CHAPTER V

In the Whaler

Count Otto von Brockdorff-Giespert's feelings were far from comfortable when the crash of the _Bolero's_ quick-firers told him unmistakably that the destroyer was in action.

With his broken collar-bone and other injuries he was practically helpless, while to make matters worse, as far as he was concerned, his captors had put him under lock and key. Evidently these English meant to take no risks, he soliloquized.

It was no exaggeration to state that he was in a blue funk. At one moment he cursed the German vessel for replying to the British destroyer's fire; at another he hoped and prayed that the former would draw out of range. Not once did he express a wish that the Black Cross Ensign might prove victorious.

With the perspiration oozing in large beads on his bullet forehead he lay and quaked, his mind torn with agitated thoughts. He remembered vividly--the reminiscence was frequently in his mind--how on one occasion, when he was in command of a U-boat, he had taken out of a badly-damaged boat an old, white-haired British merchant skipper. It was not by reason of the call of humanity that he had done this: it was part of a cool, calculated plan of action whereby the Huns vainly thought that, with British captains and engineers detained on board the submarines as hostages, the hunters would hesitate to sink the modern pirates. It was but one of the many instances in which the Hun miscalculated the spirit of Britain. Von Brockdorff-Giespert's submarine was being chased by a particularly aggressive P-boat. A depth charge was exploded so near that the hunted U-boat reeled and quivered under the shock. By sheer good luck Count Otto's command escaped, and the Hun commander lost no time in taunting his captive.

"Are you not glad you weren't blown up by your fellow-countrymen?" he asked.

The old skipper shook his head.

"I'm downright sorry," he replied boldly.

"Sorry our fellows didn't do you in. My sole regret would have been that I should have to go to Davy Jones' locker in such rotten company."

Filled with a violent passion von Brockdorff-Giespert swore at and threatened the imperturbable Englishman. He gave him no credit for his patriotism. To the Hun such a standpoint was incomprehensible. He could only attribute it to the crass stupidity of the schweinhund Englander. Yet, somehow, Count Otto rather admired the old skipper in the present juncture. He envied his calm demeanour. The bronzed face and white hair of the old man haunted him.

Then came the terrific impact of the Boche torpedo. Flung completely out of his bunk von Brockdorff-Giespert lay inertly upon the floor for nearly a couple of minutes. At length, regardless of his injuries, he staggered to his feet and battered the locked door with his open palm, the while bellowing for assistance.

To be drowned like a rat in a trap: it was a fate inconceivable to a member of the Prussian nobility--a junker of the first water. He redoubled his cries as the doomed destroyer listed more and more. Had he but known it he might well have saved his breath. His shouts were drowned by the hiss of escaping steam and the inrush of water.

At length through sheer exhaustion he ceased his cries, yet he sobbed like a child in his rage and terror. It seemed an eternity, but in reality only three minutes elapsed between the time of the explosion and the unlocking of his prison door.

"Blow me, ain't the Boche got the wind up?" remarked one of the bluejackets to his raggie, as the pair lifted the now speechless Hun from the cabin floor, over which the water was rising swiftly, and carried him up the narrow companion-way to the deck.

Very carefully and tenderly the men lifted their enemy into the first boat to be cleared away. In the company of half a dozen badly wounded and scalded men the men pushed off, deeply laden for the high sea that was running.

Placed in the stern sheets and supported by a rolled canvas awning von Brockdorff-Giespert could watch with every roll of the boat the last throes of the British destroyer. Had he not been in peril of being thrown into the sea by the swamping of the boat he might have gloated over the scene. As it was he watched and waited, fervently hoping that before long he would be transferred to a larger and more seaworthy craft.

For several seconds following the final plunge of the torpedoed vessel silence reigned. The wind lulled, the waves were quelled under the influence of the widely-spreading oil. It seemed as if Nature were paying homage to the departed destroyer. Then the silence was broken by shouts of encouragement and exchange of rough, almost incomprehensible banter by men struggling for their lives.

In spite of their efforts--for there were only two oars available--the whaler drifted considerably to leeward of the rest of the boats. Even the Carley rafts were lost to sight in the darkness.

Presently a voice hailed.

