After thus rising to the occasion, I was emboldened to ask the captain
to tell me a little more about that "luckily-planted depth-charge" he
had referred to so casually, and its train of consequences.
"Here is the result," he said with a smile, handing me several small
kodak prints from his pocketbook. "What little yarn there is to tell
I'll rattle off for you with pleasure after I've been up to the bridge
for a bit of a 'look-see.' Seems as if she is banging into it harder
than she ought for this course and speed."
The light went out as the automatic switch cut off the current with the
opening of the door, and when it flashed on again, as the door was
slammed shut, I found myself alone, with the prints lying in the middle
of the chart of the North Sea. Two of these showed a thin sliver of a
submarine that might have been of almost any type. A third, however,
showed an unmistakable U-boat, heeling slightly, and with a whaler
alongside, evidently in the act of taking off some of the men crowded
upon the narrow forward deck. And in the background of this print was
lying a long slender four-funneled destroyer that I recognised at once
as either the _Flash_ or another of the same class. On the back of this
print was written "Quarter view of U.C.--at 14.10. _Flash's_ whaler
transferring prisoners; _Splash's_ whaler's crew clearing decks of
wounded."
A fourth print, similar to the third but much covered with arrows and
writing, appeared to be a kind of key to the latter. An angling sort of
bar, which appeared as a black line above the bows in the photograph,
was labelled "Nut Cutter," and several other characteristic U-boat
devices were similarly indicated. These all established points of great
technical value, doubtless, but a keener human interest attached to the
legends penciled at the feather ends of arrows pointing to two figures
on the deck of the submarine, just abaft the conning-tower. Opposite the
one that appeared to be leaning over a light rail, with one arm extended
as though he was in the act of giving a command, was written, "Deceased
captain of submarine." Against the other, a sprawling inert heap huddled
up against the conning-tower, appeared, "Man with both legs shot off
(alive)."
There was a lot of history crowded into that scrawled-over print, and I
was still gazing at it with awed fascination when the opening door
winked off the light, and then closed again to reveal the captain,
dripping with the blown brine of the wave that the _Flash_ had put her
nose into at the moment he was coming down the ladder.
"Rather more of a sea than I expected to-night," he said as he pulled
his duffel-coat over his head and sat down to kick off his sea-boots;
"so I've slowed her down a few knots and we'll jog along easy till
daylight." Then, as he recognised the photo in my hand, "Rather a grim
story that little kodak tells, isn't it? You'll find just about all of
the yarn you were asking for down there in black and white."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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