CHAPTER IX
At Zeebrugge
It would be no exaggeration to state that Alec Seton "had the wind upbadly" when the U-boat dived suddenly. He knew what it meant rightenough; only on this occasion the positions were reversed. Instead ofbeing the hunter he was the hunted, and, what was worse--worse from astrictly personal point--he was being strafed by some of his ownfriends, men who, from long practice, had been uncannily adept insending German submarines on their last, long voyage.
Had he been on board a British submarine, and had been chased by apack of Hun torpedo-craft, he would have borne the situation withcomparative calm, knowing that it was part of the game, and that bothsides could hit unpleasantly hard. But, a captive in an enemy craft,unable to lift a finger to help himself, Seton had good cause forbeing in a mild state of funk.
It seemed to him that the U-boat was diving almost horizontally, forhe slid heavily against the for'ard bulkhead. Then, with adisconcerting roll, the boat regained an even keel. Men wereshouting, hand-wheels and levers were being manipulated withundisciplined haste. There was no doubt about it: Fritz was having asticky time, and taking his medicine badly.
Then came the muffled detonation of M.-L. 4452's depth charge. TheU-boat, caught by the underwater undulations, rolled and pitchedalarmingly. Gear was carried away, and clattered noisily across thesteel platforms, the electric lights went out, water began to hissin--fine but high-pressured jets through the buckled plates andstarted rivet-holes. In the darkness there was no telling whether theU-boat was plunging to the bed of the North Sea.
A sudden impulse prompted Seton to thrust his shoulder against thesteel door. In calmer moments he might have reflected upon theneedlessness of it. If he had to drown, he might just as well remainin solitude as spend his last moments in the company of a crew ofpanic-stricken Huns.
The door resisted the impact, but unaccountably the lock gave.Stumbling over the raised threshold, the Sub found himself brought upagainst a number of complicated valve wheels and tubes. There he hungon and waited.
Already some of the crew had produced electric torches. The pumpswere set to work to keep the slight but none the less dangerousinflux of water under control. Von Kloster, his eyes fixed upon thedepth gauge, was bellowing out orders, while the unter-leutnant wasfeverishly attending to the wheel operating the horizontal rudders.Right aft, the sweating engineers were trying to coax theelectrically-driven engines into action.
By degrees the Huns, realizing that they were not immediately goingon a visit to Davy Jones, began to calm down. A petty officer, makinghis way aft, flashed his torch upon Alec. The latter, still clad inthe dinghy canvas suit, was easily mistaken for one of the crew, forthe petty officer, pointing for'ard, gave a curt order.
Seton had not the faintest notion of what the Hun said, but thegesture was unmistakable. Entering into the fun of the affair, theSub, squeezing through a small oval-shaped aperture in one of thetransverse bulkheads, found himself in the bow torpedo-room.
At that moment, the artificers having renewed the blown-outfuse-wires, the electric lamps were lighted. Alec was alone in thecompartment. In front of him were the twin torpedo-tubes, whichdiffered from the British ones in one important detail. Instead ofthe breech piece being secured by six butterfly nuts, the Germanmethod was to employ an intercepted thread cam-action, similar tothe breech-block mechanism of a quick-firing gun. Above the tubeswere six oiled steel torpedoes, each ready to be "launched home" intothe tubes.
"By Jove! What an opportunity!" thought Alec, giving a cursory glanceto reassure himself that he was alone. "A gorgeous chance to do thedirty on Fritz!"
Picking up a heavy adjustable spanner, Seton set to work quickly anddeftly. To each of the rudders of the torpedoes he gave a slight andalmost imperceptible twist. In the excitement of launching home andfiring the deadly missiles, the Hun torpedo men would almost to acertainty overlook the slight but important bend in the delicatelyadjusted metal fins.
"Good enough!" declared Alec. He felt like a schoolboy engaged inragging an unpopular fellow's study. It was time to make himselfscarce before his presence was detected.
His luck was in. Without encountering anyone he regained his cell andclosed the door.
"Now Fritz can use his tin-fish as often as he likes," he thoughtgleefully. "He's welcome to puzzle his brains to find out why theblessed things won't run true, for it's a dead cert. they won't."
It was a matter of three or four hours before the U-boat again roseto the surface. Her batteries were running low. If again obliged tosubmerge before regaining her base she would be compelled to resthelplessly on the bottom of the sea, since her underwater propulsionpowers were almost nil.
When the sailor reappeared with Alec's unappetizing meal--blackbread, acorn coffee, and sausage of doubtful origin--the Germanlooked suspiciously at the door.
"You haf with the lock played tricks," he declared.
"Must have been the concussion," said Alec. "It was a nasty shock,wasn't it?"
The fellow scowled with sullen anger.
"Schweinhund Englander," he muttered. "I go tell der kapitan."
He put the food upon the floor and went to the door. Then, halfturning, he inquired:
"Vot you give me, if I not tell der kapitan?"
Seton laughed outright. His sense of humour was tickled.
"Carry on, Fritz!" he replied. "It's your German temperament, Isuppose. 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 almostpleadingly.
"'Fraid you can't understand, Fritz," rejoined Seton. "You'll getnothing more out of me, so hook it!"
The man went out still puzzling over the idiomatic expression thatAlec had purposely employed. Yet he did not report the incident ofthe tampered lock to the kapitan. A little later an artificer cameand secured the door, and once more Seton was a close prisoner.
