"Blow the main tanks," I ordered.
Trout strained as she became buoyant. Strained, held — and tore free — free! She leaped to the surface.
"Twenty feet," I ordered.
She dived like a mad thing. As the words left my lips — I knew that her hydroplanes were damaged.
"Surface."
"Aye, aye, sir."
Trout came up raggedly, very raggedly.
"Try and keep her awash if you can," I said to John. His clipped, curt commands showed that he knew what danger Trout was in — he had looked through the periscope.
There was only one thing now — to take Trout in on the surface and hope that she wouldn't be spotted before I could deal a lethal blow. There was also the moon. A sharp lookout aboard NP I and we were doomed. On the other hand, a submarine's conning-tower, with the rest of her almost awash, is not easy to see — unless a sliver of moonlight reflecting off the wet casing gave us away.
I reached for an old reefer jacket.
"I'll con her from up aloft," I said. "No look-outs.'
Then the thought struck me.
With one foot poised on the steel rung, I remembered my explicit orders. "You will destroy…"
"Fuse the demolition charges to blow her up," I said.
Davis at the hydroplanes blanched. I turned to John and looked him in the eyes.
"If you fail to receive word from me within five-minute intervals, no one is to venture up aloft. Is that clear? You will blow the demolition charges."
"Escape drill for the crew, sir?"
I thought of that pitiless waste of waters. They would be better off in one short, sharp explosion than trying to battle it out against the inexorable sea.
"No escape drill," I replied. "You will blow the charges. That is all."
He looked at me bleakly. I knew he would do it.
"Aye, aye, sir."
The salt spray smarted on my lips up aloft. Curva dos Dunas might have looked grim through the periscope, but from up here, with a view all round of the terrifying breakers, it was truly horrifying. Trout seemed stuck in the middle of a welter of creaming white water, with the salt spray and spindrift tearing up from the south-west across her, half-submerged. In fact, I could scarcely see the full length of the casing, or distinguish where it started and ended. It would need a very keen pair of eyes to pick us up from NP I in that driving maelstrom. Radar — but that was her Achilles heel. I felt a little easier. Then, through the broken, spume-laden air on the landward side, my two mountains, like things primitive when the world was young, reared their dun crowns as the moon rose behind them, pale and strange in the queer refracted light which the salt-laden air of the sea, meeting the mica particles of the desert, had contrived. The moon itself looked distorted, sick. The feeling of being utterly alone, dominated by the wild elements of sea and desert, wiped the fear of NP I from my heart. It was not NP I who was the first enemy, but the Skeleton Coast. Alone, I shivered.
"Steer one-one-oh," I ordered down the voice-pipe. Trout headed down the channel. There was almost nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the white water. The spume tore across the slowly-moving submarine.
The two mountains gave me a new bearing, and I altered course sharply to the southward, the land being now close by on my left. I could even see, in the strange light, the scrub on the corrugated sandhills above the rocky beach. Trout had not suffered much — for surface running at any rate — but I reckoned, looking at old Simon's chart, that we must have struck at Galleon Point. She may have even fouled some old wreckage there.
My eyes were riveted to the south-west, where I knew NP I must lie in the inner anchorage. The driving, salt-laden gale made it impossible to see any distance. About a mile and a half to go…
"Action stations," I ordered. "Bring all tubes to the ready. Settings for four and six feet. Gun crew at the ready. When I give the word, I want them to fire on a bearing I will give them immediately before. Is that clear?"
"Aye, aye, sir," came John's disembodied response.
I altered course again, due south now. The channel made one last swing before the anchorage. I felt my heart racing, for now it was all or nothing. I couldn't dive and I felt sure that in a gun-fight Trout would be outclassed.
Then I saw the long causeway leading ashore.
For a moment I couldn't believe my eyes. There it was, almost awash in the tide, but a dead straight line between the anchorage and the shore! There was nothing on my chart. Had these thorough Germans built themselves a concrete causeway to link themselves with that inhospitable shore, a back door to the funk-hole?
I looked closer and saw it was hard-packed, iron-hard shingle, a natural causeway as perfect as anyone could wish. But there was no time to admire. We were almost there.
"Course three-two-oh," I ordered.
Trout swung through the last great whorl and I noticed how much calmer and oilier the water was. I still felt reasonably safe from discovery.
The anchorage!
There was NP I on the far side, wraith-like, beautiful.
She was big — every bit of 3,000 tons, I guessed quickly. She was painted white — perfect camouflage in the breaking waters — which gave a fairy aspect to her lovely clean lines and the wing-like, streamlined conning-tower.
"All tubes ready?" I asked.
"All tubes ready, sir. Settings for four and six feet."
"Course one-nine-oh," I said.
NP I was a sitting duck. I didn't need all the elaborate paraphernalia which are vital to attack: all I had to do was point Trout at NP I and fire my salvo. The danger really lay in damage to Trout herself at that short range. She'd have to risk that.
"Stand by," I said. "Target bearing dead ahead."
Trout pointed her deadly snout across the salt-impregnated anchorage. To my amazement, I saw that NP I had a small light rigged and there was a group of men doing something to the casing — and I thought I saw more men on a strip of sand-bar beyond.
Then Trout gave her fateful lurch.
I do not know whether it was one of those hellish crosscurrents, or a sudden change in density of the water, but she lurched. I grabbed to steady myself. My grasping ringers clung, caught and tugged as I struggled for balance.
I fired Trout's recognition flare.
The flare soared across the anchorage, lighting everything, drowning the moon. German faces whipped round on NP I and stared, first at the flare, and then in horror at the clear outline of Trout at the entrance. I stood speechless, aghast. By a million-to-one chance I had given away all chance of concealment, and surprise. It wasn't going to be a clean kill now.
The flare arched over and plunged down, burning brightly. At growing speed it plummeted towards the surface of the anchorage. It struck.
The sea exploded in flame.
How long — or how short — it took I shall never be able to. calculate. My mouth was on its way to the voice-pipe to send the torpedoes on their deadly way when the sea burst into flame all round NP I. She looked beautiful before the first savage flames soiled her. The stupid clots, I thought, they've been discharging oil and petroclass="underline" they felt so safe in their funk-hole. I saw figures running, and then the flames shot up high over her bridge.