splitting, earth-shaking
boom.

Seth trembled from head to foot; less with fear
than with boyish excitement.  Was it possible that
he was, after all, going to witness at first hand some
actual incident of the great war?  His heart was
beating furiously against his ribs; he went hot and
cold by turns.  He knew that he stood in danger.
The next shot might come farther than the sea!

"I wonder if I'm afraid?" he asked himself.

Then he thought of the people in the houses near
him, and of his duty as a Scout.  If the danger
should come nearer, how could he give help?  He
remembered the refuge trench which he had helped
to dig in Mrs. Daplin-Gennery's garden.  Now most
surely was a time for it to be used!

He ran in at the gateway and up the gravelled
drive.  The window blinds were down, the front
door was shut.  He went round to the back entrance
and was about to hammer at the kitchen door when
it was flung open.

Mrs. Daplin-Gennery stood in the passage, wearing
a blue dressing-gown.  Her long, black hair hung
loose over her shoulders, making her face look very
white.  Her arms were bare, and he saw that she
held a revolver in her right hand.  Behind her were
other women—her lady's maid, the Irish cook, the
parlourmaid, and two others.

Seth Newruck raised his hand in the Scouts' salute.

"You'd better all get into the trench, ma'am,"
he advised.  "There's a lot of German warships
out there beyond the sandbank."

Even as he spoke there came the loud, whistling
rush of a shell overhead and a terrific explosion
rent the air as the thing fell somewhere in the fields
beyond.  The servants screamed.  Mrs. Daplin-Gennery
alone was calm.

"Are there troopships and Zeppelins with them?"
she questioned.  "Are they going to land?  Is it
an invasion?"

"No."  Seth shook his head.  "I don't think
so.  But, anyhow, you'd better take shelter in the
dug-out."

Mrs. Daplin-Gennery stood aside, thrusting the
others in advance of her.  They had more than once
rehearsed this scene.  One by one they obediently
and very quickly rushed forward and disappeared
into the sap trench.  Their mistress followed, but
hesitated half-way down the sunken ladder.

"You must come, too," she called to Seth.
"There is plenty of room."

Seth drew back a step and turned as if to leave.

"As soon as you're all safe in the dug-out," he
responded quietly, "I'm going to run home, to look
after my mother and sisters.  Father's out with the
Fleet."

There was another loud boom of a gun; but this
time it came from the direction of Buremouth.

"Quick!  Come into the trench!" urged
Mrs. Daplin-Gennery, now at the foot of the ladder and
out of sight.  "You'll get killed if you don't.  And
if they land troops—if it's an invasion—you must
stay and defend us helpless women.  You're the
only male person here.  Besides, you're a Scout;
you know what to do if any of us are wounded."

This argument presented a new aspect of the
situation.  Seth descended the ladder, and as he
turned into the darkness of the sap trench the pistol
was thrust into his hand.

"If a German shows his face, shoot him!" he was
ordered.

"They won't land, ma'am," he declared with
confidence, following along the covered way to the
refuge of the sunken bicycle shed under its
protecting mound of sandbags and earth.  "They
couldn't land through shoal water."

His further assurances were cut short by a
deafening explosion.  The earth shook, there was a
prolonged roar and clatter of tumbling masonry, mingled
with the splitting of timber and the crashing of glass.

"Wirra-wirra!" cried the Irish cook.  "It's the
house they've struck, and we'll all be kilt entirely!"

A shower of loose sand, dislodged by the concussion,
fell through the cracks in the roof of the shelter,
the support timbers creaked ominously.  Then
suddenly all was silent except for the cries of the
frightened kitchenmaid.

Seth ran back along the covered way and found
the entrance blocked by a confusion of fallen bricks
and garden soil.  But there was a second exit which
admitted light and air to the refuge, with a second
ladder.  Up this ladder he climbed and thrust out
his head above ground to see what damage had been
done and discover if the house were on fire.

His nostrils were assailed by the pungent fumes
from the exploded eleven-inch shell.  Clouds of
drifting smoke and dust obscured his view; but as
they cleared he saw that the gable end of the house
had fallen, carrying with it a chimney-stack and
some of the wrecked furniture of an upper room.
The windows were all smashed.  The shell seemed
to have burst somewhere between the adjoining
stables and the conservatory, both of which were
a mass of ruins.

"It's a good thing nobody is hurt," he said,
returning to report on what he had seen.  "You're
quite safe now.  I don't suppose a second shot will
be aimed at the same place."

There was another fierce explosion, very near.
Again and again the guns boomed out their thunder.
The sounds of bursting shells came clear and sharp,
repeated again and again as the bombardment of
the town was continued.

"I can't be of any more use here," said Seth,
returning the revolver to Mrs. Daplin-Gennery.
"When the firing stops, you can get out all right.
I must go now.  I believe Major Redisham's house
has been struck.  They're firing their broadsides
right into the heart of the town now!  Listen!"

He was back at the ladder; but the lady's maid
held him.

"Don't leave us!" she implored agitatedly.
"It's not all over yet.  Stay where you are."

He yielded to her entreaties.  The enemy ships
had gone about and were returning abreast of the
town, firing salvos as they passed, steaming very
quickly.  They must already have got some inkling
or suspicion that a squadron of British cruisers
was coming down in hot haste from the northward,
for abruptly they ceased firing and turned outward,
disappearing into the mist.  They had run risks
out of all proportion to the gain of such a
cowardly raid.

Straight across from Wilhelmshaven they had
made their bold dash for the English coast to
bombard a couple of undefended towns which they
might attack without venturing too far south or too
far north, or lingering too long.  If they stayed
no more than one brief hour in English waters and
then fled for very life, they had reason.  Quick of
heel and heavy of hand as they were, they owed
their escape wholly to the fog which shielded them.

Coming out from the trench, Seth Newruck ran
through the front garden to the edge of the cliff and
saw the *Kingfisher* returning to port with her topmast
broken and her bridge badly battered.

He turned in at Major Redisham's gate, hoping
to find Mark.  The house had not been touched by
the shell fire.  Mrs. Redisham and her two daughters
and servants had taken refuge in their dug-out.  They
were excited, but not frightened.  Their chief anxiety
was about Mark, who had gone out after supper
on the previous night and not come back.

