Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (938 page)

Just before daybreak I saw the lights of a considerable town, which must have been Yarmouth, bearing about ten miles west-south-west on our starboard bow.  I took her farther out, for it is a sandy, dangerous coast, with many shoals.  At five-thirty we were abreast of the Lowestoft lightship.  A coastguard was sending up flash
signals which faded into a pale twinkle as the white dawn crept over the water.  There was a good deal of shipping about, mostly fishing-boats and small coasting craft, with one large steamer hull-down to the west, and a torpedo destroyer between us and the land.  It could not harm us, and yet I thought it as well that there should be no word of our presence, so I filled my tanks again and went down to ten feet.  I was pleased to find that we got under in one hundred and fifty seconds.  The life of one’s boat may depend on this when a swift craft comes suddenly upon you.

We were now within a few hours of our cruising ground, so I determined to snatch a rest, leaving Vornal in charge.  When he woke me at ten o’clock we were running on the surface, and had reached the Essex coast off the Maplin Sands.  With that charming frankness which is one of their characteristics, our friends of England had informed us by their Press that they had put a cordon of torpedo-boats across the Straits of Dover to prevent the passage of submarines, which is about as sensible as to lay a wooden plank across a stream to keep the eels from passing.  I knew that Stephan, whose station lay at the western end of the Solent, would have no difficulty in reaching it.  My own cruising ground was to be at the mouth of the Thames, and here I was at the very spot with my tiny
Iota
, my eighteen torpedoes, my quick-firing gun, and, above all, a brain that knew what should be done and how to do it.

When I resumed my place in the conning-tower I saw in the periscope (for we had dived) that a lightship was within a few hundred yards of us upon the port bow.  Two men were sitting on her bulwarks, but neither of them cast an eye upon the little rod that clove the water so close to them.  It was an ideal day for submarine action, with enough ripple upon the surface to make us difficult to detect, and yet smooth enough to give me a clear view.  Each of my three periscopes had an angle of sixty degrees so that between them I commanded a complete semi-circle of the horizon.  Two British cruisers were steaming north from the Thames within half a mile of me.  I could easily have cut them off and attacked them had I allowed myself to be diverted from my great plan.  Farther south a destroyer was passing westwards to Sheerness.  A dozen small steamers were moving about.  None of these were worthy of my notice.  Great countries are not provisioned by small steamers.  I kept the engines running at the lowest pace which would hold our position under water, and, moving slowly across the estuary, I waited for what must assuredly come.

I had not long to wait.  Shortly after one o’clock I perceived in the periscope a cloud of
smoke to the south.  Half an hour later a large steamer raised her hull, making for the mouth of the Thames.  I ordered Vornal to stand by the starboard torpedo-tube, having the other also loaded in case of a miss.  Then I advanced slowly, for though the steamer was going very swiftly we could easily cut her off.  Presently I laid the
Iota
in a position near which she must pass, and would very gladly have lain to, but could not for fear of rising to the surface.  I therefore steered out in the direction from which she was coming.  She was a very large ship, fifteen thousand tons at the least, painted black above and red below, with two cream-coloured funnels.  She lay so low in the water that it was clear she had a full cargo.  At her bows were a cluster of men, some of them looking, I dare say, for the first time at the mother country.  How little could they have guessed the welcome that was awaiting them!

On she came with the great plumes of smoke floating from her funnels, and two white waves foaming from her cut-water.  She was within a quarter of a mile.  My moment had arrived.  I signalled full speed ahead and steered straight for her course.  My timing was exact.  At a hundred yards I gave the signal, and heard the clank and swish of the discharge.  At the same instant I put the helm hard down and flew off at an angle.  There was a terrific lurch, which
came from the distant explosion.  For a moment we were almost upon our side.  Then, after staggering and trembling, the
Iota
came on an even keel.  I stopped the engines, brought her to the surface, and opened the conning-tower, while all my excited crew came crowding to the hatch to know what had happened.

