United States or Turkmenistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Could I have heard aright? Was it really a sob that came floating back to me through the narrow aisle of the U-33? Benson died that night. He remained defiant almost to the last; but just before he went out, he motioned to me, and I leaned over to catch the faintly whispered words. "I did it alone," he said. "I did it because I hate you I hate all your kind.
So I went on deck with a rifle, twenty of which were aboard the U-33. At sight of me a huge thing charged and climbed to the deck. I retreated to the top of the conning-tower, and when it had raised its mighty bulk to the level of the little deck on which I stood, I let it have a bullet right between the eyes.
I could feel the U-33 respond, and yet the arrow still clung straight and sure toward the distant cliffs. "What do you make of it?" I asked him. "Did you ever hear of Caproni?" he asked. "An early Italian navigator?" I returned. "Yes; he followed Cook about 1721. He is scarcely mentioned even by contemporaneous historians probably because he got into political difficulties on his return to Italy.
They told them of the infamous act of Baron Friedrich von Schoenvorts and his German crew who had stolen the U-33, breaking their parole, and steaming away toward the subterranean opening through the barrier cliffs that carried the waters of the inland sea into the open Pacific beyond; and of the cowardly shelling of the fort.
I can't help hoping all the time that Bowen and the girl have found the others; the last Bowen knew of them, there were six left, all told the mate Bradley, the engineer Olson, and Wilson, Whitely, Brady and Sinclair. There might be some hope for them if they could join forces; but separated, I'm afraid they couldn't last long." "If only they hadn't let the German prisoners capture the U-33!
Thus of the original party of eleven Allies and nine Germans that had constituted the company of the U-33 when she left English waters after her capture by the crew of the English tug there were but five now to be accounted for at Fort Dinosaur. Benson, Tippet, James, and one of the Germans were known to be dead.
The four of us were to constitute a military court under which men might be tried and sentenced to punishment for infraction of military rules and discipline, even to the passing of the death-sentence. I then had arms and ammunition issued to the Germans, and leaving Bradley and five men to guard the U-33, the balance of us went ashore.
Bradley knew nothing of the disappearance of Bowen Tyler and Miss La Rue, nor of the perfidy of the Germans in shelling the fort and attempting to escape in the U-33; but he was in no way surprised at what he saw before him.
When I left, there were more Germans on the U-33 than there were men of my own party at the fort, and I have had sufficient experience of Germans to know that they will bear watching if they have not been properly watched since I left."
It was an opening that would have admitted a half-dozen U-boats at one and the same time, roughly cylindrical in contour and dark as the pit of perdition. As I gave the command which sent the U-33 slowly ahead, I could not but feel a certain uncanny presentiment of evil. Where were we going? What lay at the end of this great sewer?
Word Of The Day