A Twist of Sand

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 petrol: they felt so safe in their funk-hole. I saw figures running, and then the flames shot up high over her bridge.

The flames came tearing across the sea towards Trout. We were in deadly danger.

"Break off the attack," I yelled down the voice-pipe. "Course three-oh degrees. Full ahead both."

As the screws gripped Trout swung while the deadly flame chased across the anchorage. I had to get into that channel. It seemed an age before the water began to break to starboard and I knew 'there was a sand-bar between us and the fiery sea of flame, now shooting skywards. I could not see NP I now. Miles of sea seemed ablaze. She could not survive. I felt weak and limp.

I had destroyed NP I.

The flame flickered at the entrance channel, but came no farther. I gasped as Trout, off course, headed towards the line of breakers to starboard. I quickly altered course for the middle of the channel. We were almost abreast the causeway.

Two figures came racing along the sand, waving frantically, arms tearing the air in terror. I could no longer see the causeway, however. The tide had covered it. The two men -- sailors from NP I -- tore along a narrow spit of sand, while the flames reached at them from behind. Trout was a biscuit-toss away.

"Slow ahead both," I ordered.

When the one sailor, glancing in terror at the flames behind him, saw me lean forwards to the voice-pipe, he sank on his knees and stretched his hands out in a frantic gesture of despair.

In broken English he screamed: "For the love of God, Herr Kapitan. ..."

No, I thought. There will be no one except three men who knew about NP I, and only myself to remember her fate.

I swung the Oeriklon on its mounting.

I fired a burst into the sailor's sagging face.

That face haunts my nightmares.

IX Trial at the Cape

"Most irregular," interjected the president of the court martial.