Seth offered to make inquiries concerning him,
saying he was sure to be all right somewhere, and
ran off again.

At the top of the town he encountered Mark in a
strange motor-car.  Mark pulled up at sight of him.

"Do you know if my people are safe?" he asked.

"Yes.  I've just seen them," Seth answered.
"They're only worried a bit to know where you've
been all night.  Whose car have you got?"

"I'm not quite sure," Mark laughed.  "I suppose
it may be considered a prize of war.  We captured it
last night, Challis and I, along with the German spy
who was using it.  Jump in!  There's no real need
for me to go home, now that I know they're safe.  I
will telephone to them from the post-office.  It's
pretty awful down there.  Ever so many people
have been killed and injured.  Mr. Bilverstone has
got a whole troop of nurses and stretcher-bearers
at work.  Come along, we can help."

Seth jumped up beside him.  They drove past
the lighthouse, where a shell had struck and exploded,
doing considerable damage, then turned aside to
ascertain that Seth's mother and sisters were safe.

Some dwelling-houses near the Town Hall had
been wrecked.  Windows were smashed everywhere;
an hotel in the market-place was in ruins.

Mark made room for two women and three children
who were seriously injured, and conveyed them to
the hospital; then he went about the town, using
the car for ambulance work and giving first-aid
where he could.

The hospital staff, the doctors, with the police,
the local Scouts, and many other willing helpers
were kept busy.  Over thirty persons had been
killed, more than a hundred were severely injured.
The damage to property could not easily be measured,
but the most serious destruction was in the crowded
quarters of the old town where the fishermen lived.
In the course of his work of taking the injured
to the hospital, Mark Redisham called at the
police-station.  A side of the building had been shattered
by one of the German shells.  The wall and a part
of the roof had fallen in, burying a warder and two
prisoners in the ruins.  Men were engaged in clearing
away the debris of bricks and tiles and heavy wooden
joists.  They had rescued the warder and one of
the prisoners, only slightly hurt.

Mark waited until the third victim should be
found.  A heavy beam of timber had to be lifted.  It
was moved at last, and Mark saw what was
beneath it.

"It's the German spy!" he cried.  "It's Fritz
Seligmann.  He's dead—quite dead!—killed by his
own friends!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`STRIKING THE BALANCE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   STRIKING THE BALANCE.

.. vspace:: 2

In their hurried flight from Haddisport and
Buremouth, the raiding Germans had made
a novel and unexpected departure from the
recognised methods of warfare.  By dropping floating
mines in their wake, they showed that their battleships
may be more dangerous in retreat than when
advancing.

Retreat is not an inspiring proceeding; it depresses
the spirits of officers and men, and this would be
very evident in the case of the German seamen
who had so long boasted of the great things they
would accomplish when a naval war came.  But
if when their ships were in flight the crews knew that
they were laying snares to trip up their pursuers
their retreat would be robbed of its depressing effects.
Any British vessels of war venturing to follow on
their heels would inevitably be destroyed.

They were not yet hidden in the fog when
Lieutenant Ingoldsby's submarine, manoeuvring to
torpedo them, ran up against one of their mines and was
instantly sunk, with the loss of her gallant
commander and every one of his crew.  Hardly had the
H29 disappeared when two of the patrolling trawlers,
steaming up to her rescue, were also sent to the
bottom.

The German light cruisers must have been fitted
for this purpose of mine sowing.  When the
battleships were advancing, these smaller, high-speed
scouts would act as a screen, and in retreat they
would keep astern of the big ships, dropping a trail
of small mines overboard as they fled.

The sacrifice of the H29 and the two trawlers was a
serious disaster; but at the same time it taught our
Navy a valuable lesson in tactics.  Never again would
any British warship pursuing a German follow
directly in the wake, but always on a parallel course.

It was the wounded *Kingfisher* which brought
into Haddisport the news that a new mine-field
had been sown.  A fleet of mine-sweepers, led by the
gunboat *Stormcock*, was at once sent out.  It included
the *Dainty*, with Mark Redisham on board, and
throughout the rest of that exciting day the people
on shore were startled by repeated loud detonations
as the floating mines were one after another exploded
by gunfire from the trawler's decks.

The *Dainty* and three of her consorts remained at
sea for a week, doing patrol duty—cruising between
the English coasts and the Bight of Heligoland in
search of enemy ships or ships carrying contraband
of war.  They were now armed with machine-guns
and could defend themselves in emergency.

At this time the chief interests of the war were
centred upon the commerce destroyers on the outer
seas and the military operations in France and
Flanders.  The Germans were making their great
effort to force a way through to Calais.  Their navy
was hemmed in by the watchful British Fleet, and
for a long time after the bombardment of Haddisport
the North Sea was clear of their ships.  There was no
target for British naval guns.

Some few of their destroyers and submarines,
it is true, contrived to steal out from the protection
of their fortified harbours, and two British
cruisers—the *Hawke* and the *Hermes*—were sunk by their
torpedoes.

Fearing to risk their battleships in an engagement
on the open sea, the enemy were using their small
craft in the pirate work of sinking innocent merchantmen
and fishing boats.  They had seized the Belgian
port of Zeebrugge, and were making this a base for
submarines.

It was surmised that they intended also to station
a force of torpedo boats at Antwerp, in spite of the
breach of Dutch neutrality which the use of the River
Scheldt would imply.  But to enter either seaport
they had to run the gauntlet of our North Sea patrols,
and on at least one occasion they met with complete
disaster.

A patrol of English trawlers was cruising off the
Dutch coast, not far from the mouth of the Scheldt.
Mark Redisham, on board the *Dainty*, was enduring
as best he could the dull monotony of his confined
life on a small vessel pitching uncomfortably on a
rough sea in a bitterly cold wind.  He was walking
the wet deck, his oilskins dripping with rain, when he
saw smoke on the dim horizon to the north.  It came
from the funnels of four torpedo-boat destroyers.

Mark watched them, and presently determined
that they were Germans, making for the Scheldt.

"You'd best rap out a wireless message," said
Skipper Snowling.

"I don't think there's any need," returned Mark.
"Look what's coming along behind them!"

