Dave Darrin and the German Submarines. Or, Making a Clean-up of the Hun Sea Monsters

CHAPTER II – THE MEETING WITH A PIRATE

Thirty-six hours’ work at the dry dock, with changing shifts, put the “Logan” in shape to start seaward again.

Under another black sky, moving into thick weather, the “Logan” swung off at slow speed, with little noise from engines or propellers.

“I feel as if something were going to happen to-night,” said Dalzell, coming to the bridge at midnight after a two-hour nap. A little shudder ran over his body.

“I hope something does,” agreed Darrin, warmly. “But remember – no Jonah forebodings!”

“I – I think it will be something good!” hesitated Dalzell.

“Good or bad, have me called at six bells,” Dave instructed his second in command. “Before that, of course, if anything turns up.”

He went slowly down and entered the chart-room, closing the curtains after him. Taking off his sheepskin coat and hanging it up, Dave dropped into a chair, pulling a pair of blankets over him. Inside of thirty seconds he was sound asleep, dreaming, perhaps, of the night before at the hotel, when he had enjoyed the luxury of removing his clothing and sleeping between sheets.

At three o’clock to the minute a messenger entered and roused him. How Darrin hated to get up! He was horribly sleepy, yet he was on his feet in a twinkling, removing the service blouse that he had worn while sleeping, and dashing cold water in his face. A hurried toilet completed, he drew on and buttoned his blouse, next donned his sheepskin coat and cap, and went out into the dark of the early morning.

“All secure, sir!” reported Dalzell, from the bridge, meaning that reports had come in from all departments of the craft that all was well.

“You had better turn in, Mr. Dalzell,” Dave called, before he began to pace the deck.

“I’m not sleepy, sir,” lied Dalzell, like the brave young gentleman that he was in all critical times. Dan knew that from now until sun-up was the tune that called for utmost vigilance.

Darrin busied himself, as he did frequently every day, by going about the ship, on deck and below deck, on a tour of inspection. This occupied him for nearly an hour. Then he climbed to the bridge.

“Better turn in and get a nap, Danny-boy,” he urged, in an undertone.

“Say!” uttered Danny Grin. “You must know something big is coming off, and you don’t want me to have a hand in it!”

Dave picked up his night glass and began to use it in an effort to help out his subordinate, who stood near him. From time to time Dan also used a glass. A freshening breeze blew in their faces as the boat lounged indolently along on its way. It was drowsy work, yet every officer and man needed to be constantly on the alert.

Despite his denials that he was sleepy, Danny Grin braced himself against a stanchion of the bridge frame and closed his eyes briefly, just before dawn. He wouldn’t have done it had he been the ranking officer on the bridge, but he felt ghastly tired, and Darrin and Ensign Tupper were there and very much awake.

With a start Dan presently came to himself, realizing that he had lost consciousness for a few seconds.

“Oh, it’s all right,” Dan murmured to himself. “Neither Davy nor Tup will know that I’m slipping in half a minute of doze.”

His eyes closing again, despite the roll of the craft, he was soon sound enough asleep to dream fitfully.

And so he stood when the first streaks of dawn appeared astern. It was still dark off over the waters, but the slow-moving destroyer stood vaguely outlined against the eastern streaks in the sky.

Ensign Tupper was observing the compass under the screened binnacle light, and Darrin, glass to his eyes, was peering off to northward when the steady, quick tones of a man of the bow watch reached the bridge:

“’Ware torpedo, coming two points off port bow!”

That seaman’s eyesight was excellent, for the torpedo was still far enough away so that Dave had time to order a sharp swerve to port, and to send a quick signal to the engine room. As the craft turned she fairly jumped forward. The “Logan” was now facing the torpedo’s course, and seemed a bare shade out of its path, but the watchers held their breath during those fractions of a second.

Then it went by, clearing the destroyer amidships by barely two feet. Nothing but the swiftness of Darrin’s orders and the marvelously quick responses from helmsman and engineer had saved the destroyer from being hit.

On Dave’s lips hovered the order to dash forward over the course by which the torpedo had come, which is the usual procedure of destroyer commanders when attacking a submarine.

Instead, as the idea flashed into his head, he ordered the ship stopped.

Danny Grin had come out of his “forty winks” at the hail of the bow watch. Now Dave spoke to him hurriedly. Dalzell fairly leaped down from the bridge, hurrying amidships.

“All hands stand by to abandon ship!” rang the voice of Ensign Tupper, taking his order from Darrin. The alarm to abandon ship was sounded all through the ship.

