If there isn't anything to be seen,
we'll go under again and take another look-see in half an hour. Reilly
has his instructions." (Reilly was chief of the torpedo-room.)
[Sidenote: Wreckage all about.]
"Something round here must have got it in the neck recently," said the
destroyer captain, breaking a silence which had hung over the bridge.
"Didn't you think that wreckage a couple of miles back looked pretty
fresh? Wonder if the boy we're after had anything to do with it. Keep an
eye on that sun-streak."
[Sidenote: A crash dive to avoid a destroyer.]
An order was given in the _Z-3_. It was followed instantly by a kind of
commotion--sailors opened valves, compressed air ran down pipes, the
ratchets of the wheel clattered noisily. On the moon-faced depth-gauge,
with its shining brazen rim, the recording arrow fled swiftly, counter
clockwise, from seventy to twenty, to fifteen feet. Captain Bill stood
crouching at the periscope, and when it broke the surface, a greenish
light poured down it and focused in his eyes. He gazed keenly for a few
seconds, and then reached for the horizontal wheel which turns the
periscope round the horizon. He turned--gazed, jumped back, and pushed
the button for a crash dive.
"She was almost on top of me," he explained afterwards, "coming like
hell! I had to choose between being rammed or depth-bombed."
There was another swift commotion, another opening and closing of
valves, and the arrow on the depth-gauge leaped forward.
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