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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78754 ***
+
+
+
+
+                        THE ADVENTURE CLUB WITH
+                               THE FLEET
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: “War’s begun!” he announced breathlessly]
+
+
+
+
+                           THE ADVENTURE CLUB
+                             WITH THE FLEET
+
+                                   By
+
+                          RALPH HENRY BARBOUR
+          AUTHOR OF “LEFT END EDWARDS,” “LEFT TACKLE THAYER,”
+                   “THE ADVENTURE CLUB AFLOAT,” ETC.
+
+
+                         WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+                           EDWARD C. CASWELL
+
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                         DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
+                               PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+                          COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
+                      DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
+
+
+
+
+                   CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAPTER                                 PAGE
+      I  STEVE BRINGS THE NEWS              1
+     II  JOE CHANGES HIS MIND              14
+    III  AT THE TRAINING STATION           26
+     IV  LAND HO!                          41
+      V  OVER THERE                        55
+     VI  THE U.S.S. WARREN                 65
+    VII  SEA DUTY                          76
+   VIII  WITH THE “SUICIDE FLEET”          91
+     IX  BACKS TO THE WALL                107
+      X  THE ALLIES TRIUMPH               121
+     XI  THE ARMADA                       131
+    XII  “ALLO, SAMMEE!”                  141
+   XIII  THE WARREN’S FIRST KILL          152
+    XIV  LETTERS FROM HOME                163
+     XV  OVERBOARD!                       174
+    XVI  THE FLOATING MINE                185
+   XVII  ABOARD THE SUNDSVALL             195
+  XVIII  THE SIGNAL FROM THE FO’CSLE      208
+    XIX  H.M.S. LINNET                    219
+     XX  THE BATTLE IN THE FOG            231
+    XXI  THE ZEPPELIN RAID                244
+   XXII  OLD FRIENDS COME ABOARD          256
+  XXIII  ON BOARD THE 3-U-9               268
+   XXIV  THE WARREN DROPS ANCHOR          288
+
+
+
+
+                       ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ “WAR’S BEGUN!” HE ANNOUNCED BREATHLESSLY
+     (Page 1)                                 _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                     FACING
+                                                       PAGE
+
+ STEVE DARTED FORWARD AND SWUNG HIS FIST                118
+
+ ON SUCH A NIGHT A DESTROYER IS LITTLE BETTER THAN
+     A SLENDER STEEL CYLINDER FILLED WITH CLUTCHING
+     MEN IN GREY CANVAS LIFE-PRESERVERS                 180
+
+ AN OFFICER SPRANG TO THE DECK WITH A WHITE FLAG
+     AND HELD IT FLUTTERING FROM OUTSTRETCHED ARMS      293
+
+
+
+
+                           THE ADVENTURE CLUB
+                             WITH THE FLEET
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+                         STEVE BRINGS THE NEWS
+
+
+Steve Chapman turned from Chapel Street into the quieter thoroughfare,
+metaphorically speaking, on two wheels, bounded up the steps of the
+fourth house in the row, took the first flight of stairs on high, raced
+along the corridor, skidded a bit at the last portal on the right and,
+finally, setting all brakes, came to a standstill in the centre of the
+floor, while, as the door swung back against the wall, every picture in
+the study jarred askew.
+
+“War’s begun!” he announced breathlessly. “President Wilson has signed!
+We’re in it at last, Joe!”
+
+Joe Ingersoll regarded his room-mate calmly across the desk, one
+hand holding open the book he had been studying. “But why wreck the
+premises?” he asked mildly. “What do you think you are? The German Army
+in Belgium?”
+
+Steve, subsiding against the back of the Morris chair, strove to regain
+his breath and wither the other with a glance, a not particularly
+successful effort. “You make me tired,” he declared. “Where’s your
+patriotism, you block of wood? I nearly break my neck to get the joyful
+news to you, and you sit there like――like――――”
+
+“Calm yourself, Steven. I’ve known it for at least ten minutes. The
+newsboys have been yelling their little hearts out around the corner
+there. Let’s see the paper, though.”
+
+“I’ve a good mind not to,” grumbled Steve. But he tossed the crumpled
+“extra” to the desk and then hurried around to where he could look over
+his chum’s shoulder. The New Haven paper had done itself proud in the
+matter of type. Three lines of big, black block letters swept across
+the upper half of the sheet, proclaiming:
+
+    WAR DECLARED AGAINST GERMANY
+      VOTE IN HOUSE IS 373 TO 50
+        PRESIDENT SIGNS DECLARATION
+
+“Yes, we’re in it,” said Joe, laying the paper down, “and I’m
+wondering――――”
+
+“What?” asked the other, impatiently.
+
+“Whether to be glad or sorry,” ended Joe soberly.
+
+“Sorry! Great Jumping Jehosophat! Do you mean that after all we’ve
+stood for from those――those barbarians――――”
+
+“I know, Steve, but war is serious business. Look what it has cost the
+others already: millions of men and billions of money: and――――”
+
+“Oh, forget the money part of it, Joe, for the love of Mike! Why,
+that’s all I’ve been hearing for a year! ‘How much will it cost us?’
+What’s money against human life and――and human liberty? And――――”
+
+“And the war’s no nearer won than it was three years ago,” continued
+Joe imperturbably. “You’ve got to think of the cost, Steve. I’m as keen
+as you are for licking the hide off those Huns, but I can’t get up and
+cheer about this. Not just this minute, anyhow. It will be a long, hard
+grind, old man.”
+
+“Maybe, but just you wait until we land a couple of millions of our
+chaps over there! Wait till our ships get a whack at theirs! We may be
+slow at starting, but, by the Lord Harry, when we do begin you’ll see
+the fur fly!”
+
+“I hope so, but it’s going to take time to get those two millions
+together, Steve. And as for our Navy, it’ll be months before it is
+ready to whack anybody. Don’t get it into your head that Germany’s
+licked because a crowd of legislators in Washington have voted ‘yes’
+on this war resolution and the President has written his name at the
+bottom of it. We’re about as ready to make war on Germany as――as the
+Freshman Nine is to lick the ’varsity!”
+
+“It could do it in a minute if it had a decent first baseman,” replied
+Steve, grinning. “Knocking the Army and Navy is fashionable, I know,
+but I don’t believe either of ’em is as badly off as the ‘sob sisters’
+tell us in the magazines. Why, if you believe all you read we haven’t
+a regiment that isn’t shot to pieces or a ship that isn’t ready to be
+scrapped. Piffle! Our Army’s as good as we need for a starter and our
+Navy’s as good as the next fellow’s. And, what’s more, we’ve got the
+money to build ’em both as big as we need ’em!”
+
+“Who’s talking money now?” asked Joe, smiling. “Of course we’ll get an
+army together after a while, and when we’ve got it it’ll be a real one.
+I’ll bank on that. And when our Navy is ready to fight it’ll fight,
+believe me! But it will take time and money and, I’m afraid, men before
+either one is fit to start in. I guess all we can do for the next six
+months is supply money and food to the Allies.”
+
+“Meaning the other Allies,” corrected Steve. “Remember we’re one of ’em
+now.”
+
+“Yes, that’s so. We’re in it, too. It seems――funny, doesn’t it?”
+
+“Funny? It seems mighty good! I say, Joe, this will make a difference
+around here, won’t it?”
+
+“Here in college? Well, I don’t know. Yes, I suppose there’ll be a lot
+of fellows missing in the Fall.”
+
+“In the Fall? I mean right now, old scout! I know a dozen fellows at
+least who will be beating it in a few days. There’s Han, for instance.
+He’s said all along that he’d enlist as soon as we entered the fracas.
+I wish I’d done what he did and gone in for the Naval Reserve. He will
+fall into a soft snap, I’ll bet. Maybe he will be a lieutenant or――or
+something.”
+
+“Admiral, likely,” said Joe dryly. “I wouldn’t worry about lost
+opportunities, Steve. Next Summer will be plenty of time to start in.”
+
+“Next Summer! Start in!” exclaimed the other, observing his companion
+incredulously. “Where the dickens do you suppose I’ll be next Summer?”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Well, not around these diggings, anyway. In the trenches, maybe.
+Anyhow, in training camp. So will you.”
+
+“Not likely. They’re going to draft them from twenty-one up, and as you
+and I are only eighteen――――”
+
+“Draft! Who’s going to wait for the draft? ‘Not I,’ said the Fly! Nor
+you either, I hope.”
+
+“Do you mean that you’re going to volunteer?” asked Joe.
+
+“Surest thing you know,” answered Steve stoutly.
+
+“You’re too young.”
+
+“I’m eighteen, and I’ll be nineteen pretty soon. There are lots of
+chaps in the Army no older than that.”
+
+“You’ll have to go into the ranks then.”
+
+“Of course I shall. I don’t expect to be made a General, you idiot! At
+least, not right off. Do you mean to sit there and tell me that you
+haven’t thought of enlisting, Joe?”
+
+“I have thought of it often,” was the calm reply, “and I long ago
+decided not to. There’s time enough. They’ll draft me when I’m old
+enough――――”
+
+“Why, you piker, the war will be over before that!”
+
+“And, besides, I want to finish college. Oh, I don’t say that I won’t
+enlist if things go badly. But there’s plenty to do here just now. You
+don’t want Harvard to beat us in baseball, do you?” he ended, smiling.
+
+“I don’t give a hang whether she does or not,” answered Steve
+disgustedly. “I never heard such tommyrot in my life! Of course you’re
+going into it, man! Every fellow that has a drop of red blood is! I’ll
+bet you there won’t be a handful of the students left in a month! Why,
+it’s dollars to doughnuts there won’t be enough fellows left in either
+the Yale or Harvard freshman team by June to play! Take a tumble to
+what’s up, Joe. Hang it, man, we’re at war!”
+
+“I know, but it isn’t war of my making. And if I go into it before
+I’m twenty-one it will be because I see the necessity of it and not
+because I’m just excited, as you are, Steve. I don’t believe I’m more
+of a coward than the average fellow, but I don’t care a whole lot about
+filling a cosy little grave over in France just yet. There’s time
+enough for that, Steve.”
+
+“You sound like a bloomin’ pacifist,” snorted Steve. “Or a slacker. If
+every fellow talked the way you talk――――”
+
+“You’ll find a lot of fellows think that way if they don’t talk it. And
+if you take my advice, Steve, you’ll sit tight and wait for college to
+close. Then go to Plattsburg or somewhere and get a second lieutenancy.
+Fellows like you don’t go in as privates.”
+
+“Wait be blowed! Suppose the bloomin’ war was over by the time I got
+a commission? I’d look an awful ass, wouldn’t I? Why, hang it, I’d be
+kicking myself all the rest of my days if they settled the Kaiser’s
+hash without my help! A fellow can go to college any old time, Joe,
+but only about once in a hundred years does he get a chance to ‘horn
+in’ in a big scrap like this! Besides, you’re dead wrong about this
+private soldier business. It’s fellows like me who are privates, and
+mighty good ones, too. No, sir, I’d rather be a doughboy right now and
+get action than wait around for a second lieutenancy and miss the fun!”
+
+“Well, don’t lose your shirt,” laughed Joe. “The war will wait a day or
+two for you.”
+
+“I’m not taking any chances on it,” growled Steve. “It would be just my
+blessed luck if old Kaiser Bill threw up the sponge about the time I
+started across. Look here, Joe, you aren’t in earnest about not going,
+are you?”
+
+Joe nodded. “Dead earnest,” he answered.
+
+“That’s beastly,” grumbled the other. “I’ve been thinking right along
+that you and I’d be together and have some dandy times.”
+
+“You talk as though this war was a picnic,” objected Joe.
+
+“I don’t mean to. I know it’s a pretty serious business, just as you
+say it is. But a fellow can’t help being a bit excited about it, and
+glad that he’s on hand to help out. It _is_ helping out, you know, Joe,
+this enlisting, and that’s why I can’t get your point of view. The
+country needs fighters, old man.”
+
+“The country will have all it will need, Steve, without me. I’m no
+soldier and never could be. I’d never have any stomach for poking
+a bayonet through another man. I’d probably quit first and get
+court-martialed. There are plenty of chaps who are cut out for the job.
+Let them have the first whack at it.”
+
+“That’s rotten!” declared Steve hotly. “Sitting back and letting the
+other fellow do your work! If I felt that way I’d never acknowledge it.”
+
+“Yes, you would, just as I do,” replied Joe, without affront. “Look at
+it sensibly, Steve: forget for a minute that you’ve just heard about
+war being on and are all excited. You know plaguey well that everyone
+isn’t called on to go into the trenches. A lot of fellows want to go
+for the excitement of the thing――――”
+
+“It isn’t only excitement,” denied Steve warmly. “There’s――there’s such
+a thing as patriotism, Joe!”
+
+“Call it patriotism, then. I won’t say it isn’t that with a good many.
+Anyway, why not let those who want to fight go and fight and let those
+who don’t want to, stay at home until the first lot find the job too
+big for them? Seems to me that’s perfectly fair and perfectly sensible.
+Maybe there’s something wrong with me, Steve, but I’d throw a fit if I
+had to shoot a man or run a bayonet into him.”
+
+“I don’t suppose any fellow would find much fun in it,” agreed Steve,
+frowning, “but when you think of――of the _Lusitania_ and of how the
+Germans have shelled defenceless women and children in life-boats
+and――oh, hang it, Joe, shooting’s too good for them!”
+
+“I suppose it comes back to the old question of whether it is right to
+commit murder in revenge for murder.”
+
+“Murder! War isn’t murder! You’re a crazy pacifist!”
+
+“I guess I am――sort of. At least, it goes against the grain with me,
+Steve, to shoot a man named Smith because a man named Jones who
+happens to be of the same nationality as Smith has killed one of my
+countrymen. Oh, I dare say my reasoning’s all wrong, but that’s the way
+I feel about it.”
+
+“You bet your reasoning’s wrong! It’s punk! You want to do less
+reasoning, Joe. That’s the trouble with you, anyway: you have to mull
+things over instead of stripping off your sweater and diving in. There
+are times, old scout, when a fellow’s heart is a lot better guide than
+his brain!”
+
+“Well, suppose heart and brain are agreed?” asked Joe, smiling. “Mine
+are. My heart tells me it won’t stand for killing folks and my brain
+tells me to keep out of it as long as I can. I know this doesn’t sound
+heroic, Steve, but I guess I wasn’t cut out for a hero. I’ll do my
+share behind the trenches gladly, but I don’t want to either shoot or
+be shot at.”
+
+“You’re talking absolute drivel,” grumbled the other. “If every fellow
+wanted to stay behind the trenches――――”
+
+“But they don’t. That’s the point I’m trying to make. There are lots of
+them who are crazy to get into the trenches. Let them. I’m not. So let
+me stay back.”
+
+“If I didn’t know you I’d think you were yellow,” said Steve
+disgustedly.
+
+“But you do know me and you know that I’m not,” responded Joe equably.
+“I don’t think it’s cowardice, although I know mighty well that my
+knees would knock together and I’d be sort of sick inside me if I had
+to crawl out of a trench and walk into machine-gun fire. But I hope I’d
+keep going. No, I don’t believe it’s exactly cowardice, Steve. I don’t
+know what it is. I just know that I don’t want to fight, not a little
+bit.”
+
+“What gets me is that you’re a natural-born scrapper,” said Steve,
+plainly puzzled. “You fight harder than any chap I know in a game.”
+
+“War isn’t a game. Perhaps that explains it,” answered Joe doubtfully.
+There was silence for a long minute. Then Steve exclaimed:
+
+“It doesn’t, though. You don’t see things in the right way, Joe. This
+war isn’t just――just a war of revenge. We’re not going after Germany
+because she killed our men and women and children and blew up some of
+our shipping. There’s a heap more than that in it, Joe. We are fighting
+for a principle, for Liberty and――and Civilisation. We’re going into it
+because if we don’t go into it Belgium and France and England and maybe
+the whole world will become just a rotten mess of German Imperialism.
+We’re fighting for World Freedom, Joe. This war’s a――a righteous war,
+I tell you! Can’t you see that? And if you do see it can there be any
+question of your duty and my duty? I’m not much of a spieler, and
+maybe I don’t get it over, but if you felt the way I feel about this
+thing you wouldn’t sit there and talk about the Freshman Nine and――and
+letting the other fellow do the job for you! If I could――――”
+
+Steve’s eloquence was suddenly interrupted. Footsteps sounded in the
+corridor outside and, as he turned inquiringly, a figure appeared
+in the doorway, the figure of a big, rangy youth of nineteen with a
+good-looking, good-natured face who, hands in pockets, surveyed the
+scene with a gravely quizzical smile.
+
+“Go on, Steve,” said the newcomer encouragingly. “You’re in fine voice.”
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+                          JOE CHANGES HIS MIND
+
+
+“Hello, Han!” cried Steve Chapman. “We were just talking about you.
+Come on in.”
+
+“It’s the first time I ever heard anyone get eloquent on the subject,”
+responded George Hanford as he swung across the room and lowered
+himself onto the window-seat. “It sounded like a debate as I came up
+the stairs.”
+
+“Steve was talking war,” said Joe.
+
+“Oh! Well, he’s not the only one. What do you think of it, Steve?”
+
+“I think it’s great! I’m for it, Han. What about you? Are you going now
+or――――”
+
+“Now. I dropped around to say _au revoir_. I’m off at four.”
+
+“Not really?” exclaimed Steve. “Gee, I wish I were going! Where do you
+go to?”
+
+“Brooklyn Navy Yard. After that――――” He spread his hands expressively.
+“I’m hoping they’ll stick me on something that’s going across, though.”
+
+Steve got up and strode excitedly the length of the study and back.
+Joe thoughtfully picked a hole in the blotter with the point of a pen.
+“I wish I’d gone into the Naval Reserve,” said Steve coming to a stop
+in front of Han’s outstretched feet. “The Army’s no good. They’ll keep
+us here for months, they say, and drill us until the blooming war’s all
+over.”
+
+“Yes, I guess the sailors will have the call,” agreed Han. “I hear that
+we’ve had ships with steam up and bunkers full and crews aboard for two
+weeks all ready to start over. Hope to goodness I’m lucky enough to get
+on one of them. So it’s the Army for you fellows, eh? Going to join now
+or wait till term’s over?”
+
+“I’m going to enlist as soon as I hear from the folks,” replied Steve
+eagerly. “I wired dad half an hour ago. Joe has some silly notion that
+it isn’t polite to skewer a German and says he’s off it.”
+
+“Joe?” Han smiled. “Don’t worry about him. He’ll be in it quick enough.
+You couldn’t keep him out of a scrap if you tried.”
+
+“That’s what I thought,” said Steve ruefully, “but he’s gone and got a
+lot of fool pacifist notions into his noodle. I wish to goodness you’d
+talk to him, Han!”
+
+But Han shook his head. “No thanks. If he really feels that way the
+best thing to do is just let him alone until the poison works itself
+out. He’ll come around. I had queer ideas myself a year or so ago.
+Didn’t approve of war much. Considered it a return to barbarism and all
+that, you know. Do yet. But, of course, we’ve got a duty to perform and
+we’ve got to perform it the most practical way. And the quickest way.
+That means war. We’ve tried soft words and we’ve tried argument. We’ve
+given ’em all the rope we could. Only thing left is to knock the tar
+out of ’em.” Han spoke quite dispassionately.
+
+“That’s just it,” agreed Steve. “We’ve been patient long enough. I’m
+for action. I wonder if I could join one of those Canadian regiments
+and get across this Summer, Han.”
+
+“Guess so. You’d have to lie, though, and say you were a British
+subject. Personally, I’d a heap rather fight under the old Stars and
+Stripes. Look here, why don’t you go in for the Navy?”
+
+“Eh?” Steve stared a moment. “By Jove! Could I?”
+
+“Don’t see why not. You like the water, too.”
+
+“Rather! Why, I never thought of the Navy! I wonder――look here, how old
+do they take you?”
+
+“Seventeen up. You have to have your parents’ permission if you’re
+under eighteen. You’re eighteen, aren’t you?”
+
+“Yes. By Jove, that’s an idea! Hear that, Joe? Tell me about it, Han.
+What do I do? Where do I go to see about it? How soon――――”
+
+“Easy on! You enlist for four years usually, but I believe they’re
+taking ’em now for the period of the war. You can search me as to what
+that means! You’ll have to start in as an apprentice seaman, I suppose.
+After that you can try for different things. You’ll get seventeen
+dollars and sixty cents a month――――”
+
+“I don’t care about the wages,” interrupted Steve impatiently. “Where
+can I join? Would they take me?”
