by Roy Vickers
“Smoke, west-sou’-west,” was reported from the conning-tower; a moment later, “Smoke, a point south.”
Calthrop went up into the look-out.
“Seems that’s what we’re looking for, sir,” said the seaman joyfully.
Calthrop nodded, then sprang down the rail like a cat; this was a matter for the owner.
They proceeded as requisite with extreme care and defined their prey—the fattest spoil that ever good little submarine could desire-three transports, two large cruisers and a screen of destroyers joyfully travelling up the coast to help in the great drive. Every man was at his station, every hand and foot and eye braced and ready in its appointed position, every ear waiting the order for the hand to move. The mere concentration of the men, silent and still, brought sweat out on their faces, though that would never mar the cold precision of their action when the cranks were thrown in and the great machine swung to its fell intent. The men at the course and elevation wheels moved the spokes mechanically while their steadfast eyes never left the indicators. In the conning-tower the owner bent over the table and watched.
The convoy was all about him now; on the port bow was a cruiser, on the starboard the leading transport. Suddenly he passed the signal for the forward port tube and changed course a point to starboard. As she swung round he released the starboard torpedo. Then he dived.
So far he had not been seen. He turned suddenly beneath the water, making for the tail of the convoy, and as he set the ship to rise two dull concussions came to him through the water, rocking the great steel shell in its course. Up he came with his hand on the signal to dive again and his eye already on that part of the black table where the image of his work would appear.
Recalling that moment, Towers says that, however he had regarded that feeling of a strange presence on his ship before, he no longer questioned it then. He knew, long seconds before the periscope screen glowed bright, what he would see, for a voice, inarticulate but plain within his brain, seemed to cry, “That pays for my Utopia.” But if those thoughts floated in the subconscious chambers of his brain, his working thoughts was cold and diamond clear.
The screen glowed. A huddled mass in one far rim showed his victims heeling and sagging. Before him and abeam on either side two scared transports wheeled outward, panic-stricken. Swift as thought two more white-tailed avengers sped upon their track. He looked round, swinging the periscope round the skyline, hungry for more prey, and, as he did so, heard a voice that seemed to rise from everywhere in the ship cry heartily—
“Dive, you cross-eyed barnacles!”
He felt the tilt of the ship as someone answered to the call, and he himself, unreasoning, stretched his hand out for the signal lever, but just for a second, before he could touch it, a great triangular wedge invaded the edge of the screen, then the water closed over them, and the periscope was blind. Towers knew that triangle; it was the black bows of a destroyer tearing down to ram.
The water hissed and chattered round them for a second as they dropped, then something jerked them over as it swept screaming by. A moment later and they bumped into mud which held them for a good half-minute; then they swung clear on the bottom, hidden but safe.
As the engines were shut off Towers received his report. “All sound, everywhere!” They came to the conclusion that some deck gear had carried away. (Later they found it was the wireless.)
“Lucky you ordered us to dive, sir,” said Calthrop, as they lay at ease with thankful hearts upon the mud.
“Yes,” said Towers absently, and a moment later went up into the conning-tower. The depth indicator showing his last order stood at sea level. He went back into his state-room. Frillish lay there curled up and sleeping on the chair!
Now when Towers came back to Nidport he sought out a man who knew Dixon and talked about him.
“Was he much of a chap with his tongue?” asked Towers.
“Well,” was the answer, “he could curse as well as most masters on the West African route. You have some choice stuff to handle at times there. But Billy Dixon had a strange way of knocking up quaint names that startled his men much more than plain sailor’s English.”
“As how?” asked Towers.
“Well, he might call ’em lumps of fish-glue, or cross-eyed barnacles,” was the answer. “That last was a favorite of his.”
That is why Captain Dixon’s grave in Nidport cemetery came, six months after his burial there, to be strangely adorned with a glorious wreath—
“In grateful memory, from his shipmates of the U.C. 07.”
Shipmates? Well, who knows?