Danger! and Other Stories - Arthur Conan Doyle (best novels for teenagers TXT) 📗

show.  I read the English paper to Stephan by the light of my electric torch, and we both agreed that few ships would now come up the Channel.  That sentence about diverting commerce to safer routes could only mean that the ships would go round the North of Ireland and unload at Glasgow.  Oh, for two more ships to stop that entrance!  Heavens, what would England have done against a foe with thirty or forty submarines, since we only needed six instead of four to complete her destruction!  After much talk we decided that the best plan would be that I should dispatch a cipher telegram next morning from a French port to tell them to send the four second-rate boats to cruise off the North of Ireland and West of Scotland.  Then when I had done this I should move down Channel with Stephan and operate at the mouth, while the other two boats could work in the Irish Sea.  Having made these plans, I set off across the Channel in the early morning, reaching the small village of Etretat, in Brittany.  There I got off my telegram and then laid my course for Falmouth, passing under the keels of two British cruisers which were making eagerly for Etretat, having heard by wireless that we were there.

Half-way down Channel we had trouble with a short circuit in our electric engines, and were compelled to run on the surface for several hours while we replaced one of the cam-shafts and renewed some washers.  It was a ticklish time, for had a torpedo-boat come upon us we could not have dived.  The perfect submarine of the future will surely have some alternative engines for such an emergency.  However by the skill of Engineer Morro, we got things going once more.  All the time we lay there I saw a hydroplane floating between us and the British coast.  I can understand how a mouse feels when it is in a tuft of grass and sees a hawk high up in the heavens.  However, all went well; the mouse became a water-rat, it wagged its tail in derision at the poor blind old hawk, and it dived down into a nice safe green, quiet world where there was nothing to injure it.

It was on the Wednesday night that the Iota crossed to Etretat.  It was Friday afternoon before we had reached our new cruising ground.  Only one large steamer did I see upon our way.  The terror we had caused had cleared the Channel.  This big boat had a clever captain on board.  His tactics were excellent and took him in safety to the Thames.  He came zigzagging up Channel at twenty-five knots, shooting off from his course at all sorts of unexpected angles.  With our slow pace we could not catch him, nor could we calculate his line so as to cut him off.  Of course, he had never seen us, but he judged, and judged rightly, that wherever we were those were the tactics by which he had the best chance of getting past.  He deserved his success.

But, of course, it is only in a wide Channel that such things can be done.  Had I met him in the mouth of the Thames there would have been a different story to tell.  As I approached Falmouth I destroyed a three-thousand-ton boat from Cork, laden with butter and cheese.  It was my only success for three days.

That night (Friday, April 16th) I called up Stephan, but received no reply.  As I was within a few miles of our rendezvous, and as he would not be cruising after dark, I was puzzled to account for his silence.  I could only imagine that his wireless was deranged.  But, alas!

I was soon to find the true reason from a copy of the Western Morning News, which I obtained from a Brixham trawler.  The Kappa, with her gallant commander and crew, were at the bottom of the English Channel.

It appeared from this account that after I had parted from him he had met and sunk no fewer than five vessels.  I gathered these to be his work, since all of them were by gun-fire, and all were on the south coast of Dorset or Devon.  How he met his fate was stated in a short telegram which was headed “Sinking of a Hostile Submarine.”  It was marked “Falmouth,” and ran thus:—

The P. and O. mail steamer Macedonia came into this port last night with five shell holes between wind and water.  She reports having been attacked by a hostile submarine ten miles to the south-east of the Lizard.  Instead of using her torpedoes, the submarine for some reason approached from the surface and fired five shots from a semi-automatic twelve-pounder gun.  She was evidently under the impression that the Macedonia was unarmed.  As a matter of fact, being warned of the presence of submarines in the Channel, the Macedonia had mounted her armament as an auxiliary cruiser.  She opened fire with two quick-firers and blew away the conning-tower of the submarine.  It is probable that the shells went right through her, as she sank at once with her hatches open.  The Macedonia was only kept afloat by her pumps.

Such was the end of the Kappa, and my gallant friend, Commander Stephan.  His best epitaph was in a corner of the same paper, and was headed “Mark Lane.”  It ran:—

“Wheat (average) 66, maize 48, barley 50.”

