Visibility was down to thirty or forty yards, but the reeds were beginning to drop back and the channel widened perceptibly. The water lifted in long swelling ripples and waves kicked against the bottom of the boat. They were almost there now and as a curving sandbank appeared a few yards to port he cut the engines and the current carried them in. There was a slight shudder and they stopped.
“What’s the idea?” Guyon asked.
“I’d like to know what the opposition are up to. You stay • here. I shanty be long.”
Mallory jumped to the sandbank, landing knee-deep in water, waded out and followed its length into the fog until he could no longer see Fleur de Lys. A few minutes later he stood at the end, water splashing in across the sand, and looked out towards He de Yeu. There was no sign of L’Alouette and he turned and ran back the way he had come, splashing through the shallows as the tide began to lift over the sandbank.
Fleur de Lys was already swinging out into the deepening channel and he took Guymon’s proffered hand and scrambled over the rail.
“Not a sign of them. As far as I’m concerned I’m going to give her everything she’s got and head out to sea. They’ll have to come up with something pretty good to stop us.”
He went into the wheelhouse, started the engines and reversed into the channel. Visibility was becoming rather better as the fog lifted and Fleur de Lys roared down the centre of the channel, her bow wave surging across the water on either side.
The mouth of the estuary appeared, clear and open to the sea, and Mallory swung the wheel to port to negotiate the great sandbank fifty yards beyond the entrance. As they turned the point, the current pushing against them, they found L’Alouette waiting.
Jacaud was in the conning tower, a heavy machine-gun mounted on a swivel pin. The moment they came into view he started to fire. Bullets swept across the deck and Mallory ducked as glass shattered in the wheelhouse.
Guyon crouched in the doorway, resting the revolver across one raised arm, trying for a steady shot, but it was impossible. As bullets hammered into their hull, Mallory spun the wheel and the young Frenchman lost his balance.
It was the fog which saved them, a long, solid bank rolling in across the reef before the wind, and it swallowed them in an instant. Guyon picked himself up and stood listening to the impotent chatter of the machine-gun as Jacaud continued to fire. After a while there was silence.
He turned to face Mallory, his breath easing out in a long sigh. “I’d say that called for another drink.”
As they emerged from the fog-bank, Mallory took them out to sea, giving the engines full power. He turned with a grin. “Nothing wrong there, thank God.”
Guyon went into the saloon and returned with the Courvoisier. “He’s made one hell of a mess down there. Holes all over the place. I don’t think de Beaumont will be pleased.”
Mallory swallowed some of his brandy and lit a cigarette. “We’ll find out about that soon enough.”
Guyon went into the saloon and Mallory inhaled deeply on his cigarette with a conscious pleasure. Everything was going to be all right, he was certain of that. Sometimes one got these feelings. The wind had freshened even more and spray spattered against the shattered windows of the wheel-house. He pulled down the helmsman’s seat and sat.
Some time later Guyon came in with sandwiches and hot coffee and Mallory switched to the automatic pilot. “Want me to take over?” Guyon asked.
Mallory shook his head. “In these conditions it should only take us two hours at the most to get there.”
It was perhaps half an hour later that he became aware that they were slowing perceptibly. His attempts to adjust the controls met with no success and he switched to automatic pilot and went below.
Guyon was lying on one of the saloon divans, his head on his hands, eyes closed. As Mallory entered, he opened them and sat up.”
“What’s wrong?”
“God knows,” Mallory said, “but we’re losing speed badly and she isn’t answering to the wheel like she should."
The Fleur de Lys heeled to starboard and there was a great rushing of water beneath their feet. He dropped to one knee, pulled back the carpet and peered inside. When he looked up his face was grave.
“There must be two dozen bullet holes along the waterline. We’re leaking like a sieve. No wonder the damned thing’s slowed down.”
They went on deck quickly and into the wheelhouse. The electric pump was housed in a cupboard in one corner and the condition of the doors, splintered by bullets, told him what he would find.
He surveyed the smashed and twisted metal briefly, then turned, his face grim. “You’ll find a hand-pump aft of the main engine housing. Do the best you can with that. Stick it as long as you can and I’ll spell you.”
“I see,” Raoul Guyon said. “Things look bad, eh?”
“Only if L’Alouette catches us in this condition,” Mallory said grimly.
Guyon moved out along the deck without a word and a moment later Mallory became aware of the harsh, rhythmic clangour of the hand-pump. He looked out of the window at the brownish-white stream of water gushing across the deck, took over the wheel and waited for Fleur de Lys to lighten.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
when Fenelon first caught sight of Fleur de Lys his mind froze, refusing to accept for the moment what he knew to be an impossibility. The graticules misted over, temporarily obscured by a wave, and he raised the periscope a little more.
Fleur de Lys jumped into view, her familiar lines quite unmistakable. He said quickly to the rating at his side: “Fetch Monsieur Jacaud here. Tell him to hurry.”
Jacaud arrived a few moments later. “What’s going on?”
“Take a look.”
The big man gripped the handles of the periscope tightly and lowered his head. When he turned to look at Fenelon a muscle twitched in his right cheek.
“I wonder what went wrong?”
Fenelon shrugged. “Perhaps you damaged her engines with the machine-gun, or even holed her. Does it matter?
Shall I surface? We should be able to board her with very little trouble.”
Jacaud shook his head and something glowed in the cold eyes. “I’ve got a better idea. Remember the Kontoro?You said that one torpedo was all it would take. Let’s see what you can do.”
Fenelon felt the blood surge to his temples and his heart pounded wildly. “My God, it’s perfect! They won’t even know what hit them.”
“I don’t mind that,” Jacaud said, “as long as there’s nothing left afterwards.”
L’Alouette carried two twenty-one-inch torpedoes, both mounted in the bow. Fenelon took a deep breath, pulled himself together and started to issue firm, crisp orders.
“Enemy’s bearing, one-two-five. Course, one-three-one. Speed, six knots. Range, one thousand five hundred.”
These facts, fed into a complicated electrical device, provided the angle of deflection, enabling the torpedoes to be aimed the right distance ahead of the target so that both should arrive in the same place at the same time.
A moment later the petty officer called, “Deflection, one-three degrees right, sir.”
Fenelon raised the periscope handles, his face pressed to the rubber eyepiece. “Stand by both tubes.”
“Both tubes ready, sir.”
Fenelon could feel the sweat trickling down his face and his heart seemed to leap inside him. So often he had heard of this moment, had it described to him by men who knew. But for him this was the first.
“Stand by to fire.”
Fleur de Lys seemed to leap into focus, every line of her clear and clean. His hands tightened on the handles. “Fire one.”
The submarine lurched as the missile shot away and the hydrophone operator reported, “Torpedo running,”
“Fire two.”
Again the submarine shuddered. “Torpedo running. “
Fenelon turned to Jacaud. “Care to watch?” The big man pushed him roughly to one side and bent to the handles.
On board Fleur de Lys, Guyon still sweated at the pump and the boat ran on, the automatic pilot in control while Mallory stood on top of the wheelhouse and swept the sea with a pair of glasses.