+
+“Jump at you, son. Of course you’ll have to pass an examination, but
+they aren’t so strict in war time, and you’d get by anyhow. You must be
+five feet, four inches and weigh not less than a hundred and fifteen
+at your age. Then, if you don’t have varicose veins or curvature
+of the spine or about ninety other things, including deafness and
+colour-blindness, you sign a blank and get shipped to a station for
+training. I don’t believe, though, that they’ll waste a heap of time in
+training the fellows ashore. There are too many places to fill. Sound
+all right?”
+
+“Great! But could I do it? Be a――an apprentice seaman, or whatever you
+called it? Is it hard?”
+
+“It’s a man’s work, Stevie, but it’s no harder than being in the Army.
+If you take hold and learn you’ll get on like a house on fire. After
+awhile you’ll get to be a second-class seaman, and then a seaman, and
+after that you’re in line for a third-class petty officer’s job. You
+can be a yeoman or a gunner’s mate or a master-at-arms or, if you like,
+you can be a painter! That is, of course, if you make good.”
+
+“What are you?” demanded Steve.
+
+“Ensign.”
+
+“Fine! What’s an ensign?”
+
+“It’s a start,” replied Han gravely.
+
+“Yes, but is it like a lieutenant or what?”
+
+“It ranks with a second lieutenant in the Army. Only,” added Han, with
+a twinkle, “it’s a heap more important.”
+
+“I’m awfully glad, Han,” said Joe, looking up from his preoccupied task
+of digging holes in the desk-pad. “That’s fine. Of course you’ll get
+sea duty right off. It isn’t as if you were just a beginner.”
+
+“That’s what I am, though. All the training I’ve had you could put in
+your eye. They made me ensign in the Reserve because I was too big for
+anything less, and didn’t know enough to be anything more! I’ll have to
+learn just as you fellows will. There’s one thing to remember, Steve,
+and it’s this. Once we get into this mess there’s going to be a vacancy
+on your ship right often. If you don’t come home a lieutenant it’ll be
+your own fault, I guess.”
+
+“Unless he shouldn’t come home at all,” observed Joe quietly.
+
+“Well, don’t buy any flowers yet,” replied Steve flippantly. “Where can
+I enlist, Han? New York? Brooklyn?”
+
+“If you can drag your feet as far as Chapel Street――――”
+
+“Honest? Of course! I remember seeing the place now. Look here, I
+wonder if I ought to send another telegram. Maybe dad wouldn’t stand
+for the Navy. He’s skittish about having me drowned.”
+
+Han laughed. “Rather have you blown up by a trench bomb, eh? Well,
+everyone to his taste. Did the Government take over the _Adventurer_?”
+
+“No,” answered Steve. “They say she’s too small. I believe fifty feet
+over all’s the limit.” He had paused at a window and, with hands
+thrust deeply into trousers pockets, was staring thoughtfully across
+the roofs to where, high above the big hotel, the Stars and Stripes
+was snapping in the April breeze. Han broke the silence with a quiet
+chuckle.
+
+“Say, fellows, when we formed the Adventure Club almost a year ago we
+didn’t know what a whacking big adventure we’d get into, did we?”
+
+“No,” replied Joe, “somehow the war didn’t seem especially near home
+then. I wonder why. Anyone who thought much about it might have known
+we couldn’t keep out of it much longer. I suppose we were too kiddish
+to realise.”
+
+“We were only a year younger,” objected Steve, without turning.
+
+“Yes, but I feel a lot more than a year older,” said Joe. Han nodded.
+
+“We’re living fast these days. By the way, I got a note from Phil
+yesterday. He and Harry Corwin are down at Newport News and expect
+to make a trip across pretty soon on one of the armed liners. Phil’s
+qualifying as gun-pointer.”
+
+“Phil!” exclaimed Joe. “Great Scott, think of that old sober-sides
+doing that! And Harry’s with him, eh? Some fellows have all the luck!”
+he ended disconsolately.
+
+“Any of the other Adventure Club fellows in it?” asked Joe.
+
+“Wink Wheeler’s training somewhere down south for the Aviation Service
+and Cas Temple’s driving a flivver over in France. But you knew that. I
+dare say there are others in it by now.”
+
+“Neil Fairleigh’s training for something out in Kansas or Missouri or
+somewhere. Nick Taylor had a letter from him awhile back. Well, that’s
+seven out of thirteen accounted for,” added Steve.
+
+“I make it eight,” corrected Han. “Phil and Harry, Wink, Cas, Neil,
+you, Joe and myself.”
+
+“Eight if you count Joe,” said Steve rather ungraciously. Joe flushed
+but said nothing, and Han pulled his length from the window-seat.
+“Well, I’ve got a thousand things to do, fellows. Good luck to you, and
+here’s hoping we’ll meet over there before long.”
+
+“We’ll make a date for Berlin the third Thursday in September,” laughed
+Steve.
+
+Han shook his head, smiling. “Don’t fool yourself, son. This thing’s
+only started. Good-bye, Joe. When you get ready to come in you’d better
+consider the Navy. Maybe if you work it right you can make the same
+ship with Steve.”
+
+“I’d like the Navy,” answered Joe quietly as he shook hands. “If I
+do――――” He paused, and then: “When I do,” he went on, “I’ll try for
+that. Good-bye, Han, and all the luck in the world to you. If you
+aren’t wearing epaulettes before the war’s over I’ll be disappointed in
+you.”
+
+“Thanks, Joe, but if I get my two bars I’ll be satisfied. I’ll let
+you hear from me if there’s anything to write, and you might drop me
+a scrawl now and then. I’ll send an address as soon as I get one. So
+long!” Han paused on the threshold and looked back for an instant while
+his smile faded and a very sober expression came over his face. “The
+Adventure Club has found its Great Adventure, fellows,” he said softly.
+“Let’s all do our best to make good.”
+
+After Han had gone there was silence for several minutes in the room.
+Joe was bent over his book again, but I don’t think he was studying.
+Steve had gone back to his contemplation of the windy Spring sky and
+the gay flag tugging at its halyard. It was he who broke the silence at
+last.
+
+“I hope old Han comes through all right,” he said.
+
+“Yes,” agreed Joe.
+
+“He’s one of the best.” Steve turned and reached for his cap. “I’ve got
+to run over to the library a minute. If that telegram comes, Joe, look
+after it, will you? I’ll be back pretty soon.” At the door he, too,
+turned, and: “I say, Joe,” he began.
+
+“Yes?” asked the other.
+
+“Nothing. What are you doing this afternoon?”
+
+“Practice at three-thirty. We’ll probably get outdoors again today.
+This wind ought to dry the field up pretty fast.”
+
+“Oh! Well――so long.”
+
+Steve clattered downstairs and the door below banged behind him. After
+a moment Joe arose and crossed to a window. Steve, hands in pockets,
+was swinging diagonally across the street, not at all in the direction
+of the library.
+
+“He’s going to the recruiting place,” thought Joe. Raising his eyes,
+his glance fell on the flag streaming its red and white stripes against
+the blue sky. He stood there a moment looking at it intently and then,
+with a faint sigh, went back to the desk. From the main street came the
+shrill cry of a passing newsboy:
+
+“Wuxtry! Wuxtry! President Wilson declares war with Goimany!
+Wuxtre-e-e!”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Steve’s telegram came shortly after luncheon. When he had read it he
+passed it over to Joe. “Do your duty as you see it (Joe read) and God
+bless you. Mother and father.”
+
+Twenty minutes later Steve was answering the questions of the Recruiting
+Officer.
+
+When Joe returned from freshman baseball practice at dusk two notes lay
+on the corner of his chiffonier and he took them to the window. One,
+merely a sheet of paper once folded and with a corner turned down, was
+from Steve.
+
+“Pal: I’m running up to town for the night. Back early in the morning.
+I’m off to Brooklyn Navy Yard day after tomorrow. Better be sorry for
+the Kaiser now! Steve, _U. S. N._”
+
+Joe reread it and then thoughtfully laid it down and took up the second
+note. This was enclosed in a sealed and fully addressed envelope and,
+since it bore no stamp, had evidently been delivered at the house by
+messenger. The writing was unmistakably Han’s, big, round and boyish.
+He tore the end from the envelope and pulled forth the single sheet of
+paper, not a little curious as to what Han had found to write about so
+soon. There was neither greeting nor signature to that missive, and Joe
+frowned perplexedly as he began to read:
+
+“To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything
+that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those
+who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend
+her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and
+happiness and the peace which she has treasured.
+
+“God helping her, she can do no other.”
+
+When he had read it the second time he refolded it slowly and pushed
+it into an inner pocket. Then, turning out the light, he went into the
+bedroom and threw himself on his bed and, hands under head, stared
+straight up at the darkening ceiling. An hour passed. Outside the
+lights grew brighter along the streets. The roar and hum of the little
+city lessened. At last Joe arose and made his way to the study window
+again. Darkness enveloped the town above the roofs, but, faintly
+illumined against the night sky, the Stars and Stripes still waved and
+fluttered. Joe brought his heels together, straightened his body and
+raised his right hand to his forehead in salute.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+                        AT THE TRAINING STATION
+
+
+Three days later instead of two, since severing connections with the
+college was not quite such a casual ceremony as Steve had supposed, the
+two boys found themselves at the Newport Training Station, full-fledged
+apprentice seamen in the United States Navy. They had duly satisfied
+the examining officer that they were eighteen years of age, had
+successfully passed medical inspection, had been shorn of all but a
+scant half-inch of their hair, had gone through a disinfecting bath
+and had been “shot” in the arm with anti-typhoid serum. And then, to
+their dismay, they discovered that they were not free to come and go
+about the Station, but――and this was something that Han had failed to
+mention――were due to remain in Detention Camp for three long weeks! The
+officer in charge seemed to prefer to allude to their habitation as the
+Recruit Barracks, but after the first few days both boys could have
+easily found a name much more fitting than either of those!
+
+“It’s silly rot,” declared Steve one afternoon as the cheers from the
+ball field floated across. “Just as though we’d be likely to bring any
+contagious disease with us! We don’t come from――from the slums!”
+
+Still, there wasn’t a whole lot of time to bewail the imprisonment,
+for they, together with an ever changing throng of brother recruits,
+had plenty to do to keep them busy. There was the visit to the dentist
+to start with and then the exciting event of receiving their outfits:
+blankets, uniforms, brushes, underwear, sewing materials, soap, bathing
+trunks, towels and various lesser articles: and of appearing for the
+first time in the “blues.” Joe was critical of the fit of his trousers
+and for the first day continually glanced dubiously at the flapping
+fullness around the tops of his stout Navy shoes. But secretly they
+were both as proud as Punch, even if Joe did remark flippantly that if
+the outfit really cost Uncle Sam sixty dollars, as rumour had it, Uncle
+Sam was getting stung! Whereupon Steve gravely called his attention to
+the undoubted excellence of the bone buttons included in the sewing kit.
+
+If they had thought to be done with academic studies they were
+mistaken, for every day there was “school.” But all the instruction was
+not academic, for they were taught also how to wash their clothes and
+mend them, and their first essays in these twin arts were laughably
+ludicrous. “Suds drill” to lads who had never got closer to the labour
+of washing their clothes than――infrequently――filling out a laundry slip
+was startlingly novel! Nor did either of them show skill and grace in
+the manipulation of needle and thread. Steve had so many punctures in
+his fingers at the end of the first week that it hurt him to touch
+anything! For two days life looked rather doleful. The inoculation
+produced lassitude, and the food, good but plainer than they were
+used to, failed to appeal to them. But all that passed presently
+and soon they were as prompt with their mess kits as any, and roast
+beef and mashed potatoes and creamed carrots and cottage pudding, or
+their equivalents, found enthusiastic welcome. Since misery loves
+company, sociability reigned in Detention Camp. Steve and Joe made many
+acquaintances of many sorts, for the recruits that packed the barracks
+were of numerous races and from widely different walks in life. Many of
+them, indeed, were from the country, but far more were city boys. Of
+the latter the majority were surprisingly strong and healthy looking,
+and, as Joe remarked in some surprise, “stacked up better than the
+hayseeds.” College and preparatory schools had provided fully thirty
+per cent of the crowd, and of the balance another thirty per cent were
+boys who had learned or were learning a trade. Naturally the chief
+subject of conversation was the duration of training. Many held the
+opinion that the usual three months would be cut in two at least.
+All sorts of tales were told to indicate that they would be smelling
+powder in a month, stories of “greenhorns” being rushed aboard ship
+after three days at the Station, of thousands of practically untrained
+Jackies reaching Brooklyn and Charleston and Newport News weekly from
+the Great Lakes Station.
+
+“Take it from me,” declared a big, raw-boned youth named Breen who had
+graduated two weeks before from the front end of a New York trolley
+car, “they can’t do without us, fellers. They’ve got the ships, see,
+but they ain’t got the men. An’ say, we’re needed over there, believe
+me!” He jerked a carroty head in the general direction of the main
+barracks which might or might not be also the direction of the coast of
+France. “I’ll bet you my shoes we’ll be chasin’ them U-boats inside of
+six weeks!”
+
+“Some of us may,” agreed a little dark-skinned, black-eyed boy who had
+scraped past the doctor only by stretching his neck until it ached,
+“but there’s a lot of us’ll be kickin’ our toes around receivin’ ships
+most of the Summer. Say, where’s this Atlantic Squadron you hear tell
+of? What’s it doin’ to save the Country?”
+
+“Patrollin’ from Newfoundland to Cuby, o’ course. But I hope I don’t
+get stuck on that.” Breen shook his head gravely. “They won’t never see
+no fun. Fritz ain’t sendin’ any U-boats this way, take it from me. The
+Allies is keepin’ him busy at home.”
+
+“What about the submarine they sunk in the Narrows the other day?”
+asked someone.
+
+“Aw, tell it to Sweeney!”
+
+“That’s right! I got it straight from a fellow who knows. There was
+a Swedish ship come in and passed inspection and was making for the
+harbour when a patrol boat decides to give her the once-over and sees a
+cable dragging astern. So he signals to a torpedo boat and the torpedo
+boat stops the ship and investigates. ‘I’ve been examined and my papers
+are all right,’ says the Swede captain. ‘You shut your face,’ says
+the torpedo boat commander. So then they gets the winch going on that
+hawser and pulls up a German submarine which was thinking to get into
+the harbour and blow things right and left. Then they shoots the whole
+lot――――”
+
+“Yes, an’ one of ’em was the Crown Prince himself!” jeered Breen.
+“Sure, I know. You hear a lot of that stuff. It listens fine, too. Like
+this here destroyer _Smith_ who seen a U-boat up the coast yesterday or
+the day before. What she seen was a porpoise, I guess. Take it from me,
+Jack, them Germans ain’t takin’ no chances. They never have an’ they
+never will. That’s their efficiency, see?”
+
+“What about those raiders like the whats-its-name that――――”
+
+“Easy, kid, easy! We wasn’t in the war then. You don’t see no raiders
+rompin’ around now, do you? You bet your life you don’t. Take it from
+me, bo, nothin’ doin’, nothin’ doin’!”
+
+So they took it from him, and went to bed.
+
+Unless connected with the ever interesting subject of the prospect
+of getting afloat the war was discussed but little, considering what
+they were there for. Baseball was a far more likely topic. Whether
+the Giants would come through this year, whether the Red Sox could
+“repeat,” what Mathewson would do with the Reds――all those questions
+appeared to concern the hundreds of embryo sea fighters far more than
+the world struggle that had called them together. On the whole there
+were few dull moments in camp, and lots and lots of busy ones. Day by
+day the faces changed as some went on to the main barracks and new
+recruits took their places. The British War Commission landed, followed
+a few days later by the French, and there was much talk of “Papa”
+Joffre. In the harbour destroyers dropped anchor and weighed again,
+launches sputtered over the blue water, a submarine from the New London
+base paid a visit and departed after an excited exchange of signals,
+submerging as she passed the point. Breen took his wisdom to the main
+barracks and a broad-shouldered chap who had been a telephone lineman
+until a fortnight ago succeeded him as camp mentor. Joe put on three
+pounds of weight, and Steve two, while their appetites grew daily. And
+on the first of May they ended detention and moved their kits to the
+main barracks.
+
+They signalised this event by obtaining leave and hurrying to
+their homes in New York. They felt a little bit conscious of their
+uniforms, and tried very hard to attain the swagger of the experienced
+Jackies. It didn’t help Steve to feel at ease when he was mistaken
+in the Terminal for a porter by a near-sighted old lady, and Joe had
+unmerciful fun with him all the way uptown. That was a hurried visit,
+but it did them both good. Joe received a scrawl from George Hanford in
+which Han announced his assignment to the _Carthage_, scout cruiser,
+then at Newport News. “We’re looking for a move any moment,” wrote Han.
+“It’s full steam at six hours with us, and that means something. We’re
+not supposed to write about our movements, but you’re in the Service
+now, praises be, and so I guess it’s all right. I wasn’t able to find
+out where you’re stationed, so I’m sending this to the home. Write me
+when you get this and tell me how you’re getting on. We’ve got a fine
+set of officers on this ship and we’re all crazy to start something.
+Say howdy to old Steve and tell him to write.”
+
+Joe’s fame had preceded him and he was hustled out to try for one of
+the baseball nines. He didn’t exactly cover himself with glory that
+first afternoon of practice, probably because one of the busiest and
+hardest days he had ever put in had taken the edge off his zest for
+physical exercise. When one arises at five in the morning and goes
+to his hammock at nine it is possible for quite a number of things
+to happen to him. It was hard for Steve and Joe to relish the sound
+of reveille at first. Five o’clock seemed a most unchristian hour at
+which to tumble out. For that matter I’m not certain that they ever
+came to care an awful lot for that first bugle call, although they did
+ultimately accept its summons with a fair degree of equanimity. At
+five-thirty they had to be ready for muster, and from that time until
+seven they were busy cleaning up themselves, their clothing and the
+barracks. Breakfast was finished at eight, when followed periods of
+drill, study and instruction until three in the afternoon, with the
+exception of an hour for dinner at twelve. Between three and six their
+time was their own unless there was extra duty or they were back in
+their work. The evenings were theirs until nine when the bugler sounded
+lights out. The routine on Saturdays and Sundays differed, and on the
+afternoons of those days liberty was granted to the recruits not under
+restriction.
+
+Meanwhile they were learning, first, subordination, and, second,
+seamanship. Perhaps they were a bit more amenable to authority than
+the general run of their fellow recruits, since they had experienced
+the discipline of football and baseball training during five years at
+school and college. At least they seemed to find it easier to obey
+orders without hesitation and without question than did many of their
+companions, just as it troubled them much less to salute some youngster
+scarcely older than they whose sleeve happened to bear stripes and
+chevrons. That thing of saluting was a fine puzzle to them for awhile,
+as was the matter of insignia. Joe became almost pop-eyed watching for
+sleeve braidings or shoulder straps and his constant, haunting fear
+was that he would meet an Admiral and fail to salute. He didn’t know
+what the penalty for that would be, but, judging by the punishment for
+far less serious crimes, he presumed it might easily be decapitation!
+More than once both he and Steve, in the earlier days of their service,
+missed a bit of gold braid or an inconspicuous star and were brought
+sharply up by the wearer. In the end they adopted the scheme of Breen,
+now enthusiastically seeking to qualify for the electrical school.
+
+“Don’t take no chances,” advised Breen. “I don’t. If I see a feller
+comin’ along that ain’t got up just as I am I salute him. If he’s an
+officer, all right. If he ain’t, all right too. He’s so pleased you
+can see his chest stick up. I ran across a chauffeur over by the gate
+the other day and saluted him fine. He didn’t mind, and it didn’t
+hurt me none. Let me tell you something, Jack. Don’t get this here
+‘too-proud-to-salute’ bug. It don’t work, see? A feller was whining
+around barracks the other day about havin’ to salute fellers that
+wasn’t no better’n he was. Said he was willin’ to salute an Admiral and
+a few high muckamucks, you see, but he didn’t see why he had to show
+respect to a rough-neck carpenters’ mate. Well, I told him why. I says:
+‘Bo, you ain’t salutin’ the feller in the uniform. Maybe he ain’t no
+better’n you are. You’re salutin’ the uniform and what it stands for.
+Get it? Them little didoes on his sleeve means authority, an’ it’s
+authority you’re flippin’ your hand to. An’,’ I says, ‘take it from me
+the sooner you gets that inside that solid concrete dome of yours the
+better,’ I says. Ain’t I right?”
+
+Steve bought a small book containing, amongst other things, a full
+list, with pictures in colours, of all insignia of rank in the Army
+and Navy and studied it diligently, but at the end of a week he sadly
+acknowledged that he couldn’t tell a Rear-Admiral from a Pay Officer,
+unless the latter was working at his job!