He indicated a second cloud of smoke, much
greater in volume than the first, and blacker.
The Germans also had evidently seen it, for they
had put on full steam, doing their best to escape.
Whatever their pursuers might be, they were quickly
lessening the distance that divided them from their
prey.  Mark watched the chase excitedly.

The four enemy boats were small compared with
British destroyers; but they were going at quite
twenty-six knots speed.  Each was armed with
three quick-firing guns and two machine-guns, and
carried a crew of sixty officers and men.  They
flashed past, paying no attention to the trawlers.

Through the black oil smoke in the distance
could now be distinguished a British light cruiser
and four destroyers, rushing along like railway trains,
with their high prows smothered in white spray.
They were overhauling the Germans hand over hand.

"They can't escape!  They can't escape!" cried
the skipper.

Apparently the fugitives realised this; for they
turned abruptly to starboard and at once opened
fire on their pursuers.  The distance between was
about four miles, and it was at this range that the
British cruiser, and her consorts, extending
themselves into line abreast formation, began their
cannonade.  The shells from the two opposing sides
crossed in front of the patrol of trawlers, which stood
by, witnessing the fierce combat.

It lasted hardly more than an hour, a running
fight in which everything depended upon marksmanship
and in which the superiority of the British
gunnery was from the first apparent.

A few moments after the action began, the leading
German boat was struck in a vital part.  Clouds of
wreckage and smoke filled the air about her as the
British lyddite shells hit her and exploded, smashing
the thin steel plating of her hull.  When the smoke
cleared, there was nothing left of her but a few
survivors struggling in the waves.

The remaining three vessels, still going at full
speed, tried to dodge the shots, while their own guns
were kept at work.  The British destroyers had
selected each her own target, and continued pounding
away at it from a distance.  Superior range and
weight of guns soon proved their advantage.  The
second of the German boats was sunk, then the
third, and finally the fourth; the Kaiser's Navy
was poorer by the loss of four useful units.

Promptly, when the first of them went down, the
trawler patrol hastened to the spot to pick up
survivors.  From all four some few were rescued,
to be taken to England as prisoners.

Three officers and ten men had been saved by the
*Dainty* when the cruiser steamed near, stopped, and
dropped one of her boats.  As the boat came
alongside, Mark Redisham glanced instinctively at the
men's caps and was surprised to read the name
H.M.S. *Dauntless*.  He looked at the midshipman in
the stern sheets.  It was his brother Rodney.

"So that's your new ship?" said Mark when
they had greeted each other.  "She's a smart one.
I hope there are not many casualties."

"Hardly any to speak of," Rodney answered.
"One officer and four men slightly wounded, that's
all; and hardly a scratch on any one of the ships.
We've wiped off an old score, anyhow.  What we've
just done will balance the loss of the *Atreus*."

"Yes," interposed one of the German officers
who had been listening very attentively.  "But the
balance is still considerably in favour of Germany.
You are forgetting what our *Emden* has done; you
are forgetting how our Admiral von Spee annihilated
a squadron of your Dreadnoughts, how one of our
tiny submarines recently sent three of your best
cruisers to the bottom.  Did we not sink two more
of your cruisers only last week?  Have we not
successfully bombarded your fortified coast
towns——?"

What more he would have said was left unspoken,
for at that moment one of the bluejackets in the
boat leapt from his seat and seized him by the
throat with one strong hand, while he lifted the other
to strike him.

"Stop that!  Stop that!" cried Rodney Redisham
in a voice of stern command.

The seaman instantly let go his hold and stood
back abashed.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said humbly, touching his
cap; "but my brother Tom went down with the
*Atreus*; my mother and sister were killed by a
German shell in Haddisport, and I didn't reckon
I was doin' no harm in goin' for the first German
as have come within reach of my fist."

"It is not English to strike a prisoner, however,"
the midshipman reminded him.

For some reason which Mark Redisham did not
understand, none of the prisoners were left on
board the *Dainty*.  They were distributed among
her three consorts, which followed the flotilla
towards Harwich, leaving the commodore to return
alone to Haddisport.

Skipper Snowling took her northward along the
Dutch coast before making a slant across the Silver
Pit.  He had not gone many miles when a German
destroyer came in sight, bearing down towards him.

"Looks as if she was a straggler from that other
lot," Snowling continued, and he altered his course
to get nearer to a Norwegian steamer to the west
of him.

To his surprise and annoyance, the destroyer
also altered course and gave chase.  Snowling put
on more steam, and, as a precaution, got his machine
gun ready for action, with Mark Redisham at the
breech.  In their weeks of mine-sweeping work
Mark had proved himself an excellent shot.  He
had seldom failed to explode a mine when firing
at it.

The German signalled to the *Dainty* to stop and
haul down her flag, but the White Ensign remained
proudly at the trawler's masthead and her engines
never went so well.

The destroyer opened fire and there was an
immediate reply from the gun on the trawler's
deck.  Mark aimed with cool precision and made
many direct hits in vital parts, while shots from the
German fell thick around him.

The two vessels blazed away at each other as
hard as they could for about a quarter of an hour,
no great damage being done on either side.  But
the destroyer, with her greater speed, was quickly
overhauling the mine-sweeper, and at last the
two came broadside to broadside.

"Look out, chaps!" cried Mark.  "She's going to
torpedo us!"

All the hands wore their safety collars and
lifebelts, and the boat was swung out ready
over the quarter rail.  The skipper was at the
steering wheel.

"Keep cool all," commanded Snowling.  "Let
'em know as we're Britons.  Give her another
peppering, Mark!"

Mark and his assistants had already shown that
they were better gun-layers than their enemies,
and their next cannonade sent splinters flying from
the destroyer's decks.  Her wireless machinery and
aerial was already wrecked.  Her guns were silent
for a while as she manoeuvred to discharge a torpedo.

Suddenly Harry Snowling put his helm hard
over, the *Dainty* swung round bow on, and she
raced forward like a mad animal direct for the
destroyer and crashed into her amidships, her
powerful prow smashing like a battering-ram into
the steel plates.

The destroyer's bridge fell over, and the five
officers and men who had stood upon it were flung
headlong into the sea.

