Impassioned, with many gestures, these weather-beaten Breton sailors cursed the Germans who had placed bombs under the hatches of their beloved bark. The _Corsair’s_ men listened eagerly while they cheered their weary guests with sandwiches and coffee. Presently a hail from the bridge announced that another boat was adrift to the westward, and the mariners of the _Sadi Carnot_ yelled vociferous joy. Five more comrades of theirs were deftly picked up, leaving three boats still unaccounted for, and the _Corsair_ searched for them in vain. Another boat was discovered a little later, it is true, but the men in it made no sign—four of them, all corpses which washed about in the water under the thwarts or were grotesquely doubled up like bundles of old clothes. They were English seamen and the boat bore the name of the British steamer _Malda_. As one of the _Corsair’s_ signal-men wrote in his diary; “It was a ghastly sight. The French fishermen we have on board were almost starved and frozen. They could not have lived more than another day or so. Imagine their feelings when they saw the _Malda’s_ boat with the dead men and knew that this would soon have been their own fate.” It was later reported in Brest that another ship had picked up the _Malda’s_ boat in passing and had discovered that the bodies of the English sailors were riddled with bullets from a machine gun, presumably after they had abandoned their steamer. The _Corsair_ kept on her way and had no trouble in finding her convoy of four vessels with which she started for Saint-Nazaire at thirteen knots. Off Belle Isle, the _Montanan_ developed a fit of hysterics and opened fire on an imaginary flock of submarines which turned out to be blackfish in a sportive mood. The other merchant steamers promptly joined in the bombardment and banged away for all they were worth, at the same time stampeding most zealously. They scattered over the sea like hunted ducks and the indignant _Corsair_ endeavored to recall and soothe them. “We could see what they were shooting at,” noted a quartermaster on the yacht, “but believed it to be the splash of a big fish. However, they were thoroughly convinced that Fritz was out to pull some of his morning hate stuff. The ships of the convoy were so excited that they shot all over the ocean. One of their shells missed us by a hundred yards or so and we got sore. I sent them a signal, ‘_Cease firing at once and come within hail_.’ They paid no attention, but we rounded up the bunch and escorted them safely into port and then beat it out to sea again.... We passed close to a submarine last night, but could not find him. We got the smell of his Diesel engines and I guess he was charging his batteries and ducked under when he heard us.”