CHAPTER XI

The Lone Air-Raider

Apart from the actual fact that he was a prisoner, Alec Seton's captivity on the Mole at Zeebrugge was far from irksome. He had an almost uninterrupted view of the interior of the harbour, and seaward his range of vision in clear weather embraced a wide arc of the horizon. So confident were the Huns of the impossibility of Seton's escape that they allowed him to see almost everything that was going on, his gaolers actually pointing out various details, and gloating over the effects upon their prisoner.

It was only when a bombardment or a raid was expected that the seaward window, or rather aperture, was closed. This was effected by lowering a heavy slab of metal, after the fashion of an old-time gun-port. It was a precaution against signalling on the part of the captive. But without light or matches, or even a looking-glass as a heliograph, it was difficult to see how Seton could have accomplished the feat.

His food was poor and meagre. This was hardly the fault of the Huns, since the admirable blockade by the Allied fleets had already reduced Germany to the verge of starvation. Generally speaking, the demeanour of his guards was harsh and tyrannical. Misled by their officers, the rank and file of the Boche armies believed that Germany was already within measurable distance of emerging triumphant from the world-wide contest. This, to a great extent, explained the domineering manner of Seton's guards, although there were some who, guessing the truth, bore in mind possible consequences should the relative positions of captor and captive be reversed.

Life at Zeebrugge was not lacking in excitement. Every time a U-boat returned there were demonstrations; every time a U-boat set out she departed in almost sullen silence. The men loathed their task--not on account of the craven nature of their work, but by reason of the peril it entailed. Dozens of Hun submarines had left Zeebrugge never to return. Of the manner of their loss, none on that side of the North Sea knew. They could only conjecture. The secret lay with the British Navy, and the very mystery that enshrouded the vanished unterseebooten added to the terror of the crews of those boats that had hitherto escaped destruction.

Occasionally, and it was a rare occurrence, German sea-going torpedo-boats would leave the harbour at sunset. Before dawn they would be back with riddled funnels and shell-swept decks. Fritz had learned that it was decidedly unhealthy to try conclusions with the Dover Patrol.

And the raids: rarely a day and night passed but sea-planes and aeroplanes, sometimes singly but more often in flights, soared over the pirates' lair. Unruffled by the lurid and discordant greetings of the German "antis", the airmen would hover over their objective, and then, to make doubly sure of their target, dive down to within two hundred feet of the ground.

Cheering was the sight to the captive Sub-lieutenant, but the experience was none the less nerve-racking. More than once heavy bombs dropped within fifty feet of Seton's cell. The massive masonry of the Mole trembled like an aspen leaf; the air was laden with pungent vapours that caused Alec to gasp for breath. At the spot where the heavy missile dropped a hole twenty feet in diameter had been made.

Seton had hoped that during one of these aerial visitations a portion of the wall of his cell might have been demolished, and that, during the confusion that followed the explosion, he might have been able to escape. But second thoughts "knocked his theory into a cocked hat". The concussion that would break down the granite wall would certainly "do him in". Even if it did not, and his senses were not temporarily stunned, his chances of getting away unnoticed were of the remotest nature.

Regularly, and as often as the rules set down by the Huns permitted, Seton wrote home, but no reply came. Reluctantly he was forced to come to the conclusion that the Germans were fooling him--the letters were never sent. This was the case, for, as in similar instances, Alec's name was never sent in as a prisoner of war. He was one of those reported "missing" whose fate remained a mystery to their friends, until, on rare occasions, the missing man was able to effect his escape and to return home, to the consternation and surprise of his relatives, who had long thought of him as dead.

It was during one of the raids that Alec witnessed a daring stunt on the part of a young R.A.F. pilot. All that morning the Huns had been loading mines on board three new mine-laying submarines, the work being performed under a camouflaged canvas screen. Either a Belgian had managed to send the information over to the British Admiralty, or else aerial observers had noticed a difference in their photographic views of the harbour during the last few days. In any case, the solitary airman knew of the operations in progress.

In the grey dawn the British machine swooped down from a bank of clouds. With his engine cut out, he dived steeply. Too late the German anti-aircraft guns opened their hymn of hate. At two hundred and fifty feet the pilot released his cargo of bombs. A miss was almost an impossibility.

With an appalling, deafening roar, the three U-boats disappeared, together with nearly two hundred Germans engaged in loading their dangerous cargoes. For a radius of a hundred yards the havoc was terrific. Far beyond that area the damage wrought was severe.

With the roar of the explosion still dinning in his ears, Alec saw the gallant airman disappear in a cloud of smoke mingled with far-flung debris. Hurled like a dried leaf in an autumnal gale the British biplane was seen to be turning over and over, in spite of the engines running all out, and the efforts of the pilot to keep his 'bus under control. Momentarily, through rents in the blast-torn cloud, Seton watched the man whose work had been accomplished, and whose efforts were now directed to save himself--if he could.