+
+Barring Saturdays and Sundays, Steve and Joe spent an average of
+eight hours a day in drilling, beginning with setting-up drill in
+the morning and ending with afternoon parade. In between there were
+other drills of many sorts, boat drill, gun drill, splicing and tying,
+steering, rifle practice and so on. And then, lest their muscles might
+possibly grow at the expense of their lungs, there was singing school
+one evening a week. Amusements were not forgotten. Moving pictures,
+concerts and lectures occurred frequently. On the whole, life was
+both busy and happy, and, after the first period of homesickness that
+assailed many boys was over, it would have been hard to find one who
+regretted his presence at the Training Station. Only, and this was a
+widely prevalent sentiment, they didn’t want to stay there much longer!
+Everyone’s ambition was to find himself afloat.
+
+“What gets me,” confided Steve one day to Joe on the way back from a
+ball game, “is the way these fellows stack up. Do you know, Joe, taking
+them as they come they’re a mighty decent lot.”
+
+“Well, why not?” asked his chum.
+
+“No reason, I suppose, only――somehow you get the notion that Uncle
+Sam’s sailors are a sort of tough gang. I know I always thought so.
+I had an idea that when you got out of jail after picking someone’s
+pocket or busting another chap’s head with a cobblestone that the
+first thing you did was sign on in the Navy. Guess I was wrong, though.
+These chaps are as decent and――and intelligent as you’d meet anywhere.
+Don’t you say so?”
+
+“I certainly do, Steve. And they should be. They aren’t bums. They’re
+just average American fellows, most of them from good homes and
+schools. Even those who haven’t had much schooling seem to know what
+is decent and what isn’t. There’s the fellow they call Abie in our
+company. He says he never saw the inside of a school house until a year
+ago. Grew up in the Ghetto. Well, Abie’s got more common decency and
+more genuine American spirit and patriotism than half the chaps we know
+here. Know what I think, Steve?”
+
+“Shoot!”
+
+“Well, I think this country’s all right just as long as you run across
+fellows like Abie. It’s easy enough for you and me to feel patriotic
+and be willing to fight for the Flag, but when it comes to a little
+half-size Polish Jew who has lived here only ten or twelve years and by
+rights oughtn’t to know whether the Revolutionary War was a prize fight
+or a moving picture, why, gee, I think it’s wonderful!”
+
+“Right-o!” agreed Steve. “Abie’s a mighty plucky little cuss. We’ve got
+some fine fellows in our company. I guess,” he added naïvely, “it’s the
+best company here, eh?”
+
+“Sure to be,” laughed Joe. “One’s own company always is.”
+
+Steve laughed. “That’s so, I suppose. Just the same, it is a good one.
+And there’s all kinds in it, from Abie to that chap Manders who came
+back from leave last week driving his own whopping big Fiat. He’s
+going to take me over to New London Sunday if we can get off. He’s got
+a brother over there in the Submarine School. He’s a lieutenant or
+something. I’ll get him to ask you along. Say, know something?”
+
+“A little,” confessed Joe, “but I’m willing to learn.”
+
+“Well, I’ll bet you that if someone got up some time and yelled ‘Now
+then, fellows! A cheer for the N. T. S.!’ you’d hear every school and
+college yell between Maine and Texas! Only you wouldn’t, on account of
+there being so many!”
+
+“I know one college yell you wouldn’t hear,” said Joe.
+
+“What one?” asked Steve suspiciously.
+
+“Vassar!”
+
+“My word, but you’re the smart guy! Chin up! Here’s something with
+stripes coming! Maybe he’s an Admiral. Act pretty!”
+
+“An ensign, you idiot,” said Joe as the officer returned their salutes
+and passed. “When did you say Manders was going over to New London?”
+
+“Next Sunday. It’ll be a corking trip. That car of his goes about a
+million miles a minute without turning a hair.”
+
+“You mean without casting a shoe,” chuckled Joe. “Don’t forget to tell
+him about me. Maybe we can get a look into one of the subs.”
+
+That they didn’t was not the fault of Lieutenant Manders. It was
+entirely due to the fact that on a certain Tuesday afternoon toward the
+last of May their company and two others were ordered to be ready to
+entrain the next morning at six o’clock, and that when Sunday arrived
+Steve and Joe were many miles distant from Manders and his pea-green
+Fiat!
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+                                LAND HO!
+
+
+Joe leaned against the rail and gazed none too happily over leagues
+and leagues of tumbled grey-green water. Overhead the sun had been in
+hiding since dawn, but of late an occasional path of amber light had
+momentarily shot through the dun clouds and turned to jewel colours the
+crests of the rushing seas. Today the big liner was steady enough, but
+for the first forty-eight hours she had rolled and pitched a deal more
+than Joe had liked, with the result that a good half of that period
+had been spent by him in his bunk. It hadn’t been a pleasant time,
+for he and Steve and all the other men from the Training Station had
+been assigned to steerage quarters, and the steerage bunks were not
+what they might have been. Just now, however, what with a more settled
+condition of his stomach and the occasional glints of sunshine across
+a less boisterous sea, life looked a lot more attractive. Drill that
+morning, held on the far from ideal drill ground of the after main
+deck, had been a trying proceeding for him, and only the fact that the
+“Luff” in command of them had almost tearfully begged for a decent
+turn-out had prevented him from again claiming exemption. It was the
+first drill with arms since leaving port, and the fact that a certain
+exalted personage of the United States Army who wore three stars on the
+collar of his service jacket was, together with his Staff, watching
+that drill had made it very necessary indeed to show the best they had.
+The drill, in spite of causing Joe much unhappiness at the time, had
+set him up a lot and just now he was tentatively considering the matter
+of dinner. Not having eaten anything of consequence for nearly two
+whole days, his interest was only natural.
+
+To starboard, so close that Joe could see the movements of the
+lookouts in her fighting tops, ploughed a big lead-grey battleship, a
+high-bowed, one-funnelled monster that had joined the liner sometime
+and somewhere that first night of the journey. Joe didn’t know her
+name, nor, if you believed them, did anyone else. It was remarkable
+how little anyone knew――or professed to know――about anything these
+days! Ahead of the liner transport steamed a smaller warship, a cruiser
+with four funnels and masts that didn’t match. Some said she was the
+_Montana_, but as no two persons could agree on the identity of the
+battleship Joe didn’t have much faith in the correctness of this guess.
+A second cruiser flanked them off the port and two fussy little torpedo
+boats wallowed about, well in advance, like sportive dolphins. Those
+convoys were a great comfort to Joe, although he sometimes doubted that
+they would have time from their signalling, in case of a submarine
+attack, to be of any service, for all day long, and way into the night
+as well, the big battleship signalled to the cruisers, the cruisers
+signalled back, the torpedo boats wig-wagged a bit on their own hook,
+and, not to be entirely out of it, the liner semaphored whenever the
+thought occurred to her. All of which, in view of the fact that there
+was a continual hissing and buzzing in the wireless room, suggested
+that there was a whole lot of conversation going on in that part of the
+Atlantic Ocean!
+
+The transport, which only a few months ago, had been a crack liner
+plying between New York and an English port, carried a varied human
+cargo at present. There was, first of all in importance, the Army
+Officer and his Staff, and with them a small regiment of orderlies
+and clerks. Then there were a number of Navy officers who appeared
+to be sharing the work of navigation with the officers of the liner,
+several hundred bronze-cheeked, capable-looking boys in olive-drab
+whose hats bore the red-and-white cord of the Engineer Service, two
+hospital units, very proud in their new uniforms, four gun crews to
+man the five-pounders at bow and stern, the detachment of seamen to
+which Joe belonged, numerous civilians, amongst whom were a full dozen
+war correspondents, and the regular personnel of the steamship. The
+big liner, however, was very far from crowded, although at Halifax,
+before she had been towed out of the harbour, her decks had fairly
+teemed with passengers. That farewell to America had been rather
+stirring. Joe recalled the choky sensation that had been his as
+whistles on the assembled craft had bellowed hoarse good-byes to them
+and as, in the outer harbour, the sailors on the British cruisers
+had waved and cheered, while on one of the ships the band had played
+“The Star-Spangled Banner.” Before all that there had been a long
+and tiresome trip on a train that had been frequently side-tracked,
+during which they had slept as best they might in day coaches and, when
+passing through towns, with curtains lowered at all windows. They had
+had a half-day at Halifax before boarding the liner, but had not been
+allowed off the big dock. And now, after nearly three days of tumbling
+and tossing, they were far out on the broad Atlantic bound for a port
+unknown. They were, though, getting used to official secrecy. Not once
+since they had left Newport early one fog-drenched May morning had they
+known their next destination. Steve had questioned the quartermaster in
+charge of the detachment after they had entrained. The quartermaster
+was a good-natured chap, popular with all and without any “side,”
+and in response to Steve’s inquiry he had lowered his voice to a
+confidential whisper.
+
+“We’re not supposed to tell,” he had replied, “but if you won’t let it
+go any further――――”
+
+Steve had promised.
+
+“Well, then, we’re going――――” the Q.M. looked cautiously around the
+crowded car――“to an Atlantic port!”
+
+After that Steve gave it up and joined with the others in singing
+“Where Do We Go From Here?”
+
+That, however, they were off for foreign service was no great secret,
+for they had had extra clothing issued to them, and that could mean
+nothing else. They had been excited and jubilant, and, at the same
+time, more astonished than they were willing to show. Why they,
+“greenhorns” to a man, had been selected instead of some of the fellows
+with months of training behind them was a problem. Of course they
+pretended that it was because they had shown exceptional ability, but
+secretly they greatly feared that an error had been made and were
+scared to death that someone in authority would discover the fact and
+summon them back to the Station. There was a distinct feeling of relief
+when the train started away!
+
+They were having some sort of a drill on the battleship now. Joe
+could see the sailors and marines swarming the decks and thought he
+could hear a bugle. That was scarcely probable, however, as the big
+ship was some distance off and the wind, as proved by the smoke from
+the funnels, blew in a direction away from the liner. He had made up
+his mind that it was fire drill they were busy with over there when
+someone ranged himself at his side. It was Steve, looking very healthy
+and hearty. Joe slightly resented the fact that his chum had not
+experienced more than a qualm of seasickness.
+
+“We’re getting into the U-boat zone, they say,” announced Steve, “and
+tonight we’ve all got to sleep in life-preservers. What do you know
+about that?”
+
+“I’ll bet they’ll be mighty uncomfortable,” commented Joe. “How long do
+we stay in the zone?”
+
+“Oh, right along until we make port, I guess. They say up forward that
+we’re going to Bordeaux. I don’t know if it’s so, though.”
+
+“I know if it’s so,” replied Joe pessimistically. “It isn’t!”
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“Common sense, Steve. We _thought_ we were going to Boston when we
+started from Newport and we went to Halifax. If we _think_ we’re going
+to Bordeaux we’re certain sure to bring up at――at Liverpool, or any
+place we don’t expect.”
+
+“Well, maybe we won’t bring up anywhere,” said Steve cheerfully, “if
+we meet up with one of those torpedoes. We’ll just stay where we are,
+perhaps.”
+
+“I’d hate to be a U-boat around here,” answered Joe, peering forward
+for a glimpse of the plunging vanguard of business-like torpedo boats.
+“I guess I wouldn’t have much chance.”
+
+“Oh, not in the daytime,” agreed the other, “but at night a sub could
+sneak up, I guess, and take a shot and get away with it.”
+
+“How would they know where we were at night? There isn’t a light to be
+seen on any of us. Fact is, it makes me feel a lot more uneasy to know
+that a big bunch of steel like that over there is almost treading on
+our heels every night than it does to think about U-boats. Suppose we
+lagged a little and that battleship or one of those cruisers tried to
+climb aboard over our rail? I think we ought to show a light astern,
+anyway.”
+
+“Oh, that’s all right. The captain stands there every night and smokes
+a cigar, you see. All the other ships have to do is watch the end of
+his cigar and they know where we are! There won’t be any more night
+signalling, I guess. I say, watch this, Joe!”
+
+Four sailors came along the deck and paused at a life-boat which
+rested on chocks nearby. In a very business-like way they proceeded to
+swing it outboard after which they secured it with new lashings to the
+davits, tested the falls and passed on to the next.
+
+“Safety first!” murmured Steve. “Looks like business, what?”
+
+Joe nodded soberly. “I guess I’m not going to mind sleeping in my
+life-preserver as much as I thought,” he said. “Also, I’ll bet that
+tomorrow morning when we have our next boat drill I’ll be the first
+one at station!”
+
+Steve laughed. “Good thing we didn’t have to abandon ship yesterday,
+eh? What would you have done, Joe?”
+
+“I’d have stayed right there in my bunk,” was the prompt reply, “and
+gone down with the ship. When you’re sufficiently seasick I guess a
+torpedo would be a――a happy relief!”
+
+“Fine! You’d have got your name in despatches as a bloomin’ hero. I
+guess if anything happened right now Abie would be the hero. He’s been
+as sick as a dog ever since we passed Devil’s Island Light, poor chap.
+I asked him a few minutes ago if there was anything I could do for him
+and he said: ‘Yes, go away and leave me alo-o-one!’”
+
+“Does a fellow get over being seasick, or――or what?” asked Joe. “What’s
+the good of being a sailor if you have to lie in your bunk when the
+fun’s going on?”
+
+“Oh, you get over it pretty soon,” answered Steve, comfortingly.
+“Remember how jolly sick you were on the _Adventurer_ that time off the
+Isles of Shoals? Well, you weren’t bothered again all the rest of the
+voyage. The fact is, I rather wish I’d been laid up already and had it
+over with, because I’m plaguey sure I’ll have to have mine before I’m
+through.”
+
+“I hope you’re right. I mean about getting over it. Suppose we went to
+one of those chasers or torpedo destroyers! Gee, you can get seasick
+just watching one of those tubs!”
+
+“I wish they would put us on one of ’em,” said Steve devoutly. “What
+I’m afraid of is that we’re going over for shore duty. Crocker says
+we’re taking over one of the English bases and he thinks we fellows
+will have to get things ready there. That’ll be perfectly vile, won’t
+it?”
+
+“Better than Newport,” said Joe. “We’ll be around where things are
+doing, anyway. Say, isn’t it ’most dinner time?”
+
+“Pretty near.” Steve grinned. “You must be feeling better, old scout.”
+
+“I’m mighty hungry, if that means anything. Let’s go down and be on
+hand, eh?”
+
+“All right. We haven’t had our French lesson yet. Maybe there’ll be
+time for it. Come on.”
+
+“I can’t study French on an empty stomach,” grumbled Joe, following the
+other down a companion-way. “Besides, I know what beef is, and coffee
+and bread. And I can say _une table_ and _une plat_ and _une tasse_,
+and I know that a newspaper’s a _journeaux_――no, that’s two newspapers.
+Well, anyway, I know enough French to get along with.”
+
+“Never mind how much you know,” replied Steve sternly. “You get your
+little book and behave yourself.”
+
+“Some day,” murmured Joe, “that little book――I mean _petite livre_ is
+going to accidentally fall overboard into _le mer_, which will be _tres
+beau_!”
+
+That afternoon the sun came out gloriously and life was well worth
+living again, and the next morning the sea had calmed to such an extent
+that the sorely-tried Abie crawled out of his bunk and subsided in
+a sheltered corner of the deck, hope once more visible on his pale
+countenance. By way of varying the monotony the crow’s-nest watchers
+got up a submarine scare which brought joy to the crew of the after gun
+and caused a wild commotion below decks until the suspected periscope
+proved to be only an empty nail keg. Again, just at sunset, the two
+torpedo boats suddenly swerved northward, with smokestacks belching,
+and, at a distance of several miles, fired three shots between them.
+Whether they had really seen anything was never known on the liner.
+Sleeping with cork life-preservers strapped around one proved no more
+comfortable than Joe had predicted, but orders were orders and, after
+all, one did feel a certain sense of security that almost atoned for
+the discomfort.
+
+They had a most exasperating way of holding boat drill at a different
+time every day on that transport. Only let a chap get settled to a game
+of seven up or high-low-Jack and the fire bell rang alarmingly and he
+had to tumble up on deck with his life-belt, donning it as he went, and
+take his station by the particular boat to which he had been assigned
+at the commencement of the voyage. The only thrilling feature of boat
+drill was that you could never be absolutely sure until you had reached
+the deck that this time the alarm wasn’t something more than just
+make-believe, that it didn’t really mean “prepare to abandon ship!”
+
+But no untoward incident marred the peacefulness of that trip across.
+If the German submarines sighted the expedition they took good care to
+keep out of view, so far as those on the liner ever knew, at least. And
+finally one afternoon the lookouts in the forward crow’s nest broke
+into full cry: “Smoke two points off the starboard bow!... Smoke dead
+ahead!... Smoke broad off the starboard bow!... Smoke one point off the
+port bow!”
+
+There was a wild rush from below as the message went around that
+the British convoy was sighted. Fast they came, four grim black
+destroyers, punching the seas into spray before them. Signals then
+from one of the pack, answered from the battleship; gay-hued bunting
+fluttering in the sunlight. The new convoy swung around without pausing
+and took positions, and the big lead-coloured battleship and the
+cruisers and one of the torpedo boats put their helms over and went
+back the way they had come, their duty done. Joe, watching them grow
+smaller and smaller, sighed.
+
+“They’re going back home, Steve,” he murmured.
+
+“Yes, the poor things! It’s hard luck, isn’t it?”
+
+“Oh!” Joe considered that phase of it a moment in silence. Then he
+smiled. “I guess you’re right,” he said. “And maybe they aren’t
+really as pleased as they look. But the stern of that nearest cruiser
+certainly did look happy!”
+
+The remaining torpedo boat fell in behind and did her best to keep up
+with the procession, but it was evident from the smoke she belched that
+she was having no easy task, for the new convoy set a hard pace for an
+old-fashioned coal-burning craft like her.
+
+Fair weather carried them through another day and then there was a
+fog. But there came no alteration of the speed, and the liner fairly
+shook with the reverberations of her big engines. The next morning the
+fog was gone again and just after six bells the lookouts once more
+brought a thrill to those within sound of their excited voices.
+
+“Land ho!” was the cry that came down from aloft. “Land ho, sir! Two
+points off the starboard bow!”
+
+On the bridge below the four officers, two of the Navy and two of
+the ship, who had had their glasses levelled for some time on the
+faint streak along the horizon only nodded. It was some time before
+what looked like a cloud bank resolved itself into what Steve called
+“honest-to-goodness land,” but when it did a cheer went up from the men
+lining the rails, and a magic word passed from one to another:
+
+“_England!_”
+
+A few hours later the transport dropped her anchors in Plymouth harbour.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+                               OVER THERE
+
+
+The rest of that day they spent most of their time hanging over the
+taffrail and watching the disembarking of more fortunate passengers and
+the lightering of much unsuspected freight which appeared miraculously
+through the great hatches, boxes and bags and firkins, barrels and
+crates and bales: foodstuffs, ammunition, machinery, clothing, copper
+ingots, telephone insulators, two railway locomotives, a veritable
+flock of automobile trucks, cases of picks and shovels, and, probably
+not the least important of many things, several small and heavy wooden
+boxes with rope handles which were conveyed from the transport under a
+guard of a chubby-cheeked corporal and four privates of the Engineers.
+The Army representatives went early ashore and, as those still aboard
+the liner could plainly see, were received with honours on the quay.
+Steve and Joe bitterly bewailed the fate that held them captive while
+history was being made ashore there! They could see the lines of
+British Tommies drawn up beyond the landing stage, the flashes of
+colour from officers’ uniforms.
+
+“Just our rotten luck,” groaned Steve. “I suppose they’ll keep us
+herded on board this silly old hooker and finally dump us ashore at
+some out-of-the-way place where there’s nothing but a million dollars’
+worth of landscape and a pile of lumber!”
+
+But Steve was wrong, for although they remained aboard the rest of
+the day and all that night, their three companies of Bluejackets, all
+that were left except the ship’s crew and a few of its officers, they
+disembarked the next morning, bright and early, and, landing at a big
+stone pier, were marched through the streets of the city to a wooden
+barracks which had evidently been but recently vacated for them. What
+became of the Engineers they never knew, for there was no sign of them
+that day or on any other day of their stay in Plymouth. There were
+plenty of hearty English cheers for them as they marched to their
+quarters and so long as they stayed in the town they, to use their own
+expression, “owned it.” The officer in command was liberal with leave
+and they had a good time. They fraternised speedily with the British
+Jackies with whom the city was filled and under their enthusiastic
+pilotage, “saw the sights.” The harbour was a never-failing source of
+interest, for within it and all the way down the sound to Penle Head,
+merchantmen, transports, mine-layers, trawlers, destroyers, chasers and
+lesser fry lay at anchor or hurried about important business. There
+were submarines there, too, but they were elusive and only once did
+either Steve or Joe set eyes on one. The boys shopped, spent hours in
+the “Y.M.,” which was English for Young Men’s Christian Association,
+writing home or eagerly perusing the ancient American papers and
+magazines on file and promenaded along the Hoe. Steve wrote a letter to
+his folks, and, of course, mailed dozens of picture post-cards, and Joe
+followed suit. Joe also wrote to George Hanford, addressing it “U.S.S.