The trawler's engines were reversed.  She backed
out of the gaping hole she had made and then stood
still as if to take breath after her exertion.  The
German boat, badly damaged, but not injured below
water, just turned round, and, without waiting to
pick up any of her men in the sea, made off as fast
as her condition would allow her in the direction
in which she was originally going.

"And now," said Harry Snowling, when the
survivors had been picked up and stowed safely
below, "I reckon we may as well steer straight for
home and get a coat of paint over them scratches
on our bows."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE MEETING ON THE CLIFF`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE MEETING ON THE CLIFF.

.. vspace:: 2

"Beautiful view from here," remarked the
stranger, dropping the stub of his cigarette
on the pavement of the esplanade.  "I should
say it must be sharming in der spring, ven der
gorse vos all in bloom.  It minds me of Scotland."

He spoke very softly, with a slightly Scotch
accent—or was it merely broken English?
Mr. Croucher took it to be Scotch; but he was not very
quick at recognising accent, and perhaps it was the
reference to Scotland which gave him the idea.

"Yes," he agreed, "nice, pure air, too.  It's
what I call clean air."

"But in ze vinter," the stranger resumed, "it is
probable ze beople in dese houses get much more air
than zey vant."

Mr. Croucher turned with his back to the sea and
contemplated the houses referred to.  They had a
new interest for him this morning.  It was the first
time he had seen them since the visit of the German
raiders.  The house directly opposite him was as
seriously damaged as if an earthquake had shaken
its foundations.  The windows were smashed and
boarded up, a large part of the roof had fallen in;
the gable end was in ruin, and some of the bulging
walls were shored up with beams of wood.

The stranger also had turned and was regarding
the wrecked dwelling curiously, with his watery, blue
eyes blinking through gold-rimmed spectacles.

"You have had a fire here, it seems," he casually
observed, standing slightly back so that Mr. Croucher
should not look into his face and penetrate its
disguise.

It was a flabby, clean-shaven face, with a double
chin which was partly hidden by the wide, turned-up
collar of his heavy overcoat.  He was a tall, robust
man.  At first sight of him Mr. Croucher had
supposed him to be a naval officer in mufti.

"No," explained Mr. Croucher, "it wasn't a fire.
All that devastation is the result of the bombardment
the other morning.  It was awful while it lasted.
They started firing just opposite here," he pursued;
glad to have a listener, and proceeded to give an
ample account of the bombardment and its results,
concluding with a reference to the sinking of
submarine H29.  "Her commander, Lieutenant
Ingoldsby, lived in the very house we're now looking
at," he added.

From Green Croft the stranger transferred his
attention to Sunnydene, a little farther towards the
end of the cliff.

"That house wasn't touched," Mr. Croucher
informed him.  "They didn't aim at it.  You see,
it belongs to a German, the brother of one of the
Kaiser's admirals, and of course they had instructions
to do it no harm.  I don't know what amount of
truth there may be in it, but it's whispered in the
town that German spies were busy along here on the
night before the raid."

"Indeed?"  The stranger had taken out his
cigarette-case and opened it.  He took one for
himself and politely held the case in invitation
towards Mr. Croucher.

"Thank you, but I don't smoke," said
Mr. Croucher, watching the other strike a light.

Just for an instant, as the man turned to shield
the flaming match from the wind, it occurred to
Mr. Croucher that there was something not altogether
unfamiliar in his face and figure.  And surely it was not
the first time that he had seen that same fat hand with
its diamond ring, holding a flaming match and lighting
a cigarette in that same way!  But he dismissed the
idea as impossible.  No, this was a perfect stranger.

"Spies?  But you amaze me!" the other
exclaimed, dropping the dead match.  "Have not
all alien enemies been interned—as certainly they
should be?  Or are some of our own beople vorking
for Germany?"

This expression of concern for the Empire's safety
gave Mr. Croucher confidence.

"No," he declared warmly.  "They have not by
any means all been interned.  That very house
along there—Sunnydene—has been a nest of plotting
spies all along.  Hilliger and that secretary of
his—a fellow named Seligmann—had caused no end of
mischief before Seligmann was arrested."

A look of eager interest leapt into the stranger's
face, which, however, he contrived to conceal from
Mr. Croucher.

"So?" he said, controlling his excitement.
"They arrested him, did they?  Ven vos dat?"

"Two or three nights ago," Mr. Croucher innocently
answered.  "The night before the bombardment,
it was.  In the ordinary course of things, I
suppose he would have been tried and hanged as a
spy.  He was imprisoned in Haddisport gaol; but
the next morning, when the German battleships
were bombarding the town, one of their shells
struck the police-station, burying him in the ruins,
and he was taken out dead."

"Dear me!" exclaimed the stranger; and with
surprising abruptness he saluted and went off,
walking very quickly towards the end of the cliff,
where he turned inland and disappeared among
the bushes beyond Sunnydene.

He had been gone only a few moments when Mark
Redisham and Seth Newruck came along, with
telescopes under their arms.  They were on
coast-watching duty.

"I wish you two Scouts had been here five
minutes ago," said Mr. Croucher, as they drew near
him.  "There was a stranger in conversation
with me very much interested in the bombardment.
You might have been able to tell him more about
it than I could—especially about the arrest of
Seligmann."

"I don't see what a stranger could want to know
about Seligmann," said Mark.  "What was he
like?  Was he English?"

"English?  I suppose so; either English or
Scotch.  He spoke with a sort of accent.  He was
tall, fair, rather stout, and wore spectacles."

"Are you sure he wasn't German?" questioned
Seth.  "Perhaps he was a spy—a friend of
Seligmann's wanting to know what had become of him."

"Nonsense," objected Mr. Croucher.

"He lighted a cigarette, didn't he?" said Mark,
observing a dead match on the pavement.

"How do you know it wasn't a pipe or a cigar?"
asked Mr. Croucher sharply.  He was always being
tripped up by these Sea Scouts, who seemed to
know things by an extraordinary instinct.

"Because there's the fag end of a cigarette lying
at your feet, with some ash beside it that the wind
hasn't yet blown away," Mark Redisham quietly
answered.

He had the curiosity to pick up and examine the
fragment before handing it to his companion.