With her pumps going continuously to keep under the steady inflow ofwater--for, in spite of "stoppers" and patches applied to the gapingplates, she leaked badly--the U-boat passed between the ends of themoles and entered Zeebrugge Harbour. Owing to injuries she hadsustained, it was considered desirable to pass through the lock gatesand take her up the Bruges Canal for repairs. Although the localitywas not a healthy one, there was less risk of the U-boat beingsmashed by British guns or bombs than had she remained at Zeebrugge.Accordingly the returned pirate craft was temporarily berthedalongside the Mole in order to land certain members of her crew andalso 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 toconceal his joy at leaving the badly-strained U-boat, and he mentallyvowed that, if the matter were left to him, it would be a long timebefore he went on a voyage again. He would be quite content toexercise his valuable submarine knowledge ashore, and let the U-boatcommanders 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, forthey knew perfectly well that there was no respite for them. Owing tothe shortage of skilled submariners, they would be promptly draftedto other U-boats, and be sent to sea again on their ruthless andinglorious task of attempting to wipe out of existence the BritishMercantile Marine. Practically all the German submarine servicesuffered in the same way. Constantly employed, exposed to perils seenand unseen, ill-fed on very inferior food the men were already on thehigh-road to mutiny.
Guarded by a couple of armed men, Sub-lieutenant Alec Seton was takenashore. Still clad in the loaned canvas suit and carrying hissaturated uniform in a bundle under his arm, Seton set foot for thefirst time upon the now historic Zeebrugge Mole.
He made good use of his eyes during his progress. It was part of histraining to do so. He had seen aerial photographs of the place, butthese, useful though they were, conveyed but a slight idea of theformidable n
ature of the German defences.
The stone wall, rising full thirty feet above low water-mark, was ofmassive construction. It had been additionally protected by concreteworks and thousands of sand-bags. There were emplacements for heavyguns by the dozen, and for quick-firers by the hundred, whilemachine-guns bristled everywhere. There were plenty of evidences ofthe activity of the British guns and aeroplanes, for the wall hadbeen repaired in fifty different places. Some of the havoc played bybombs was of recent origin, men, both Belgian and German, beingemployed to make good the damage. Almost abreast of the berth wherethe returned U-boat was lying was a hole twenty feet in diameter, andperhaps a dozen feet deep, while the wall on the seaward side wasbulging ominously under the strain.
At intervals, beneath the level of the outside parapet, severalblock-houses had been built on the Mole, machine-guns commanding theroadway on the breakwater. Evidently the Huns expected a landing, andwith true Teutonic thoroughness were taking precautions accordingly.
Within the harbour were swarms of small craft of alltypes--ocean-going torpedo-boats, patrol-boats, submarines, lighters,suction-dredgers, captured merchantmen, and paddle-wheelers. All,more or less, showed signs of being badly mauled, for, almost daily,British sea-planes swarmed overhead and let the Huns know that theymeant to make things hot for the pirates' nest.
At the present moment the guns were silent. Nevertheless, it was easyto see that Fritz was on thorns. Above the town floated fourobservation balloons; a Black Cross aeroplane flew discreetly alongthe sea-front, ready to hark back to its hangar on the first sign ofthe dreaded British sea-planes. From an elevated wooden tower on theextremity of the Mole, signalmen, brought specially from Kiel, sweptthe horizon with their telescopes. Anti-aircraft gunners werecontinually standing by, while in bomb-proof shelters artillerymenawaited telephonic orders to man their guns, should a 17-inch salvofrom the monitors beyond the horizon announce that yet another strafewas beginning.
Against the base of the parapet were bundles of barbed wire, one endof which was securely fixed to stout ring-bolts in the granite wall.On the inner edge of the Mole were massive iron posts, each postbeing abreast a corresponding roll of wire. This was a part of theGerman defences, for at night the wire was stretched across the Moleroadway, forming twenty or more barriers, in which narrow gaps wereleft to enable men to move to and fro. These barbed-wire defenceswere augmented by live wires, the whole forming a truly formidableobstacle should any attempt be made to storm the Mole.
All this Seton was freely permitted to see. His captors intended thathe should do so, otherwise they would have bandaged his eyes. It waspart of von Brockdorff-Giespert's scheme. Confident in his beliefthat the prisoner would never leave Zeebrugge until the conclusion ofa victorious German peace, the Count spared no pains to humiliate andintimidate his captive.
Presently the guards halted at a distance of less than eighty yardsfrom the head of the Mole. Here was an abandoned big-gun emplacement.The seaward aperture had partly collapsed, leaving a gap of aboutfour feet in width and two in height. This had been prevented fromcompletely caving in by several thick steel bars fixed at four-inchintervals, the whole forming an impassable grille. The gun had beenremoved from the emplacement, leaving a space of twenty-five feet bytwelve, and eight feet between the stone floor and the steel-girderedand concrete reinforced roof. The door was of steel, and furnishedwith three slits for rifle-fire. Within was a plank-bed with a strawmattress, a wooden stool, a shelf holding tin plates and cups, and acouple of blankets. This was Alec Seton's cell.
"Evidently the old brigand is keeping his word," thought the Sub ashe was roughly bidden to enter and the door locked upon him. "He saidhe'd leave me to the attentions of our bombing 'planes and long-rangeguns. Ah, well! It's no use moaning about it. Make the best of a badjob, Alec, my boy, and keep a stiff upper lip. Many a man's been in atighter hole than this before to-day and has lived to tell the tale.Never say die till you're dead."
And, with a series of similar trite maxims running through his head,Seton prepared to shake down in his new abode as a guest of theImperial German Government.