The ship lay within two hundred yards of us, and it was easy to see that she had her death-blow.  She was already settling down by the stern.  There was a sound of shouting and people were running wildly about her decks.  Her name was visible, the
Adela
, of London, bound, as we afterwards learned, from New Zealand with frozen mutton.  Strange as it may seem to you, the notion of a submarine had never even now occurred to her people, and all were convinced that they had struck a floating mine.  The starboard quarter had been blown in by the explosion, and the ship was sinking rapidly.  Their discipline was admirable.  We saw boat after boat slip down crowded with people as swiftly and quietly as if it were part of their daily drill.  And suddenly, as one of the boats lay off waiting for the others, they caught a glimpse for the first time of my conning-tower so close to them.  I saw them shouting and pointing, while the men in the other boats got up to have a better look at us.  For my part, I cared nothing, for I took it for granted that they already knew that a
submarine had destroyed them.  One of them clambered back into the sinking ship.  I was sure that he was about to send a wireless message as to our presence.  It mattered nothing, since, in any case, it must be known; otherwise I could easily have brought him down with a rifle.  As it was, I waved my hand to them, and they waved back to me.  War is too big a thing to leave room for personal ill-feeling, but it must be remorseless all the same.

I was still looking at the sinking
Adela
when Vornal, who was beside me, gave a sudden cry of warning and surprise, gripping me by the shoulder and turning my head.  There behind us, coming up the fairway, was a huge black vessel with black funnels, flying the well-known house-flag of the P. and O. Company.  She was not a mile distant, and I calculated in an instant that even if she had seen us she would not have time to turn and get away before we could reach her.  We went straight for her, therefore, keeping awash just as we were.  They saw the sinking vessel in front of them and that little dark speck moving over the surface, and they suddenly understood their danger.  I saw a number of men rush to the bows, and there was a rattle of rifle-fire.  Two bullets were flattened upon our four-inch armour.  You might as well try to stop a charging bull with paper pellets as the
Iota
with rifle-fire.  I had learned my lesson
from the
Adela
, and this time I had the torpedo discharged at a safer distance — two hundred and fifty yards.  We caught her amidships and the explosion was tremendous, but we were well outside its area.  She sank almost instantaneously.  I am sorry for her people, of whom I hear that more than two hundred, including seventy Lascars and forty passengers, were drowned.  Yes, I am sorry for them.  But when I think of the huge floating granary that went to the bottom, I rejoice as a man does who has carried out that which he plans.

It was a bad afternoon that for the P. and O. Company.  The second ship which we destroyed was, as we have since learned, the
Moldavia
, of fifteen thousand tons, one of their finest vessels; but about half-past three we blew up the
Cusco
, of eight thousand, of the same line, also from Eastern ports, and laden with corn.  Why she came on in face of the wireless messages which must have warned her of danger, I cannot imagine.  The other two steamers which we blew up that day, the
Maid of Athens
(Robson Line) and the
Cormorant
, were neither of them provided with apparatus, and came blindly to their destruction.  Both were small boats of from five thousand to seven thousand tons.  In the case of the second, I had to rise to the surface and fire six twelve-pound shells under her water-line before she would sink.  In each case the crew
took to the boats, and so far as I know no casualties occurred.

After that no more steamers came along, nor did I expect them.  Warnings must by this time have been flying in all directions.  But we had no reason to be dissatisfied with our first day.  Between the Maplin Sands and the Nore we had sunk five ships of a total tonnage of about fifty thousand tons.  Already the London markets would begin to feel the pinch.  And Lloyd’s — poor old Lloyd’s — what a demented state it would be in!  I could imagine the London evening papers and the howling in Fleet Street.  We saw the result of our actions, for it was quite laughable to see the torpedo-boats buzzing like angry wasps out of Sheerness in the evening.  They were darting in every direction across the estuary, and the aeroplanes and hydroplanes were like flights of crows, black dots against the red western sky.  They quartered the whole river mouth, until they discovered us at last.  Some sharp-sighted fellow with a telescope on board of a destroyer got a sight of our periscope, and came for us full speed.  No doubt he would very gladly have rammed us, even if it had meant his own destruction, but that was not part of our programme at all.  I sank her and ran her east-south-east with an occasional rise.  Finally we brought her to, not very far from the Kentish coast, and the search-lights of our pursuers were
far on the western skyline.  There we lay quietly all night, for a submarine at night is nothing more than a very third-rate surface torpedo-boat.  Besides, we were all weary and needed rest.  Do not forget, you captains of men, when you grease and trim your pumps and compressors and rotators, that the human machine needs some tending also.

