disreputable a figure that it was only with the utmost difficulty that I secured admission to the Consul himself.
“Has Jeans arrived?” I asked breathlessly, and, hearing that he was on his way at full speed, I told the Consul what I had learned.
Clearly it would be touch and go, but we had a little time in hand. The submarine would not leave the cove until after midnight on the thirteenth – to-day was the twelfth – so as to be just in time to place herself across the path of the oncoming liner.
About seven o’clock next evening, lounging in the garish Café Suzio, with its noisy crowd, I saw a tall English traveller in grey tweeds saunter in. After he had swallowed a drink, I rose and went out, and he followed at once. It was the commander of the British submarine 85, and on receipt of my wireless he had come full speed to Santander. At that moment his boat was lying off the port, skilfully screened behind a big British tramp steamer that was being used as a decoy. He had come ashore, apparently from the tramp, but really from his own boat, which had submerged the moment he left it.
“Well, Sant,” he said eagerly, “you’ve made a grand discovery. I got your wireless off Finisterre last night, and came here full speed. Wilson is outside Bilbao, and Matthews at Gijon, both waiting. I have sent out a message to the squadron, and we hope to make a big bag. But we’ll get this friend of yours in the cove first, anyhow. You’ll come, of course?”
I eagerly assented, and we went down to the water’s edge, where the tramp steamer’s boat was lying in charge of two men whose merchant jack rig-out hardly concealed the purposeful British bluejacket. We were soon on board the tramp. A few minutes later the submarine rose noiselessly to the surface, close alongside, and we went on board.
“Now for the cove,” said Jeans, as we dropped below.
Crawling along dead slow in order that the noise of our propellers might not betray us to the enemy, we approached the cove. By this time it was dark. A mile from the cove, screened by a promontory of rock, we rose noiselessly to the surface. A collapsible Berthon boat, containing half a dozen armed men, put off to guard the approach to the beach, and once more we submerged and made for the cove, showing only six inches of our periscope above the rippling waves.
There was just enough moonlight for our purpose, and as we drew near we were able to make out the enemy submarine, lying just awash, and presenting a magnificent target. Very few of the crew were on shore; obviously they were getting ready to leave. We could make out the captain, walking up and down with two men that we knew must be the “Italian” and Bernhard.
Jeans swung our ship slowly into position; the torpedo crew grouped themselves round the bow tube and we waited the exact moment. It was necessary that most of the crew should be on board, for our landing-party dared not risk a possible fight on Spanish soil, and if only one man escaped we should lose our chance of a big bag of the pirates, since a warning that the plot was discovered would at once be sent them by wireless.
At last the men began to go aboard. They were using a small boat which would hold only three men, and, as luck would have it, only the captain at length was left on the shore, talking to the “Italian” and Bernhard. The small boat, with only a single sailor in it, was being pulled ashore to fetch him when Jeans gave the single word “Fire!”
Our boat reeled slightly to the shock of the departing torpedo. At the range of a few hundred yards, under such circumstances, a miss was out of the question. A few seconds later a ponderous “boom!” blanketed by the waters, told us our torpedo had exploded and, gazing eagerly into the mirror of the periscope, I saw a blood-red flash as the enemy ship apparently flew to pieces in a confused column of spray and smoke. She must have been ripped open from end to end and, of course, disappeared instantly, with every soul on board.
“Now for the rest,” was Jeans’s laconic remark, as we swung out to the spot where we had put the landing-party ashore.
They were there almost as soon as we were, bringing with them the captain, Fontan, and the “Italian.” Dazed with the surprise and shock of the explosion, they had made no resistance to the rush of our men. The captain, indeed, had recovered himself sufficiently to throw into the sea a case of papers, but a sailor had dived and recovered it, and to our intense delight we found it gave details of the exact plans which had been made for the destruction of the Athabasca, with the precise points at which five successive U-boats were to lie in wait for her. This was luck indeed.
Soon we were on our way to intercept and destroy the first of the lurking Huns. Running at full speed on the surface, we kept our wireless busy, and soon had the satisfaction of knowing that our dispositions had been made to circumvent the enemy’s plots. Finally, nearing the scene of action, we submerged.
I need not here describe the tension of the hours which followed. Amid the steady hum of the machinery, Jeans was constantly busy, now scanning the surface of the sea through our periscope, now giving a watchful eye to every detail of the submarine’s complicated machinery.
At last, just as the first grey streaks of dawn showed on the horizon, he called me to the periscope, and, reflected in the mirror, I saw faintly the thin plume of smoke from the funnels of the approaching liner.
We knew that somewhere in that zone an enemy submarine lay awaiting her prey.
For half an hour we were keenly on the alert, as we watched the approaching liner. The captain had been warned by wireless, and we knew there would be no lack of watchfulness on board. We could imagine the gun-crew standing at their stations, every eye strained for the first sight of the enemy.
It came at last. Almost directly between us and the liner a German U-boat thrust her periscope out of the water and launched a torpedo. We saw the big liner swing suddenly to her swiftly ported helm, and we heard afterwards that, owing to her steersman’s promptness, the torpedo missed her bow by not more than a few feet.
Just as the liner turned the submarine broke water – why, I never could understand. Probably her commander was too supremely certain that his shot had gone home, or else some error in navigation had brought him to the surface earlier than he intended, for obviously it was his duty to remain submerged until he was sure his work was done.
Be that as it may, it was his last mistake. As the grey whale-back of the submarine rose above the water the gun of the Athabasca spoke. The first shot was over, the second short. Before the third was fired we had also bobbed up suddenly, and the U-boat found herself the target of two antagonists.
There could be only one end to such a fight. Almost simultaneously the third shot of the Athabasca and our first rang out, and both shells found their mark. One struck the conning-tower fair and square, blowing it clean away; the other crashed into the upper part of the hull, tearing a huge gap, and in a few seconds the enemy vessel had sunk with all hands, leaving only a flood of oil on the heaving surface of the sea to show where she had disappeared.
Next day I was on the Sud Express for Paris, while Madame Gabrielle, whom I had recalled by wire, followed me a few hours later.
From Hecq in Paris I learned the full sequel of our adventure. No news of the affair ever leaked out to the public. But it appears that, owing to the discovery of the plans from Kiel in possession of the submarine’s captain and our wireless messages, French destroyers and British submarines, operating together, had within twelve hours cleaned out the pirates’ nest, sinking four more submarines and taking nearly sixty prisoners, most of whom are now behind barbed wire in Wales.
Chapter Four
The Hidden Hand in Britain
“Ah! my dear Hecq – you have now set me a very difficult task – very difficult
