Walking Shadows, Sea Tales and Others (ePub)

Excerpt: The position of a light-house keeper, in a sea infested by submarines, is a peculiar one; but Peter Ramsay, keeper of the Hatchets' Light, had reasons for feeling that his lonely tower, six miles from the mainland, was the happiest habitation in the world. At five o'clock, on a gusty October afternoon, of the year 1916, Peter had just finished his tea and settled down, with a pipe and the last number of the British Weekly, for five minutes' reading, before he turned to the secret of his happiness again. Precisely at this moment, the Commander of the U-99, three miles away to the north, after making sure through his periscope that there were no patrol boats in the vicinity, rose to the surface, and began to look for the Hatchets'. He, too, had reasons for wishing to get inside the light-house, if only for half an hour. It was possible only by trickery; but he thought it might be done under cover of darkness, and he was about to reconnoiter. When he first emerged, he had some difficulty in descrying his goal across that confused sea. His eye was guided by a patch of foam, larger than the ordinary run of white-caps, and glittering in the evening sun like a black-thorn blossom. As the sky brightened behind it, he saw, rising upright, like the single slim pistil of those rough white petals, the faint shaft of the light-house itself.