+_Carthage_, Newport News, Va.,” being certain that the _Carthage_ was
+no longer there but equally certain that the letter would ultimately
+catch up with Han wherever he might be.
+
+Two days after their arrival one of the three companies was marched
+away in the direction of the railway station and after that inroads
+were made on the remainder nearly every day until, after a week in
+Plymouth, only a handful of their force remained and Steve and Joe,
+impatient for action, made plaint to the friendly quartermaster, the
+only petty officer left.
+
+“You’ll move pretty soon,” was the consoling reply. “Don’t worry. In
+fact, if I were you, I’d drop around to the Y.M.C.A. before night and
+write your home letters. You may not have as good an opportunity again
+for awhile.”
+
+Cheered by that, they followed the advice, and were afterwards glad
+that they had, for in the middle of the next forenoon the word came
+to pack kits and at one they were marching back through the town,
+all that was left of their band, thirty-odd in all, toward the water
+front. There they boarded a small, snub-nosed steamer, a mine-layer
+by profession but for this occasion doing duty as a transport, and
+together with two companies of British infantry, set sail down the
+sound. About them darted tiny despatch boats, while a grim-looking
+torpedo boat swung out into mid-stream as they passed and a few
+minutes later swished past them to take up her position ahead and act
+as convoy. Soon they were cautiously picking their way through the
+mine fields and skirting the cliffs and green uplands of Cornwall.
+Behind them, a tall stone shaft against a sunlit sky, the Eddystone
+light-house faded from sight. Later they swung around the famous
+Lizard Head, and by that time Steve and Joe knew whither they were
+bound.
+
+“Queenstown, my lad,” informed a jovial British sergeant who had made
+their acquaintance soon after sailing and who had indefatigably pointed
+out the landmarks to them.
+
+“Queenstown?” repeated Steve vaguely. “That’s in Wales, isn’t it?”
+
+“Ho! ’Ark to the bloomin’ Yankee!” laughed the Sergeant. “It’s in
+Ireland, Queenstown is. South coast, my laddie, and not ’arf bad. They
+say you chaps are takin’ it over for a naval base. Sounds a bit odd,
+eh? Bloomin’ Yankees a-flyin’ the Stripes-and-Stars――――”
+
+“Stars-and-Stripes,” corrected Steve gently.
+
+“Whatever it is,” accepted the Sergeant untroubledly, “from one o’ our
+ports! This here war’s a queer bit o’ business, now ain’t it? I arsks
+you!”
+
+“Well, we’ll make a decent place of it by the time we’re through,” said
+Joe. “We’ve tackled tougher jobs than Queenstown!”
+
+The Sergeant was inclined to be indignant until a twinkle in Joe’s eye
+put him right. Then he chuckled and clapped a broad hand on the boy’s
+shoulder. “That’s your bloomin’ Yankee swank, eh? Well, listen to me,
+laddies; if you’ll clear out some o’ those blarsted Irish rebels while
+you’re there you’ll be gettin’ the thanks o’ the nation presented to
+you on a silver platter! An’ there’s no two ways about that!”
+
+“Sinn Feiners, you mean?” asked Steve. “Are there any of those in
+Queenstown?”
+
+“They’re all over the shop,” was the disgusted reply. “Cork’s the
+worst, though, around where you’re goin’. There’s Lands End there, do
+you see? And over there are the Scillies.”
+
+“Sillies?” asked Steve, observing a group of Tommies across the deck as
+he obeyed the Sergeant’s tug at his arm. “Is that what you call them?”
+
+“What else would I call ’em? There’s St. Mary and St. Agnes and a lot
+more the names of which I don’t know.”
+
+“It’s the Scilly Islands he’s talking about,” explained Joe. “I see
+them, I think. What are those funny looking boats over there, sir?”
+
+“Mine sweepers at work. And there’s a sub lyin’ hove to, just awash,
+beyond ’em. Passin’ the time o’ day, likely. Every time I look at one
+o’ those things I thank my lucky stars I’m in the Army!”
+
+Their craft was not a very fast traveller and it was nearly midnight
+when it crept into Cork Harbour, bearing a freight of rather cold and
+very hungry humanity. The few lights of Queenstown twinkled beckoningly
+and they were all eager to feel the land under foot again. They
+disembarked on a darkened quay and, parting from their friends the
+infantrymen, stumbled over a rough, cobbled street that led them along
+the outskirts of the town and finally reached the destination, a new
+barrack building, smelling strongly of fresh pine. Hot coffee was all
+they had that night, but by that time they were far too sleepy to want
+more, and soon after arrival they were fast asleep.
+
+The next morning they breakfasted luxuriously amongst friends from
+their own land. The number of United States sailors and marines
+already on hand quite staggered the boys. Save for the new buildings
+already erected or in course of construction they might easily have
+thought themselves back at home at one of their own naval bases.
+United States marines paced back and forth on guard duty, sailors were
+everywhere, officers hurried about and, high over one building, the
+Stars-and-Stripes fluttered in a stiff breeze. And that was not all
+to make them feel at home, for in the harbour lay a small flotilla of
+their own destroyers and chasers, as well as a big Navy collier which
+was unloading supplies, while, farther out, a grey scout-cruiser was
+anchored. There were British boats, too, and one green-grey destroyer
+which the boys later learned was Japanese. Every variety of naval craft
+was there, from submarine to battle cruiser, including destroyers
+and torpedo boats and chasers, sweepers, trawlers and layers and a
+shrill-voiced, _chug-chugging_ swarm of launches.
+
+Their first day on Irish soil was scarcely a pleasant one so far
+as weather was concerned, for a chilling breeze blew and showers
+descended at dishearteningly regular intervals. But Steve and Joe had
+small time to think of weather, for as soon as breakfast was eaten
+they were hurried away to a long shed where they were set to loading
+ammunition on lighters. It was evidently important work, for all hands
+were at it, sailors and marines alike, while a worried-looking ensign
+trotted around and urged them on. But it was done by the middle of the
+afternoon and then Steve and Jack and others of their depleted company
+returned to barracks, very tired and stiff, with full intention of
+applying for leave to see the town. But their Q.M. had other ideas.
+
+“Orders, men!” was their greeting. “Buckman, Spencer, White and Conner
+report aboard destroyer _Chauncey_ right away. She’s sailing at
+five. Smythe, Foster and Chapman report aboard _Chaser 17_. Corson,
+Levinskey, Ingersoll and Strauss to the destroyer _Warren_. Get a move
+on, all of you, and hustle down to the first landing. Don’t forget your
+outfits.” The Q.M. folded the list in his hand, nodded and turned away.
+
+Steve and Joe were gazing at each other in consternation. “I’m going to
+ask him,” blurted Joe as the officer made for the door.
+
+“So am I,” said Steve. They hurried after the quartermaster, saluted
+and blurted out their request almost in chorus.
+
+“Couldn’t you let us go together, sir?” they asked anxiously. “We don’t
+care where we go, sir,” added Joe, “just so that we’re on the same
+boat.”
+
+“Yes, I guess so,” answered the officer. “Here, let’s see.” He pulled
+his list out of a pocket and found his pencil. “You both report to the
+_Warren_.” He raised his voice. “Levinskey!”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“You report aboard _Chaser 17_ instead of the _Warren_. Get it?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“All right. Well, good-bye, you fellows, and good luck to you. Be a
+credit to my training.” He shook hands, smiling, and then as the boys
+thanked him turned and made his way across the yard in the rain. Steve
+heaved a sigh of relief.
+
+“Gee,” he said, “that was a narrow squeak, Joe! The Allies came mighty
+near losing the war then!”
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+
+                           THE U.S.S. WARREN
+
+
+What is now the torpedo boat destroyer is only the old torpedo boat
+grown bigger, stauncher, speedier and far more powerful. This country
+no longer makes the torpedo boat, for the destroyer does all that it
+could ever do and a hundred per cent beyond. It was Great Britain who
+launched the first torpedo boat back about 1878. Those early examples
+of the craft were diminutive affairs, some sixty feet long by seven
+wide and displaced not over twenty tons. Their armament was usually
+two torpedo tubes and their speed never higher than sixteen knots.
+For shallow water operations, however, they proved successful, and
+gradually they developed until in 1890 they were displacing eighty tons
+and had a speed of from eighteen to twenty-two knots.
+
+In our own Navy the craft did not appear until 1886, when the
+_Stiletto_ slid down the ways at the Herreshoff Yard at Bristol, Rhode
+Island. The _Stiletto_ made quite a sensation then, even though she
+was only eighty-eight and a half feet in length, had a displacement
+of thirty tons and did eighteen knots. But the _Stiletto_ proved the
+entering wedge, for five years later we had torpedo boats of one
+hundred and twenty tons and, in 1901 of two hundred and eighty tons
+displacement. The next step was the destroyer, as she was called for
+brevity, and at the time of the war between Russia and Japan these
+ships――no longer “boats,” if you please――had attained a speed of
+thirty knots and were of five hundred tons displacement. In that war
+the Japanese used their torpedo craft to excellent advantage, even
+though their policy was to take no unnecessary risks with them, and
+the destroyer’s place in naval warfare was clearly established. The
+construction of destroyers had a boom everywhere, and in this country
+we were turning out ships of four hundred and twenty tons like the
+_Bainbridge_, _Decatur_, _Chauncey_ and _Paul Jones_. These ships were
+two hundred and fifty feet in length, could make twenty-eight knots
+and for armament carried two eighteen-inch torpedo tubes and seven
+small rapid-fire guns. Whereas the old torpedo boat was designed to
+attack larger ships, acting in flotilla strength and under cover of
+darkness, the new destroyer was intended primarily to run down the
+torpedo boat and sink it with rapid-fire guns. But torpedo tubes were
+also provided so that the destroyer might likewise take the place of
+the torpedo boat in attacking larger ships. For a while the smaller
+craft was retained as a defensive weapon and the larger craft built as
+an offensive weapon, although neither was limited to its specialty. The
+torpedo boat, because of light draft and low visibility, readily became
+a weapon of offence, darting out from shallow waters to attack enemy
+cruisers and battleships with its torpedoes and, with good fortune,
+returning unscathed. On the other hand, the offensive destroyer became
+a weapon of defence when it stood by the attacking fleet and guarded it
+from the depredations of the smaller boats.
+
+Finally, however, the development of the torpedo did away with the
+torpedo boat entirely, or, I should say, with the building of them, for
+most navies still have and make some use of torpedo boats turned out
+from ten to twenty years ago. (Our own _Dupont_, launched in 1897, was
+in commission in reserve at the beginning of the war and, doubtless,
+is doing its bit bravely enough somewhere today.) As the accuracy
+and range of the modern automobile torpedo increased the necessity
+for small boats decreased, since the torpedo could be fired at a far
+greater distance. Consequently the torpedo boat’s tonnage grew and the
+destroyer’s tonnage was forced to keep its relative advantage. In our
+Navy the jump was from two hundred and eighty tons to four hundred and
+twenty, and with that jump the torpedo boat ceased and the destroyer
+appeared.
+
+At present time our larger destroyers are of about eleven hundred
+tons displacement――although we hear rumours of still larger ships
+being built. The destroyer must be able to cruise for weeks at a time
+without return to base, and for that reason must be sufficiently
+large to carry immense quantities of fuel and stores. Today one of
+our newer destroyers can take on enough oil on this side to make the
+run to England and back without replenishing her tanks. As to speed,
+the _Jacob Jones_, the latest destroyer of which specifications
+have been made public, made thirty knots an hour, developing about
+seventeen thousand horse power. Others, however, laid down after the
+_Jacob Jones_, are said to be able to steam at thirty-five knots and a
+fraction.
+
+The activity of the submarine in the present war has had its influence
+on the destroyer. The torpedo as a weapon against the submarine is
+of no consequence. The destroyer trusts to the fire of its small
+guns or to ramming, when the submarine is on the surface, and to
+depth-charges when the submarine is submerged. As the all-important
+task of the American Navy at present is to combat the German U-boat,
+our destroyers, which, with light cruisers and “chasers,” are best
+adapted for such warfare, comprise the bulk of our offensive fleet. In
+consequence of the duty they have to perform the tendency is toward an
+increase of gun power, and the destroyers now being turned out carry
+many more rapid-fire rifles. Seaworthiness, speed and a large range
+of action are also requisites, and these features, too, are receiving
+attention.
+
+The present day automobile torpedo is an outcome of the spar torpedo of
+Civil War times. The spar, or outrigger torpedo, was fixed at the end
+of a pole and exploded by contact with the hull of an enemy ship or by
+use of a firing battery at will. It was by such a contrivance that the
+_Housatonic_ was sent to the bottom off Charleston by a Confederate
+submarine boat, with the accompanying loss of the submarine’s crew.
+Other successful uses of the spar torpedo were made during the Civil
+War and later. Robert Whitehead invented the “fish” torpedo which,
+in improved shape, still bears his name. It has played a prominent
+part in the present war. Another torpedo, used by our Navy, is the
+Bliss-Leavitt. The diameter of the automobile torpedo varies from
+eighteen to twenty-two inches, with an extreme length of twenty-one
+feet. Essentially it is a submarine boat self-propelled. It consists
+of five parts: warhead, air-flask, depth control mechanism, steering
+gear and engines. In the warhead is a charge of high explosive, from
+two hundred to five hundred pounds, according to type or size, which
+is detonated by a firing mechanism. The explosive may be either
+gun-cotton, which is ordinary cotton treated with nitric and sulphuric
+acids, or trinitrotoluol, familiarly known as TNT, which is formed
+of hydrogen and carbon treated with nitric acid. The detonating
+mechanism is merely a firing pin which goes through the centre of the
+explosive charge from front to rear and is seated in a percussion cap
+located back of the charge. At the nose of the warhead the firing pin
+terminates in a safety device known as a butterfly nut. A second safety
+appliance reaches through half the diameter of the warhead and holds
+the firing pin in place so that it cannot strike against the percussion
+cap.
+
+The air-flask is a strongly constructed steel tank which is filled with
+compressed air used to operate the engine and all other mechanism of
+the torpedo. The depth control mechanism is worked by water pressure
+and is adjustable by a spring before launching. It allows the torpedo
+to be run at any desired depth. Its principal parts are a pendulum and
+a hydrostatic piston controlling horizontal rudders. The steering gear
+consists of a gyroscopic compass which influences vertical rudders and
+keeps the torpedo on its course. The engine is operated by compressed
+air which takes the place of steam. A reducing valve decreases the
+pressure of the air to that required. An alcohol flame heats the air
+as it enters the cylinders and also produces steam from the water in
+a combustion flask. The air and steam are mixed and the resulting
+expansion provides the force to drive the engine. In several types of
+torpedoes the engines are reciprocating, but in the Bliss-Leavitt, or
+Bliss, as it is frequently called, are placed turbines that drive two
+propellers.
+
+The torpedo is forced from the torpedo tube by means of compressed air.
+On a destroyer these tubes are set up much like a gun, and singly, in
+twos or in threes. Before the torpedo is placed in the tube the safety
+pin is removed and the butterfly nut is loosened. The breach-block of
+the tube is closed and compressed air is turned into the tube behind
+the torpedo, which, however, is kept from being forced out at the
+muzzle by a lock. When the catch of the lock is released the torpedo is
+forced from the tube. At the same time the interior mechanism of the
+torpedo begins its work and, at about forty knots an hour, the missile
+flies toward the target. On striking the target the firing pin, from
+the tip of which the butterfly nut has now dropped off, is forced back
+against the percussion cap and the high explosive charge is detonated
+and the ship is sunk or crippled. Since, however, the speed of the
+ship, its course and the speed of the torpedo itself all enter into
+marksmanship, the torpedo is not counted an accurate weapon at long
+ranges, and even at short ranges misses frequently occur.
+
+The boys had frequently debated the possibility of assignment to a
+destroyer, but, since it was a recognised rule in time of peace that
+only service men should man such ships, they had ultimately decided
+that their ditty boxes were not likely to be stowed on one. A chaser,
+or, possibly, a light cruiser would probably be their fate. But now,
+having as Steve phrased it, “made” the _Warren_, they weren’t certain
+whether to be pleased or not. They had heard weird yarns about life on
+a destroyer, and Joe, haunted by the fear of seasickness, was filled
+with disturbing thoughts as they hurried off through one of the soft,
+warm showers of the south of Ireland to the landing. Half a dozen whale
+boats, dingeys and launches were clustered there, but inquiry developed
+the fact that there was no boat from the _Warren_ amongst them. They
+were discussing the chance of finding a boat to hire when a petty
+officer in the stern sheets of a launch hailed them.
+
+“Where do you boys want to go?” he asked.
+
+“The _Warren_, sir.”
+
+“Jump in. I’ll drop you.”
+
+They thanked him and entered the little launch which held four seamen
+and so much dunnage that there was scarcely place for their feet. They
+waited there in the soft rain for a few minutes longer, during which
+time other tenders departed or arrived, and during which Steve and Joe
+vainly sought to determine which of the long grey shapes seen dimly
+through the mist was the _Warren_. Finally a brisk young ensign hurried
+up, jumped aboard and the launch wheeled about and plunged gayly into
+the haze. They heard the petty officer explaining that he had offered
+to put the two boys aboard the _Warren_, and saw the ensign nod and
+view them appraisingly. Then one of the grey shapes loomed up before
+them and a moment later they were clambering up the side. They reported
+to the officer of the deck and were sent below. Going below puzzled
+them at first, for nothing looking in the least like a companion-way
+was in sight. Fortunately a white cap appeared above the surface of the
+main deck at that moment and they discovered a round hatch.
+
+“A fat man would have a peach of a time getting through this,” remarked
+Steve as he led the way to the second deck.
+
+Ten minutes later they had had their names entered on the ship’s
+roster, had been assigned to their bunks――for there are no hammocks
+on a destroyer――had stowed their belongings, and, in charge of a
+good-natured and informative youth of twenty-one or -two years of age,
+whose single chevron was topped by the crossed cannons of a gunner’s
+mate, and whose name they later discovered to be Hearn, were learning
+the ship. Many of the men, Hearn explained, were still absent on leave
+and wouldn’t be back until the next day.
+
+“You see, it’s generally six days on patrol and three in port, and the
+Old Man’s fine about granting liberty. Last time another fellow and I
+got three whole days and pretty nearly saw this little island from top
+to bottom. And, say, it’s all right, too. I’ve been hearing all my life
+about the beauties of Ireland, but I never believed in ’em much. Well,
+say, it’s all true, fellows. You want to take a trip up to County Clare
+the first chance you get. It’s as pretty as a picture, believe me.”
+
+Their knowledge of warships was confined largely to that gathered from
+infrequent visits to battleships and cruisers lying flag-bedecked in
+the North River. The present ship was something far different. There
+were no flags, save the jack fluttering at the fore, nor anything
+else that could be termed the least bit ornamental, for the _Warren_
+had been stripped before leaving on her voyage across and only the
+absolutely essential things remained. Gone were boats and davits,
+awnings and stanchions, and in most cases the steel ventilators were
+now mere canvas funnels. What struck the boys most of all was the
+intensely business-like appearance of the destroyer, and after that her
+look of power and seaworthiness.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+
+                                SEA DUTY
+
+
+The _Warren_ was one of the Paulding class, just short of three hundred
+feet in length, with a twenty-seven foot beam and a draught of eight
+feet. (“Eight above and eight below,” explained Hearn, “and a lot of
+her weight topside, shipmates, so she’ll roll pretty.”) She was not a
+new ship, for she had been launched in 1912, nor was she as speedy as
+the larger ships. (“She’s done her twenty-eight and a half, though,”
+defended their guide, “and can show her heels to a lot of ’em.”) She
+had two masts and four funnels and everything about her, from stem to
+stern, foretop to keel, was grey. (“They’re painting some of ’em these
+camouflage colours,” said Hearn, “and a fine sight they are, too.
+There was a Frenchie in here the other day that looked like a blooming
+butterfly, believe me. They had her striped zig-zag with all the
+colours of the rainbow and then they’d painted wavy lines across that.