There was a gasp of consternation, but Dalzell had already met and spoken to three of the junior officers, and these quickly carried the needed word.

The light was yet too faint, and would be for a few minutes, to find such a tantalizingly tiny object as a submarine’s periscope at a distance even of a few hundred yards. Lieutenant-Commander Darrin, therefore, had hit upon a simple trick that he hoped would prove effective. All depended upon the speed with which his ruse could be carried out. Cold perspiration stood out over Darrin as he realized the chances he was taking.

“Bow watch, there! Keep sharp lookout for torpedoes! Half a second might save us!”

Tupper stood with hand on the engine-room telegraph. He already had warned the engineer officer in charge to stand by for quick work.

Dalzell and the officers to whom Darrin had spoken saw to it that nearly all of the men turned out and rushed to the boats. Even the engineer department off watch came tumbling up in their distinctive clothing.

To an onlooker it would have appeared like a real stampede for the boats. Tackle creaked, making a louder noise than usual, but seeming to “stick” as an effort was made to lower loaded boats. The men in boats and at davits were grinning, for their officers had explained the trick.

Dawn’s light streaks had become somewhat more distinct as Dave peered ahead. Mr. Beatty and three men crouched low behind one of the forward guns.

The submarine commander must have rubbed his eyes, for, while he had observed no signs of a hit, he saw the American craft drifting on the water and the crew frantically trying to abandon ship.

Then the thing for which Darrin had hoped and prayed happened. The enemy craft’s conning tower appeared above water four hundred yards away.

“The best shot you ever made in your life, Mr. Beatty!” called Dave in an anxious voice.

The officer behind the gun had been ready all the time. At the first appearance of the conning tower he had drawn the finest sight possible.

The three-inch gun spoke. It seemed ages ere the shell reached its destination.

Then what a cheer ascended as the crew came piling on board from the boats. The conning tower of the submarine had been fairly struck and wrecked.

“Half speed ahead!” commanded Dave’s steady voice, while Dan gave the helmsman his orders. As Tupper sent the signal below the “Logan” gathered headway.

But Darrin had not finished, for on the heels of his first order came the second:

“Open on her with every gun!”

After the wrecking of his conning tower the German commander began to bring his craft to the surface. Perhaps it was his intention to surrender.

“Full speed ahead!” roared Darrin, and Ensign Tupper rang in the signal.

The hull of the submarine was hardly more than awash when five or six shots from the “Logan” struck it at about the same time.

Veering around to the southward the “Logan” prepared to circle the dying enemy. The German craft filled and sank, and Darrin presently gazed overboard at the oil-topped waters through which he was passing.

“A wonderful job! I wonder that you had the nerve to risk it,” muttered Dalzell.

“I don’t know whether it was a wonderful job, or a big fool risk,” Dave almost chattered. “It would have been a fool trick if I had lost the ship by it. I don’t believe that I shall ever try it again.”

“If you hadn’t done just what you did, a second torpedo would have been sent at you,” murmured Dalzell. “You saved the ‘Logan’ and ‘got’ the enemy, if you want to know.”

Grinning, for the responsibility had not been theirs, and the ruse had “worked,” the men of the watch returned to their usual stations, while those off duty returned to their “watch below.” Darrin, however, was shaking an hour later. He had dropped the usual method of defense for once and had tried a trick by which he might have lost his craft. As commander he knew that he had discretionary powers, but at the same time he realized that he had taken a desperate chance.

“Oh, stop that, now!” urged Danny Grin. “If you had steamed straight at the submarine you would have taken even bigger chances of losing the ‘Logan.’ Even had she given up the fight and dived, there wasn’t light enough for you to follow by any trail of bubbles the enemy might have left. The answer, David, little giant, is that the submarine is now at the bottom, and every Hun aboard is now a dead man. In this war the commander who wins victories is the only one who counts.”

Through that day Dave and Dan slept, alternately, only an hour or two at a time. All they sighted were three cargo steamers, two headed toward Liverpool and one returning to “an American port.”

At nine o’clock in the evening Darrin, after another hour’s nap, softly parted the curtains of the chart-room door and peered out. He saw a young sailor standing just back of the open doorway of the radio room. Slight as it was there was a something in the sailor’s attitude of listening that Darrin did not quite like. He stepped out on the deck.

Sighting him, the sailor saluted.

“Jordan!” called Dave, even before his hand reached his visor cap in acknowledgment of the salute.

“Yes, sir!” answered the seaman, coming to attention.

