Buch lesen: «Dave Darrin and the German Submarines. Or, Making a Clean-up of the Hun Sea Monsters», Seite 6

CHAPTER XII – DAVE HUNTS A BIGGER FIGHT

Of much less beam for her length than the average yacht, the “Logan” was rolling from side to side at a dizzy angle when Dave Darrin, after a nap of an hour and a half in the chart-room, turned out.

The wind had freshened; spray dashed over the decks and water flooded the scuppers. Every now and then a spurt of water raced across the bridge as the destroyer heeled over in that roughening sea.

Dave had pulled on his rubber boots, strapping the hip extensions high up. His sheepskin coat was fastened up tightly under his chin, and the collar turned up over the lower part of the knitted helmet that he drew over his head.

Thus covered and concealed until his mother would not have known him had she encountered him unexpectedly, Dave stepped out on deck, clumsily clambering the steps to the bridge, one hand holding tightly to the hand-rail. Dalzell was up there, standing not far from Lieutenant Curtin. Forward, up in the bow, looking half drowned, paced an ensign whose night glass was not long at any time from his eyes.

On the superstructure amidships another officer paced, and still another on the deck astern.

There was little sleep for any officer. Not one of them but was aware that at any instant the lurking foe might strike, and then would begin a desperate, tragic game of blind man’s buff over the slashing, spray-topped waves.

A shaded light threw a confined ray on the bridge compass. Dave barely glanced at this latter instrument, for had not Dan been there while the young commander slept?

“Nothing seen, sir; some signals – that’s all,” was Dalzell’s terse report.

No grin appeared on Dan’s face now. It had been a tense vigil for him.

“Go below and get some sleep,” urged Dave.

“Don’t need any,” Dalzell declared stubbornly.

“It’s an order, then, Mr. Dalzell,” Dave answered briefly.

Grumbling, Dan took a final look into the night, then slowly clambered down the steps.

“I’m aware, sir, that an attack may be tried at any minute,” said Lieutenant Curtin, “but don’t you believe that it will be postponed until after daylight?”

“Yes,” Darrin made reply. “And if we’re to have an attack between here and port, I’d rather have it to-night. Neither troopship nor destroyer is showing lights, so the Huns couldn’t use their periscopes. They might, of course, use their sound devices, and launch torpedoes towards the sources of sounds, but that’s a clumsy and wasteful way of torpedoing an enemy. Attacking on a night like this, the only sure way would be for them to come to the surface. That would give us an ideal chance. With searchlights playing in every direction we’d pick up a lot of the submarines and hit them within the first minute and a half. No; unless for the novelty of the thing, the German commander won’t risk a night attack. Results for him are more certain just after dawn. I believe, as much as I believe anything, that the enemy’s submersibles are now waiting for us at the point where they figure that we will be at dawn.”

“It will be great to meet them at their convenience,” remarked Curtin, after a pause of a few minutes. “After what we did to them yesterday forenoon we know how we can rush some of ’em to the bottom, and leave the rest so far astern that they’d have to come to the surface to overtake our troop-ships.”

“We know what we did, but we don’t know that we can do it again,” Darrin retorted. “The greatest mistake that we can make is to become over-confident. That never pays when dealing with any enemy, and least of all when the Hun is the enemy. We got away yesterday, Curtin, but has it struck you that we may have met the inferior half of the underseas fleet that the enemy has concentrated against us? Yesterday forenoon’s work may have been play compared with the job that has been cut out for us. The surest way to lose a few destroyers, a few transports and thousands of soldiers and sailors, is for the naval officers with this fleet to let their confidence get the better of their alertness. Even in spite of our utmost watchfulness and best work, we may lose five thousand American lives before we reach port.”

“Maybe our country would fight better hereafter if we did,” muttered the younger officer. “A loss like that would serve to rouse Americans rather than to kill their fighting instinct.”

“But confidence in the Navy would be largely gone,” Dave rejoined. “At present the folks at home are whooping up the Navy. That’s because we’ve had such fine luck so far. Let us lose several thousand soldiers at sea and then see how much our home people would boost for the Navy. We’re judged by the goods we deliver in the form of results.”

Not all of this had been said in continuous conversation, for not once did either officer remove his gaze from the black waters around them. Dave and his junior officer had spoken by snatches as they came together.

Off to starboard, several hundred yards, the dimly defined shape of a huge transport appeared. The transport ahead of her, and the one behind her, had to be located by judgment rather than by vision.

