She must be signalling." A
thrill goes through the battleship. In a minute the big steel fighter
may be lying on her side, stricken; or there may be the opportunity for
a fair fight.
The captain sends an officer below to the detector and changes the
course of the ship. Every one awaits developments, tensely.
The wireless operator enters the chart-house.
"I can't get your message to the ---- (another battleship), sir. I can't
raise her. Been trying for ten minutes."
The officer who has been below at the detector comes up and hears the
plight of the wireless man. He smiles.
"In exactly five minutes," he says, "you signal again." The radio man
goes to his room and the officer descends to the detector. In precisely
five minutes he hears the signal which had bothered the man on detector
watch. He hurries to the bridge with the solution of the incident. The
wireless had become disconnected and its signals had come in contact
with the detector. So there was no submarine. Everything serene. The
battleship settles down to her night routine.
The dark wears into dawn, and the early morning, with the dusk, is the
favorite hunting-time of the submarine, for the reason that then a
periscope, while seeing clearly, is not itself easily to be discerned.
The lookouts, straining their eyes out over the steely surge, pick up
what appears to be a spar. But no. The water is rushing on either side
of it like a mill race. A periscope.
There is a hurry of feet on the bridge.
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