child of fourteen who had been passing up ammunition to the gun—leaned whimpering against the engine-room casing, nursing a blood-sodden jacket wrapped about his forearm.

The mate was at the gun, round which three of the crew lay. One had raised himself on his elbow and was coughing out{87} his soul. The other two were on their backs staring at the sky.

{87}

In the face of the trawler’s fire, the submarine turned and drew out of range, firing as she went. One of the British shells had struck the low-lying hull in the stern, and a thin cloud of grey smoke ascended from the rent. Figures were visible running aft along the railed-in deck, gesticulating.

“Ye’ve hit her,” shouted the skipper from the wheel. “Give ’em hell, lads——”

A sudden burst of flame and smoke enveloped the wheel-house, and the skipper went hurtling through the doorway and pitched with a thud on the deck.

The mate ran aft and knelt beside him. “Father,” he cried hoarsely.

The inert blue-clad figure raised himself on his hands, and his head swayed between his massive shoulders.

“Father,” said the mate again, and shook him, as if trying to awaken someone from sleep. “Be ye hurted terrible bad?”

The grim old seadog raised his head, and his son saw that he was blind.

“Pitch the codes overboard,” he said. “I’m blind an’ stone deaf, an’ my guts are all abroad under me, but ye’ll fight the little gun while there’s a shell left aboard....{88}”

{88}

The mate stood up and looked aft along the splintered, bloody deck, beyond the smoke and steam trailing to leeward.

“The gun’s wrecked,” he said slowly, as if speaking to himself. “The little smacks are clear o’ danger.... The destroyers are comin’ up.... Ye have fought a good fight, father.” The submarine had ceased fire, and as he spoke, she submerged and vanished sullenly, like a wild beast baulked of its prey.

. . . . .

An old woman sat knitting beside the fire in the heart of a Midland town next day. The door opened and a girl came in quickly, with a shawl over her head and a basket on her arm.

“There’s a surprise for supper,” she said.

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