“A fellow cannot help getting nervous out here – I mean nervous for the transports,” said Lieutenant Curtin, ten minutes later. “Before you came up, sir, there was a time when neither Mr. Dalzell nor I could see that nearest troopship at all.”

“Did you change your course?” asked Dave, with a smile.

“No, sir; I knew we must be right, for we had followed the course to a fine line. But it was uncanny, just the same – the knowledge that we must guard the transports, combined with the belief that they had slipped miles away.”

“Before you came across to this side of the ocean, Mr. Curtin, you were inclined to be a bit stout, weren’t you?” Dave quizzed.

“Nineteen pounds over weight, sir.”

“Cheer up! You won’t grow fat during this war.”

“I don’t care about loss of sleep, or anything,” declared the junior officer, earnestly. “I believe that I could get along without sleep, except when in port, if we could range the seas with a daily average of one enemy submarine sunk.”

“If you could do that, and the other destroyers did anything at all,” laughed Darrin, “the seas would soon be as safe as they were in 1913.”

“Do you remember that time, sir, a month ago, when we answered an S. O. S. call and arrived in time to jump at a submarine engaged in shelling the small boats that were pulling away from the wrecked Norwegian steamer?”

“Yes.”

“We missed that infernal Hun. He got away, and I am certain that I didn’t sleep a real wink in the next twenty-four hours.”

“Take things more easily,” Dave advised. “Do your best, Curtin, and then if the Hun boat gets away, take it out in chuckling over the big scare you gave the enemy officers and crew. That’s the way I do.”

Calling the officer amidships on the deck to take a turn on the bridge with Lieutenant Curtin, Dave, after receiving the engine-room report over the bridge telephone, went on a swift but thorough tour of inspection. Dark as it was, he discovered that the breech mechanism of one of the forward guns was not oiled to his fancy. Three or four other slight oversights he found, and promptly rapped out orders to remedy the faults.

“In a campaign like this,” he told Ensign Carter, tersely, “there can be no knowing at what moment we shall be called upon to fight for our lives, nor how many seconds of fatal delay may be caused by any lacking detail. Constant inspection is the only way to be certain that one is up to fighting mark. Inspection is not enough when made only by commander and executive officer. ‘Inspection’ should be engraved on the brain of every watch and division officer.”

Dave glanced at the chronometer in the chart-room on his way to the bridge, and knew that the first streaks of dawn should appear in the east in fifteen minutes. Sending the relieving officer back to his station amidships, Darrin resumed his bridge vigil.

First signs of dawn came in due time. The light gained in strength until the long line of the transport fleet stood revealed, extending back further than the eye could see. Obeying signals, some of the destroyers stood further out from their charges and then raced on ahead to inspect that portion of the sea which must very soon be traversed.

“If we don’t run into something before the middle of the forenoon,” Dave confided to Dan, who now reappeared on the bridge after a short rest, “I shall feel easier. The nearer we draw to land the more help is likely to be afloat near us.”

Just then a boom came over the water. A gun of one of the foremost trio of destroyers had spoken. Swiftly the signals came back.

Dave gave the order to have all hands sounded to quarters.

“Gentlemen,” said the young commander after the crew had reached the deck, “this morning’s work will undoubtedly be the real test. Within twenty minutes we’ll be in the thick of a real fight!”

CHAPTER XIII – A BATTLE TRY-OUT FOR SOULS

Men had stood their watch by the guns all night long.

Boom! boom! From ahead came the sound of rapid firing. The commanders of the three leading destroyers were seasoned men experienced in their work, and were not likely to be shooting at mere shadows.

“At the best, it’s snap-shooting,” Dan uttered, almost disgustedly. “We cannot do our marksmanship justice when we are contending with a skulking enemy and seldom have anything more to aim at than a periscope that’s up from four to seven seconds, or the wake caused by the conning tower of a submarine running near the surface.”

“Occasional hits, however, show that a good deal can be accomplished by snap shooting when real gunners do it,” rejoined Dave.

At this moment he read the signal for destroyers to maneuver at judgment. Dave promptly gave orders that sent the “Logan” scooting further away from the transport fleet, out on its port flank.

“Ahead, and zigzag,” Darrin ordered sharply. “All the zigzag that full speed will allow.”

Her turbines turning at better than trial speed limit, the “Logan” roared on her way like an angry bulldog with the speed of a grayhound.