"Boat ahoy! Can you take an officer on board?"

The stroke boated his oar and peered into the faces of the men lying in the stern-sheets before replying.

"Right-o," he replied.

"No, don't," expostulated von Brockdorff-Giespert. "Already the boat is overcrowded. It is madness."

"Shut up!" growled the man, a first-class petty officer. "Are you running this show, or am I? If it weren't for the likes o' you the likes of us wouldn't be in this bloomin' fix."

"But----" persisted the Count.

"Dry up," growled the petty officer, "or into the blinkin' ditch you go pretty sharp! Toss them two overboard, mate," he continued, addressing another seaman. "They won't want any more suppers."

It was no time for respect to the dead when the fate of the living was at stake. Without ceremony the corpses of two men who had died of injuries were given to the waves, while willing hands hauled the senseless form of Sub-lieutenant Alec Seton into the boat.

"Look alive!" shouted the bowman to Alec's rescuer, who, on noticing the Sub relax his grasp of the beaker, had promptly dived and brought the young officer to the surface. "Stroke ahead; I'll give you a hand."

"Too many in the boat already, mate," was the reply. "I've a mother living in Lowestoft, and I'll have a shot at swimming there. How far--eighty miles?"

Without further ado the chivalrous bluejacket turned and began swimming away from the boat.

"'Ere, no you don't!" shouted the bowman, and with a quick movement he engaged his boat-hook in the neck of the bluejacket's jumper. "Plenty of room in the stalls, mate. Two blokes wot booked seats ain't taking 'em up."

"Is that jonnick?" asked the swimmer suspiciously.

"Proper jonnick," asserted the other.

"Good enough," rejoined Alec's rescuer, and suffered himself to be hauled over the gunwale into a place of at least temporary safety.

For nearly two hours the boat continued to drift in spite of the dogged efforts of the two oarsmen. The breaking of an oar made matters worse, and all that could be done was to keep the whaler stern-on to the waves. Where were the rest of the _Bolero's_ crew, and how they fared, were merely matters for speculation.

Meanwhile the whaler's crew were unremitting in their attention to their disabled messmates, two of the men chafing Alec's numbed limbs in the hope of restoring him to consciousness. In this they succeeded, and presently the Sub opened his eyes.

"Quite all right, sir," said one of the men reassuringly in answer to Alec's unspoken question. "Just you lie quiet, sir. It'll be dawn very soon, and then we'll be picked up."

"How did I come to be picked up?" asked Alec.

"Just hiked on board like any old bundle done up ugly, sir," replied the man. "In a manner of speaking you didn't care whether it was Christmas or Easter."

"I remember," continued the Sub. "A bluejacket--Saunders is his name was--standing by when I was hanging on to the beaker. Where is he?"

"Having a caulk on the bottom-boards, sir. He's as right as ninepence; but we've had to heave four of the hands overboard. They were pretty far gone when we put them into the boat."

Tediously the night passed. Signs of other movements were absent, with one exception. That was about three in the morning when a sea-plane of unknown nationality passed high overhead. Even her presence would have passed unnoticed, for the whine of the wind completely muffled the noise of the motors, had not the pilot started to use his flashing lamp. Apparently he was calling up a sister sea-plane in code, for the message was unintelligible to the whaler's crew. Nor was there, as far as they could see, any response.

Gradually the dawn began to gain mastery in the south-eastern sky. A rosy hue crept upwards from the misty horizon, betokening a spell of wet and stormy weather. Already the whaler's crew had all their work cut out to prevent the boat being swamped. They were baling incessantly with the solitary baler and their caps. With the increase of wind, and consequently heavier sea, it was doubtful whether the boat could survive, since there was nothing of which to make anything in the nature of a sea-anchor.

Yet not for one moment did a single British member of the party show signs of being dismayed. Even the badly wounded men cracked jokes with their comrades, while others, whose injuries were of a slighter nature, insisted on being allowed to take their turn at baling.

Von Brockdorff-Giespert, on the other hand, looked the picture of misery and despair. He grumbled incessantly, asserting, with true Hunnish arrogance, that he was being neglected by his captors. It was not until he was sternly threatened, if he did not hold his tongue, that the Count began to realize that there was a limit beyond which even he must not go when in the company of British tars.

