s
print was written "Quarter view of U.C.--at 14.10. _Flash's_ whaler
transferring prisoners; _Splash's_ whaler's crew clearing decks of
wounded."

A fourth print, similar to the third but much covered with arrows and
writing, appeared to be a kind of key to the latter. An angling sort of
bar, which appeared as a black line above the bows in the photograph,
was labelled "Nut Cutter," and several other characteristic U-boat
devices were similarly indicated. These all established points of great
technical value, doubtless, but a keener human interest attached to the
legends penciled at the feather ends of arrows pointing to two figures
on the deck of the submarine, just abaft the conning-tower. Opposite the
one that appeared to be leaning over a light rail, with one arm extended
as though he was in the act of giving a command, was written, "Deceased
captain of submarine." Against the other, a sprawling inert heap huddled
up against the conning-tower, appeared, "Man with both legs shot off
(alive)."

There was a lot of history crowded into that scrawled-over print, and I
was still gazing at it with awed fascination when the opening door
winked off the light, and then closed again to reveal the captain,
dripping with the blown brine of the wave that the _Flash_ had put her
nose into at the moment he was coming down the ladder.

"Rather more of a sea than I expected to-night," he said as he pulled
his duffel-coat over his head and sat down to kick off his sea-boots;
"so I've slowed her down a few knots and we'll jog along easy till
daylight." Then, as he recognised the photo in my hand, "Rather a grim
story that little kodak tells, isn't it? You'll find just about all of
the yarn you were asking for down there in black and white."

"Not quite," I replied hastily, recognising from long experience the
forerunning signs of a modest man trying to side-step going into details
respecting some episode in which he happens to have played a leading
part. "Not quite. It chances that I've heard something of the bagging of
U.C.--from Admiral ---- not long after it occurred, and he said it was
one of the cleverest bits of work of the kind that anyone has pulled
off. I didn't connect you and the _Flash_ with it, though. But now that
you're caught with the goods, the chance to hear several of the details
the Admiral had failed to learn is too good to miss. How did you manage
to slip up on her in the first place, and did you wing her ski