Despite the speed, the zigzagging course kept Dave opposite the troopship he had been guarding through the night.

Just astern of the “Logan” a periscope flashed up for a few seconds. A gun was trained and fired, but the periscope had been withdrawn by the time the shell got there. A tell-tale light streak appeared on the surface of the sea astern of the destroyer, one of whose signalmen waved a warning that was superfluous, for the troopship at which the torpedo had been aimed had already started off on a zigzag course, and escaped by a matter of feet.

From the head of the squadron came back the signalled order:

“All troopships zigzag!”

“Looks like a crazy marine waltz!” reflected Danny Grin as he caught a second’s glimpse of this strange maneuver.

Darrin did not turn to see what had become of the submersible at which one of the “Logan’s” shells had been fired. The enemy was undoubtedly unharmed and under control, and there would be another destroyer on the spot in a jiffy. Dave believed that they were not yet in the thick of the Hun trap and he kept a sharp lookout ahead.

“Second destroyer astern of us just signalled a hit,” Dan uttered presently, in a tone of glee.

“Must be the one that we tried for,” was Darrin’s comment.

In the meantime, both the British authorities and the American Admiral at the base port were being constantly informed, through radio messages, of just what was now taking place on this part of the sea.

“Assistance already on the way; watch for it,” came back the reply from the admirals.

“Humph! There’s no vessel that sails that can reach us in season if it didn’t start from port a few hours ago,” was Dalzell’s puzzled comment.

Not very long after that the leading ships of the fleet knew that they were in the thick of the enemy ambush. The courses of several torpedoes were observed, but, thanks to the zigzagging of the vessels, no transport or escort had yet been hit.

“Signal coming, sir, to commanding officer of the ‘Logan,’” reported the signalman on the destroyer’s bridge.

“‘Logan’ will drop out of line and hunt enemy submarines on commanding officer’s judgment,” Dave Darrin read.

“That’s because of our record yesterday,” Dan Dalzell chuckled. “We are looked upon as the star performers of the flotilla.”

“We’ll do our best to be the stars again to-day,” Dave confided to his chum after he had given his orders.

With a rush and roar the destroyer headed northward, nor did Darrin come about until he was something like fifteen hundred yards away from the troopship line.

“Submarines usually try for hits at from six hundred to a thousand yards,” he explained to Dalzell, as the racing craft hurried on her way. “A German commander, with his eyes on the transports, might not think to turn his periscope in the opposite direction at a time like this.”

“But his sound-detecting device will tell him where we are,” Dan hinted.

“Not with all the gun-fire and the noise of so many hurrying craft,” Dave answered. “Wait and see.”

Phelps was sent to join the two seamen forward. From that position he could see any torpedo trail that started between the “Logan’s” position and the transport fleet. Within less than five minutes Phelps detected a white line of seething foam, and Dave steered his ship straight to the spot where the Hun craft was believed to be.

“Fire as fast as you can, Mr. Phelps,” was the order Darrin transmitted.

So closely had Phelps got the range that the “Logan” drove straight to the torpedo’s source. There the long, vague outline of a submersible was barely discernible under the deep blue of the sea.

“Over her!” Darrin ordered.

At their station the depth bomb men stood at alert, awaiting the word at which the bomb would be released by the touch of a finger.

As the destroyer swept over the submersible’s hull Dave shouted:

“Let go bomb!”

It was then that the finger touch was applied. Over the stern slipped the amazing mechanism which contained a steel shell. It was adjusted to go off automatically at a depth of thirty feet. Nothing within a hundred feet of the point of its explosion could escape being shattered.

Bump! came a heavy explosion. The “Logan” herself shook and plunged as a column of water shot up astern.

Instantly Dave ordered the ship about, for the dropping of another bomb, in case the first had failed.

No need, though, for the spreading of oil on the surface of the water showed how effective a hit had been made.

“Now, for more of the pests!” uttered Dalzell, gleefully. “We must beat our record of yesterday.”

Darrin did not reply. Outwardly calm, but with muscles set and every nerve tensed to the tingling point, he stood almost on tip-toe, grasping the forward rail, peering ahead and to either side.

But at least one German captain had caught him, so far out of line, for, from the starboard watch, forward, came the brisk warning:

“Torpedo, sir, on the starboard bow!”

In the same instant Dave had seen it. The trail was racing to meet the “Logan” well forward.

