"Say, that's a torpedo, isn't it?" he asked quickly
as he saw a long needle-pointed steel cigar with propeller and rudder on
the aft end.
The Englishman made no reply. He leaned over and selected a small steel
crowbar from a tool locker, drew it out with a quick nervous movement.
"Say!" cried Madden catching the strange expression on the face of his
friend, "are you going to try to launch this and escape on it--escape on
a torpedo?"
A mirthless smile flickered over the Englishman's gray face. "Nothing so
fanciful."
A sixteen foot torpedo lay in a steel frame on a runway, just ready to
slide forward into the big expulsion tube that was the salient feature
of the forward compartment. Caradoc walked quickly to the nose of the
terrific missile. He looked at his friend and said in a strange voice:
"Madden, I'm going to wipe this German ship-trap off the map!"
A sort of spasm clutched the American's diaphragm. "You don't mean----"
he managed to gasp.
"Yes, this is for----" He swung up his crowbar.
Madden on the other side the gasoline-scented chamber had a sensation as
if someone had jabbed keen needles into his throat, breast, stomach.
"Caradoc! Don't! Don't!" he screamed and leaped toward the desperate
man.
It was all done at once.
"For England!" completed Caradoc Smith, and fetched down a furious
doubled-handed blow on the primer of the big steel chamber packed with
guncotton.
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