+Maybe you can’t see her any distance, but when she’s close up, believe
+me, you can’t see anything else! She’s a three-ring circus: and she’s
+got a name like a clown!”) Forward was the forecastle and here were
+mounted, one on each beam, two of the five three-inch rapid-fire rifles
+with which the _Warren_ was armed. Above, on the forecastle deck, was
+a third gun. The bridge, gained from the forecastle deck, was in turn
+topped by a searchlight platform, while aft of it was a diminutive
+chart-room. Beneath the forecastle was the officers’ quarters, the
+captain’s cabin extending across the width of the ship. Aft of that
+were four staterooms, the wardroom mess and the officers’ galley.
+
+Amidships on the main deck stood a fourth three-inch rifle and, to
+starboard and port, two twin eighteen-inch torpedo tubes. (“They’re
+making ’em in triplets now,” observed Hearn. “Three tubes together
+instead of two. That’s going some, ain’t it?”) Astern there was another
+twin torpedo tube and the last of the rapid-fire rifles.
+
+Below the main deck were the men’s quarters, the two boiler-rooms, each
+holding its pair of big oil-fired boilers, the turbine room, the petty
+officers’ quarters and storerooms.
+
+“She’s awfully like a toothpick, isn’t she?” asked Joe dubiously as
+he surveyed the long and narrow deck from the stern taffrail to the
+distant break of the forecastle.
+
+“She sure is,” Hearn agreed. “She’s just eleven times longer than she
+is wide, friend. And that’s some fine, believe me!”
+
+“I think it would be finer,” said Joe, attempting a weak joke, “if she
+was a little bit wider. What do you do when two fellows have to pass on
+deck?”
+
+“One of us hangs over the side,” chuckled the gunner’s mate. “It’s
+those fine lines, kid, that make her nifty. You wait till she hits her
+gait in a smooth sea and just watch her slip along! Fifteen thousand
+horse power, she has, and when those turbines get to nagging her three
+propellers, why, say, she walks a bit, believe me!”
+
+“But――but in rough weather,” hazarded Joe anxiously, “isn’t she――er――――”
+
+“You said something,” laughed Hearn. “She sure is. I’ve been aboard
+this porpoise when she was doing thirty-five.”
+
+“Thirty-five?” questioned Steve.
+
+“Yep, thirty-five degrees off vertical. That’s swinging, son, believe
+me! They say they sometimes go forty-five in extra rough weather, and
+that’s going through an arc of ninety degrees, but I’ve never seen that
+performance yet, and I don’t want to. Thirty’s bad enough. Take it
+on the foretop lookout when she’s switching over from one side to the
+other and doing it in around six seconds and you’ve got about all you
+want! And the worst of it is that you don’t ever know what sort of a
+kick she’s going to do next. She’s got more different motions than a
+cat and can do any seven of ’em at once. When you get back to the base
+you’re so stiff in your muscles that you can hear them creak!”
+
+“It must be fierce,” marvelled Joe. “And don’t you ever get seasick?”
+
+“Seasick! You’d better believe it. Last trip we had half the bunch
+flat, men and officers, and the junior luff wasn’t any use for two
+days.”
+
+Joe groaned dismally. “I’ll last about ten minutes,” he said. “I――I
+guess I’ll get out of here while there’s time.” He looked anxiously
+about as though contemplating a sudden plunge into the water and a swim
+ashore.
+
+“You’ll have it, all right,” said the gunner’s mate consolingly, “but
+you’ll get over it, I guess. Most of ’em do. Fact is, you don’t have
+much time for being sick. There’s too much to do. And, anyway, a fellow
+might as well be up and around as trying to hold himself into one of
+those bunks by his teeth and toes and eyelashes. It’s all right to
+be seasick when you’ve got a nice wide berth and a steward to wait on
+you and the old hooker’s only playing a bit, but on one of these tin
+cigarettes the best thing to do is to forget it.”
+
+“Have you ever been seasick?” asked Joe dolefully.
+
+“Me? I’ve been so sick I hoped the ship would sink! But you get sort of
+out of the habit after a while. The first week or so is bad, but then
+you kind of swallow hard and do your work and it don’t bother you much.
+Of course, there are some that never do get over it. About one fellow
+out of every dozen has to quit the destroyers and go back to the big
+ones.”
+
+“I’m that one, I guess,” said Joe. “Why, I can get seasick just
+watching a goldfish swim around in a glass bowl!”
+
+“You’ve got a swell chance of sticking around here, then,” laughed
+Hearn. “Say, how’d you fellows manage to get aboard here, anyhow?
+You’re apprentices, aren’t you?”
+
+Steve told all he knew of the process, which wasn’t much, and the petty
+officer nodded. “I guess they’re taking most anyone on nowadays,” he
+said. “No offence to you fellows. Generally it’s only service men who
+get on destroyers and torpedo boats. But there’s a heap of Reserve
+fellows in the fleet now, I hear, and I suppose they haven’t got
+enough service men for the jobs. How long were you at Newport?”
+
+Steve told him, and he whistled long and loudly. “Gee, that’s rushing
+things a bit, ain’t it? First thing you know you’ll be warrant officers
+at that rate! It usually takes some years, but things are happening
+fast just now. They tell me half these dinky little chasers that are
+bobbing around here are manned by amateur yachtsmen and ferryboat
+captains and the like. I suppose it’s all right, and at that they’re a
+sporting bunch, but it sort of grouches a fellow who’s been in the Navy
+five years to see greenhorns without any experience getting fat berths
+and big pay. Oh, well, if we just hand it to the Huns, it don’t matter.”
+
+“Have you seen a submarine yet?” asked Steve eagerly.
+
+“Dozens of ’em. We got four last week and just missed a fifth.”
+
+But there was a tell-tale twinkle in Hearn’s eye, and Steve said: “No,
+really, have you?”
+
+“Well, I’ll tell you. The first two days we were on patrol the lookouts
+reported exactly fourteen periscopes.”
+
+“Really!” exclaimed Joe. “And――and did you get a shot at any of them?”
+
+“Just one. And we missed that by twenty yards on account of being so
+excited. Still, it was just as well, as it turned out, because it
+wasn’t anything but floating spar.”
+
+“Oh! And the others? Were they spars, too?”
+
+“No, the others were mostly imagination. Maybe one was a porpoise. Yes,
+sir, we sure sighted a lot of periscopes those two days! The Old Man
+threatened finally that he’d drop the first man overboard who so much
+as whispered ‘periscope!’”
+
+“The Old Man’s the captain, isn’t he?” asked Joe.
+
+“Yep, Lieutenant-Commander John W. Stanford, Esquire, bless his old
+heart! As the British gobs say, he’s a little bit of all right.”
+
+“What’s a gob?” asked Steve.
+
+“You are if you stay aboard. It’s a name they have for the destroyer
+men.”
+
+“Oh. Who are the other officers?”
+
+“Lyke, first luff. He’s executive officer. The junior luff’s name is
+Putnam. He’s boss of the engines. Then there’s Connell, who’s ensign.
+That’s the lot, and all pretty good.”
+
+“How many others?” asked Steve.
+
+“Non-coms? About ten, I guess. And eighty-six men. Or was last cruise.
+You fellows will make eighty-eight if the rest all show back.”
+
+“That’s a lot,” marvelled Steve.
+
+“Well, there’s a lot of work on one of these things, son. We have to
+have all sorts, just like a dreadnought, only not so many of a kind:
+machinists, oilers, firemen, boilermakers, shipfitters, water tenders,
+electricians, painters, cooks, stewards, bakers and so on. Those are
+all artificers. Then there’s the seaman branch. And there’s a surgeon
+and――and―――― Well, if there’s anything we haven’t got, just mention it
+to the Old Man and he’ll fix it for you.”
+
+“We will,” laughed Steve. Joe asked: “Do you think we’ll get our chance
+now that we’re assigned to service?”
+
+“You’ll either be advanced to seamen, second class, or seamen if you
+stay around here,” answered Hearn. “Unless,” he added with a grin,
+“they make you admirals!”
+
+“I don’t care much what they do with me,” said Steve, “so long as they
+let me stay here. Of course I’d like to get my advance, but I should
+worry. What I want is to get a crack at the enemy. Have you met any
+Germans yet?”
+
+“Yes,” answered Hearn dryly. “We’ve got a couple on board.”
+
+“Germans!”
+
+“Well, they were till they got naturalised. Now they’re rip-snorting
+Americans.”
+
+“Oh, but I meant enemy Germans,” Steve explained.
+
+“No, I haven’t seen any of that sort yet, I guess. Yes, I have,
+too. When I was at Liverpool a month ago there was a bunch of
+them――prisoners, you know――standing on the dock. They were being taken
+to some place, I guess. They were a sorry looking lot, mostly no older
+than you fellows, and what they had on wouldn’t have tempted a hobo.
+Still and all, they looked fairly cheerful. Guess they thought it was a
+lot better than fighting over there in those dirty trenches. Say, I’ve
+got a friend who deliberately volunteered for the Army last month. Got
+a letter from him the other day telling me about it. He’s in a training
+camp somewhere up around Boston. And, say, that chump never showed any
+insanity before!”
+
+“Insanity?” repeated Joe. “Oh, you mean――――”
+
+“Sure! What’s he go and enlist in the Army for when he could be sitting
+around on a nice clean ship with nothing to do but work? It gets me,
+honest it does! Why, those blokes have to live up to their knees in
+mud: sleep in it, mind you: eat it almost: and all they see is a mess
+of barbed wire and an airplane now and then. Gee, think of sticking
+around in a trench for days at a time with nothing doing! Course he
+isn’t up against that yet, but he will be by Fall, I guess. And,
+another thing, fellows, that silly chump’s as likely as not to get
+killed!”
+
+“Well, he might get killed in the Navy, mightn’t he?” asked Steve,
+smiling.
+
+“Shucks, no. This is the safest job there is. Of course a fellow gets
+his now and then, but it’s a nice, clean death, and you’re so busy when
+it happens that I’ll bet you never know it! I wouldn’t join the Army
+for a million dollars!”
+
+That night Steve and Joe ate their first destroyer “chow” and slept for
+the first time in narrow bunks between the thin steel walls. The food
+was good, and, since they were tremendously hungry, they enjoyed it.
+And the bunks were comfortable enough under the present circumstances,
+but Joe secretly wondered how he would ever manage to stay in his, much
+more sleep in it, when the destroyer performed those alarming tricks
+that Hearn had told of! They found their companions among the enlisted
+men a jolly and singularly care-free lot. They had expected to be
+joshed some, possibly mildly hazed, but were agreeably disappointed.
+The others took it for granted that the boys were full seamen, and,
+since they had each tucked their blue caps with the tell-tale Training
+School ribbon out of sight, there was nothing to undeceive them. It
+was only when, after supper was over and they were sitting around in
+quarters, a chap asked Joe what his last ship had been that the truth
+came out. Joe confided the facts humbly and not very loudly, and his
+neighbour laughed.
+
+“That’s it, eh? Well, you’ll get your new rating in a day or two. Bound
+to. I want to tell you, though, that you and your friend were dead
+lucky to walk on board a destroyer as easy as that. There are fellows
+on the big ones that would eat their caps to get into the ‘Suicide
+Fleet,’ and especially on this fly-by-night!”
+
+“Really? Is the _Warren_ an especially good ship?”
+
+“Is she? You bet she is! She’s the best in the fleet, bar none. There
+are some that are bigger, but we’ve got the best shots and the best
+officers in these waters. And the best all-round lot of men, too. You
+just wait a month or so and they’ll be hearing back home about this
+little cuss!”
+
+“I hope so,” murmured Joe. “And I hope you’re right about the new
+rating.”
+
+As it proved, he was, for the next morning the fact of advancement was
+made known to them and they received cap ribbons bearing the legend
+“U.S.S. _Warren_” and were entered on the roster as second-class
+seamen at the munificent wage of thirty-five dollars and ninety cents
+a month. The wages didn’t excite them very greatly, partly because so
+far they had each received slightly over sixteen dollars all told since
+enlistment, and, as Steve sagely remarked, what was the good of earning
+thirty-five dollars if you never saw any of it? Both were assigned to
+the starboard watch and both had their first taste of deck washing, and
+by noon that day they had found their places to some extent and were
+trying their best to look their parts.
+
+The rain stopped during the morning and a gentle breeze blew from
+shore, bearing with it a fragrance of damp meadows. But that fragrance
+had a hard time getting recognised on the destroyer, for the ship had a
+fine healthy odour of her own, an odour composed of burning oil, of hot
+iron, of paint, of cooking food from the ever-busy galley, all merged
+into one heavy and never-forgotten bouquet. The _Warren_ remained at
+anchor until afternoon, taking on oil and ammunition and supplies of
+all sorts. There were not many idle moments for the new members of the
+crew. By noon the last of those who had been off on shore leave were
+back and it was no secret that the destroyer would sail before night.
+Joe viewed the immediate future gloomily, but that didn’t keep him from
+following the general example of “filling up bunkers” at dinner, since
+once out on patrol the galley seldom bothered itself with hot meals.
+“You get canned salmon or beef,” volunteered a small, tow-haired youth
+who looked no more than seventeen while claiming twenty, “and the only
+hot stuff is coffee. If you’re on to the tricks you can sneak some eggs
+and boil ’em at the steam vent. But your best bet, friend, is to eat
+all you can hold in port.”
+
+Just before sunset the _Warren’s_ engines began to sing a louder tune
+and presently winches clattered and the anchors came dripping up.
+Simultaneously two other destroyers, one a far bigger boat than the
+_Warren_, showed similar indications of departure, and presently the
+water began to ripple past the bows, the smoke above the funnels took
+on a darker tinge and the destroyer moved down the harbour, slowly
+at first and then faster, playing a hoarse tune on her siren as she
+signalled for the “gate.” Behind her at respectful distances came the
+companion ships, looking, head-on, like thin grey wedges of steel.
+
+“See those barrels strung out ahead there?” asked a youngster in
+response to Joe’s question. “Well, those are the net floats. The lower
+edge of the net’s anchored to the bottom, all except the gate net.
+Those two trawlers you see are opening it for us to get through. After
+we are through we’ve got to steer a tight course, for there’s mines
+laid everywhere outside, and it isn’t healthy to slap one of ’em with
+your nose.”
+
+“I should think, though,” Steve objected, “that if the mines are high
+enough in the water to get us that a U-boat could slip past underneath.”
+
+“Oh, there’s three layers of ’em, and a Fritz would have to be mighty
+lucky to squeeze between ’em. They say that they have a sort of burglar
+alarm effect running from the net to the shore station, so if anything
+pokes its nose against it a bell starts to ringing. But I don’t know
+how true that is.”
+
+“Are there mines all around here? Outside, I mean.”
+
+“No, excepting floating ones that the Huns push off up in the North Sea
+or drop over from their ships. You find them now and then. You got to
+watch for them, kid. The _Jarvis_, I think it was, sent down three last
+trip. When you find ’em you blow ’em up.”
+
+“Shoot at them?” asked Joe.
+
+“No,” answered their informant gravely, “you run down on ’em and
+the Cap leans over the side and biffs one of the horns with a
+monkey-wrench. It’s more certain that way. You might miss ’em with the
+gun.”
+
+“I suppose that was a fool question,” laughed Joe.
+
+“Sure, number 71,698.” The other smiled. “You’ll be asking worse ones
+than that, though. I did.”
+
+Once outside the nets, with the guard ships only darker blotches
+against the darkening sea and the sky still light beyond Kinsale Head,
+the _Warren_ dug her nose into the water and ploughed southward at a
+merry clip. For awhile the companion boats were visible, but eventually
+they melted into the night.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+
+                        WITH THE “SUICIDE FLEET”
+
+
+High up on the foretop, on a narrow perch slung within a grey canvas
+cylinder that barely allowed elbow-room, Steve was on lookout duty.
+His eyes just topped the steel-hooped rim of his nest and a brisk
+breeze flattened back the brim of his white cap. It was his first go
+at it, and he was a little excited, a little proud and terrifically
+anxious. It was still early morning of the second day of patrol duty,
+so early that the odour of coffee was still floating up from the galley
+below. The _Warren_ was loafing along at some twelve knots an hour,
+but even so she rolled considerably and the cage swung from port to
+starboard and back to port, describing a good twenty degrees of an arc.
+Around him in every direction stretched a waste of grey-green water,
+a-sparkle in the sunlight save where, under the ship’s starboard side,
+a broad copper-hued shadow kept pace with her. Straight below, the
+foreshortened figure of an officer moved about the bridge. Forward
+of him the three-inch gun pointed an inquiring nose across the bow,
+gleaming dully. Turning his head, Steve could look into the cavernous
+mouth of the forward smokestack from which a yellow-grey vapour poured.
+White-capped forms moved briskly about the deck or lounged in the
+sheltered places. Somewhere astern was Spain, somewhere ahead, Ireland.
+For the rest Steve only knew that the Atlantic Ocean was beneath
+him――and doubtless a great deal of it, too――and that his eyes, after
+only twenty minutes up here in his dizzy perch were already aching with
+the strain.
+
+Southeastward was the worst, for there the sunlight played queer pranks
+with the waves and dazzled the sight so that, to use Steve’s metaphor,
+muttered to himself, a dime’s worth of imagination would have easily
+created a whole covey of periscopes, to say nothing of subs themselves!
+Now and then he closed his eyes for a moment, while dark red spots
+glowed behind his lids, but only for a moment since he was eternally
+haunted by the fear that the other lookouts, or the officers on the
+bridge there with their glasses, would see something that he didn’t.
+More than once his heart missed a beat as, just for a breathless
+instant, some freak of sunlight conjured a distant periscope or the
+dark hollow of a wave took on the semblance of a dripping steel hull
+emerging from the sea. But it was wonderfully interesting, horribly
+exciting, and he wouldn’t have swapped that swaying steel-hooped
+cylinder for the steadiest bunk on the lower deck. In another half-hour
+or so his watch there would be over, for an hour of such eye-strain is
+all one can stand, and “one on and three off” is the rule for lookouts.
+The fear that he might miss something turned to the fear that there
+might be nothing for him to miss. He fairly ached for the sight of some
+object in that wide expanse of water. Even a floating log or wisp of
+wreckage would have answered; anything so that he might send his voice
+down to the bridge and prove that he was “on the job!”
+
+The sun crept higher and the breeze, fresh and salty from the
+southwest, grew stronger and hummed a tune on the wireless aerial and
+slapped a line briskly against the mast. A flock of tiny blue-black
+birds swept across the bow, circled and spread low above the waves,
+melting into the irradiance of the sun. The navigating officer climbed
+the bridge ladder, sextant in hand, for his eight-o’clock observation.
+The appealing odour from the galley brought a wistful sigh from the
+foretop lookout. And then, on the heels of the sigh, came a gasp.
+Just on the edge of the luminous track of the sunlight was a spot.
+Steve stared intensely. The spot was lost to sight, danced into vision
+again, a tiny black something that was never a wave in the world! He
+closed his eyes, opened them again and looked. It was gone! No, it was
+there, further to the left! It was no periscope, for it was too far
+away, perhaps a full two miles, and it was not periscope shape. It
+looked――almost――like――――
+
+Steve placed his mouth to the tube, and: “Small boat broad off the port
+bow!” he called.
+
+The navigator unceremoniously tucked the sextant under his arm and two
+pairs of glasses swept into the sunlight.
+
+“What distance?” called the Lieutenant. “I’ve got her! Empty, I think.”
+Steve put his head above the cage’s rim. Dimly he was aware of the
+mild commotion below and aft as the crew on deck piled to the port
+rail. Even an empty boat is an event after thirty-six hours of nothing.
+On the bridge the officers were still staring through their glasses,
+conversing in words too low for Steve to hear up in his roost, but the
+destroyer’s head was coming around and the smoke from the forward stack
+was heavier and greasier. Steve looked back at the dark speck. Already
+it seemed nearer, and as the _Warren_ turned the green, sun-flecked
+water from her sharp bow the object of her concern took form and shape.
+Minutes passed and Steve again hailed:
+
+“She’s not empty, sir!”
+
+There was no answer, but a slight wave of the executive officer’s hand
+said very plainly: “Don’t bother me. I’ve got eyes of my own.” Steve
+relapsed into his cage. The boat came nearer and nearer, a veritable
+cockle-shell of a craft. Oars glinted and a figure swung slowly back
+and forth until, realising that help was coming and that further
+exertion was unnecessary, the oars were shipped. The boat held three
+men――no, four, for one was huddled in the bottom.
+
+“Fishermen,” called a voice from the rail below.
+
+“And Frenchies,” said another.
