"What's wrong?" enquired Bourne.
Briefly Denbigh explained.
"It would be as well if we sent a shell into one of those barrels," he added.
"Waste of good ammunition," objected the lieutenant-commander. "The steamboat can take it bows on at full speed ahead. She'll do it easily."
"That I do not doubt," replied the sub. "But I have an idea that those barricoes are filled with explosives, although we bumped into one of them when we were in a light punt."
Just then the P.O. telegraphist for wireless duties, who was ensconced in a small insulated cage on the rearmost cutter, received a message from one of the sea-planes to the effect that the Germans had been located. They had landed from the boats at a spot twenty miles above the former anchorage of the Pelikan and were making their way to
