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And it was so; every man-jack of the U-boat's personnel jaded to the marrow with its cramped accommodations, unremitting toil and care, unsanitary smells and forbidding associations having naturally seized the earliest opportunity to escape so loathsome a prison. Lanyard, however, was anything but resentful of condemnation to this solitary confinement.
They were bluejackets, and their only complaint on the trip had been that the U-boat's guns had outranged their guns. They volunteered in a body even the three wounded members. Doc took all the sound ones and went down into the forward compartment with a mattress and some scantling he found in the hold. The water was by then about up to the men's waists.
"Put one of our men over each of the chaps and tell them to shoot at the first sign of any funny business," was Bridwell's order to Jack. It was found that the U-boat's fuel tanks had been but recently replenished -in fact, the submarine bad been fitted for another cruise and was all ready to put to sea.
One after another the shells from the destroyer's guns shrieked over the sea to fall around the more sluggishly manoeuvring U-boat. The captain of the submarine handled his craft with skill; but his gunners were poor marksmen. They kept both the U-boat's deckguns smoking; but the shots went wild. Torpedoes could not be used against the destroyer, for the latter was steaming too swiftly.
But the question of the U-boat's present whereabouts and its movements in the immediate future disturbed the adventurer profoundly. He was elaborately incurious about Heligoland; and several weeks' association with the Boche in the close quarters of a submarine was a prospect that revolted. Wellnigh any fate were preferable....
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