+
+“Been strafed, I guess. They must――――” The breeze blew the rest of
+it away. Now Steve could almost look down into the row-boat, and the
+destroyer’s speed slackened and the voice of her engines died to a mere
+hum.
+
+“Ahoy the boat!” called a megaphoned voice from the bridge. “Row
+alongside and we’ll take you on!”
+
+A babble of unintelligible language issued from three throats and
+floated down-breeze. One of the men waved a wooden bailer vehemently,
+but his eloquence of gesture was wasted. The “exec” shrugged his
+shoulders, but beckoned understandably and with a renewed torrent
+of speech the fishermen seized their oars and rowed tiredly for the
+slowing destroyer. Steve watched them come over the side, limp, pale
+and wet, Bretons as he knew by their picturesque costumes. Two of the
+rescuers leaped down and lifted the fourth occupant to the reach of
+willing hands. And then a quick command and the _Warren_ picked up her
+gait again, turned to her former course and lounged away, leaving the
+little fishing boat empty and pathetically alone.
+
+When Steve’s relief came, ten minutes later, he hurried down and,
+between gulps of beautiful hot coffee and mouthfuls of wonderful
+canned beef, got the story from Hearn, GM3c, which, interpreted, meant
+gunner’s mate of the third class.
+
+“They’re togging themselves in dry clothing now,” explained Hearn. “No
+one could understand a word they said until Carrick, the little Q.M.
+got at ’em. Say, he talked French like a frog-eater. He says, though,
+that the lingo these fellows talk is a sort of Bowery French.”
+
+“Why didn’t they call me down?” asked Steve, his mouth full of bread
+and beef. “I’d have talked to them all right.”
+
+“Sure,” replied Hearn. “Just like I did. Well, anyway, they’ve been
+floating around for three days now. The _Trois Freres_ was their boat,
+a little fishing schooner, or whatever they call a schooner in these
+foreign parts, and the Huns popped up alongside ’em one fine morning
+and――yes, sure it was U-boat. I said so, didn’t I? The Germans took
+every blessed thing aboard, including a catch of mackerel and all the
+food and all the money; even took the knives out of the men’s pockets,
+the great big hogs! Then they bombed the schooner and set those four
+chaps afloat in that two-by-twice dory, only they don’t call it a dory.”
+
+“_Bateau_,” suggested Steve gravely.
+
+“All right. Anyway, they were almost a hundred and fifty miles from
+land, and they had no food, and only one pair of oars. It was a mighty
+lucky thing the weather was decent, wasn’t it?”
+
+“Yes, and a lucky thing I sighted them. If it hadn’t been for me――――”
+
+“Yah, you! Everyone aboard saw that boat long before you did, you
+chump.”
+
+“Sure! And you just didn’t mention it for fear of making a noise and
+waking up the other lookouts, eh?”
+
+“That’s it,” laughed Hearn. “Seen that sidekick of yours today?”
+
+“Only for a second,” replied Steve anxiously. “He said he was feeling
+better. Why?”
+
+“Just wondered. Last time I saw him he asked me to get him some poison
+from the doctor. I guess he will get over it pretty quick, though.”
+
+“Gee, I hope so. I’m afraid they’ll be firing him when we get back to
+Queenstown.”
+
+“There’s a rumour around this morning,” answered Hearn, “that we’re to
+go west and do something important in the convoy line. If it’s so it
+means that we’re to bring in some of our troops, I guess.”
+
+“Honest?” exclaimed Steve. “Are they sending them over so soon?”
+
+“That’s what I hear. Regulars, you know. I hope it’s so, and I hope
+we get a look at ’em. Well, I’ve got to get busy. How do you like
+spotting?”
+
+“Fine,” replied Steve. “But, it surely plays hob with your eyes. Mine
+feel as if they were full of sand.”
+
+“I know.” Hearn nodded sympathetically. “Better climb in your bunk and
+close ’em awhile.”
+
+First, though, after cleaning his mess kit, Steve paid a visit to Joe
+who was still prone in his bunk. “How are they coming, old man?” he
+asked. Joe opened one eye and gazed at him doubtfully.
+
+“I――I guess I’m pretty nearly all right now,” he answered faintly, “but
+I’m scared to death to get up yet. I’m afraid it’ll come back. She
+isn’t rolling so much, is she?”
+
+Steve, holding tightly to a stanchion, shook his head. “No, she’s as
+quiet as a kitten with a ball of yarn,” he said gravely. “How do you
+feel about a little broth?”
+
+“Go away,” murmured Joe unhappily.
+
+“Well, I don’t want to seem cruel, Joe, but if I was you I’d make an
+effort before long and try to report for afternoon watch. Did you hear
+about the Frenchies we picked up?”
+
+Joe shook his head and looked mildly interested, and so Steve narrated
+with much detail the sighting and rescuing of the four fishermen.
+
+“I suppose,” said Joe weakly, “you think you’re a wonderful little
+lookout, don’t you?”
+
+“You’re jealous,” retorted Steve untroubledly. “Anyway, I got ’em
+before any of the rest did. Frankly, I don’t know what they’d do on
+this old tin tub if it wasn’t for me.”
+
+Joe grunted and closed his eyes again. Then he opened the left one with
+an effort and fixed a wavering gaze on his chum. “Steve,” he muttered,
+“I was willing to die for my country when I started out on this grand
+career, but I didn’t think it would take so long!”
+
+The _Warren_ patrolled an empty sea the rest of that day and at night,
+with all lights out, ploughed untiredly through the darkness. The next
+morning a British trawler was sighted and the four Brittany fishermen,
+clad in their own picturesque clothes again, were transferred to her.
+Shortly after that the destroyer turned her nose westward and went
+piling into a tumble of green sea that climbed aboard the bows and
+rattled like sleet against the canvas wind-shield of the bridge. The
+slender ship tossed and rolled and plunged, shivered and shook and
+rattled, and from her four grey stacks the oil smoke went streaking to
+windward in long scarfs. The engines hummed loudly and the air between
+decks fairly reeked of petroleum. In the hungry hour before dinner
+Steve and Joe and two others were huddled in the lee of the second
+stack. Joe, pale but determined, was keeping his eyes glued to the
+deck. He had eaten that morning for the first time since the _Warren_
+had left Cape Clear behind her and, to use his own words, accompanied
+by a sickly smile, had done so not in vain. He had confided to Steve
+that if he once got safely ashore again he was going to ask for a
+transfer to the Army. Also that he hoped his folks would be willing
+to live abroad after the war was over, since he would never have the
+courage to go back to America so long as ships were the only means of
+getting there! Truso, second-class fireman, off duty, let his gaze roam
+aft to where, near the stern turret, were ranged a dozen or so depth
+bombs, villainous looking steel cylinders each containing some three
+hundred pounds of trinitrotoluol.
+
+“Ever think what would happen to us,” mused Truso, “if a ‘moldie’
+struck us astern? It’s a pleasant thought, is it not? There’s a good
+two tons of ‘truly rural’ back there, fellows, and it wouldn’t do a
+thing but spread us out for the matter of a mile. Bet you they wouldn’t
+find enough of the _Warren_ to put in a locket!”
+
+“What’s the good of worrying about that?” asked Hearn. “If a German
+torpedo hits us most anywhere we’ll be perching on clouds.”
+
+“’Twouldn’t more’n knock off our stern,” said Higgins, comfortingly.
+Higgins was a radio man, a tow-headed fellow of nearly thirty, whose
+rating badge on the left sleeve of his jumper showed the three chevrons
+and rays of an electrician of the first class and, also, two service
+stripes. “Leave her half her length and she’ll toddle home. I was on
+the _Warrington_ back in 1912 when a schooner ran foul of us and took
+our whole stern away aft of the fourth stack. We steered into port with
+the engines, all hunky. That’s what your watertight compartments do for
+you.”
+
+“Two Summers ago,” chuckled Truso, “we were cruising off Maine in the
+_Beale_, a sister ship to this hooker, in a fog. First thing we knew,
+_biff-bang_ goes everything forward that’s standing, bridge stanchions,
+mast and number one stack, including our exec, who was on the bridge.
+Well, sir, it was nothing on earth but a dizzy old hay schooner. She’d
+swept her bowsprit right clean over us, taking everything in the way.
+‘What you tryin’ tew dew?’ shouts the skipper, an old geezer of about
+sixty with a bunch of chin whiskers as long as my arm. ‘Run me daown?’
+Well, I’d hate to tell you what our Old Man said to him, but I remember
+that he offered to kill him and not charge him a cent for it!”
+
+“Was it a steel bowsprit?” asked Steve.
+
+“Steel? Naw, nothing but a piece of spruce wood. If it wasn’t for
+splinters, I guess they’d make these things out of spruce instead of
+steel. They’d ought to, seeing the way that bowsprit raked us clean!”
+
+“What’s the news in the world, Jack?” asked Hearn of the radio operator.
+
+“Nothing much doing last night. Same old story. H.M.S. _Something or
+other_ wants H.M.S. _Whatshername_ to relieve her of escort; tramp
+steamer reports floating mine; some fellow reports a schooner on fire
+off Penmarch; _Cassin_ says she sighted a periscope and fired three
+shots and ‘thinks she hit,’ and so on. There were orders this morning,
+though. Came just as I switched off. Didn’t hear them decoded, but I
+have a hunch.”
+
+“Well, open up. What’s the game? Why all the good old smelly fuel going
+up in smoke?”
+
+Higgins winked solemnly. “Rules is rules, Sammy. You go ask the Old
+Man, or stick your head in the wardroom and ask the M.D. Bones is a
+great little confider, he is. There’s chow, praises be! I’m going to
+swallow mine lying down. Holding on today won’t get you anything.
+Observe the poor blighter in the foretop. He’s got a fine healthy swing
+up there!”
+
+That afternoon there were two false alarms which supplied instant
+and hectic excitement but nothing else. Oddly enough the excitement
+was invariably shown by all hands in a more than usually quiet and
+contained demeanour. Steve and Joe found it quite natural to speak
+more slowly than ever when word came down from the foretop that a
+periscope was sticking up somewhere and to saunter to the side with an
+exaggerated carelessness. But that didn’t alter the fact that inside
+they were terrifically jumbled, and that they were always afraid their
+voices might break into a squeak if they spoke. One of the reported
+periscopes quickly resolved itself into nothing and the other into a
+floating spar. Later, the _Warren_ resumed standard speed, fourteen
+knots. Toward evening two trawlers waddled past, homeward bound, and
+that ended the day’s sensations. But shortly after four bells, in the
+middle of the “graveyard watch,” the engines began to hum again and the
+news leaked from wardroom to second deck that they were off in answer
+to an S O S to find a sinking cargo boat, a good two hundred miles
+south. With all four boilers steaming at just under twenty-nine knots,
+and the _Warren_ fairly throwing herself in and out of the seas, sleep
+was impossible. One could only brace every muscle and hope to stay in
+the bunk. On deck――topside in the vernacular――one dodged along the
+sloping spray-drenched surface in the manner of a monkey climbing about
+his cage. In the wireless hutch Higgins, receiver clamped to his ears,
+listened and wrote as the blue sparks darted and sputtered, while at
+the wardroom table, with the lead-backed code books open before him,
+the ship’s surgeon worked under the small-focussed light and turned
+the messages into King’s English: “Please hurry, going down fast”:
+“Broadcast submarine reported eight miles southeast, steamers keep
+off”: “H.M.S. _Spindrift_ struck by mine, latitude ――, longitude ――; no
+danger, relay east”: “All ships. Fresh-laid mine adrift ten miles E. S.
+E. Trawler notified.”
+
+Once a sister destroyer blinked at them across leagues of tumbled
+water, she, too, evidently on the errand of succor. The _Warren_ had
+outdistanced her by daylight and about breakfast time was alone,
+searching the wastes for sign of ship or survivors. All day she doubled
+and crossed and never found so much as a floating spar until, just as
+a red sun sank past the rim of the watery world, a stove-in life-boat,
+almost awash, was picked up by the lookout and run down. That was
+all they ever found of the steamer and neither Steve nor Joe ever
+learned the fate of those aboard her, although the popular verdict on
+the destroyer that evening was that the small boats had got away long
+before the _Warren_ had reached the scene and were either making for
+the French coast or had been taken in tow. There were orders from the
+flagship then and the _Warren_ limped back the way she had come at a
+twelve-knot gait, her oil-tanks much too low to waste fuel on speed. A
+day later she zig-zagged her way past the cape and dropped anchor off
+Queenstown just as the lights began to show ashore.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+
+                           BACKS TO THE WALL
+
+
+The boys applied for three days’ leave and got――one. But they were no
+worse off than more deserving members of that oil-scented crew. “Back
+by daylight tomorrow,” grumbled Higgins, adjusting his neckerchief with
+extreme nicety and flicking an invisible speck from his blue shirt.
+“That means they’re going to chop our stay short. Well, a day’s better
+than nothing, but, just the same, a fellow never sleeps enough the
+first night ashore to get any rest. I’m going to beat it to a hotel and
+hire a husky guy to rock the bed all night! What do you say to a run up
+to Cork, fellows?”
+
+    “‘Paddy from Ireland, Paddy from Cork,
+      With a hole in his breeches as big as New York,’”
+
+chanted Tommy Truso. “I’m wid yez, byes! Erin go bragh! Come on till we
+get the first train that do be goin’.”
+
+They set forth, five of them; Steve, Joe, Truso, Higgins and Sam Hearn,
+all very carefully attired in their best shirts and trousers and caps.
+And they sang on their way ashore and sang as they made for the station
+and, later, still sang as they sat in the railway carriage and rolled
+leisurely north to Queenstown Junction and then past Glounthaune and
+Little Island and Dunkettle and Tivoli. Of course they travelled first
+class. “When in Ireland remember you’re an American,” said Higgins.
+
+“True for you, me bye,” agreed Truso. “And be the same token, shpind
+yer money.” And to set a good example, Truso sought out the guard on
+arrival and tipped him a perfectly good United States half-dollar,
+much to his surprise and evident approval. Higgins censured Truso for
+spending American money when he had English.
+
+“Why didn’t you slip him a couple of shillings, Tommy? He’d have been
+just as pleased, and you’d have saved your real money.”
+
+“Why, isn’t English money as good as ours?” asked Joe.
+
+“They say so,” replied Higgins doubtfully, “but I’m not sure about it.
+Anyway, it hasn’t any eagle on it!”
+
+They climbed into a ramshackle outside car, although Steve and Joe
+would have much preferred to walk, and said so. But Truso reprimanded
+them sternly. “We’d all rather walk,” he said, “but it isn’t done.
+The United States Navy, my boy, must uphold the traditions. Let the
+‘Limies’ walk, and the Frenchies, but if you come from the little old
+U.S.A. you’ve got to ride. Cast off, driver! And look out for mines!”
+
+Steve and Joe were, naturally, all eyes, for this was their first visit
+to Ireland. Hearn had warned them that they’d find Cork uninteresting.
+“If you’ve ever been in Newark, New Jersey,” said Hearn, “you don’t
+need to see Cork.” But they didn’t find it uninteresting, for there
+were many strange features to attract them. Nevertheless, Steve
+announced that he didn’t believe he would care to live there. There
+were many sailors and soldiers on the streets: in fact, it would have
+been difficult to have looked in any direction at any moment from
+any part of St. Patrick Street and not have seen a uniform. There
+were British Army officers, khaki clad and flourishing their swagger
+sticks, British Naval officers, far less “cocky,” it seemed, but
+equally important looking, privates and Jackies galore, the latter
+both British and American. And now and then a French sailor, decidedly
+more picturesque, was sighted. At brief intervals they passed other
+carriages bearing other parties of men from the American fleet,
+and then the proper procedure was to cheer at the top of the voice.
+Doubtless there had been a time when the presence of United States
+sailors in Cork had awakened interest and, possibly, alarm, but now
+their wildest and most vociferous cheers caused no apparent surprise or
+comment.
+
+St. Patrick Street was, the boys decided, “pretty nifty,” but aside
+from that one thoroughfare there was little to impress them. The
+smaller streets, more like alleys than streets, were likely to be
+dirty, and the houses for the most part were depressingly ugly.
+
+“Dublin’s the real town,” said Hearn. “This place is punk.”
+
+There wasn’t much to see, but they saw it in the course of a two-hour
+ride. It was the driver, a wisp of a man with two pale blue eyes and
+a wheedling way with him, that suggested a visit to the one historic
+church that is left in the old city, and so they climbed the hill,
+pitying the decrepit horse all the while, through slums that, to quote
+Tommy Truso, had the New York Ghetto backed off the map. St. Anne
+Shandon wasn’t much to look at, after all, although they found the tall
+tower, topped with its fish weathervane of some interest, and the fact
+that Father Prout had found inspiration in the chimes to write “The
+Bells of Shandon” did not, in Higgins’ opinion, pay for the trip. Back
+in the heart of the city, they paid off their jarvey, grandly declining
+to haggle with him over a charge of just thrice the legal fare, and
+sought dinner.
+
+What impressed the boys most, perhaps, was that, aside from the
+presence of the soldiers from the garrison and the sailors from the
+port, one would never have guessed that just across the Channel men
+were fighting and dying by the thousand. Cork showed no effects of the
+war. Food was ridiculously cheap, viewed by American standards, and
+evidently plentiful. There were, of course, plenty of flags flying,
+but it was apparent that war was the last thought in the minds of the
+rather colourless inhabitants of that town.
+
+After an excellent dinner they took another car, an “inside car” this
+time, the difference between inside and outside cars being merely that
+in the first, one sits over the wheel with his feet hanging down in
+the centre and in the other he reverses the process. The drive was a
+pleasant one, and this time their jarvey was no more than a boy and
+had a loose tongue and a ready wit. Hearn and Higgins had visited the
+ancient ruins before, but they were new to the others and they fell in
+love with “The Groves of Blarney” at first sight. They went all over
+the castle and, you may be sure, didn’t fail to kiss the Blarney stone,
+each in turn hanging over the old battlement while the others held
+firmly to his feet. They went back to the city in a “moisture,” as the
+jarvey called it, although they would have called it a drizzle, and a
+fairly hard one, and spent the hour before supper in making a tour of
+the shops. Steve and Joe were for returning to Queenstown for supper,
+but the others wanted that meal in Cork, and the majority ruled. Also,
+said Truso, there was a fine movie theatre there, only, he added,
+“they call it a cinema or something.” So they had supper at a second
+and smaller hotel and did very well, although the food was neither so
+well cooked nor so well served as at the first hostelry. But they were
+hungry and not over-critical.
+
+After supper they asked their way to the theatre and set forth.
+Perhaps they didn’t follow directions, but in any case they were soon
+cruising along a dimly lighted street that looked most unpromising. The
+inhabitants appeared to be all on the sidewalks or in the gutters, and
+they were an unsavoury lot, the boys thought. It was Hearn who first
+passed the word that trouble was brewing.
+
+“Get onto the bunch of thugs trailing us,” he said in a low voice. “Me
+for the bright lights again, fellows. Some of these Sinn Feiners have
+it in for us Americans good and hard.”
+
+Steve looked back with interest. If those were Sinn Feiners, he
+thought, they were rather disappointing. There was nothing in the least
+romantic about the ten or a dozen men who were following them. Save
+that they were dressed differently――and not nearly so well――they looked
+very like a group of street-corner loafers at home. Nevertheless, there
+was something threatening in their appearance, or, perhaps, in the
+way in which they followed with slouching steps and eyes fixed on the
+sailors.
+
+“What have they got against us?” asked Steve in surprise.
+
+“They’re agin’ England,” explained Truso, “and pro-German to a man,
+and now that we’ve joined in with England they don’t love us. Take the
+first turn, Sam, and let’s get out of this place.”
+
+“Sinn Feiners or no Sinn Feiners,” growled Higgins, “if they get funny
+with me I’ll knock their blocks off.”
+
+“Yes, you’d have a fine time doing it,” jeered Hearn. “There are
+nearly a dozen of ’em. Come on around here.”
+
+But the street they entered was less reassuring than they had hoped,
+a winding, narrow, poorly lighted, cobbled passage, with darkened
+warehouses on either side.
+
+Hearn, leading the way with Joe, stopped. “This won’t do, my hearties.
+Let’s turn back and go out the way we came. If those guys make any
+cracks, get in the first punch. Come on now.”
