Chapter XIX

"'ARK!"said the hedger, his can of cold tea arrested half-way to his lips. But Sal, the lurcher bitch curled up under the hedge, had heard some seconds before. With twitching nose and ears alert, she jumped out of the ditch and trotted up the road. A far-off sound was coming over the downs - a faint drone as of a clustering swarm of bees.

"One of them motor-bikes�."murmured the man and paused. Away in the west, approaching the coast-line and flying high, was a dark object like the framework of a bog suspended. in mid-air. It drew near, rising and falling on the unseen swell of the ocean of ether, and the droning sound grew louder."Aeri-o-plane,"continued the hedger, again speaking aloud; after the manner of those who live much alone in the open.

As a matter of fact it was a Hydro-Aeroplane, and after it had passed overhead the watchers saw it wheel and swoop towards the harbour hidden from them by the shoulder of the downs.

The man stood looking after it, his shadow sprawling across the dusty road before him."Lawks !"he ejaculated,"'ere's goin's-on !"A ripple from the Naval Manoeuvre Area had passed across the placid surface of his life. He resumed his interrupted tea.

A stone breakwater stretched a half-encircling arm round the little harbour, Within its shelter a huddle of coasting craft and trawlers lay at anchor, with the red roofs of the town banked up as a background for their tangled spars. Behind them again the tall chimney of an electric power station lifted a slender head.

In the open water of the harbour a flotilla of Submarines were moored alongside one another: figures moved about the tiny railed platforms, and in the stillness of the summer afternoon the harbour held only the sound of their voices, the mulled clink of a hammer, and, from an unseen siding ashore, the noise of shunting railway trucks made musical by distance.

The seaplane drew near and circled gracefully overhead; then it volplaned down and settled lightly on the water at the harbour mouth: a Submarine moved from her moorings to meet it. The pilot of the seaplane pulled off his gauntlets, pushed his goggles up on to his forehead, and lit a cigarette. The Submarine ranged alongside and her Captain leaned over the rail with a smile of greeting.

"Any news ?"

The Flying Corps Officer raised his hands to his mouth:"Enemy's Battleship and eight Destroyers, eighteen 'miles to the Sou'-East,"he shouted"Steering about Nor'-Nor'-West at 12 knots. Battleship's got troops or Marines on board in marching order . . . . No, nothing, thanks - I'm going North to warn them. So-long. . ."

Five minutes later he was a black speck in the sky above the headland where the tall masts of a Wireless Station and a cluster of whitewashed cottages showed up white against the turf.

The Submarine slid back into the harbour and approached the Senior Officer's boat. The Senior Officer, in flannels, was swinging Indian clubs on the miniature deck of his craft. The Lieutenant who had communicated with the Seaplane made his report; his Senior Officer nodded and put down his clubs.

"Guessed as, much. They're coming to raid this place. Come inboard for a minute, and tell Forbes and Lawrence and Peters to come too. We'll have a Council of War - Wow, wow!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The sun set in a great glory of light; then a faint haze, blue-grey, like a pigeon's wing, veiled the indeterminate meeting of sea and sky. It crept nearer, stealing along the horizon, stretching leaden fingers across the smooth sea.

A fishing smack, becalmed a league from the harbour mouth, faded suddenly like a wraith into nothingness.

Six Destroyers came out of the mist, heading towards the breakwater. They were about a mile away when the leading boat altered course abruptly towards the North, and the others followed close in her wake, leaving a smear of smoke in the still air. Before their wake had ceased to trouble the surface-before, almost, the rearmost boat had vanished into the fog - the periscope of a Submarine slid round the corner of the breakwater, paused a moment as if in uncertainty, and then headed, like a swimming snake, in swift pursuit. Another followed; another, and another.

A Battleship came slowly out of the haze. She moved with a certain deliberate sureness, a grey, majestic citadel afloat. A jet of steam from an escape and the Ensign at her peak showed up with startling whiteness against the sombre sea. An attendant Destroyer hovered on each quarter, but as they neared the land these darted ahead, obedient to the, angle of flags at the masthead of the Battleship. Off the mouth of the harbour they swung round: the semaphore of one signalled that the harbour was clear, and they separated, to commence a slow patrol North and South on the fringe of the mist. A moment later the Battleship anchored with a thunder and rattle of cable. Pipes twittered shrilly, and boats began to sink from her davits into the water. Ladders were lowered, and armed men streamed down the ship's side. They were disembarking troops for a raid.

There was a sudden swirl in the water at the harbour entrance. Unseen, a slender, upright stick, surmounted by a little oblong disc, crept along in the shadow of the breakwater, indistinguishable in the floating debris awash there on the flood tide. It turned seaward and sank.

A minute passed; a. cutter full of men was pulling under the stern to join the other boats waiting alongside. The steel derrick, raised like a huge warning finger, swung slowly round, lifting a steamboat out into the water. From the boats afloat came the plash of oars, an occasional curt order, and the rattle of sidearms as the men took their places.

Then a signalman, high up on the forebridge, rushed to the rail, bawling hoarsely.

A couple of hundred yards away the dark stick had reappeared. Almost simultaneously two trails of bubbles sped side by side towards the flank of the Battleship. There was a sudden tense silence. The Destroyer to the Northward sighted the menace and opened fire with blank on the periscope from her 12-pounders.

"Bang! . . . Bang ? Bang !"

The men in the boats alongside craned their necks to watch the path of the approaching torpedoes. The Commander standing at the gangway shrugged his shoulders and turned with a grim smile to the Captain.

"They've bagged us, sir."

A dull concussion shook the after part of the ship, and the pungent smell of calcium drifted up off the water on to the quarterdeck.

"Yes,"said. the Captain. He stepped to the rail, and stood looking down at the spluttering torpedoes with the noses of their copper collision heads telescoped flat, as they rolled drunkenly under the stern.

The Submarine thrust her conning-tower above the surface, and from the hatchway appeared a figure in the uniform of a Lieutenant. He climbed on to the platform with a pair of hand-flags, and commenced to signal.

The Post-Captain on the quarter-deck of the Battleship raised his glass, made an inaudible observation, and lowered it again.

"Claim - to - have - put - you - out - of - action,"spelt the hand flags. The Captain smiled dryly and lifted his cap by the peak with a little gesture of greeting; there was answering gleam of teeth in the sun-burnt face of the Lieutenant across the water. The Captain turned to his Commander."But he needn't have torpedoed his own father,"he said, as if in continuation of his last remark."The penalty for marrying young, I suppose."

The Submarine recovered her torpedoes and returned to harbour. Her Commanding Officer summoned his Sub-Lieutenant, and together they delved in a cupboard; followed the explosion of a champagne cork. Glasses linked, and there was a gurgling silence.

"Not bad work,"said the Sub-Lieutenant,"bagging your Old Man's ship."

"Not so dusty,"replied the Lieutenant in command of the Submarine, modestly.

She was a brand-new Battleship, and had cost a million and three-quarters. It was his twenty-fourth birthday.

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