Not risking even the delay of a shouted order, Darrin reached for the lever of the bridge telegraph and set the jingle bells in the engine room a-clatter. His quick order threw the propellers into reverse and then full speed astern. At the same time he swung the bow around.

Had he tried to zigzag it is doubtful if he could have escaped. Had he gone straight ahead the torpedo would have hit him just below the waterline.

As it was, the missile of destruction passed by a scant dozen feet from the “Logan’s” bow.

This was the single instant of safety for which Darrin had worked. Now, he ordered speed ahead, and swung around, sailing straight to the spot where he believed the enemy to be.

By the time he was at that spot nothing was to be seen of the undersea boat. Submerging to greater depth the wily Hun had glided away to safety.

“Now, what does that German fellow mean by holding down our record in that fashion?” Dan demanded, wrathfully. “He’s no sportsman, not to take a chance.”

“He may get us yet,” was Darrin’s quiet answer.

It was Lieutenant Curtin who first discovered a number of small specks away over in the eastern sky.

“They’re not clouds,” said Dave, eyeing the specks through his glass, “but at the distance I can’t make out what they are.”

“If they can’t turn over submarines to us, I hardly care what they are,” muttered Dan Dalzell to himself.

With the fleet dashing forward, and the specks moving nearer, it was not long before watchful eyes behind glasses discovered just what the specks were.

“Now, we’ll see something interesting,” quoth Darrin.

“They’re coming to take our glory, instead of adding to it,” Dan insisted.

“What do you care who puts the Huns on old Ocean’s bed, as long as they arrive there?” Dave asked, coolly.

“Will they put any Huns there?” Dalzell inquired, doubtfully.

“If they don’t, we can still sail in and help ourselves to the best we can find,” laughed Dave.

CHAPTER XIV – TEAM WORK BETWEEN SKY AND WATER

From mere specks the oncoming objects grew larger and larger, until, to the unaided eye, they stood plainly revealed as hydroairplanes.

They were British, too, and built especially for the purpose of detecting and destroying submarines. Tommy Atkins calls this type of airplane a “blimp.”

From high up in the air observers are able, when the light is right, to see a submarine at a depth of about one hundred feet below the surface. Having detected a submerged enemy craft the hydroairplane flies over it, dropping a bomb.

“That they can see a submersible at such a depth makes me wonder why the hydroairplane doesn’t take the place of the destroyer,” observed Lieutenant Curtin.

“The crew of a hydroairplane can see the submarine at a greater depth under water than can a destroyer,” Dave explained, “but owing to the height at which they are obliged to observe they cannot drop their bombs as accurately.”

“Then the chaps yonder are not likely to be of much service to us to-day.”

Coming still nearer, one of the hydroairplanes made signals which the flagship of the destroyer flotilla answered. Then through the fleet ran the signalled message:

“When possible the hydroairplanes will destroy enemy boats by bombing. A smoke bomb in the air will denote position of submarine at that moment. Destroyer commanders will act accordingly.”

“Then the British flyers yonder will fight on their own account, or scout for us, as seems best,” Dave announced.

One of the great flying craft neared the position into which the “Logan” was steaming. Suddenly she swooped a bit lower and let go an object that dropped fast, going out of sight under the water.

There was a turmoil ahead among the waves. As the destroyer moved forward those on her decks saw oil spreading over the water.

“Signal a hit, then follow the airship,” Dave directed.

Moving, now, no faster than did the destroyer, the hydroairplane scurried about through the air, swooping, banking, diving and rising. At last, apparently she located another submarine. A bomb dropped, but Dave, driving his ship through the water after the explosion, found no tell-tale oil signs.

“Wide of the mark,” signalled the Britisher.

Presently the hydroairplane again caught sight of the prey it was stalking. Another bomb fell, but still no hit.

“We’ll fly just over the enemy,” wirelessed the hydroairplane. “At the instant you’re fairly over we’ll signal you.”

“That’s the right way to hunt,” declared Danny Grin, under his breath.

Acting on the suggestion Darrin steamed in until he was directly under the air craft. The signal came. Dave ordered a bomb dropped, and steamed rapidly away from the place of the coming explosion. Then he swung around, driving back at full speed.

“A hit,” signalled the airship.

“Easy, when you do all the work,” Darrin signalled back. “Be good enough to find us another mouthful.”

By this time the cannonading on all sides had become incessant. Despite the cloudiness of the night, the day had turned out bright, in a season when bright days do not abound in these waters. On such a day, though the periscope metal is dull, the drops of water adhering to the shaft make it a fairly bright mark.

