With a profusion of "Hoch, hoch, hoch!" their glasses clicked and the toast was drunk. Then, tightening the belt of his trench-coat, the spy ascended the ladder and gained the deck. CHAPTER V THE PROWESS OF KAPITAN VON PREUGFELD "THE fog is thicker than ever," grumbled the ober-leutnant as he emerged from below. "It is so far fortunate for your landing, von Preussen, but give me a clear night. Then there is far less risk of being run down by those accursed P-boats." "You need to be doubly careful on a night like this," rejoined the spy. "And one way is to lose no time in getting into the dinghy," added von Preugfeld pointedly. Rubbing alongside the bulging hull of the U-boat was a small collapsible dinghy manned by a couple of hands clad in oilskins. In the stern-sheets, muffled by a piece of tarpaulin, was a lighted compass. "I am sending my unter-leutnant in charge of the boat," observed von Preugfeld. "Then I hope Herr von Loringhoven realises the sense of his responsibility," laughed the spy, as he stepped into the boat. _"Auf Wiedersehen!"_ The dinghy pushed off under muffled oars and well-greased rowlocks. In less than half a minute it was inaudible and invisible, swallowed up in the fog. The kapitan of U 247 remained on deck, half-buried in his greatcoat. He was both irritable and impatient--impatient for the return of the boat, irritable since he wanted to smoke and durst not. Another U-boat commander had smoked on deck while his boat was recharging batteries at night. The fumes of the cigar, drifting far and wide, assailed the keen nostrils of a submarine hunter. As it was, the U-boat got away, but her kapitan learnt a lesson and did not hesitate to inform his fellow-pirates of his very narrow escape. Always within easy distance of the open conning-tower hatchway and ready to submerge at an instant's notice, Ober-leutnant von Preugfeld maintained his solitary vigil, for the rest of the crew had been ordered to their diving stations. It was the life of a hunted animal, haunted by an ever-present fear. Von Preugfeld, prematurely aged and careworn, had suffered the torments of the damned since the order had been issued for unrestricted submarine warfare, At first he had entered into the business with grim zest. A firm believer in the policy of ruthlessness as applied to war, the ober-leutnant had no compunction in sinking unarmed merchantmen and hospital ships, but when the British Mercantile Marine took unto itself guns and gun-layers who could shoot uncommonly straight, and when the Royal Navy adopted certain sinister devices to cope with the pirate Hun, von Preugfeld did not feel at all happy.