“You belong to this watch?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your station is with the stern watch?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then what are you doing forward?”

“I left my station, by permission, to go below, sir.”

“Have you been below?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then why are you loitering here?”

Seaman Jordan hesitated, shifted on his feet, glanced down, then hurriedly replied:

“I – I don’t know, sir. I just stopped here a moment. There’s a relief man in my place, sir.”

“Return to your station, Jordan!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” replied the sailor, saluting, wheeling and walking away.

“And I’ll keep my eye on you,” mused Darrin, as he watched the departing sailor. “I may be wrong, but when I first sighted him there was a look on that lad’s face that I didn’t like.”

Even before he reached his station Seaman Jordan was quaking inwardly more apprehensively than is usual with a sailor caught in a slight delinquency.

CHAPTER III – QUICK “DOINGS” OVER THE SHOAL

For several days after that Darrin and the “Logan” cruised back and forth over the area assigned for patrol. During these days nothing much happened out of the usual. Then came a forenoon when Darrin received a wireless message, in code, ordering him to report back at once to the commanding officer of the destroyer patrol.

Mid afternoon found the “Logan” fifteen miles off the port of destination.

“Be on the alert every instant,” was the order Darrin gave out to officers and men. “There have been several sinkings, the last month, in these waters. We are nearing Fisherman’s Shoal, which is believed to be a favorite bit of ground for submarines that hide on the bottom.”

Over Fisherman’s Shoal the water was only about seventy feet in depth – an ideal spot for a lurking, hiding undersea craft.

Five minutes later the bow lookout announced quietly:

“Trail of bubbles ahead, sir.”

Leaving Ensign Phelps on the bridge, Dave and Dan darted down and forward.

A less practised eye might have seen nothing worth noting, but to the two young officers the trail ahead was unmistakable, though Darrin quickly brought up his glass to aid his vision.

“Pass the word for slow speed, Mr. Dalzell,” Dave commanded, quietly. “We want to keep behind that craft for a moment. Pass word to Mr. Briggs to stand by ready to drop a depth bomb.”

Quietly as the orders were given, they were executed with lightning speed. The destroyer began to move more slowly, keeping well behind the bubble trail. At any instant, however, the “Logan” could be expected to leap forward, dropping the depth bomb at just the right moment. Then would come a muffled explosion, and, if the bomb were rightly placed, a broad coating of oil would appear upon the surface.

Dave was now in the very peak of the bow. Watching the bubbly trail he knew that the hidden enemy craft was moving more slowly than the destroyer, and he signalled for bare headway. And now the bubbles were rising as though from a stationary object under the waves.

“Buoy, there!” he ordered, quickly. “Overboard with it.”

Slowly the destroyer moved past the spot, but the weighted, bobbing buoy marked the spot plainly.

“Have a diver ready, Mr. Dalzell,” Dave called. “Make ready to clear away a launch!”

In the matter of effective speed Darrin’s officers and crew had been trained to the last word. Only a few hundred yards did the “Logan” move indolently along, then lay to.

Soon after that the diver and launch were ready. Dave stepped into the launch to take command himself.

“May I go, too, sir?” asked Dan Dalzell, saluting. “I haven’t seen this done before.”

“Clear away a second launch, Mr. Dalzell. The crew will be armed. You will take also a corporal and squad of marines.”

That meant the entire marine force aboard the “Logan.” Dalzell quickly got his force together, while Darrin gave orders to pull back to where the bobbing buoy lay on the water.

“Ready, diver?” called Dave, as the launch backed water and stopped beside the buoy.

“Aye, aye, sir.” The diver’s helmet was fitted into position and the air pump started. The diver signalled that he was ready to go down.

“Men, stand by to help him over the side,” Darrin commanded. “Over he goes!”

Hugging a hammer under one arm the diver took hold of the flexible cable ladder as soon as it had been lowered. Sailors paid out the rope, life line and air pipe as the man in diver’s suit vanished under the water.

Down and down went the diver, a step at a time. The buoy had been placed with such exactness that he did not have to step from the ladder to the sandy bottom. Instead, he stepped on to the deck of a great lurking underseas craft.

He must have grinned, that diver, as he knelt on top of the gray hull and hammered briskly, in the International Code, this message to the Germans inside the submarine shell:

“Come up and surrender, or stay where you are and take a bomb! Which do you want?”

Surely he grinned hard, under his diver’s mask, as he noted the time that elapsed. He knew full well that his hammered message had been heard and understood by the trapped Huns. He could well imagine the panic that the receipt of the message had caused the enemy.

