"Cheers for the R.A.F. Salvage Syndicate," exclaimed Blenkinson, fired by his companion's enthusiasm, but von Preussen merely shrugged his shoulders. He hadn't risked the perils of the North Sea in order to protect the property of His Majesty the King of England. CHAPTER XI VON PREUGFELD'S RESOLVE "DONNERWETTER! I am utterly sick of this business, Kaspar," whispered Seaman Furst. "It is the life of a dog, or worse. If this war is not over by the beginning of the winter there will be trouble amongst the _unterseebooten_ crews." "S'sh, not so loud," cautioned his companion, as the grumbler raised his voice towards the end of his tirade. "I agree with you, Hans. This game does not pay. We were told that we should save the Fatherland and bring England to her knees by our submarines. But have we? Just look! Here we are hungry, wet and unhappy, yet in England there is, they say, plenty. Just before we left Cuxhaven my wife had a letter from her brother who is a prisoner in England. He wrote and said that even our men who are held in captivity receive three good meals a day." "That is what I do not understand," remarked Hans Furst. "If we are winning, as our officers tell us we are, how comes it that we cannot get eatable food? Of course, at the beginning of the war we were lucky. All we had to do was to run alongside an English merchantman, take what we wanted in the way of food and tobacco, and then sink her; but now----" "But now," continued Kaspar Krauss, taking up the parable, "every strafed English ship has a gun, and one never knows but that a coasting vessel is not a death-trap for us. You remember that fishing-smack off Flamborough?" Furst shuddered. "Will I ever forget it?" he answered. "'Tis marvellous that we live to tell the tale. What would I not give for a life ashore with a tankard of Munich beer, a loaf of good bread and cheese? And tobacco--what is tobacco? I have almost forgotten." "There was some in that Dutch vessel we burnt a week ago," said Krauss. Furst clenched his fists. "And where did it go?" he demanded. "That _schweinhund_ our kapitan put it under lock and key. He and the pig-faced von Loringhoven smoke every night when we rise to recharge batteries, but never a cigar or a pipeful comes our way." "We'll be back again on Friday if all goes well," said the other. "Then we can enjoy ourselves." "Enjoy ourselves!" echoed Furst contemptuously. "How? I've got a bundle of notes in my belt, but precious little use are they. In the good old days a mark was a mark, but now----"