Well, if Stephan was gone there was the more need for me to show energy.  My plans were quickly taken, but they were comprehensive.  All that day (Saturday) I passed down the Cornish coast and round Land’s End, getting two steamers on the way.  I had learned from Stephan’s fate that it was better to torpedo the large craft, but I was aware that the auxiliary cruisers of the British Government were all over ten thousand tons, so that for all ships under that size it was safe to use my gun.  Both these craft, the Yelland and the Playboy—the latter an American ship—were perfectly harmless, so I came up within a hundred yards of them and speedily sank them, after allowing their people to get into boats.  Some other steamers lay farther out, but I was so eager to make my new arrangements that I did not go out of my course to molest them.  Just before sunset, however, so magnificent a prey came within my radius of action that I could not possibly refuse her.  No sailor could fail to recognize that glorious monarch of the sea, with her four cream funnels tipped with black, her huge black sides, her red bilges, and her high white top-hamper, roaring up Channel at twenty-three knots, and carrying her forty-five thousand tons as lightly as if she were a five-ton motor-boat.  It was the queenly Olympic, of the White Star—once the largest and still the comeliest of liners.  What a picture she made, with the blue Cornish sea creaming round her giant fore-foot, and the pink western sky with one evening star forming the background to her noble lines.

She was about five miles off when we dived to cut her off.  My calculation was exact.  As we came abreast we loosed our torpedo and struck her fair.  We swirled round with the concussion of the water.  I saw her in my periscope list over on her side, and I knew that she had her death-blow.  She settled down slowly, and there was plenty of time to save her people.  The sea was dotted with her boats.  When I got about three miles off I rose to the surface, and the whole crew clustered up to see the wonderful sight.  She dived bows foremost, and there was a terrific explosion, which sent one of the funnels into the air.  I suppose we should have cheered—somehow, none of us felt like cheering.  We were all keen sailors, and it went to our hearts to see such a ship go down like a broken eggshell.  I gave a gruff order, and all were at their posts again while we headed north-west.  Once round the Land’s End I called up my two consorts, and we met next day at Hartland Point, the south end of Bideford Bay.  For the moment the Channel was clear, but the English could not know it, and I reckoned that the loss of the Olympic would stop all ships for a day or two at least.

Having assembled the Delta and Epsilon, one on each side of me, I received the report from Miriam and Var, the respective commanders.  Each had expended twelve torpedoes, and between them they had sunk twenty-two steamers.  One man had been killed by the machinery on board of the Delta, and two had been burned by the ignition of some oil on the Epsilon.  I took these injured men on board, and I gave each of the boats one of my crew.  I also divided my spare oil, my provisions, and my torpedoes among them, though we had the greatest possible difficulty in those crank vessels in transferring them from one to the other.  However, by ten o’clock it was done, and the two vessels were in condition to keep the sea for another ten days.  For my part, with only two torpedoes left, I headed north up the Irish Sea.  One of my torpedoes I expended that evening upon a cattle-ship making for Milford Haven.  Late at night, being abreast of Holyhead, I called upon my four northern boats, but without reply.  Their Marconi range is very limited.  About three in the afternoon of the next day I had a feeble answer.  It was a great relief to me to find that my telegraphic instructions had reached them and that they were on their station.  Before evening we all assembled in the lee of Sanda Island, in the Mull of Kintyre.  I felt an admiral indeed when I saw my five whale-backs all in a row.  Panza’s report was excellent.  They had come round by the Pentland Firth and reached their cruising ground on the fourth day.  Already they had destroyed twenty vessels without any mishap.  I ordered the Beta to divide her oil and torpedoes among the other three, so that they were in good condition to continue their cruise.  Then the Beta and I headed for home, reaching our base upon Sunday, April 25th.  Off Cape Wrath I picked up a paper from a small schooner.

“Wheat, 84; Maize, 60; Barley, 62.”  What were battles and bombardments compared to that!

The whole coast of Norland was closely blockaded by cordon within cordon, and every port, even the smallest, held by the British.  But why should they suspect my modest confectioner’s villa more than any other of the ten thousand houses that face the sea?  I was glad when I picked up its homely white front in my periscope.  That night I landed and found my stores intact.  Before morning the Beta reported itself, for we had the windows lit as a guide.

It is not for me to recount the messages which I found waiting for me at my humble headquarters.  They shall ever remain as the patents of nobility of my family.  Among others was that never-to-be-forgotten salutation from my King.  He desired me to present myself at Hauptville, but for once I took it upon myself to disobey his commands.  It took me two days—or rather two nights, for we sank ourselves during the daylight hours—to get all our stores on board, but my presence was needful every minute of the time.  On the third morning, at four o’clock, the Beta and my