“We’ll send you a bomb, then?” the diver rapped on the hull with his hammer. “I’m going up.”

To this there came instant response. From the inside came the hammered message:

“Don’t bomb! We’ll rise and surrender!”

Chuckling, undoubtedly, the diver signalled and was hoisted to the surface. The instant that his head showed above water the seaman-diver nodded three times toward Darrin. Then he was hauled into the boat, and the launch pulled away from the spot.

“It took the Huns some time to make up their minds?” queried Dave Darrin smilingly, after the diver’s helmet had been removed.

“They didn’t answer until they got the second signal, sir,” replied the diver.

Dalzell’s launch was hovering in the near vicinity, filled with sailors and marines, a rapid-fire one-pounder mounted in the bow.

Both boats were so placed as not to interfere with gun-fire from the “Logan.” Officers and men alike understood that the Huns might attempt treachery after their promise to surrender.

Soon the watchers glimpsed a vague outline rising through the water. The top of a conning tower showed above the water, then the rest of it, and last of all the ugly-looking hull rose until the craft lay fully exposed on the surface of the sea.

The critical moment was now at hand. It would be possible for the submarine to torpedo the destroyer; there was grave danger of the attempt being made even though the vengeful Germans knew that in all probability their own lives would pay the penalty.

The hatch in the tower opened and a young German officer stepped out, waving a white handkerchief. He was followed by several members of the crew. It was evident that the enemy had elected to save their lives, and smiles of grim satisfaction lighted the faces of the watchful American jackies.

“Give way, and lay alongside,” Dave ordered his coxswain, while signalling Dalzell to keep his launch back for the present.

Then Dave addressed the young German officer:

“You understand English?”

“Yes,” came the reply, with a scowl.

“We are coming alongside. Your officers and men will be searched for weapons, then transferred, in detachments, to our launch, and taken aboard our craft.”

The German nodded, addressing a few murmured words to his men, who moved well up forward on the submarine’s slippery deck.

As the launch drew alongside two seamen leaped to the submarine’s deck and held the lines that made the launch fast to it.

Half a dozen armed seamen sprang aboard, with Darrin, who signalled to the second launch to come up on the other side of the German boat.

“Be good enough, sir, to order the rest of your men on deck,” Dave directed, and the German officer shouted the order in his own tongue. More sullen-looking German sailors appeared through the conning tower and lined up forward.

“Did you command here?” Dave demanded of the officer.

“No; my commander is below. I am second in command.”

Dave stepped to the conning tower, bawling down in English:

“All hands on deck. Lively.”

Another human stream answered. Darrin turned to the German officer to ask:

“Are all your crew on deck now?”

Quickly counting, the enemy officer replied:

“Yes; all.”

“And your captain?”

“I do not know why he is not here. I cannot give him orders.”

By this time the marines were aboard from the second launch. Already the first detachment of German sailors, after search, was being transferred to the launch.

“Corporal,” called Darrin, “take four men and go below to find the commander. Watch out for treachery, and shoot fast if you have to.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” returned the corporal, saluting and entering the tower. His men followed him closely.

“I’ve seen the outside of enough of these pests,” said Dave to his chum. “Suppose we go below and see what the inside looks like. The German submarines are different from our own.”

Dalzell nodded and followed, at the same time ordering a couple of stalwart sailors to follow. A boatswain’s mate now remained in command on the submarine deck.

“You get back there!” growled the corporal. Dave reached the lower deck just in time to see the corporal pointing his revolver at a protesting German naval officer.

“Look what he’s been doing, sir,” called the corporal. “Look on the floor, sir.”

On the deck lay a heap of charred papers, still smoking.

“If I’d got down a minute earlier, sir, he wouldn’t have had a chance to have that nice little bonfire,” grumbled the corporal.

Dave gave a great start as he took his first look at the face of the German captain.

As for the German, he seemed at least equally disconcerted. Dave Darrin was the first to recover.

“I cannot say that I think your German uniform becoming to a man of your name, Mr. Matthews,” Darrin uttered, in savage banter.

“Matthews?” repeated the German, in a puzzled voice, though he spoke excellent English. “I cannot imagine why you should apply that name to me.”

“It’s your own fault if you can’t,” Darrin retorted. “It’s the name you gave me at the hotel.”

“I’ve never seen you until the present moment,” declared the German, stoutly.

“Surely you have,” Danny Grin broke in. “And how is your firm in Chicago, Mr. Matthews?”

