Five or six of her crew appearing on the long, narrow deck, the ungainly hull of the submarine, skilfully manoeuvred, approached sufficiently close to enable Kirkwood to catch a coil of rope, and the seaplane was hauled alongside. "Jump, sir!" shouted a petty officer. Although unable to hear the words Barcroft understood the gesture. He waited until his observer had leapt, then seizing a small axe from the body of the fuselage, he shattered each of the frail floats, and as his command sank beneath his feet he scrambled up the bulging side of the rescuing submarine. "Barcroft's deaf and dumb," Kirkwood explained to a sympathetic lieutenant. "You'd better look sharp. There are a dozen strafed torpedo-boats after us." "P'raps it's as well if we do," commented the officer. "I'll trouble you for your yarn when we are snugly down below." In less than a minute the crew and the rescued airmen were hermetically sealed in the hull of G 21, and descending to a depth of fifteen fathoms the submarine rested upon the bed of the North Sea until the German torpedo-craft, foiled in their endeavour to locate their quarry, steamed back to the security of the inner roadstead of Heligoland. CHAPTER XXXIX AND LAST A WEEK later found Flight-sub-lieutenant Barcroft a patient in a large Naval Hospital somewhere on the East Coast. His case was an interesting one as far as the medical officers were concerned, but far from it from a strictly personal point of view. The medicos, expressing their belief in their ability to restore the young officer's powers of speech and hearing, were unremitting in their attentions, so far without success. Billy, after the first fit of despondency had passed, was still far from sanguine as to the result of the numerous operations and experiments performed by the hospital staff. Unable to communicate with any one except by means of paper and pencil, he had already come to the conclusion that his flying days were over. He might hope for a partial restoration of his lost senses, but nothing more. There was one thought to console him. He had not been rendered blind by the terrific glare as his gigantic victim was blown sky high. The blessing of sight was still his. It irritated him beyond measure to see other patients conversing, to watch their lips move, their expressive gestures of understanding, and yet to live in an atmosphere of profound silence. It was humiliating to have to approach a fellow-creature and laboriously commit to paper a request for a most trivial thing; exasperating to follow the comparatively tedious pencil as the person addressed in this manner wrote his reply.