Wherever a periscope showed, the handlers of more than one gun took a chance at it. Several broad patches of oil marked the graves of Hun submersibles and their crews.

The wake made by a conning tower was sure to lead a destroyer away in pursuit of that same tower. The hydroairplanes followed many of these wakes, in nearly every instance locating the sea monsters for the destroyers.

Besides, the torpedo trails in themselves served to lead the destroyers to many an enemy craft.

“This is the right combination,” Dan muttered to Lieutenant Curtin. “Airship and destroyer combined have an advantage that puts the submersible on the run or out of commission altogether. It takes the credit away from the destroyer too.”

“I don’t care where the credit goes, if the pests are sunk,” Curtin answered. “If we had had these airships yesterday we wouldn’t have lost the ‘Castle City.’”

“But the hydroairplanes do not go so far out as we were sailing yesterday,” Dalzell reminded the watch officer.

“I know it, but I believe that a type could be made that would have no difficulty in crossing the ocean from shore to shore.”

Now the “Logan’s” guns were at it again, with a barking din that made conversation difficult.

By this time only one hydroairplane remained with the head of the fleet, which was believed to have passed through the submarine ambush. The others and a decided majority of the destroyers were now maneuvering anywhere from the middle to the rear end of the transports.

Finally the fight centered on the tail end of the transport fleet. Here the submarines were doing their best to “get” a transport.

Another hour, and the fleet believed itself to be clear of that submarine concentration. Not that vigilance was relaxed, however. No troopship had been struck to-day, but the fine work might be easily undone by carelessness on the part of either hydroairplane or destroyer commanders.

Two hours after the attack began Darrin received signalled orders to return to his former position in the escort line.

“Thus endeth the second chapter – apparently,” commented Danny Grin.

During this engagement, as on the day before, the soldiers who crowded the destroyer had been ordered from the decks during the fight. They were now notified that they might come out.

It was one o’clock in the afternoon when the leading hydroairplane signalled a report that the sea ahead was strewn with wreckage. Ship after ship sailed through this mute evidence of the enemy’s presence and detestable work. Spars with clinging cordage floated by. Wooden hatchcovers, overturned boats, oars, chairs, wooden boxes, bales of soaked cotton and what-not were in the litter that strewed the sea over a broad area.

One of the overturned lifeboats was overhauled. The name on her stern showed that she belonged to a nine-thousand-ton freighter, carrying a naval gun crew and fore and after guns.

“The loss of the ship is bad enough,” said Dave, soberly, “but there is nothing to indicate how many lives were lost.”

An hour later, however, three boats, containing some forty men, women and children, were overhauled. The freighter had carried passengers.

When the lifeboats had been overhauled, and the occupants taken off by the destroyer “John Adams,” the shivering wretches had a sad tale to tell. It was at that moment believed, and afterwards confirmed, that some sixty persons had lost their lives.

“Even after we pulled away in the small boats,” sobbed an American woman, “the brutes shelled us.”

“A cook in our boat was hit,” a man took up the narrative. “The shell struck him at the waist, hurling his head and trunk overboard and leaving his legs in the boat. And a child’s head was shot from its shoulders. You noticed the splashes of blood in our boat? I’m fifty-nine years old, but if any recruiting officer in four armies will accept me I’m ready to enlist and fight these beasts – navy or army!”

“And I’m going to enlist!” quivered a young boatswain’s mate. “I can’t get into the trenches soon enough. I won’t take any German prisoners at the front, either,” he added, significantly.

Late in the afternoon, not many miles from the submarine base, French and American destroyers waited to escort the transport fleet the rest of the way to France. At about that same hour the evening papers in Berlin declared that an American transport fleet had been encountered, and that nine of the ships, containing more than twenty thousand American soldiers, had been sent to the bottom. The truth was that one transport had been sunk and eleven Americans killed and wounded!

Many of the destroyers that had brought in the transport fleet to the point where the new escort awaited it, now turned seaward once more. Dave Darrin and the “Logan,” however, were under orders to go to the base port, for the trial of Ober-Lieutenant von Bechtold was close at hand.

When Dave and Dan went ashore they took with them Seaman Jordan under close guard.

After slipping that note to Seaman Reardon and then receiving no further results from it, Jordan had suddenly suspected the ruse that was likely to put his neck in a noose. So now, as he went ashore, that young seaman was gloomy and pallid.

