Furthermore, it was
evident from the manner in which the propellers of the ship had ceased
their revolutions that they had struck an impediment of some kind.
McClure and Jack both realized they had, indeed, run into a snare of
the enemy.
For the next half hour the _Monitor_ was put through all manner of
maneuvers as her captain sought to extricate his craft from the web
of steel into which it had dived.
"Seem only to be getting in the tighter," said "Little Mack" as he
stopped the engines and from his chief engineer received a report to
the effect that the driving shafts could be turned only with the
greatest difficulty.
That which vexed the _Monitor's_ officers most, however, was the
knowledge that their capture was almost certainly known by this time
to the Germans ashore and that it would be a matter of minutes until
a German patrol or some other vessel in close touch with the wireless
ashore would be standing over the _Monitor_ awaiting the time when
the submerged vessel must ascend from the depths and surrender.
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