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Now and then he turned and cast an anxious glance out over the bay at the fast disappearing periscope of the submarine. Once he paused. That was when he saw the hydroaeroplane with Burnside and myself carrying the wireless torpedo. Again he paused as he plodded up, this time with a gasp, of extreme satisfaction.
They strolled from the torpedo chamber into the compartment fitted out as the men's quarters and there came upon the party of German prisoners lounging in their bunks, chatting in their own language. Jack could understand one of them as speculating on the next move of the Americans. In their midst sat their captain, Hans Schmidt, from Bremen, he had told them.
It was an avenue of death for them, but to the credit of their Service it must stand that throughout the long nightmare they did not hesitate. The surrounding darkness seemed to vomit forth flotilla after flotilla of these cavalry of the sea. And they struck us once, a torpedo right forward, which will keep us in dock for a month, but did no vital injury.
This was issued so that there would be no delay in getting off the boat if we were hit by a torpedo. That night, being unused to sleeping with clothes on, was a restless one for most of us. The following night, however, notwithstanding the fact that we were fully dressed, we slept well. We were also joined on that day by a flotilla of destroyers.
Thus, unintentionally, do we sometimes lend ourselves to that from which our hearts revolt. I noticed, too, that the servant who had been summoned by the first Lord while we were discussing the torpedo, was particularly attentive to me, and very careful in seeing me off the premises; and then, for the first time, it flashed across my mind that I had been taken for a madman.
Then Milsom spoke down through the voice tube, ordering the engines to be first stopped, and then to go slowly, but at a gradually increasing speed, astern, by which means he quite expected to induce the commander of the torpedo boat to stop.
Some hours later the long, heavily laden train stopped at the foot of the steep grade just east of Euston, and was cut in two in order that half of it might be drawn to the top at a time. Rear Brakeman Joe was left to guard the part of the train that remained behind, and he did this by walking back a few hundred yards along the track, and placing a torpedo on top of one of the rails.
Near the prow, appeared a column of smoke, of expanding gases of yellowish and fulminating steam and, coming up through its center in the form of a fan, a spout of black objects, broken wood, bits of metallic plates and flaming ropes turning to ashes. Ulysses was no longer in doubt. They must have just been struck by a torpedo. His anxious look scanned the waters.
This knowledge, also, was gained, at last. Then Jack Benson, rising, hastened back to the conning tower, followed by Danvers. Jack himself closed the manhole, while Eph still trained the searchlight through the darkness of the night. Stormy weather was threatening. "Now, hustle below, Eph, and get that loaded torpedo into the tube," commanded Skipper Jack Benson.
We were without torpedoes. Tests have been made to ascertain the relative efficiency of different constructions, a torpedo has been adopted, and the work of construction is now being carried on successfully. We were without armor-piercing shells and without a shop instructed and equipped for the construction of them.
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