by telling him that, in case the
_Flash_ wasn't put down by a U-boat in the three or four hours which
would elapse before we made Base, he need have no further worries on the
sinking score for some time to come. Just the same," he concluded, with
a shake of the head, "I was glad to see that chap safely over the side.
No sailor likes to be shipmates with a 'Jonah,' especially in times like
these.

"By the time we had finished transferring the prisoners the _Splash_ had
joined us, and her captain, being my senior, took charge of the rest of
the show. On my reporting that I had several severely wounded Huns
aboard, he ordered me to return to Base with them.

"I think that's about all there is to the yarn," said the captain,
rising and starting to pull on his sea-togs preparatory to going up for
another "look-see" before turning in. Then something flashed to his mind
as an afterthought, and he relaxed for a moment, red of face and
breathless, from a struggle with a refractory boot.

"There was one thing I shall always be glad about in connection with
that little affair," he said thoughtfully, a really serious look in his
eyes for almost the first time since I had seen him directing the
dropping of the depth-charges early in the evening; "and that is that I
didn't know in advance that those two British merchant marine officers
were imprisoned in the U.C. '----' with the Huns when we came driving
down to drop a 'can' on her. My duty would have been quite clear, of
course, and, as you doubtless know, some of our chaps have faced harder
alternatives than that without flinching or deviating an iota from the
one thing that it was up to them to do; but, just the same, I'm not
half certain that the instinct, or whatever you want to call it, which
seemed to jog my elbow at the psychological moment that charge had to be
let go to do its best work--I'm not at all sure that instinct would have
served me so well had I known that success might have to be purchased by
sending two of my own countrymen--yes, more than that, two sailors like
myself--to eternity with the pirates who held them as hostages. Yes, it
was a mercy that I didn't have that on my mind at the moment when I
needed all the wits and nerve I had to get that 'can' off in the right
place."

Visibly embarrassed at having allowed his feelings to betray him--a
British naval officer--into a display of something almost akin to
emotion, the captain stamped noisily into the stu