CHAPTER II--The Recovered Cable
Instantly there was a wild scramble on the part of the three officers togain the deck, all other topics of interest vanishing before theall-important information.
A cable's length on the port beam the _Carse o' Gowrie_ was backinggently astern in order to close with her consort. The _Dimpled Lassie_was pitching sluggishly. Way had been taken off her, while over hersquat counter the wire hawser attached to the Lucas grapnel was"straight up and down" under the steady strain of some heavy and stillsubmerged object.
From the destroyer's bridge a signalman was semaphoring rapidly by meansof hand-flags. The _Dimpled Lassie_ replied. The man had just finisheddelivering the message to Lieutenant-Commander Crosthwaite when Seftonand the other officers gained the bridge.
"There's no doubt about it now," declared Crosthwaite breezily."They've just reported that the thing is two fathoms off the bottom.The _Carse o' Gowrie_ is going to help take the strain."
"Hope it won't carry away, sir," remarked Sefton.
"Never fear! Where the patent grapnel grips, it holds. What water havewe?"
A cast with the lead gave 19 fathoms, the tide having risen 7 feet. Thetidal current was setting south-east a half east, with a velocity of1-1/2 knots.
"Tide'll be slacking in half an hour," said the skipper. "The lessstrain we get the better. Signalman!"
"Sir?"
"Ask the _Dimpled Lassie_ to report the state of the dynometer."
Promptly came the reply that already the strain on the grapnel hawserwas 2-1/2 tons.
"And the breaking strain is four, sir," Sefton reminded his chief.
"We'll get it all right," reiterated Crosthwaite. "Never fear."
His optimism was justified when forty-five minutes later the grapnelsullenly bobbed above the surface, holding in its tightly-closed jawsthe bight of a large submarine electric cable.
"Let's hope we've hooked the right one," muttered theengineer-lieutenant.
"You atom of despondency!" exclaimed Stirling.
"I state a possibility, not a probability, Pills," rejoined Boxspanner."It's a three-to-one chance, you know."
Already a number of artificers, who had been temporarily detailed forduty on board each of the trawlers, were hard at work in connection withthe retrieved cable. What they were doing in connection must remain amatter of conjecture, but the fact was patent that the success orotherwise of unremitting toil depended upon the next few minutes.
Impatiently the young lieutenant-commander of the _Calder_ awaited afurther signal announcing the result of the investigations. When itcame it was highly satisfactory.
"Thanks be for small mercies!" ejaculated Crosthwaite fervently."Signal M'Kie and tell him to take due precautions in case a groundswell sets in from the east'ard."
The cable was one of three that in pre-war time connected the littleNorfolk fishing-village of Bacton with the German island of Borkum. Twomore ran from Borkum to Lowestoft, the whole system being partly Britishand partly German controlled.
Immediately upon the declaration of war the telegraph cables had beensevered, both in the neighbourhood of the British coast and in thevicinity of the German island fortress. To all intents and purposes itseemed as if the cables were nothing more than useless cores of copperencased in gutta-percha, rotting in the ooze on the bed of the NorthSea.
Yet in spite of the most stringent precautions on the part of theBritish Government to prevent a leakage of news, the disconcerting factremained that, thanks to an efficient and extensive espionage system,information, especially relating to the movements of the Grand Fleet,did reach Germany.
Various illicit means of communication were suspected by theauthorities, and drastic, though none the less highly necessary,regulations were put into force that had the effect of reducing theleakage to a minimum.
Simultaneously a campaign was opened against the use of wirelessinstallations. Undoubtedly wireless played its part in the spies' work,but its efficacy was doubtful. It could be "tapped"; its source ofagency could be located. However beneficial in times of peace, it was atwo-edged weapon in war.
For a long time the British Government failed to unravel the secret,until it was suggested that the submarine cables had been repaired. Andthis was precisely what had been done. The Huns had promptly repairedtheir end of one of the Bacton-Borkum lines, while a German trawler,disguised as a Dutch fishing-boat, had grappled the severed end justbeyond the British three-mile limit.
To the recovered end was fixed a light india-rubber-covered cable. Thiswould be sufficiently strong to outlast the duration of the war, thescarcity of gutta-percha and the enormous weight of the finished cablebeing prohibitive. It was paid out from the trawler with considerablerapidity, the end being buoyed and dropped overboard some miles from thespot where the original cable used to land. In the inky blackness of adark winter's night a boat manned by German agents disguised as Britishfishermen succeeded in recovering the light cable and taking it ashore.Here it was a brief and simple matter to carry the line to a cottage onthe edge of the low cliff, burying the land portion in the sand.
For nearly eighteen months the secret wireless station had been inactive operation. News culled from all the naval bases by trustworthyGerman agents was surreptitiously communicated to the operators in thelittle unsuspected Norfolk cottage and thence telegraphed to Borkum.
For the task of recovering the cable the utmost skill, caution, anddiscretion were necessary. The vessels detailed for the work were sentfrom a far-off Scottish port with orders to make no communication withthe shore; while to protect them from possible interference the _Calder_had been detached from the rest of the flotilla to stand by and directoperations.
The _Dimpled Lassie_ was indeed fortunate in finding the cable in acomparatively short space of time, and, what was more to the point, inlocating the right one of the three known to be in close proximity.Contrast this performance with that of the cruiser _Huascar_ in theChilean-Peruvian War. That vessel tried for two days in shallow water tosever the cable at Valparaiso. The officer in charge had himselfassisted to lay that particular cable, but picked up the onecommunicating with Iquique and severed that by mistake.
The only "fly in the ointment", as far as Lieutenant-CommanderCrosthwaite was concerned, was the anticipated fact that the _Calder_would have to dance attendance upon the trawlers for an indefiniteperiod. Once the mild excitement of grappling for the cable was over,the _Calder_ was in the position of those who "serve who only stand andwait". It was a necessary task to "stand by", but with vague rumours inthe air of naval activity on the part of the Huns, the officers and crewof the destroyer would infinitely have preferred to be in the thick ofit, rather than detained within a few miles of the Norfolk and Suffolkcoast.
When at length interest in the proceeding had somewhat abated,Sub-lieutenant Sefton went below to make up long arrears of sleep.
He had not turned in many minutes when Doctor Stirling gave him aresounding whack on the back.
"Wake up, you lazy bounder!" exclaimed the surgeon. "Didn't you hear'Action Stations'? We've got the whole German fleet coming for us."