+
+They swung around and faced the muttering group that had followed
+them. The unexpected manœuvre caused confusion in their ranks and some
+backed against the house wall and a few stepped into the street. With a
+swagger, Hearn led the way past and the others followed. Steve glancing
+around carelessly began to wish himself safely back on the _Warren_,
+for the faces that met his in the dim light were frankly, savagely
+antagonistic. He breathed freer as he put a dozen paces between him
+and the Sinn Feiners. Tommy Truso was whistling, but for the rest the
+encounter was made in silence. Here and there, up and down the street,
+vague figures lounged before the shabby houses, but this end of the
+thoroughfare was darker and more empty than the other. The five had
+gone a dozen yards before a sound came from the enemy. Then:
+
+“_Up the Huns!_” cried a hoarse voice, and a stone went past their
+heads and struck against a house beyond them. Joe started to run, but
+Hearn’s voice rang out sharply.
+
+“Come back here! Stand up to ’em! The Navy doesn’t run, kid!”
+
+Joe, whose flight had been sheerly impulsive, stopped and stepped back
+to the others. Another stone flew toward them and the queer cry was
+repeated from a dozen throats.
+
+“Spread out,” said Hearn softly. “Watch for those stones. Now, then,
+walk backwards. It’s ‘retreat in good order’ for us, I guess.”
+
+“Retreat nothing!” growled Jack Higgins. “Let’s bust up the Micks!
+Come on, Sam! Where’s your pep? Rush ’em!” And Higgins suited action
+to word. The assailants had stopped some twenty yards away and were
+gathering missiles from the littered street. But when Higgins started
+toward them they closed their ranks again, and Truso and Steve, who
+sprang first after their comrade, had a vision of a dark line of
+swearing, taunting, growling men as they raced to Higgins’ support.
+Hearn and Joe followed instantly, then Hearn shouted a cheering “Ata
+boy!” as he ran.
+
+The odds were big, but there was nothing for either Steve or Joe but
+to do their parts. The Irishman loves a fight, and these glowering,
+growling men were Irish, and there was no sign of hesitation in the
+way in which they broke forward toward the foe. But, and this is a
+lamentable fact, those of them who had seized on stones or sticks
+forgot to drop them.
+
+“Watch out for rocks, fellows!” bellowed Truso.
+
+Then the trouble began. Steve, trying to remember all the skill he had
+ever known, engaged the first form that met him. A moment later the
+street was a battle ground. Two to one was the odds, but there were
+three at least of the American bluejackets who had long since learned
+to fight with their fists, while Steve and Joe, although they had had
+few encounters, at least knew something of the science of the game.
+Blows fell and were blocked, feet tramped and slipped, grunts and cries
+filled the air. At first it was a massed melee in which foe struck at
+foe wherever discerned, but after a moment the battle separated into
+units. Up the street came, at first a dribble and then a stream of
+spectators. But they were not all spectators, either, for more than
+one of the newcomers leaped into the fray and took sides with their
+compatriots. Cries of “Kill the Americans!”, “Up the Huns!” broke out.
+Steve, caught under the jaw by a powerful fist, stumbled and went back
+on the pavement. Instantly a foe was on him, astride his chest, and
+blows were being rained at his face. Steve struggled and kicked and
+finally pulled his antagonist forward and managed to get an arm around
+his neck. Then, with short-arm jabs, they fought for each other’s head.
+Struggling forms stamped about them and once someone stepped on Steve’s
+ankle and fell, sprawling to the ground. Then came a rallying cry from
+Sam Hearn:
+
+“_Warren_ this way!”
+
+Steve somehow squirmed from beneath his adversary and rolled aside,
+springing the next instant to his feet. Hearn and at least one other of
+his crowd had backed against the house wall and were managing to hold
+the enemy at arm’s length. Steve could see more than one club waving in
+the air, while at the further side of the street, inside the fringe of
+shouting spectators, new recruits to the Sinn Fein ranks were groping
+along the gutter for missiles. Near at hand a swaying bunch of four
+figures parted for an instant and Steve caught a glimpse of Truso
+fighting fiercely against a trio of the foe. Steve darted forward and
+swung his fist and the nearest of the three doubled up at the knees and
+fell in a heap. At the same moment Truso, wrenching free from the grasp
+of a big, round-faced lad, struck out straight and another fell.
+
+[Illustration: Steve darted forward and swung his fist]
+
+“Come on!” cried Steve. “Get to the wall, Truso!”
+
+“Hello!” gasped the other. “All right. I’m with you!”
+
+But it was no easy task, for three of the enemy engaged them, and they
+were separated from Hearn and the others by more. The latter, however,
+were giving their attention to the three against the wall, and at last,
+bruised and breathless, they plunged through the enemy and lined up
+with their comrades. Higgins was a madman. Steve had never seen anyone
+fight as he fought there in that illy-lighted Cork street, his back to
+the wall. His fists shot back and forth like machinery, and all the
+time he kept up a steady flow of taunts:
+
+“Come on, you scum! Where’s the next nose? Sinn Feiners are you? All
+right, you dirty blackguards, take that! _Now_ cheer for Germany!”
+
+At any other time Steve would have laughed, but just now he was
+much too busy. If the enemy had numbered a dozen at the start, it now
+numbered twice that many. Their antagonists were three deep in front of
+them, and only the fact that they had their backs to the wall and so
+need meet attack from only one quarter saved them from serious injury
+that night. Hearn’s “Ata boy! Give it to ’em!” arose above the tumult.
+Steve caught a swift glimpse of Joe, pale, bleeding at the nose,
+fighting steadily beyond Hearn. Then Higgins, at Steve’s left, groaned
+and slid gently down to the pavement, and Steve, with a maddened growl,
+stepped astride him and planted bleeding knuckles in the soft face of
+a squat Irishman. But the fight couldn’t go on much longer, and they
+all realised it. The odds were ridiculous now. At intervals a stone
+or block of wood struck the wall above them and fell with unpleasant
+effect.
+
+“Shall we――make a run――for it?” gasped Truso.
+
+“We can’t,” answered Steve. “Higgins is laid out. I’m――standing
+over――him. Aren’t there――any cops in――this town?”
+
+A blow got past Steve’s guard and sent his head back against the wall
+and he saw a million stars. He couldn’t fight any longer, he told
+himself dazedly. But he did, although weakly. And then, when it seemed
+that he would just have to drop on top of Higgins and go to sleep, a
+cheer arose above the tumult and the onlookers were swept aside as a
+half-dozen bluejackets raced on the scene.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+
+                           THE ALLIES TRIUMPH
+
+
+With joyous shouts the rescuers fell upon the enemy’s rear. Taken by
+surprise, the Sinn Feiners found themselves between two fires, for
+Steve, Joe, Truso and Hearn put new life into their blows, while the
+newcomers set to work with a fine enthusiasm. Pandemonium reigned
+supreme for a brief space and then the tide of battle turned. The more
+recent recruits to the Sinn Fein ranks turned and fled precipitately,
+while the onlookers, discerning the outcome of the engagement, began
+to cheer the sailors. The original attacking party fought valiantly
+and desperately, but they had not escaped punishment and were unable
+to cope with the reinforcements. Down they went, one after another,
+or, turning to defensive tactics, retreated across the street in the
+hope of finding escape through the circle of spectators. But the rescue
+party was having too good a time to lose their prey so easily, and
+when, a scant three minutes after their arrival, the battle was won,
+the foe, almost to a man, was accounted for. And it was not until then
+that the rescued ones made the discovery that their new friends were
+not countrymen, after all, but British bluejackets!
+
+_H.M.S. Challenge_ said their cap ribbons.
+
+“Well, I’m blowed!” exclaimed Hearn. “Much obliged, Limies. They had us
+going when you broke up the party.”
+
+“The dirty thraitors!” responded one of the rescuers in a fine, rich
+brogue. “Sure, it’s been a dale of pleasure we’ve had, my friend. And
+I’m thinking ’twas a lucky job we came along. What’s your ship, boys?”
+
+“_Warren_, destroyer.”
+
+“I know the _Warren_,” spoke up a smaller chap with a pronounced
+Cockney twang. “She was in Plymouth when we were there larst month.”
+
+The onlookers had gathered around the victors, displaying a scant
+concern for the vanquished who, picking themselves up from the cobbles,
+vanished most unobtrusively. Steve administered to Higgins as best he
+could and was quickly rewarded by a groan from his prostrate comrade.
+Then Higgins opened his eyes――or one of them, for the other didn’t
+respond to the effort――and looked dazedly about him.
+
+“Hello,” he muttered. “I’m all right now. Give me a hand.”
+
+Steve obeyed and Higgins came to his feet, swayed dizzily and then,
+with a bellow, made for the crowd, fists up. But Steve clutched him and
+held him back. “They’re gone, Higgins,” he cried. “It’s all over. Some
+Britishers butted in and――――”
+
+“Gone!” exclaimed Higgins in heart-broken tones. “Gone? The dirty
+cowards! Where’d they go?” He looked about him eagerly, but Steve,
+laughing, although it hurt him horribly to do it, pulled him toward the
+others.
+
+“We’d best get out o’ this before they rouse their friends and come
+back again,” one of the British bluejackets was saying. “Come on,
+Yankees. What was you doing up this here alley, anyhow?”
+
+“Looking for the movie house,” said Truso. “We lost our way somehow.”
+
+“Rather! You’re near a mile from a theatre. I say, old pal, you need
+patchin’ up a bit, the whole bloomin’ lot of you. There’s a bit of a
+hotel down the road a way, ain’t there, Bill?”
+
+“There is. Come on, fellows. I’ll show you the w’y.”
+
+They pushed past the gathering which, now of considerable size, was
+loudly sympathetic in its comments, and trailed by a dozen or more
+boys whose curiosity was still unsatisfied, retraced their steps for
+several blocks and then swung into a wider thoroughfare and, guided by
+the small cockney whose sleeve insignia showed him to be a gunner’s
+mate, presently reached a small hotel. Inside they took stock of
+their casualties. None of the five had escaped visible mementos of
+the engagement. Higgins, with one eye almost completely closed and a
+deep gash on his cheek which, as Hearn observed, could never have been
+made by a bare fist, was the most disreputable looking of them all,
+but everyone showed one or more contusions. Joe’s lip was bleeding
+profusely, Steve had a lump on his forehead and a swollen mouth, Truso
+had a nose that was already nearly twice its normal size and Hearn had
+a lump on his forehead as large as a small egg. These, together with
+swollen and bleeding knuckles, were the visible signs of the recent
+combat, but there were sore spots that didn’t show, and Steve, although
+he made no mention of it, felt as if his head was inhabited by a swarm
+of bees! Nor had their allies escaped punishment, for the Irishman
+proudly displayed a fine long gash on a cheek bone, the Cockney was
+already peering with difficulty from his left eye and one of the
+others had a swollen jaw. Hearn and Truso had lost their caps and the
+attire of all had been roughly used.
+
+The _Challenge_ men performed like Red Cross nurses, commandeering the
+services of the host and his buxom wife and all the supplies on hand,
+which, fortunately included arnica. Wounds were bathed and bound up and
+swollen hands were swathed in bandages, and presently, having abandoned
+the idea of moving pictures in favour of taking the next train to
+Queenstown, they all made their way to the station.
+
+“’Tain’t the first time,” informed one of the _Challenge’s_ men. “Only
+larst week a lot of us was up here and had a set-to with a bunch of
+them scoundrels. They heaved stones at us, first off, and we didn’t pay
+any attention to them for a bit. They were marchin’ along with their
+flags and banners quiet enough till they seen us. Then ’twas ‘Up the
+Huns!’, whatever they might mean by that, and they started heavin’
+stones at us. We’ve orders to keep out o’ trouble, of course, and so
+we ducked for the shops and got inside. But when they started heaving
+bricks through the windows it wasn’t fair to the shopkeepers and so we
+went outside again. ’Twas a Saturday night and so there was a lot of us
+around and it wasn’t long before we was having a rare old time of it.
+It wasn’t ’arf lively for awhile! Then the Bobbies took a ’and, and the
+provost guard from the garrison came along and we called it off. There
+was more than one Sinn Fein head broken, I’m thinking.”
+
+At the station they found a crowd of their own compatriots and as
+many from the British ships waiting for the train, and their advent
+was hailed with shouts of approval and expressions of envy. A big,
+raw-boned boatswain’s mate from the _Cassin_ was all for returning
+to the scene of trouble and inviting renewed hostilities, and his
+companions had difficulty in persuading him to board the train. On the
+way back “Yankees” and “Limies” mingled and fraternised, and there was
+much vocal harmony and a great deal of noise, all of which stood for
+good-fellowship. Steve and Joe tried to do their share of the singing,
+if only for the honour of the United States Navy, but the effort was
+far too painful. Before eleven, having parted from their friends of
+the _Challenge_ with hand-shakes and renewed expressions of gratitude,
+they were back on the _Warren_ relating their adventures to a small but
+attentive audience grouped about Number Two gun.
+
+In the morning they had to face authority in the persons of the
+officers, and they were a bit doubtful of the result. But, save for
+stern disapproval, that melted to amusement when they had passed,
+there came no sign from the Old Man or the luffs. About the middle of
+the forenoon a French destroyer, one of the “Harlequin Fleet,” came
+limping into harbour with her port bow badly stove in. She passed close
+to starboard of the _Warren_ and the captain of the latter hailed
+through the megaphone in his choicest French. Those on the deck grinned
+as the Frenchie’s commander, gesticulating regret, even despair from
+the bridge, responded in excellent English: “Pardon, sair! A thousand
+pardons! I deed not understand what monsieur ask.”
+
+Browny, machinist’s mate, second class, guffawed and had to stuff his
+cap in his mouth. On the bridge Captain Stanwood coloured, and then,
+with a smile for the joke on his pronunciation, politely repeated his
+question.
+
+“No, no,” responded the French officer, leaning far over the rail and
+expressing denial with head and hands and shoulders. “We ware not
+torpedoed, sair! We were collisioned by a――a――what you say?――a――――” His
+voice grew fainter as the distance between the destroyers lengthened
+and the listeners thought they were doomed to never know what had
+happened to the fantastically decorated French ship. But after another
+moment of agonised effort on the part of her commander the completion
+of the sentence floated across the water:
+
+“By a r-r-rottan _chasseur_! Merci, m’sieur!”
+
+“What’s a _rotan shasur_?” demanded Smitty disappointedly.
+
+“Rotten chaser, of course,” giggled a neighbour. “Where’s your French,
+you ignoramus?”
+
+“Say,” observed a tall chap with the crossed quills of a yeoman, “if
+Frenchie gets as excited as that in telling the yarn what do you
+suppose he was like when the chaser hit him?”
+
+That afternoon the _Warren_ slipped out to sea again, followed by a
+sister ship, and zig-zagged her way through the mine field. Sealed
+orders had come aboard, so the rumour went, and they were off for
+“special duty” and wouldn’t see port again for a week. There was some
+grumbling over shortened leave and a vast amount of conjecture as to
+their errand. Hopeful ones guessed a rendezvous with the British North
+Sea fleet for an attack on the German naval base at Zeebrugge, the
+pessimists a return to American waters. The next morning, however,
+it was plain that the North Sea was not their destination, for the
+compass showed the _Warren_ headed east, while, ahead and astern,
+Steve counted five more destroyers tossing spray from their knife-like
+bows. It was standard speed all that day and for two days and nights
+following. The weather was of the kindest, and the _Warren_, try as
+she might, could not roll enough to make her happy. Joe, still fearful
+on leaving Queenstown, gradually plucked up hope. Save for a qualm or
+two the first evening he felt no indications of seasickness and began
+to get a bit cocky about it. The destroyers steamed in column of two
+sections, with the flagship leading the _Warren_. All day signals
+fluttered and the wireless sputtered. Higgins, supposed to know a vast
+deal of what was in the wind, only grinned and shook his head.
+
+The single event to jar the monotony of steady steaming occurred the
+second night out. That was fairly exciting, for the General Quarters
+alarm sounded just before midnight, and Steve, warmly tucked in his
+bunk and sleeping beautifully, reached the deck half-awake with the
+sensations of one aroused by an especially strident alarm-clock. But
+the affair was a good deal of a disappointment, for after Number Four
+gun had barked once――fortunately missing its mark――the supposed Hun
+proved to be a British steam trawler who had been slow in answering
+questions! “Missed us!” she signalled. “Now go to bed again!”
+
+The next morning the mystery was dispelled, for the bulletin board
+announced: “This ship will meet the first contingent of American forces
+to operate in France and convoy them to Bordeaux.”
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI
+
+                               THE ARMADA
+
+
+That was the twenty-second of June. All that day the destroyers held
+their course, hidden from each other at times by fog and drizzle. In
+the forecastle the talk was all of the transports that were somewhere
+ahead there churning their way to the rendezvous laden with khaki.
+They wondered how many ships they would find, who the convoyers were,
+how many soldiers were aboard. It was all very exciting and thrilling,
+and “Spud” Doolan, first-class shipfitter, played “The Star-Spangled
+Banner” and “Hail, Columbia” on his harmonica with more than usual
+feeling. Steve determined to be on hand when the transports were
+sighted, and hoped hard that he might be on foretop lookout duty. But
+he wasn’t, as it turned out. That night, in a light fog, the _Warren_
+picked it up to twenty-one or -two knots and went slithering around
+on the scouting line, managing to roll a fair thirty-odd and make it
+necessary to brace oneself in the bunk. Then, in the morning, when the
+transports should have been in plain sight, they weren’t, and Steve
+going aloft to the canvas cage at seven had fond hopes and nearly
+popped his eyes out in the effort to pierce the haze and pick up the
+top of a mast. But save for the other members of the party, the ocean
+was bare and he was below again, drinking coffee outside the galley
+door, when word came down that smoke was showing. Almost instantly
+the blowers sang a shriller note, the steering engine groaned and,
+above-deck the four funnels fairly spouted black smoke. Joe came
+sliding and dodging along the wet deck and joined Steve and others
+at the forecastle break. Only dim glimpses for a minute or two, and
+then from the ocean haze burst, startlingly near, the long length of a
+troop-ship. And then another――and another――three, four, five―――― But
+it was useless to try to count them. And then the _Warren_ was fairly
+amongst them, signals fluttering, blowers roaring a merry tune――for it
+was wise to make a smart appearance with the Admiral looking on from
+the cruiser――and from every deck of every ship came a great cheer that
+went on and on, arose and fell and arose again, while hats waved and
+hoarse whistles bellowed. Steve, looking with a lump in his throat,
+tried to cheer back with the others, and fluttered his white cap,
+and thought there could never really be in all the world as many
+khaki-clad American soldiers as looked down upon them as they sped
+past. Later he learned how comparatively few the transports held, but
+this morning, gazing at rank after rank of them, they seemed to him to
+number into the hundreds of thousands! Such cheering as greeted the
+destroyers! Such waving of broad-brimmed Stetsons! Such grinning of
+countless faces leaning down from high decks! The cruiser, flagship,
+four-stacked and a bit cluttered aft; a towering German prize with her
+name gone but still legible; two fruiters――seaworthy looking craft;
+and liners built for more fashionable passengers; these comprised the
+armada that was making history with every turn of its screws.
+
+“I wouldn’t have missed this for a million dollars,” said Joe in
+a voice so low that Steve barely heard it above the noise of that
+meeting. “It――it’s wonderful!”
+
+Steve nodded. He didn’t want to speak just then for fear that the other
+would suspect the lump in his throat and the moisture in his eyes.
+But he did speak presently when, having cut her way through the heart
+of the formation, the _Warren_ turned on her heel with a smartness
+and precision that brought a gleam of gratification to the face of
+the captain, and took up her station to port. Then Steve said in a
+growl meant to disguise the fact that his voice held a tremour: “It’s
+the――the biggest thing I’ve ever seen, Joe, and maybe I’ll never see a
+bigger. I’ll never forget it, I guess.”
+
+“Not likely to,” answered the other. “I wish some of the rest of the
+fellows were here to see it with us. It would please old Han, wouldn’t
+it?”
+
+Steve nodded, and stealing a glance at his chum, was relieved to find
+that youth’s eyes frankly wet. And, looking beyond, along the line of
+faces, he saw more than one tear trickling down a weather-tanned nose
+and more than one Adam’s apple working convulsively up and down in a
+lean throat. “Phil and Harry might be aboard one of those for all we
+know,” he said. “Han said they were handling a gun on a liner, didn’t
+he?”
+
+“Expected to, I think. Funny if they were on one of those transports,
+though. Funny if they were looking at us this minute; or we were
+looking at them, eh?”
+
+“Yes. How many soldiers are there there, do you suppose?”
+
+“About a million, I’d say! They’re regulars, aren’t they?”
+
+“Yes. That ship over yonder, though, is filled with marines. I noticed
+as we passed her.”
+
+“Good old Billy Blues,” murmured Joe. “How’s the song go?
+
+    “‘If the Army or the Navy ever visit Heaven’s scenes,
+      They will find the streets are guarded by United States Marines!’”
