Read Wreckers Must Breathe for Free Online Page B

won’t do any harm to take it along.’
    So it was that at nine-thirty that evening Big Logan and I met on the path above the Devil’s Frying Pan. By that time I had heard the news of the sinking of the
Athenia
and was suffering from that indefinable desire to express my horror in action. This, I think, is the most deadly moral effect of war. As I had walked along the path from Church Cove my mind had evolved all sorts of wild schemes by which I could bring about the destruction of the submarine. It wasn’t until I had settled down to the long vigil on the cliff-top that I gave a thought for the men in the boat itself. Then all the horror of the
Thetis
disaster flooded back into my mind. Journalism and the theatre foster the growth of an imagination. And in war an imagination is a definite handicap. I could not help—despite the sinking of the
Athenia
—a sudden feeling of deep sympathy for men of the German submarine service scattered about the high seas, cooped up in their steel shells, facing a horrible and almost inevitable death.
    But after all, there was no question of destroying the submarine. Somehow I felt thankful that Big Logan had not felt sure enough of himself to insist upon the Admiralty being notified. I could picture the torpedo boat waiting under the shelter of the headland and then dashing out, as the U-boat submerged, to drop depth charges that would blow her back to the surface and destroy her utterly. But there was only Big Logan’s boat waiting, with no bigger armaments than the coastguard’s revolver, and the two of us sitting on top of the cliffs. Anyway, there probably was no U-boat.
    That belief grew as the hours slipped monotonously by. We could neither smoke nor talk. We sat on a great rock on the westward side of the Frying Pan, watching the sea until everything merged into the blackness of a tunnel. There were no stars, no moon—the night was like a pit. I had brought some chocolate. We ate that, spinning it out as long as possible, for it gave us something to do. At length I began to feel drowsy. It was then nearly two. I was cold and stiff. For a time I felt angry with Big Logan for assuming that I would accompany him on this damfool errand. The belief that he did not know a shark when he saw one had grown to a certainty by the time I fell asleep.
    It seemed but a second later that I was being shaken out of my sleep. I opened my mouth to speak, but a rough hand closed over it and Big Logan’s voice whispered in my ear, ‘Keep quiet and watch the sea.’
    I felt suddenly tense. The night was as black as ever and, as I stared out into it, I felt that I might just as well be blind. Then suddenly a light showed out there on the water. I saw its reflection for an instant in the sea. Then it was gone, and the night was as dark as ever, so that I felt it must have been my imagination.
    Big Logan did not move. I sensed the rigidity of his body. His head, only a few feet away from my own, was just visible. It was tilted slightly to one side as he listened, his eyes fixed on the spot where I supposed the water must flow into the Frying Pan.
    At length he rose. And I scrambled to my feet too, though I had heard nothing. He took my arm and together we moved with great care back on to the path. There we waited, huddled against the wall of the big white house that lay back from the Frying Pan. ‘The boat has arrived,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘It’s down in the Frying Pan now. And I saw the flash of your friend’s torch away along the cliff as he signalled the submarine.’
    It seemed hours before we heard the sound of footsteps on the path. Actually I suppose it was only a few minutes. They drew nearer. I felt Logan tense for the spring. Then they ceased. Almost at the same time there was the flash of a torch reddened by a screening hand. And in that flash the slim waterproof-clad figure stood out quite clearly. He had left the path and