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The prisoners taken from the U-87 were stowed safely away below-decks on the Essex, after which Jack got in touch with Admiral Sellings, on the Dakota, by wireless. He reported the capture of the submarine and the fact that it was being towed into port by the Ventura. Admiral Sellings ordered Jack to continue his patrol of the coast until further notice.
He came up, dripping, with the welcome announcement that the blades were intact and that, so far as he could ascertain by feeling, the shaft was not bent. But things looked pretty dismal below-decks. The forward cabin was awash, as was the engine-well, and the after stateroom was knee-deep. They gathered on the bridge deck and held council.
Yet they looked after him with even more inquisitive eyes when, on the second day out, he was peremptorily summoned to the Captain's room. What took place in that room no one in the ship ever actually knew. But the large-bodied stowaway returned below-decks, white of face and grim of jaw.
In every below-decks was a wooden or earthenware image of the Virgin, painted in gaudy faded colours; and in one case I found a boy who had been kneeling before the statue, but was toppled sideways now, his knees still bent, and the cross of Christ in his hand.
At another of them, instead of boarding in the pram, I shut off the Boreal's liquid air at such a point that, by delicate steering, she slackened down to a stoppage just a-beam of the smack, upon whose deck I was thus able to jump down. After looking around I descended the three steps aft into the dark and garrety below-decks, and with stooping back went calling in an awful whisper: 'Anyone?
There were few days on which the passengers could come from below-decks. When weather permitted, Captain Macdonell, who knew the dangers to be encountered in the country they were going to, attempted to give the emigrants military drill.
The tide-rip was mistaken for earthquake; and when the lurid glare of volcanic smoke came through the fog, the sailors huddled panic-stricken below-decks and refused to obey orders. Every man became his own master; and if that ever works well on land, it means disaster at sea.
The fishers were braw carles, wearing, many of them, fringes of beard well back from the chin-point, with hanging woollen caps. In every case I found below-decks a number of cruses of corn-brandy, marked aquavit, two of which I took into the pram.
I will not ask you to imagine all this, in the utter darkness of smoke and night below-decks, almost every lantern blown out or smashed. But I assure you I can remember it. There were agonies there which I have never trusted my tongue to tell. Yet I see, in my journal, in a boy's mock-man way, this is passed by, as almost nothing. I did not think so or feel so, I can tell you.
Just why are Federation Marines guarding the court building?" "Standing by, sir. Orders of Commodore Napier. You'll find that Marshal Fane's people are in charge below-decks, but Marine Captain Casagra and Navy Captain Greibenfeld are waiting to see you in your office." As he started toward the elevators, a big Zarathustra Company car was coming in.
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