cabin, doing nothing and not venturing even to open the door lest
he should be by that much nearer that appalling presence.

So it came about that he was probably the last person on board to
hear the news that wireless telegraphy was bringing to the
airship in throbs and fragments of a great naval battle in
progress in mid-Atlantic.

He learnt it at last from Kurt.

Kurt came in with a general air of ignoring Bert, but muttering
to himself in English nevertheless. "Stupendous!" Bert heard him
say. "Here!" he said, "get off this locker." And he proceeded
to rout out two books and a case of maps. He spread them on the
folding-table, and stood regarding them. For a time his Germanic
discipline struggled with his English informality and his natural
kindliness and talkativeness, and at last lost.

"They're at it, Smallways," he said.

"At what, sir?" said Bert, broken and respectful.

"Fighting! The American North Atlantic squadron and pretty nearly
the whole of our fleet. Our Eiserne Kreuz has had a gruelling
and is sinking, and their Miles Standish--she's one of their
biggest--has sunk with all hands. Torpedoes, I suppose. She was
a bigger ship than the Karl der Grosse, but five or six years
older. Gods! I wish we could see it, Smallways; a square fight in
blue water, guns or nothing, and all of 'em steaming ahead!"