distance of about fifty feet from her stern, the Portchester Castle's sharp bows cut completely through the doomed craft. The after part sank like a stone; the major portion rolling over until the top of the conning-tower dipped beneath the surface, floated for nearly thirty seconds, emitting air, oil, and petrol, and disappeared from view.

This much Tom Webb saw; then in front of his field of vision appeared the towering hull of the armed merchantman as she tore past. Caught between the vortex caused by the sunken U-boat and the sharp-crested wave from her destroyer's bow, the cutter was completely overset, and in the midst of a smother of foam the Sub found himself swimming for dear life.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VIII

"In the Ditch"

It was one of the rare occasions when Tom Webb could not carry out the Scout's maxim, "Keep smiling"—at least outwardly. On being slung out of the boat he had been temporarily winded by the edge of the gunwale buffeting his ribs. He had sunk to a considerable depth, and just before he regained the surface he had been compelled to swallow a mouthful—not of honest sea water, but of some vile liquid of which petrol and oil formed component parts. Fortunately the coating of oil on the surface was not thick, otherwise his chance of reappearing would have been very remote.

It

"Here you are, sir; clap hold of this," exclaimed a deep voice close to his ear, and a large grating was thrust into his grasp.

Rubbing the water from his eyes with his disengaged hand, Webb saw that his benefactor was the coxswain of the cutter. Half a dozen or more men were swimming about, some supporting their less-gifted comrades who were unable to swim.

Owing to the presence of oil the turmoil of broken water had already subsided. Ten yards away the cutter was floating lazily upon the long swell, keel uppermost and with five or six men 

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