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"There is something fouling our propeller, Herr Kapitan," he shouted. "The engines are labouring at full speed, but we are scarcely making any headway. The cut-outs have fused." Von Sperrgebiet cursed under his breath. "Stop the engines," he said. "If we can't swim we must sink." He gave the necessary orders and the boat dropped gradually through the water till she rested on the bottom.
This time von Sperrgebiet returned from comparing the sounding with the chart, wearing a distinctly worried expression. The hawk-eyed seaman beside him on the bridge gave an ejaculation and pointed ahead. "Land, Herr Kapitan!" he said. "Fool!" replied his Captain. "Idiot! How can there be land there unless" he glanced inside the binnacle half contemptuously "unless the compasses are mad or I am."
"Swine, sow or sucking-pig what is the difference? They learn their lessons slowly, these English. We will drive yet another nail into their wooden heads.... You will drive it, Ludwig," he added thoughtfully: and then, as an afterthought, "for the honour of the Fatherland." "Thank you, Herr Kapitan," replied the youth, and turned again to the periscope mirror.
Finally he returned to his Captain's elbow, moistening his marred lip with the tip of his tongue; his face wore an unhealthy pallor and glistened in the glow of the electric lights. "Is it an English ship, Herr Kapitan?" he asked again in his high, unnatural voice. "Yes," snapped von Sperrgebiet. "Why?" "I have a request to make," replied the Second-in-Command. "A favour, Herr Kapitan.
His stolid face was working and moist with excitement. "Is it an English ship, Herr Kapitan?" The Oberleutnant made no answer, but reached out a hand to the wheel that adjusted the height of the periscope above the water and twisted it rapidly. For twenty minutes he remained thus, motionless save for the arm that controlled the periscope.
The helmsman was standing, staring at the compass like a man in a trance. "Herr Kapitan," he said, as von Sperrgebiet approached, "it is bewitched." Indeed, he had grounds for consternation. The compass card was spinning round like a kitten chasing its tail, first in one direction, then in another. "Damn the compass!" said von Sperrgebiet.
The Prince was following him, talking over his shoulder to Von Winterfeld and the Kapitan. "Eh?" he said to Kurt, stopping in mid-sentence, and followed the gesture of Kurt's hand. He glared at the crumpled object in the recess and seemed to think for a moment. He made a slight, careless gesture towards the boy's body and turned to the Kapitan.
He was a spectacled youth with a cropped bullet-head and what had been in infancy a hare-lip. His beard of about ten days' maturity grew in patches about his lips and cheeks. "A ship, Herr Kapitan?" he asked in a thin, reedy voice, and reached for a pair of long-toed, elastic-sided boots that he had kicked off, and which lay at the foot of his bunk.
Enquiries of the released prisoners resulted in the information that they had been treated by their captors in a far better manner than the Huns generally deal with those unfortunate individuals who fall into their hands. The kapitan of the Porfurst was no exception to the usual run of Germans.
The Prince surveyed them with the gesture of a man who site a steed. The head of the Kapitan appeared beside him. Then Bert had a terrible moment. The blue blaze of the Prince's eye fell upon him, the great finger pointed, a question was asked. Kurt intervened with explanations. "So," said the Prince, and Bert was disposed of.
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