“Chicago?” repeated the German, apparently more puzzled than before.

“If Matthews isn’t your name, and I believe it isn’t,” Darrin continued, “by what name do you prefer to be addressed.”

“I am Ober-Lieutenant von Bechtold,” replied the German.

“Very good, von Bechtold; will you stand back a bit and not bother the corporal?”

Dave bent over to stir the charred, smoking heap of paper with his foot. But the job had been too thoroughly done. Not a scrap of white paper could be found in the heap.

“Of course you do not object to telling me what papers you succeeded in burning,” Darrin bantered.

Ober-Lieutenant von Bechtold smiled.

“You wouldn’t believe me, if I told you, so why tax your credulity?” came his answer.

“Perhaps you didn’t have time to destroy all your records,” Dave went on. “Under the circumstances I know you will pardon me for searching the boat.”

Thrusting aside a curtain, Dave entered a narrow passageway near the stern. Off this passageway were the doors of two sleeping cabins on either side. Dave opened the doors on one side and glanced in. Dan opened one on the other side, but the second door resisted his efforts.

“This locked cabin may contain whatever might be desired to conceal,” Dan hinted.

Turning quickly, Darrin saw that von Bechtold had followed. This the corporal had permitted, but he and a marine private had followed, to keep their eyes on the prisoner.

“If you have the key to this locked door, Captain, it will save us the trouble of smashing the door,” Dave warned. He had followed the usual custom in terming the ober-lieutenant a captain since he had an independent naval command.

“I do not know where the key is,” replied von Bechtold, carelessly. “You may break the door down, if you wish, but you will not be repaid for your trouble.”

“I’ll take the trouble, anyway,” Darrin retorted. “Mr. Dalzell, your shoulder and mine both together.”

As the two young officers squared themselves for the assault on the door a black cloud appeared briefly on von Bechtold’s face. But as Darrin turned, after the first assault, the deep frown was succeeded by a dark smile of mockery.

Bump! bump! At the third assault the lock of the door gave way so that Dave and Dan saved themselves from pitching into the room headfirst.

“Oh, whew!” gasped Danny Grin.

An odor as of peach-stone kernels assailed their nostrils. They thought little of this. It was a sight, rather than the odor, that instantly claimed their attention.

For on the berth, over the coverlid, and fully dressed in civilian attire of good material, lay a man past fifty, stout and with prominent abdomen. He was bald-headed, the fringe of hair at the sides being strongly tinged with gray.

At first glance one might have believed the stranger to be merely asleep, though he would have been a sound sleeper who could slumber on while the door was crashing in. Dave stepped close to the berth.

Dalzell followed, and after them came the submarine’s commander.

“You will go back to the cabin and remain there, Mr. von Bechtold,” Dave directed, without too plain discourtesy. “Corporal, detail one of your men to remain with the prisoner, and see that he doesn’t come back here unless I send for him. Also see to it that he doesn’t do anything else except wait.”

Scowling, von Bechtold withdrew, the marine following at his heels.

As Darrin stepped back into the cabin he saw the stranger lying as they left him.

“Dead!” uttered Dave, bending over the man and looking at him closely. “He lay down for a nap. Look, Dan, how peaceful his expression is. He never had an intimation that it was his last sleep, though this looks like suicide, not accidental death, for the peach-stone odor is that of prussic acid. He has killed himself with a swift poison. Why? Is it that he feared to fall into enemy hands and be quizzed?”

“A civilian, and occupying an officer’s cabin,” Dan murmured. “He must have been of some consequence, to be a passenger on a submarine. He wasn’t a man in the service, or he would have been in uniform.”

“We’ll know something about him, soon, I fancy,” Darrin went on. “Here is a wallet in his coat pocket, also a card case and an envelope well padded with something. Yes,” glancing inside the envelope, “papers. I think we’ll soon solve the secret of this civilian passenger who has met an unplanned death.”

“Here, you! Stop that, or I’ll shoot!” sounded, angrily, the voice of von Bechtold’s guard behind them.

But the German officer, regardless of threats, had dashed past the marine, and was now in the passageway.

“Here, I’ll soon settle you!” cried the marine, wrathfully. But he didn’t, for von Bechtold let a solid fist fly, and the marine, caught unawares, was knocked to the floor.

All in a jiffy von Bechtold reached his objective, the envelope. Snatching it, he made a wild leap back to the cabin, brushing the marine private aside like a feather.

“Grab him!” yelled Dave Darrin, plunging after the German. “Don’t let him do anything to that envelope!”