"What do you make of it, Seth?" he inquired
meaningly.

"Crumbs!" cried Seth.  "Why, it's the same
brand as those we found in the silver cigarette-case—marked
'Vafiadi, Cairo'!  I wonder if the stranger
was Herr Hilliger?"

"That's just what I was wondering, too," nodded
Mark.  "It's possible."

Mr. Croucher stared at the two Scouts indignantly.

"Do you suppose I shouldn't have known him?"
he demanded.  "Herr Hilliger wears a beard and
has long hair.  This man was clean-shaven, and his
hair was quite short.  Besides——"

"It wouldn't be impossible to shave off a beard
and get a short crop," declared Mark.  "Which
way did he go?"

Mr. Croucher indicated the direction.  The two
Scouts went off hurriedly.  Mark led the way across
the warren to the Alderwick road and the little
cross lane.

"It was just here that we captured Seligmann,"
he explained.

They searched the ground and discovered in the
soft mud the newly impressed marks of the tyres of
a motor-car and of a man's boots.

It was useless, of course, for them to attempt to
track the car.  Had they been able to do so, the
trail would have led them many miles away, through
village after village and town after town, northward
along the coast.  They might have run the car to
earth at last on a desolate stretch of moorland
where it had halted.  Thence they might have
followed Heinrich Hilliger's tracks to a pile of
ruins—the ruins of an old-world castle—on the edge of a
steep precipice overlooking the sea.

At the foot of the precipice was a tiny bay of
deep, clear water, fringed with rocks.  Between
two of the rocks a small boat was drawn up on the
shingle—a curious, collapsible boat made of
water-tight canvas stretched on a steel frame.  A pair of
sculls lay across the thwarts.  Nobody was in charge
of it.

Heinrich Hilliger looked down into the depths
and saw the boat as he passed along the edge of the
cliff and made his way through the heather to the
ruin.  He gave a long, low whistle and a whistle
came back to him in response.

"You have managed it, then!" cried a young
voice; and from beyond a corner of the grey stone
wall his son Max ran out, dressed in the uniform of
a German naval officer.

The father and son embraced.  Then Max laughed,
looking at his father in amusement.

"It's as well you gave me the signal," he said,
speaking in German.  "I should hardly have known
you without your beard.  Well, you have been to
Haddisport?  What news of Fritz?"

"The worst news," answered Herr Hilliger.
"He was caught.  He was taken to prison.  More
than that, when we bombarded the town, one of our
shells struck the prison-house and poor Fritz was
killed!  It seems like fate."

"Killed!  By our own guns!  Father, are you sure?"

"Absolutely.  It is in the newspapers, and I
have had confirmation of it from Old Croucher,
whom I met outside Sunnydene.  He did not
recognise me; but he saved me the risk of showing
myself in the town."

Max clenched and unclenched his hands.

"This is what comes of the silly, useless notion of
bombarding open towns!" he declared.  "What
good has it done, to knock a few shops and hotels
to pieces, to smash the windows of a few seaside villas,
and to take the lives of a lot of innocent women and
children?  There was no military advantage in it!
You have not even frightened the English people.
They are only laughing at us for using our battleships
to fire their shells into unfortified places instead of
going out boldly to face the enemy in a fair and
open fight!"

"You forget, my son," returned Herr Hilliger,
"we sank a British submarine; we sowed many
hundreds of explosive mines.  There was some good
in that, eh?"

"Not that I see," retorted Max.  "The commander
of that submarine was once my friend.  He has dined
at your own table.  And from what I understand,
the English mine-sweepers exploded all the mines
before the day was out.  I don't agree with sowing
explosive mines on the high seas.  It's not playing
the game."

"Bah!  Don't talk to me about playing the game,
my dear Max.  It is not a game; it is war.  If we
mean to beat the English we must not be hampered
by any childish ideas of fair play.  As for the killing
of Fritz, it is of course unfortunate; but it could
not have been foreseen.  We must get some one to
take his place, yourself, perhaps."

"No."  Max shook his head resolutely.  "I am
not a spy.  I shall do nothing underhand.  Let us
fight fairly and openly, not hit below the belt.  I have
my duties on the submarine, and I don't want to set
foot in England until the war is over.  I should not
be here now, but that I have come to take you
away—to give you a passage back to Wilhelmshaven.
Are you ready?  The submarine is lying submerged
in the next bay, waiting for my signal."

"My dear Max," returned Hilliger, "I cannot go
back with you.  My place is here, in England, where
I have been stationed.  Since Fritz is dead, it is all
the more important that I remain on this side.  Our
Zeppelins are preparing to come over, only waiting
until I shall send a message to say that the wind and
weather are suitable.  When the time is favourable I
must be on the spot with a car to guide them by its
light to the places where they shall drop their bombs."

Max curled his lip contemptuously.

"And you call that war, I suppose," he sneered—"dropping
fire-bombs on farmhouses and in kitchen-gardens!
I could see some sense in it if we aimed
at their aeroplane sheds, their dockyards, or their
ammunition factories, or if we sank some of their
Dreadnoughts and troopships.  Why, if every house
and inhabitant of Haddisport were destroyed, it
wouldn't make a pin's difference in the progress of
the war."

Herr Hilliger shrugged his shoulders and turned
the subject by saying:

"I see, my dear Max, that you are wearing the
Iron Cross.  I congratulate you.  I am proud.  No
doubt it is a reward for sinking those three British
cruisers?"

Max nodded.  "We shall sink others, too," he
averred.  "I shall not be satisfied until we have
put a torpedo into one of their great
battleships—one of their boasted Dreadnoughts."

He strode to the edge of the cliff and looked down
into the water.  The submarine was emptying her
ballast tanks and was already in the awash condition.
He moved his arms, signalling by semaphore to
Lieutenant Körner standing on the conning-tower
platform.  Then, again embracing his father, he
climbed down the difficult slope of the cliff to the
collapsible boat, stepped into it, and pulled out to
the submarine.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MAX HILLIGER'S SATISFACTION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   MAX HILLIGER'S SATISFACTION.

.. vspace:: 2

Max Hilliger's declaration that he would
not be satisfied until Lieutenant Hermann
Körner and he had put a torpedo into a British
battleship was not long in being fulfilled.

