"Carry on, Fritz!" he replied. "It's your German temperament, I suppose. You can't help it. So put that in your pipe and smoke it." The Hun looked puzzled. "Put vot in mine pipe? Haf you any tobacco?" he asked almost pleadingly. "'Fraid you can't understand, Fritz," rejoined Seton. "You'll get nothing more out of me, so hook it!" The man went out still puzzling over the idiomatic expression that Alec had purposely employed. Yet he did not report the incident of the tampered lock to the kapitan. A little later an artificer came and secured the door, and once more Seton was a close prisoner. With her pumps going continuously to keep under the steady inflow of water--for, in spite of "stoppers" and patches applied to the gaping plates, she leaked badly--the U-boat passed between the ends of the moles and entered Zeebrugge Harbour. Owing to injuries she had sustained, it was considered desirable to pass through the lock gates and take her up the Bruges Canal for repairs. Although the locality was not a healthy one, there was less risk of the U-boat being smashed by British guns or bombs than had she remained at Zeebrugge. Accordingly the returned pirate craft was temporarily berthed alongside the Mole in order to land certain members of her crew and also spare stores before proceeding. Count Otto von Brockdorff-Giespert was the first to step ashore. There was a smile of satisfaction on his face: he made no attempt to conceal his joy at leaving the badly-strained U-boat, and he mentally vowed that, if the matter were left to him, it would be a long time before he went on a voyage again. He would be quite content to exercise his valuable submarine knowledge ashore, and let the U-boat commanders put his theories to the test. Two-thirds of the crew, including Unter-leutnant Kaspar Diehardt, also landed. They showed little enthusiasm on their stolid faces, for they knew perfectly well that there was no respite for them. Owing to the shortage of skilled submariners, they would be promptly drafted to other U-boats, and be sent to sea again on their ruthless and inglorious task of attempting to wipe out of existence the British Mercantile Marine. Practically all the German submarine service suffered in the same way. Constantly employed, exposed to perils seen and unseen, ill-fed on very inferior food the men were already on the high-road to mutiny. Guarded by a couple of armed men, Sub-lieutenant Alec Seton was taken ashore. Still clad in the loaned canvas suit and carrying his saturated uniform in a bundle under his arm, Seton set foot for the first time upon the now historic Zeebrugge Mole. He made good use of his eyes during his progress. It was part of his training to do so. He had seen aerial photographs of the place, but these, useful though they were, conveyed but a slight idea of the formidable nature of the German defences.