"He's done himself in this time," exclaimed Alec.

The biplane was falling jerkily and giddily. She had got into a spinning nose-dive. Her tail-piece had been hit by a fragment of metal, and wisps of dark-brown canvas were streaming in the wind.

Although falling with great velocity, the biplane appeared to be dropping slowly. It seemed as if the pilot was bound to crash upon some houses, a short distance from the lock-gates of the Bruges Canal. To make matters worse, her petrol-tank caught fire, her downward course being marked by a trail of bright yellow fumes.

Then, falling headlong behind a tall building, the sea-plane was lost to sight.

"Hard luck!" murmured Seton sympathetically. "The fellow took no chances of missing; but, by Jove, it was certain death!"

Accustomed though he was to see men slain in the heat of battle, the catastrophe to the daring airman had a depressing effect upon the Sub. He rejoiced in the knowledge that the pilot's effort had not been in vain. He felt proud of the man who had given his life for his country; but, at the same time, the spectacle was a gruesome one.

Almost mechanically Seton stood at the open window. There was no doubt about the moral and material effect of the enormous damage. Swarms of German troops were being hurried up to clear away the debris and to repair the damage by the dock-side, for a large section of the wall was in danger of sliding bodily into the basin. Seamen were strenuously engaged in shifting damaged vessels from the locality, while Red Cross men, armed as usual in the German way with short swords and revolvers, were carrying away the maimed victims of the raid.

As Alec watched, he became aware of a babel of angry voices. A dispatch-boat had just tied up close to the head of the Mole, and the object of the hostile demonstration was in the act of landing.

Although not of an excitable nature, Seton could hardly refrain from giving a hearty British cheer. Actually he gave a whoop of encouragement, for, marched off in charge of a file of marines, was the airman who had played havoc with the submarine mine-layers.

Limping badly, and with a rent in his flying-helmet, the captured pilot marched with head erect and set lips, unmindful of the angry demeanour of the German spectators. Alec could imagine him muttering grimy:

"I've had a thundering good run for my money. Now try and get even with me, you blighters--if you can!"

It was a brief and passing pageant of British character: indomitable even in disaster. Then, surrounded by the fixed bayonets of his guards, the prisoner passed out of Seton's sight.

"The best thing I've seen since I've been in this rotten hole," soliloquized Alec. He spoke aloud. It was a habit he had deliberately acquired during his incarceration, in order that he could hear English spoken. "Jolly lad, the airman fellow; wasn't done in after all!"

Shortly afterwards the soldier told off to give Seton his meals came in with the Sub's meagre breakfast. As the Hun left, either by accident or design, a folded newspaper slipped from underneath his field-grey tunic.

Directly the door was closed and locked, Alec pounced upon the paper like a hungry dog at a bone. Half-expecting to find a journal printed in German, which would be practically useless to him, Seton was delighted to discover a soiled and crumpled edition of a Belgian newspaper, partly in French and partly in Flemish.

Flemish he knew nothing of, but he was a tolerable French scholar. As he read, his face grew long. Every scrap of news was nothing more nor less than a record of German triumphs. Paris was on the brink of capitulation; the British were thrown back upon a narrow strip of Picardy, bordering on the English Channel; the Ypres salient was flattened out; while the small American army had suffered a heavy reverse, and its surrender was but a matter of a few hours. The naval news recorded a succession of U-boat triumphs, the bombardment of several British seaports, and lastly, the failure of a determined attempt to blockade Zeebrugge.

"We know with absolute certainty," he read, "that a few nights ago strong English forces left Dover with the object of making an attack upon Zeebrugge. Large bodies of troops were embarked for the purpose. The fleet was met a few miles off Dover by a flotilla of U-boats, with the result that the English were compelled to retreat in disorder, with the loss of several of their large cruisers."

"Tosh!" exclaimed Alec. "This wretched rag is a 'plant'. Printed by the Huns in order to put the wind up the Belgian population. Fritz is a cunning swab, but it won't work here."

He tore the offending rag into small pieces, and threw the fragments through the barred window. It was slight--almost paltry--satisfaction, but it afforded him some gratification to see the lying paper scattered to the winds.

A key grated in the lock. Alec started like a school-boy detected in some slight indiscretion.

"The bounders have been spying upon me!" he thought; "I said it was a plant. Hang it all! why worry? Believe my nerves are going to blazes."

The next moment the door was thrown open, and Unter-leutnant Kaspar Diehardt appeared. Behind him were about half a dozen German seamen.

"Anoder schwein to you company keep, Englander!" he yapped.

The Unter-leutnant made a side pace. Then, propelled by several strong arms, the British pilot was bundled unceremoniously into the cell.