"There's a craft of sorts," announced the bowman, who, maintaining a precarious perch on the thwart, was scanning the horizon.

"Away on the starboard bow. Think she is coming this way."

"Wave your scarf, Lofty," suggested another member of the crew.

The man began to unwrap his "comforter". Then very abruptly he sat down.

"We'll hang on a little longer, mates," he said in a low voice. "I don't quite like the look of her. Strikes me she's a Fritz."

"By smoke, you're right!" exclaimed another, taking a cautious view of the oncoming craft. "A dirty U-boat. Lie down all hands. 'Ere, you blinkin' Fritz, none of your capers. Stow it!"

Count Otto von Brockdorff-Giespert, on hearing of the approach of what was apparently a German submarine, was making an effort to stand up and attract his compatriots' attention.

"It is time for me to do as I like," he replied, sneeringly.

"Is it? Then you're jolly well mistaken," retorted the stroke of the whaler, as he ostentatiously spat upon his hands and gripped a boat-stretcher.

The German's beady eyes contracted, and, thinking that discretion is ever the better art of valour, he shrugged his shoulders, and then winced with pain.

There was soon no doubt as to the type and nationality of the approaching craft. She was a U-boat. She was running on the surface. On the platform in the wake of the elongated conning-tower stood two men in black oilskins. At times completely enveloped in clouds of spray, they were intently searching the horizon either on the watch for likely prey or else keeping a sharp look-out for the dreaded British submarine-hunters.

"Looks like giving us the go-by after all," whispered one of the whaler's men, as the U-boat bore broadside on at a distance of about three-quarters of a mile.

"Let her," added his mate fervently. "Us don't want to see the likes of she just now. I'd give a month's pay to have her at yon range for twenty seconds."

"O, Lud!" exclaimed another with a grunt "she's starboarding helm. She's spotted us, lads!"

Clearly the whaler's crew were "in the soup", for the U-boat had altered course and was bearing down upon the luckless British seamen. Four or five hands made their way for'ard of the German craft's conning-tower, and in a few seconds a 4.7-inch gun rose from its place of concealment. Quickly the sinister weapon was manned and trained full at the helpless boat's crew.

"Murderous swine!" exclaimed the bowman, shaking his fist in futile defiance of the pirates.

Moments of intense suspense followed, yet the Huns refrained from opening fire. It might have been a matter for precaution that the quick-firer was trained upon the whaler; but, on the other hand, there was abundant evidence in the past to prove that the modern pirates had no scruples about murdering in cold blood the survivors of torpedoed merchantmen.

The while the officers outside the conning-tower were still busy with their binoculars. One of them kept the whaler under observation, while the other, evidently fearing a trap, swept the waste of water in case the periscope of a British submarine were watching Fritz with a view to blowing him to atoms.

Raising himself with his uninjured arm, Count Otto von Brockdorff-Giespert shouted something in German. The distance was still too great to enable the U-boat's officers to understand. This time the Count was not called to order, for the whaler's crew knew only too well that the tables had been turned.

Slowing down, and then reversing her engines, the U-boat came to a standstill within twenty yards of the survivors of the _Bolero_.

"Vot boat is dat?" hailed the U-boat's unter-leutnant. "Vere you from? Vot is der name of der schip you vos come from?"

"Better tell him civil-like," suggested the bow-man. "So here goes."

But von Brockdorff-Giespert again took up his parable. Speaking volubly, he quickly explained matters to his satisfaction. Although none of the British seamen understood German, the purport of the Count's words were sufficiently plain to them.

Interpolated with numerous "Ja, Herr Kapitan" from the obsequious unter-leutnant of the U-boat, von Brockdorff-Giespert gave a string of orders. The whaler was then commanded to come alongside, and the Count was assisted on board the submarine.

"Now," thought Alec, "he's out of it. Wonder if the dirty dogs are going, to turn a machine-gun on us, or ram the boat."

His natural curiosity was quickly satisfied, for the unter-leutnant, stepping to the rail, leered down into the boat.

"Englisch offizier-pig!" he shouted. "You der hospitality of Zherman U-boat must make. We you take prisoner."