All vessels1 were forbidden to clear from the port and enter the North Sea after nightfall, and on the sanded floor of the tap-room, in a sailors’ house of rest, our boys were impatiently scraping their feet, awaiting sunrise. In their anxiety to get away without submitting to intimate inspection3, they had no desire for napping.
With their belts, these boys represented a money valuation of more than a million francs.
Since arrival in Flushing, the day before, Hans had been an active mover at the mouth of the Scheldt, and for shipping4 news an eager seeker.
At this particular date, the rumor5 among men[147] of the nautical6 trade was that, in the rough sea, anchored mines were often going loose, and a bobbing mine is not apt to have any discretion7 as to the keel with which it collides.
“I’ve heard dozens of mines explode in a single day,” said one captain to Hans. The latter had heard a few himself.
In addition to mines, the sea was crowded with torpedo8 boat destroyers, submarines of all sorts and descriptions, and with cruisers the waters fairly reeked9. There, too, were the steam trawlers, either engaged in laying or “sweeping” for mines. These “sweepers” run in pairs. Between each pair a steel net is suspended. The theory is that mines, whether floating or anchored, will be caught by that net. Then one of the destroyers, which are constantly darting10 about, is signaled, and destroys the mine by a single shot.
Overhead, Zeppelins and other aircraft continually circled, dropping bombs where they would do the most harm to those whom the airmen desired to harm the most, and sometimes harm was done without intent.
Once out of the Scheldt, and trouble was likely to begin any minute, particularly for any craft considered unfriendly by the British fleet.
A narrow lane had been slashed—as a woodsman would say—through the sea. Outside of it there was danger everywhere.
[148]
Such was the situation when Hans introduced Captain Eberhardt to the restless four in the house of rest.
The captain was a man of few words, and had a firecracker way of delivering them.
He said he owned a “scow with a funnel11 in it,” and he was one of the pilots who were trusted to take boats through. The shoals in the shallow and muddy water of the North Sea had been well marked in times of peace, but now only here and there to be seen by the men at the wheel, for guides, were big red “war buoys12.”
Henri had taken from the belts sufficient gold for even extraordinary passage money for himself and comrades, and jingled13 the coins on the deal table at which the party were sitting.
“We want to get out of here at daybreak, if you can swing it, captain,” he said.
The captain looked at the coins and then at his watch, a massive silver timepiece, hitched14 to his broad vest-front by twisted links of steel.
“Bring ’em down”—the captain addressing Hans in Dutch.
Hans nodded assent15, and kept the captain company to the door, where they apparently16 completed arrangements.
When the cuckoo in the clock, shelved above the fancy tiled fireplace, warbled the hour of 4 a. m.,[149] Hans shook the sleepy attendant into a waking moment, and hustled17 him after cakes and coffee.
At 5 o’clock Hans and the boys dropped again into the boat in which they had floated down from Santvlieto.
Captain Eberhardt’s vessel2 was in anchor in the sloppy18 waters off Flushing, and the captain was aboard when Hans and the boys climbed to the deck.
The captain had also, just previously19, been visited by members of the coast guard service, but as he was well known, and not a character under suspicion, this visit was wholly informal.
At 7 o’clock the vessel weighed anchor, and steamed out to sea.
With Flushing far behind them, the boys began to notice an occasional appearance above the waves of a slim gray periscope20, a long tube fitted with a series of prisms, which enable the men guiding the submarines to obtain a view of the surrounding water.
When several of these under water boats showed at once, half submerged, and men could be seen huddled21 together in the barrels of bridges, Jimmy’s delight knew no bounds.
“What do you think of them, now, you flying catapults?” he called to the boys.
[150]
“You’d like it when you got used to it,” advised Jimmy.
“What’s up now?”
Henri’s startled question referred to a dull sound, that came from a point quartering to their course, and a fountain of water spurting23 into the air.
“You’re right, and a corker, too,” admitted Jimmy.
The captain had evidently sighted something else from his position on the bridge, for his firecracker voice shouted the order:
“Run up those flags!”
Three miles away a fleet of a half dozen destroyers were tearing toward the little steamer, with black bands of smoke striking down from each raking funnel.
The captain on the bridge had seen an impatient signal snapping from the flagship of the fleet.
The curiosity of the fleet was soon satisfied, but the captain complained that they ought to have known that he and his ship were no strangers in these parts.
He little reckoned, then, that the good old hulk was to get its wrecking25 blow that night from the inside and not the outside.
The boys, when the bell strokes were counting 10 o’clock, were still in the vessel’s bow, where[151] they had been since the early evening, talking of the many dangers that lurked27 in the misty28 nooks of these turbulent waters.
“I guess I’ll turn in,” yawned Billy. “This craft is an awful drag; it’s been acting29 like a street car on an avenue with two hundred crossings. Come on, fellows.”
The words were hardly spoken, when the deck beneath them gave a sickening heave, with a deafening30 roar in its wake.
The time-worn boilers31 in the engine room had rebelled at last, and, bursting, they split the seasoned fabric32 that immediately confined them into countless33 pieces.
By the upheaval34 the boys were violently thrown over the deck railing and into the churning water below.
Breathless and half-stunned, they instinctively35 struck out in swimming stroke, and from them the wreck26 drifted away into the darkness.
Weighted down by the heavy belts, in addition to their clothing, the swimmers were soon exhausted36.
The end was near!
They swam close together, anticipating it.
One more despairing reach for life—and life was there!
The swimmers’ outstretched arms rested on the bridge of a submarine!
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1
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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rumor
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| n.谣言，谣传，传说 | |
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nautical
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| adj.海上的，航海的，船员的 | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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torpedo
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| n.水雷，地雷；v.用鱼雷破坏 | |
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reeked
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的过去式和过去分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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darting
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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funnel
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| n.漏斗；烟囱；v.汇集 | |
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buoys
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| n.浮标( buoy的名词复数 )；航标；救生圈；救生衣v.使浮起( buoy的第三人称单数 )；支持；为…设浮标；振奋…的精神 | |
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jingled
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| 喝醉的 | |
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hitched
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| （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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hustled
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| 催促（hustle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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sloppy
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| adj.邋遢的，不整洁的 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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periscope
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| n. 潜望镜 | |
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huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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spurting
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| （液体，火焰等）喷出，（使）涌出( spurt的现在分词 )； （短暂地）加速前进，冲刺； 溅射 | |
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surmised
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| v.臆测，推断( surmise的过去式和过去分词 )；揣测；猜想 | |
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wrecking
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| 破坏 | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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30
deafening
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| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
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31
boilers
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| 锅炉，烧水器，水壶( boiler的名词复数 ) | |
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32
fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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34
upheaval
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| n.胀起，(地壳)的隆起；剧变，动乱 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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