I had put up the wireless mast above the conning-tower, and had no difficulty in calling up Captain Stephan.  He was lying, he said, off Ventnor and had been unable to reach his station, on account of engine trouble, which he had now set right.  Next morning he proposed to block the Southampton approach.  He had destroyed one large Indian boat on his way down Channel.  We exchanged good wishes.  Like myself, he needed rest.  I was up at four in the morning, however, and called all hands to overhaul the boat.  She was somewhat up by the head, owing to the forward torpedoes having been used, so we trimmed her by opening the forward compensating tank, admitting as much water as the torpedoes had weighed.  We also overhauled the starboard air-compressor and one of the periscope motors which had been jarred by the shock of the first explosion.  We had hardly got ourselves shipshape when the morning dawned.

I have no doubt that a good many ships which had taken refuge in the French ports at the first
alarm had run across and got safely up the river in the night.  Of course I could have attacked them, but I do not care to take risks — and there are always risks for a submarine at night.  But one had miscalculated his time, and there she was, just abreast of Warden Point, when the daylight disclosed her to us.  In an instant we were after her.  It was a near thing, for she was a flier, and could do two miles to our one; but we just reached her as she went swashing by.  She saw us at the last moment, for I attacked her awash, since otherwise we could not have had the pace to reach her.  She swung away and the first torpedo missed, but the second took her full under the counter.  Heavens, what a smash!  The whole stern seemed to go aloft.  I drew off and watched her sink.  She went down in seven minutes, leaving her masts and funnels over the water and a cluster of her people holding on to them.  She was the
Virginia
, of the Bibby Line — twelve thousand tons — and laden, like the others, with foodstuffs from the East.  The whole surface of the sea was covered with the floating grain.  “John Bull will have to take up a hole or two of his belt if this goes on,” said Vornal, as we watched the scene.

And it was at that moment that the very worst danger occurred that could befall us.  I tremble now when I think how our glorious voyage might have been nipped in the bud.  I had freed
the hatch of my tower, and was looking at the boats of the
Virginia
with Vornal near me, when there was a swish and a terrific splash in the water beside us, which covered us both with spray.  We looked up, and you can imagine our feelings when we saw an aeroplane hovering a few hundred feet above us like a hawk.  With its silencer, it was perfectly noiseless, and had its bomb not fallen into the sea we should never have known what had destroyed us.  She was circling round in the hope of dropping a second one, but we shoved on all speed ahead, crammed down the rudders, and vanished into the side of a roller.  I kept the deflection indicator falling until I had put fifty good feet of water between the aeroplane and ourselves, for I knew well how deeply they can see under the surface.  However, we soon threw her off our track, and when we came to the surface near Margate there was no sign of her, unless she was one of several which we saw hovering over Herne Bay.

There was not a ship in the offing save a few small coasters and little thousand-ton steamers, which were beneath my notice.  For several hours I lay submerged with a blank periscope.  Then I had an inspiration.  Orders had been marconied to every foodship to lie in French waters and dash across after dark.  I was as sure of it as if they had been recorded in our own receiver.  Well, if they were there, that was
where I should be also.  I blew out the tanks and rose, for there was no sign of any warship near.  They had some good system of signalling from the shore, however, for I had not got to the North Foreland before three destroyers came foaming after me, all converging from different directions.  They had about as good a chance of catching me as three spaniels would have of overtaking a porpoise.  Out of pure bravado — I know it was very wrong — I waited until they were actually within gunshot.  Then I sank and we saw each other no more.