How they discovered that such a ship was to be
found in a particular position on the North Sea at
a particular time is a matter which cannot be
explained.  It is certain that the Germans succeeded
in discovering many of the movements and intended
movements of the British Fleet which were believed
to be secret, and of which even many highly-placed
British naval officers were profoundly ignorant.
Doubtless their spy system and their methods of
communication were perfectly well organised and
established long before the outbreak of war.

By whatsoever means he received his information,
Lieutenant Körner expected the squadron to pass
southward, and he prepared to carry out his
instructions by bringing his submarine within striking
distance at the anticipated moment.

It was a wild, dark winter's night, bitterly cold,
with a fierce wind blowing from the north-east.
Submarines are not commonly supposed to be of
great use in the darkness; their periscopes are then
blind.  But Körner boldly kept the U50 on the
surface, trusting to the high waves to hide her
betraying conning-tower from watchful eyes and
from the beams of searchlights.

But as an additional measure of protection and
deception he had hoisted a pair of brown lugsails
on her two temporary masts, so that from a distance
she might have the appearance of an innocent
fishing boat.  This ruse was a development and
improvement of Max Hilliger's idea of concealing a
submarine within the body of a larger boat.

Hour after weary hour went by; but no light, no
steamer's smoke; could be seen through the inky
darkness.  Still he waited, while the submarine
rocked and tossed and rolled on the giant waves, and
the wind shrieked angrily.

Towards midnight a tiny masthead light blinked
fitfully through the curtain of driving sleet.

"They come!" said Körner from his post in the
conning-tower.  He had seen a green starboard light
gleam wanly against an approaching vessel's black
hull.

"It is only a fishing trawler making for home,"
Max Hilliger declared with a shiver.  "Let us
submerge and get out of the cold and wet."

"Not yet, not yet," returned Körner.  "They
will surely come.  We are in their track.  They
cannot have turned back.  Our own battleships
could weather a worse storm than this, and so
could they.  Whatever else the cowardly English
are afraid of, they are not afraid of the sea.  I
believe the blood in their veins is made of salt
water.  If you are cold, my friend, go below and
warm yourself.  Already it is a long time since you
had supper."

Max crept below like a dog into its kennel and took
some food and a drink of hot coffee in the warmth
of the engine-room.  The warmth made him sleepy,
and he did not return to the conning-tower until he
was called.

Körner and the quarter-master were at their posts.
From their point of observation they had seen the
black shapes of an advancing squadron of battleships,
light cruisers, and torpedo-boat destroyers.
They could be British only, since no German warship
larger than a destroyer was permitted to put to
sea.  No lights were displayed, but a reflected
glow from the furnaces mingled with the smoke
rising from the blackness of the funnels, and the
wash of spray as the vessels cut through the
water showed whiter than the whiteness of the
breaking waves.

The German seamen were at their quarters, the
officers at the control stations, the engineers at work
with the petrol motors, the gunners at the
air-compressors for charging the torpedo tubes.  All
was quiet but for the ceaseless rattle of cranks and
pistons and the whining of well-oiled wheels.  The
submarine was manoeuvred round as if to cross the
bows of the British ships.

A couple of the destroyers went past, then a light
cruiser.  Next came the towering bulk of a
Dreadnought, looming out of the darkness.  Sparks of
fire floated amid the thick volume of coal smoke from
her foremost funnel; a shaft of light came through
an open doorway on her high bridge.

"I believe it's the *Triumphant*!" said Max
Hilliger, at the lieutenant's elbow.

It was at a point forward of the bridge, on the
starboard side, that the torpedo was aimed.  There
was no possibility of its missing so huge a target.
But to make certain of hitting a vital part well
below the armoured belt a second torpedo was to
be fired, and then the submarine would submerge
and make good her escape.

On board the *Triumphant* the larger number of
her officers and crew of nearly eight hundred men
were below asleep when the fearful crash came.
Hammocks and bunks were jerked up by the shock.
The torpedo had missed the magazine by a few feet,
but it burst through the stout plates, entering the
dynamo-room, and all electricity, both for lighting
and for wireless instruments, was shut off.  The
great ship at once listed over, and the order was
given: "All hands on the upper deck."

Two minutes after the first alarm, word was sent
up from the engine-room to the captain on the
bridge that flooding had begun in the boiler-room,
and that no more steam could be got up.  There
could be no hope of running her towards land and
beaching her.  It was seen from the first that she
could not be saved.

The engines were stopped and the engineers and
stokers were ordered up on deck.  They were
scrambling up the ladders when the second torpedo
struck her.  Distress signals were fired, but her
consorts were advised to stand off at a safe distance
in case of a further attack.

For want of steam to work the hoists the boats
had to be got clear by reeving a big rope round the
deck and hauling upon it.  With perfect discipline
the men performed this difficult operation in total
darkness while the sinking ship was being washed
by mountainous waves.

All woodwork that could be seized upon and
everything that would float was brought on deck for
the men to cling to.  They waited, hoping that the
watertight compartments would keep her afloat
until daylight; but at length the captain sang out:

"Into the water with you; she's going!"

Then it was a matter of every man for himself.
Some reached the boats before the ship went down,
some were drawn under by the suction; many
were picked up by one of the cruisers; but of all
the ship's company not more than two hundred came
to land in safety, and even these, scantily clothed,
had suffered terribly from exposure in the open
boats.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE GUIDING LIGHT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE GUIDING LIGHT.

.. vspace:: 2

The municipal authorities in Haddisport had
for a long time past displayed great vigilance
in keeping the town dark at night.  The street
lamps were not lighted; shopkeepers incurred
penalties if they failed to keep their premises so
dimly lighted that you could not distinguish the
difference between butter and cheese; the tramway
cars were muffled in thick curtains; on the
sea-front you were liable to reprimand if you struck a
match to light your pipe.

Most of the houses were lighted by electricity, and
it was recognised that in the event of an imminent
raid upon the town by German airships the electricity
should be turned off at the power-house, where a
screeching hooter would be sounded to warn the
inhabitants to take cover in their basements or their
garden trenches.