Hardly had Darrin stepped on the wharf when a waiting jackie saluted smartly.

“Why, hullo, Runkle!” cried Dave, halting, for this sailorman had been of great assistance to him in former undertakings.

“I’m glad to see you, sir,” exclaimed Runkle, who bore the device of a boatswain’s mate. “I thought you were in these waters, sir.”

“And I wish I had you on my ship, Runkle,” Dave went on, earnestly.

“Begging your pardon, sir, I see that you have Hartmann a prisoner.”

“Who?”

“Hartmann.”

“Do you mean the sailor under guard?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You call him Hartmann?”

“Yes, sir – Gus Hartmann – old Jake Hartmann’s son. I ought to know him. We hail from the same home town.”

“Speak to him,” murmured Dave, then turned to the prisoner with:

“Jordan, here’s a boatswain’s mate who says your name is Hartmann.”

“It must be so, sir, if he says so,” returned Jordan, sulkily.

“Then you admit your name to be Hartmann?”

“No, sir; but I can see that I am not to get any show whatever, so I may as well give up hope.”

“Runkle,” said Dave, after signalling to the guard to take the prisoner on, “I shall have to arrange for you to be on hand. That young man will undoubtedly be tried for treason. He enlisted under an American name, and your testimony that his real name is Hartmann will be valuable for the prosecution.”

“If young Hartmann is guilty of treason,” Runkle burst out hotly, “I would be glad enough to have the job of drowning him myself.”

“Is Jordan, or Hartmann, a citizen of the United States?”

“He was born in America, I understand, sir, but his father was born in Germany, and, so I was told, never took out naturalization papers.”

When the accused sailor had been locked up, and three secret service men came on board, Dave Darrin aided them in searching for more of the bottles that glowed when dropped in water.

Jordan, or Hartmann, had been employed at times under the ship’s painter. In the paint storeroom the secret service men, after some search, found a board in the floor, back of some boxes, that could be pried up, moving on a hinge. In a hiding place underneath were four bottles identical with the bottle which Darrin had recovered from the water.

Reporting to American Base Headquarters, Dave was much astonished to find orders there relieving him from command of the “Logan.”

“I didn’t know my work had been as bad as that,” Darrin smiled.

“Not bad work at all,” replied the staff officer who had handed him the order. “In the first place, you’ll be here to attend the court-martial of Ober-Lieutenant von Bechtold. Then there’s the case of your own seaman, Jordan, or whatever his name may be. You’ll have to testify at his court-martial, too. After both trials are over you will be ordered to the new duty to be given you.”

“I don’t suppose that I am expected to inquire what that new duty is?”

“As yet I cannot tell you about the new duty.”

“Who will command the ‘Logan,’ if I may ask?”

“Curtin. He has just received his step, and is now a lieutenant-commander.”

“And I have my step, too!” cried Danny Grin, coming up behind his chum and waving an official looking envelope. “I’m a lieutenant-commander. Been detached from service on the ‘Logan’ and must await new orders.”

“That goes for both of you,” said the staff officer smilingly.

“I wish I had a line on the new duty, though,” said Dalzell, as he turned away.

“So do I,” half-sighed Dave. “But wishing doesn’t do much for a chap in the Service.”

Turning, they walked briskly toward the naval club frequented by British and American naval officers. There, by good luck, they found Curtin, who had just come ashore.

“There are orders for you at the admiral’s office,” Dave reported. “I may as well tell you, Curtin, that Dalzell and I are detached for other duties; that you have gotten your step to a lieutenant-commandership and that you are to swing the ‘Logan’ from now on. Congratulations, old man! And I know you’ll make a record at your new post, just as you have made in your lower grades.”

“And remember, my boy,” grinned Dan, “we won’t be a bit jealous, no matter if you succeed in sinking the Kaiser’s entire submarine fleet!”

Curtin’s face showed his joy. He immediately wrote and submitted to the censor a cablegram informing his wife that he had been promoted and given a command. Further information he could not send.

“What are we going to do this evening, Danny-boy?” Dave inquired.

“I don’t know, but I expect my activities will be confined to guessing what my new line of service is to be.”

“If Curtin has attained to independent command, there’s a big chance that you will also,” Dave observed.

“That would separate us,” muttered Dan, looking almost alarmed. “David, little giant, I don’t believe I’ll be able to serve as well if I’m not on the same craft with you.”