When we were fairly on the surface I came on deck and gazed over the
dark waters to the darker shore, with--I don't mind confessing it
now--a rather curious sensation. To tell the truth, I was a little
nervous, but I think I showed no sign of it to Wiedermann.
"You have thought of everything you can possibly need?" he asked in a
low voice.
"Everything, sir, I think," I answered confidently.
"No need to give you tips!" he said with a laugh.
I felt flattered--but still my heart was beating just a little faster
than usual!
In we crept closer and closer, with the gentlest pulsation of our
engines that could not have been heard above the lapping of the waves
on the pebbles. An invisible gull or two wheeled and cried above us,
but otherwise there was an almost too perfect stillness. I could not
help an uncomfortable suspicion that _someone_ was watching. _Someone_
would soon be giving the alarm, _someone_ would presently be playing
the devil with my schemes. It was sheer nonsense, but then I had never
played the spy before--at least, not in war-time.
Along the middle of the bay ran a beach of sand and pebbles, with dunes
and grass links above, but at the southern end the water was deep close
inshore, and there were several convenient ledges of rock between the
end of this beach and the beginning of the cliffs. The submarine came
in as close as she dared, and then, without an instant's delay, the
boat was launched. Wiedermann, myself, two sailors, and the
motor-bicycle just managed to squeeze in, and we cautiously pulled for
the ledges.
The tide was just right (we had thought of everything, I must say
that), and after a minute or two's groping along the rocks, we found a
capital landing. Wiedermann and I jumped ashore as easily as if it had
been a quay, and my bicycle should have been landed without a hitch.
How it happened I know not, but just as the sailors were lifting it
out, the boat swayed a little and one of the clumsy fellows let his end
of it slip. A splash of spray broke over it; a mere nothing, it seemed
at the time, and then I had hold of it and we lifted it on to the ledge.
Wiedermann spoke sharply to the man, but I assured him no harm had been
done, and between us we wheeled the thing over the flat rocks, and
pulled it up to the top of the grass bank beyond.
"I can manage all right by myself now," I said. "Good-bye, sir!"
He gave my hand a hard clasp.
"This is Thursday night," he said. "We shall be back on Sunday,
Monday, and Tuesday nights, remember."
"The British Navy and the weather permitting!" I laughed.
"Do not fear!" said he. "I shall be here, and we shall get you aboard
somehow. Come any one of those nights that suits _him_."
"That suits him?" I laughed. "Say rather that suits Providence!"
"Well," he repeated, "I'll be here anyhow. Good luck!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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