Many of the occupants of houses facing the sea
abandoned their front rooms after sunset.  Even
the thickest of curtains and blinds and the most
cunning lamp-shades were not always proof against
some chink or slit revealing the light within, and
then there was sure to be an alarming visit from the
sentries patrolling the beach or the policeman on
his beat, or Sea Scouts on watch duty.

"I should say the Germans had something else
to do than cross the North Sea in their Zeppelins
to drop bombs on a harmless town like Haddisport,"
remarked Vera Redisham, one night at supper.

"They might do it for the sake of spreading panic,"
observed her mother.

"Or by way of preliminary experiment before
making an air raid in force upon London," added
Mark.  "That's what they're planning, of course.
They'd consider it as good as a naval victory if they
could set London on fire.  Hullo! what's wrong
with the electric light?  I put new bulbs on only
yesterday!"

The light flickered for a moment or two and then
went out, plunging the room in darkness.

"The hooter's sounding!" cried Vera.  "Listen!"

"We'd better all get down into the basement,"
recommended Mrs. Redisham.  "You mustn't go
outside, Mark."

She had hardly spoken when the whole house
shook, the windows rattled, and the air was split
by a resounding explosion.

"Ah!" shouted Mark.  "Zeppelins!  Zeppelins!"

Mrs. Redisham made her way down the stairs
to the basement to get the servants into a place of
safety.

A second bomb sounded, and then there came the
firing of an anti-aircraft gun.

Mark ran up the staircase to the half landing
where there was a window above the hall door, from
which he could look out in the direction of the town.
His sister Vera followed him.

"We're as safe here as anywhere else," she said
in excuse for her presence.  "Can you see
anything?"

"I saw a flash just now," Mark answered.  "I
believe it was the Zeppelin's searchlight.  Oo! did
you hear that!  It must have struck some building.
What's that glow of light over there?  They've set
some place on fire!"

He afterwards learnt that an incendiary bomb,
aimed at the naval signal station, had fallen in a
timber yard and set the stacks of wood in flames.

Vera counted ten explosions in all.  Then the
bomb-dropping ceased.

"They haven't stopped long," she sighed in relief.
"I do hope nobody has been hurt.  What are you
looking at?  Can you see the airship?"

"Yes.  It's like a big sausage high up in the air,
just over St.  Nicholas' Church.  Have a look!"

Mark moved aside to make room for Vera.

"I see it!  I see it!" she cried.  "And, oh,
Mark, it's chasing a motor-car!"

Mark peered out into the darkness and saw the
brilliantly-lighted lamp of a motor flashing along
the Buremouth road.  The beam of the light was
shed upward.  The car was travelling at a tremendous
pace.

"Chasing it?" said Mark.  "I don't think it's
a chase.  That car is acting as a pilot—showing the
airship which way to go, and where to drop its
bombs!  I shouldn't wonder in the least if the man
driving it were Heinrich Hilliger!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`SURVIVORS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   SURVIVORS.

.. vspace:: 2

As the motor-car, with its flaring headlight,
went out of sight beyond the projection of
the window from which they had watched it, Mark
and Vera Redisham ran farther up the staircase
and along the passage to Rodney's room, on the
north side of the house.

Mark crossed to the large door-window and flung
it open.  It led out to a roofed balcony overlooking
the garden.  Rodney had used this balcony as a
study, from which he could watch the ships,
pretending that it was an admiral's gallery at the stern
of a line-of-battle ship.  On summer nights he had had
a hammock slung across from side to side and had
slept in the open air.

Mark caught at the balcony rail now, and bent
forward, looking up into the night sky, searching
for the Zeppelin by the purring of its machinery.

"There it is!  There it is!" he cried.  And
taking hold of Vera's arm he drew her to him and
pointed.

Even though it was very high, the airship looked
large.  It was not travelling quickly; it seemed for
a time to be hovering like a hawk.  Against the
blue darkness of the sky the two cars could be
distinguished beneath the cigar-shaped structure.
The rattling noise of the engines and the hum of
the propellers could be clearly heard.

"It's queer to think that there are Germans in it,"
said Vera, "and that they're there with the intention
of killing people!  I suppose they're going to
Buremouth now, after dropping their horrid fire-bombs
on Haddisport."

"Look!" exclaimed Mark.  "There's that
motor-car again!  I'm almost certain it's acting as a
pilot.  See how the headlight is turned upward into
the sky, so that the airmen can see it!  I ought to
go downstairs and telephone to the Buremouth
police.  Hullo!"

He had seen and heard a second motor-car, dashing
along the nearer Alderwick road, followed by a
couple of motor-bicycles.  Presently there was an
upward spurt of fire from the car and the crackle of
a machine-gun.

"They're firing up at the Zeppelin!" cried Vera.
"Oh, I hope they'll hit it!"

A thin streak of brilliant light flashed downward
from the airship.  Something seemed to fall with a
thud, a dull explosion, and immediately there was a
blaze of fire in the midst of the withered gorse and
brambles about a mile in front of the armoured
motor-car.

"They've dropped an incendiary bomb," Mark
explained, "but nowhere near the road.  The car
can get past."

The firing from the anti-aircraft gun continued;
but soon the Zeppelin steered round and went
westward over the land, and the armoured car dropped
out of range.  More bombs were launched; but
they fell harmlessly in ploughed fields where there
were no houses.  The pilot car by this time had
disappeared.

The military car was returning, led by the motor
cyclists.  Just as the latter emerged from the
woodland on the near side of Alderwick village, the
Zeppelin again turned towards the sea and sailed
outward immediately above the machine-gun, which
again opened fire with a prolonged stream of bullets.

"I believe our men have hit it!" Mark declared.
"Look at that long jet of smoke!  And the whole
thing is wobbling like a winged pheasant."

Whether the airship was struck or not, neither
Mark nor the men in the armoured car could tell
with certainty.  They watched the ponderous vessel
flying out to sea until it faded from sight, mingling
with the blackness of a heavy cloud in the far east.
Going downstairs again, Mark telephoned to the
naval base and got into communication with
Mr. Bilverstone, from whom he learnt that the worst
material damage done by the bombs was at a
timberyard near the harbour.  Some big stacks of
timber had been set on fire, and a company of
Territorials were helping the seamen of
H.M.S. *Kingfisher* in the work of subduing the flames.

So far as Mr. Bilverstone had yet heard, no one
had been seriously injured.  Two horses had been
killed at the railway goods station, and a great
many window-panes had been smashed.

News had been received, however, that there had
been a second Zeppelin.  The pair of them had come
across the North Sea in company until land had
been sighted, when they had separated, one coming
to Haddisport, the other making a much wider circuit,
dropping both explosive and incendiary bombs on
three coast towns in succession.

Late on the following afternoon, Mark Redisham
and Darby Catchpole were at the naval base, waiting
for instructions, when a flotilla of mine-sweepers
came into the harbour.  One of them was the
*Mignonette*.  As she came alongside the quay, Mark
and Darby saw two very bedraggled young men in
shabby naval uniform standing with the skipper
abaft the wheel-house.

"They look like German prisoners," Mark said
below his breath.

"They've been in the water," added Darby,
"picked up from a sinking submarine, I dare say.
There's Ned Quester.  Let's ask him about them."

Ned was climbing along the port bulwark, dragging
the end of a heavy mooring-rope.  Having secured
it round a bollard, he turned and saw the two Sea
Scouts.

"See those two chaps down there?" he began.
"They're Deutschers.  They look rather sad, don't
they?  We rescued them early this morning, this
side of the Dogger.  Just before dawn, we saw two
rockets go up—a red and a blue.  We made for the
place, thinking it was a vessel in distress.  So it
was, but not the sort of vessel we expected.  It
looked like an immense dead whale, seen in the dim
light.  When we got nearer we were still puzzled by
the shape of it, and could only guess that it was a
wrecked airship."

"What?" cried Mark Redisham, "a Zeppelin?—the
Zeppelin that was over Haddisport last night,
dropping bombs?  Then the anti-aircraft gun must
have hit it, after all!"

"That's right," nodded Ned.  "Major Proudfynski—that's
the older of the two, who speaks English,
of a sort—told us that they had done heaps of
damage, and killed he didn't know how many people,
and that a whole battery of artillery had fired up
at them.  Of course, we knew he was exaggerating.
However, when we got out the boat and pulled
alongside the thing, we knew it could only be a
Zep that had come to grief.  One of the propellers
was above water.  We could see some of the bent
and tangled framework, supported by a section of
the still inflated gas-bag.  Afterwards we fired a
shot into it, letting the gas escape, and then the
wreckage went down.  But before that, we'd seen
these two chaps clinging to the framework, and we
got them off and took them aboard the *Mignonette*.
They were so exhausted by the exposure that they
couldn't speak, and the younger one had to be
worked at for a long time before he came to his
senses."

"But there must have been a whole crowd of
others," said Mark.  "Those Zeps have a crew of
thirty or forty at least."

"Yes, I know," returned Ned.  "The rest were
all drowned under the wreckage.  These two had the
sense to jump out when she was falling and get clear
of the stays.  They could swim.  What puzzled our
skipper was how they managed to send up the two
rockets.  But it seems the airship fell by the bow
with her stern sticking up above water for a time,
and the major got into one of the gondolas, where
there was a box of rockets and things—matches, as
well, I suppose."

Officers from the naval station had come to the
edge of the wharf.  One of them spoke to
the Germans, asking them to come ashore.

"What are you going to do with us?" questioned
the elder of the two.

"Oh, you'll be all right!" he was told.  "You are
prisoners; but that doesn't mean that you will be
ill-treated."

"Prisoners?"

"Yes.  You don't imagine that we are going to
let you go back to Germany, do you?  Not after
what you did last night.  You came across to
England to pay us a visit; why should you hurry
away?  We'll show you what it's like to live in a
civilised country."

An escort of armed bluejackets had been drawn up
on the quay.  The two prisoners were conducted to
the base, where they were questioned briefly before
being given the honours of war and taken to the
hotel.  After they had had a good dinner they were
sent, still under escort, by a special train, to a
destination far removed from the unfriendly sea.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE WAY TO CALAIS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE WAY TO CALAIS.

.. vspace:: 2

Darby Catchpole was with Mark Redisham
now for a particular reason.  He had lately
joined the Royal Naval Reserve, and had been
appointed a signal-boy for duty on one of the
mine-sweepers.  In order that he might gain some
experience of the work, however, he was to go for a
preliminary trip with Commodore Snowling on the
*Dainty*, which was to steam out to sea at sundown.

"I only hope we shall be going somewhere in
sight of our Dreadnoughts," he said to Mark, while
they waited on the wharf for the skipper.  "I
should love to see a naval action."

"Not much chance of that," Mark told him.
"We shall not see an enemy ship of any sort—except
possibly a submarine.  I dare say we shall
only be on ordinary patrol duty, steaming to and
fro along the coasts like soldiers on sentry-go.  It
isn't always exciting.  We don't have an adventure
every trip, unless you call it an adventure to have a
green sea come over you, or to have your clothes
frozen like iron plates on your back.  Sometimes
it's exceedingly uncomfortable and monotonous.  I
hope you've brought some books to read.  Your
kit bag looks pretty full."

"It's full of eatables, mostly," Darby answered.
"Mother has the idea that mine-sweepers go out
with no provisions aboard."

"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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MAX MEETS THE ADMIRAL`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIX.


.. class:: center medium bold

   MAX MEETS THE ADMIRAL.

.. vspace:: 2

"*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!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`DREADNOUGHT AGAINST DREADNOUGHT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXX.


.. class:: center medium bold

   DREADNOUGHT AGAINST DREADNOUGHT.

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`SUBMARINES AT WORK`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXXI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   SUBMARINES AT WORK.

.. vspace:: 2

"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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`U50'S WORST CRIME`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXXII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   U50'S WORST CRIME.

.. vspace:: 2

"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."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MAX RENOUNCES THE FATHERLAND`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXXIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   MAX RENOUNCES THE FATHERLAND.

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE SUPPLY SHIP`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXXIV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE SUPPLY SHIP.

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`PRISONERS OF WAR`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXXV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   PRISONERS OF WAR.

.. vspace:: 2

"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."

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