+
+With the destroyers steaming girdle-wise about the troop-ships, the
+engines were tuned to standard speed――fourteen knots an hour――and code
+signals fluttered. Joe, qualifying for signalman, had a busy time of
+it for awhile. The transports hid themselves at times in the mid-ocean
+haze to emerge again like shadows on the curtain of mist. At supper
+time below there was evident an unusual seriousness, although every
+man-Jack of them tried his best to carry off the scramble for food with
+the customary levity. They were all thinking of the serried thousands
+in khaki on those troop-ships and what their appearance on French soil
+meant. And Browny voiced the thought of many when he remarked, potato
+poised on the end of his fork:
+
+“There’s a lot of those guys will never be sailin’ back again, fellows.”
+
+“That’s right,” someone agreed, “but you can say the same of us, I’m
+thinking.”
+
+“’Tain’t the same,” answered Browny, shaking a lugubrious head. “Those
+fellows have got to go ‘over the top.’ ’Tain’t the same, I’m tellin’
+you.”
+
+“Maybe the war’ll be over by the time they get ready to butt in,” said
+Truso. “Tame the U-boats, son, and what’s Germany got left?”
+
+“That’s so,” another agreed. “The old war’s going to be settled right
+out here on the briny, fellows, and we’re the little cut-ups that are
+going to settle it!”
+
+“Forget it! Fritz won’t give in so easy.” Hearn impaled another potato
+and dipped into the butter. “It’s going to take a lot more of those
+fellows in khaki than we’ve got our hands on yet. There’ll be a lot
+of little white crosses with ‘U.S.A.’ on ’em sprinkled around France
+before Billy Kaiser’s on his back. Well, we’re in it, and I’m hoping
+the folks back home get it into their thick heads after awhile and
+buckle down to the job. One thing’s sure, though. Those cheerin’,
+grinnin’ boys are going to make us mighty proud we’re Americans before
+they’re through!”
+
+“That’s no dream,” agreed someone. “Here’s to ’em!” And he drained his
+coffee.
+
+There were alarms galore during the following two days. Warnings of
+skulking submarines lying in wait reached them and more than once the
+course was changed. By day it was no uncommon sight to see a destroyer
+spout smoke and rush off into the distance and to hear a “three-inch”
+bark. But always the object fired at proved harmless. The troop-ships
+kept their places in the lines, some with an evident effort, and
+gradually the coast of France grew near. Then came a still evening
+when a following breeze held the heavy smoke from the stacks straight
+in air like so many black pencils against the glow of sunset, and that
+night, slowing down and feeling their way through the mine fields, the
+flotilla caught the land-smell.
+
+And then an umber sail in the growing light, a Breton fisherman ducking
+her way over hidden perils with the careless gaiety of a butterfly.
+Then more sails, of a dozen colours, floating casks and skimming birds,
+and the loom of the green-clad shore of France magically in sight. A
+French cruiser sallied out and did the honours, a small and exquisite
+two-stacker on whose decks the red tassels of the men’s caps made dots
+of colour. From the _Warren_ they could even see the closely-trimmed
+beards of her officers. Subsequently a fussy gunboat lay in wait, and
+then, slowing down, the American ships formed in single column and,
+guided by the gunboat, nosed into the estuary.
+
+Sardine fishing boats, with sails of bright blue and faded pink were
+passed. Vividly green farms lay sloping to the river, dotted with
+century-old trees. Every promontory held a glittering light-house,
+each as thoroughly foreign to the eager eyes of this American legion
+as the high, red-roofed houses that presently stood, sentinel-like,
+amidst the fields. Overhead two airplanes sailed majestically. Slowly,
+dignifiedly the long columns steamed up the picturesque river. The news
+had evidently already reached the city, for on one bank motor cars were
+speeding toward them. Even at that distance one could see the white
+flutter of handkerchiefs. And over all the Summer sunlight fell and
+drenched the armada with a golden glory. And this was France――at last!
+
+Finally the city itself came into sight around a long curve of the
+river, and a poplar-lined esplanade kept them company, while a
+forest of masts and cranes marked the dockyards. About them now a
+covey of small boats, steamers, launches, row-boats were gathered.
+The moving-picture industry was alert on the deck of a tipsy little
+side-wheeler. The column parted and the troop-ships went slowly on
+up toward the basin, while the thousands along the sea-wall waved
+and cheered and shouted blessings and greetings in a language that
+lamentably few aboard the flotilla could understand. But the meaning
+was plain enough, and on the transports the lean-faced, khaki-clad men
+waved and cheered and shouted back, and joked, too, although some of
+them could more easily have wept.
+
+One by one the troop-ships disappeared into the basin to be warped
+through the gates of the lock to the inner basin and there unloaded.
+On the cruiser, astern of the _Warren_, the boatswain’s pipe shrilled
+and an orderly commotion ensued. Down the ladder stepped the Admiral
+and took his seat in a blue-grey gig, the sun glinting on an inspiring
+amount of gold bullion. Then off sped the gig to the landing, while the
+cheers grew shriller and the Admiral’s hand came stiffly to salute. The
+_Warren’s_ hooks were down now, and wistful eyes sought the shore, but
+whether liberty was to be granted or not was something none could say.
+The strains of a band floated down from the outer basin. Overhead a
+graceful airplane circled in the sunlight. And in such manner, after
+nearly a century and a half, America paid the first installment of her
+debt to France.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII
+
+                            “ALLO, SAMMEE!”
+
+
+Joe had all the luck that day, for no liberty was granted until late
+afternoon, and Steve had to remain aboard the destroyer and see from
+there what he could of the doings ashore until most of the doings were
+done. But Joe got off in the motor dingey when the junior luff went
+ashore, through a bit of good luck, and although he had to remain in
+the boat with the rest there were things to be seen from the landing.
+The third troop-ship was entering the lock as the _Warren’s_ boat
+bumped her fender, and the crowd in the street alongside cheered as
+spiritedly as though they had not already welcomed two ships in such
+manner. Cries of “Allo, Sammee!” punctuated the shouting. On the
+decks that towered almost overhead the smiling American lads cheered
+with a fine abandon and tried out their French. Gifts of all sorts
+were tossed from street to decks: candy and cigarettes in abundance,
+and even fruit. Slowly the water rose in the lock and then the upper
+gate swung open and the transport passed through with much shouting,
+much hustling of giant hawsers. Already the next ship was nosing at
+the lower lock, and, when the water level had sunk again, she swung
+magnificently in, a veritable floating city inhabited by nearly three
+thousand eager-eyed, hat-swinging boys in khaki. Her decks were
+thronged, the rails lined four and five deep and even the lower rigging
+was crowded with olive-drab and blue. When the big ship was recognised
+as a former German liner, one who had borne the name of a member of the
+royal house of Hohenzollern――they could still read the name although
+its letters had been removed――the throng cheered louder than ever.
+With lines of men carrying the great hawsers she moved slowly on until
+she filled the lock from gate to gate, with her topmost decks towering
+high above the surrounding buildings. The lock gate was closed and the
+hawsers were made fast, while from street and decks and every available
+spot on shore and aboard ship a cheer went up to the blue sky. And then
+there was a scurrying and pushing on the forward deck and the band took
+its place there. The tumult died away and the leader raised his baton
+high. A pause, and almost a silence over the great throng, and then
+the music swelled forth and one by one the boys in khaki stiffened and
+stood at attention and, below, every Frenchman raised a hand in the
+military salute and stood so while the strains of “The Star-Spangled
+Banner” swept out over the silent throng.
+
+When the last note had died trembling on the air the silence held for
+a good minute, and then wave after wave of cheering arose and passed
+along the street and was thrown back by the buildings and crashed up
+against the great hull of the liner. For many minutes it went on,
+until the leader again held his baton aloft. Silence fell once more,
+while hands again went to salute, but this time the silence lasted
+but a moment. Here――there――on all sides voices joined the music, ever
+swelling until the stately tumult of it was heard far across the bay.
+On the transport the soldiers sang, too, or lacking the words, hummed.
+And so for the first time in history an American band played and
+American soldiers sang the Marseillaise in France!
+
+It was early the next morning that those on the destroyers heard
+the bugle blow in the upper basin and knew that the United States
+Expeditionary Force was setting foot on French soil. At moments,
+from the _Warren_, they could glimpse lines of moving olive-drab
+figures on shore. Most of the fellows sought and obtained liberty
+that morning, but by the time they were on the scene half of the
+big troop-ships had discharged their quotas and the great army camp
+outside the town that had been for more than a fortnight awaiting
+occupancy was at last a soldier city. Steve and Joe stood for a good
+hour in the shadows of the basin-side buildings and, pushed and jostled
+good-naturedly by a huge throng of onlookers, watched squad after
+squad of their brothers-in-arms march down the gangplanks, fall into
+rank in the street and go sweeping off across the bridge with a light
+springy step that was fine to see. Many times the two boys shouted a
+greeting to a smiling man in the ranks merely because their eyes and
+his met understandingly and they saw his face light as he recognised
+the Navy blue. Once only did either of them glimpse an acquaintance,
+although it seemed that they must know personally every one of the
+khaki-clad fellows that passed, so familiar were the lean, cheerful,
+alert countenances. Up through the town they went in columns of
+fours, trailing out like a long dust-brown snake, and as one regiment
+disappeared another followed in its track.
+
+Once Joe drew Steve’s attention to a squad of grey-clad German
+prisoners who were being marched down the basin to the coal-yards.
+Six French soldiers carrying long rifles with fixed bayonets were
+in charge and they didn’t permit any loitering. But even so it was
+possible to read the perplexed looks of the prisoners as they found
+themselves confronted by the line on line of American soldiers, troops
+which they had been assured over and over again by their government
+would never reach Europe!
+
+By a little after twelve o’clock the last of the contingent had
+marched away over the rise and the great ships were empty of khaki and
+ready for re-coaling and the return voyage. Joe had been especially
+interested by the Marines and had watched them rather enviously,
+confiding to Steve that he guessed he wished he had enlisted there
+instead of in the seaman branch. “They’re going to get right into the
+thick of it, I’ll bet,” he said. “Besides, Steve, land duty gives a
+fellow a chance to get over his seasickness sometimes.”
+
+“Huh, all those chaps are going to do is guard duty, I guess,” derided
+Steve. “If that’s your idea of a Summer vacation it isn’t mine, son.
+I’d rather be where there’s something doing.”
+
+“I know,” sighed Joe, “but sometimes I wish they’d put the _Warren_ on
+wheels and send her ashore. It’s the eternal rolling that has me beat.”
+
+“Shucks, Joe, you’re doing fine! Why, you weren’t sick once this trip.”
+
+“N-no, but there were lots of times when――when I could have been! And
+I’m always scared that I will be. Well, if I can’t stick it out I’ll
+try the Army. I guess there’s some place I can wiggle into.”
+
+“Oh, don’t be a piker! Stick to the Navy, old scout. It’s the only real
+thing.”
+
+“Only _reel_ thing, I guess you mean,” sighed the other. “There’s Tommy
+and Jack over there. Let’s go over.”
+
+With Truso and Higgins they saw the town and ate a most remarkable
+dinner at a queer little café that was crowded with soldiers and
+sailors of half a dozen nations. They made the acquaintance of an
+Italian non-com officer――they never could agree as to his exact
+rank――who talked surprisingly good English, a fact later explained
+when he mentioned having been a produce commission merchant in New
+York until the war broke out. He asked a good many wistful questions
+about the city of his adoption, many of which the boys were unable
+to answer. Afterwards he told them a good deal of war news――they had
+been singularly ignorant of what had been going on during the last
+month. The King of Greece had abdicated――as Higgins remarked later,
+without saying a word to them――the United States Liberty Loan had
+been gloriously oversubscribed: the Italians had taken Corno Cavento
+from the Austrians (Steve determined to look the place up on the map
+but never did): an American commission had been sent to Russia. After
+saying good-bye to their new acquaintance they bought numerous French
+newspapers which none could read intelligently and reported back on
+the _Warren_. They had all wanted mightily to go out and see the
+American camp, but there wasn’t time, and they promised themselves to
+do it tomorrow. But when the morrow came the _Warren_ was thrusting
+her knife-edge bow into the green waters three hundred miles away from
+red-roofed Bordeaux.
+
+They had taken on only enough fuel for a slow return to the base and
+it was nearly noon on the twenty-ninth when they sighted the Scilly
+Islands to starboard. Two of the other destroyers accompanied them and
+stayed in sight until afternoon. Then, when Steve looked for them from
+the foretop cage, they were gone. The _Warren_ zig-zagged through the
+Channel mine fields and dropped her hooks in Queenstown Harbour at
+sunset.
+
+Ashore the next day, they learned that the American and English fleet
+commanders had forbidden men from the ships to go up to Cork because
+of the Sinn Fein demonstrations. Consequently they were doomed to make
+the best of Queenstown, and Queenstown’s best was not very exciting.
+The town was little more than a single street running along the water
+and many steep and narrow lanes ascending the hill on which the town
+was built. The business part seemed to consist principally of hotels
+and steamship offices and to be inhabited by sailors from the Seven
+Seas, soldiers, marines and shabbily-clad citizens, whose sole purpose
+in life was to loaf. But they saw what few sights there were: the big
+white cathedral on the summit of the hill which has been in course of
+erection so long that no one appeared to be sure of the date of its
+beginning. And they ferried across to Monkstown, a whole dozen of them,
+and saw the castle on the heights that cost but fourpence, as the story
+goes. They got the narrative from a willing and garrulous old patriarch
+in return for a shilling. Doubtless they’d have got it with quite
+as much detail for a sum no larger than the cost of the old castle.
+Shorn of much verbiage, the story was that back in sixteen hundred
+and something one John Archdeckan was called to the war in Flanders,
+and his good wife decided that it would be a fine thing to erect a
+castle during his absence and have a sort of surprise party when he
+got back――if he ever did! So she got an army of labourers together and
+arranged to pay them good wages for the job on condition that they
+bought all their food, drink and clothing from her. When the castle was
+finished she cast a balance and made the, to her, annoying discovery
+that she had come out fourpence shy! Hearn offered the comment that he
+guessed Mrs. Archdeckan had never really enjoyed her home after that,
+but another of the party opined that the lady hadn’t got swindled
+after all because if the worst came to the worst she could have turned
+it into a fine fire-proof garage. Their guide and informant seemed a
+trifle peeved at their levity, much of which he fortunately couldn’t
+understand, and so Tommy Truso tipped him a Canadian dime which pleased
+him vastly, not knowing, as Tommy remarked with a chuckle, that “the
+thing’s no good south of Portland, Maine!”
+
+That afternoon mail came aboard and Steve and Joe had letters galore
+and more newspapers than they would ever have time to read before the
+war ended, and last, but far from least, a box of eatables. But the
+letters were the best, for they made home seem for the time very near.
+Steve received a letter from George Hanford which had been posted from
+Halifax. Han was on the way over when he wrote. The _Carthage_ was
+swinging at anchor off Falkland, N. S., awaiting some transports. As
+the letter was dated the twelfth of June it was more than probable, as
+Steve and Joe agreed, that the _Carthage_ was now somewhere in British
+waters.
+
+“It would be dandy to run into old Han some day, wouldn’t it?”
+exclaimed Joe.
+
+“Yes, if it didn’t sink us,” agreed Steve. “I wouldn’t suggest it to
+the Old Man, though.”
+
+“You know what I mean,” laughed Joe. “I wonder if there’s any news of
+his ship around here.”
+
+They didn’t find any, however. The whereabouts and movements of ships
+were carefully guarded those days. Theoretically at least, the crew
+of one ship was not supposed to know so much as the name of another
+even though they happened to be anchored within cable’s length of each
+other! Joe was assured, however, that some fine day they would come
+across Han, and when they did――well, there’d be a lot of talking done!
+
+The _Warren_ was to remain four days instead of three at the base
+this time in order to make up to the men one of the days they had
+been deprived of before. Hearn was for getting forty-eight hours’
+liberty and making a trip to Dublin, but for some reason the Old
+Man wasn’t agreeable to the idea. There was baseball each afternoon
+on a make-shift diamond and some exciting contests were pulled off.
+The _Warren_ took on a team of marines and, with Truso pitching, Joe
+playing first base and a yeoman named Harris catching, put it all over
+their opponents. Two days later, however, the _Warren_ had to lower
+its colours before the better playing of a nine from one of the other
+destroyers.
+
+Finally at dusk one warm July evening the _Warren’s_ winches rattled,
+her anchors came up from the mud of the harbour, the twinkling lights
+of Queenstown dropped astern and she slipped through the net gate and
+steamed out into the darkness to take up once more the patrol of her
+particular square section of the ocean, three hundred feet of quivering
+steel eager for work and danger.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIII
+
+                        THE WARREN’S FIRST KILL
+
+
+It was shortly after eight bells the next afternoon that the wireless
+room picked up the SOS that turned the destroyer on her heel and sent
+her churning away toward the sunset with “all kettles lit off for
+twenty-eight.” Somewhere a hundred-odd miles away an American freighter
+was trying to run away from a U-boat, or so the lower deck got it. The
+_Warren_ spouted smoke and stank of oil and the seas smothered the bows
+as she raced on. From the dizzy foretop the lookout peered eagerly into
+the sunlit wastes ahead. Gun crews gravitated toward their pets and
+watched and waited anxiously.
+
+“If only the Hun won’t run this time!” exclaimed Lieutenant Lyke as he
+alternately held his glasses to his eyes and glanced upward toward the
+spotter on the foretop.
+
+“Any word from the steamer, sir?” asked one of the men at the Number
+Four gun.
+
+“She was all right twenty minutes ago. They’d let go one torpedo at her
+and missed her. She thinks they’re outsteaming the Hun. Why doesn’t
+that blind-eyed gob up there see something?”
+
+It was almost dark night when the word came down the tube that smoke
+lay off the port bow, and half an hour later still when the _Kenyon_,
+a Great Lakes grain ship, from the looks of her in the darkness, was
+signalled. She was ploughing on desperately and, as the _Warren_ ran
+up, reported that the U-boat had presumably given up the chase and
+submerged an hour ago in such-and-such latitude and longitude.
+
+“Good luck!” called the Old Man. “We’ll have a look for her!”
+
+The _Warren_ darted on again and the _Kenyon_, with a cheer from the
+gun crew at the stern, plugged off at her sixteen knots into the night.
+With all lights doused and boilers doing something like twenty, the
+_Warren_ began her search. Somewhere within an hour’s steaming a German
+submarine was hiding. She might be poking along submerged or doing her
+fourteen awash or, less probably, lying snugly somewhere on the bottom.
+And wherever she was it was the _Warren’s_ part to find her if it was
+possible.
+
+By two bells in the first watch, nine o’clock, the night was as black
+as a pocket. On the destroyer never a gleam of light was to be
+seen save in the shrouded wardroom where the decoding watch worked
+tirelessly by the dim glow of a lowered lamp, under the swaying
+salt-and-vinegar caster, on the messages shoved through the tiny
+trapdoor that led to the radio hutch. That and the radium-lighted
+compass-dial alone mitigated the gloom, and neither could have been
+detected a dozen feet away any more than a thousand feet away the
+ship herself could have been separated by human vision from sea and
+darkness. Spotters were everywhere, and night-glasses swept the tumbled
+expanse of ocean. The groan of the steering cables sounded from time to
+time as the destroyer swung her long, lithe form to starboard or port,
+covering the radius as carefully and minutely as a hound searching for
+scent.
+
+Three bells struck on the wardroom clock. Then four. The tired lookout
+in the foretop scrambled down and the relief took his place. Most of
+those off duty were on deck peering into the gloom. A hard wind blew
+when the _Warren_ headed eastward and at such times the white spume
+flew high and far. Joe, who should have been tucked in his bunk, for
+it was his watch below, leaned with Steve in the shelter of the port
+torpedo tube and ranged the seemingly empty sea as eagerly as any. A
+gunner’s mate of the torpedo watch, beside them, grumbled incessantly
+and said unpleasant things about an enemy who wouldn’t face the music.
+And suddenly what they had been so long hoping for and had about
+concluded could not happen came to pass. The tocsin of the General
+Quarters alarm sounded!
+
+Steve raced forward to Number Four gun, strapping on the life-vest he
+carried. The hum of the engines sounded higher as from the bridge came
+the order for full speed. The Captain hurried from the wardroom passage
+and sprang up the ladder.
+
+“Man Number Four, bow, gun!”
+
+From below the few men off watch swarmed up the lower deck ladder.
+Plugmen and pointers raced to duty. The sight-setter pulled on his
+leather head-gear with fingers suddenly all thumbs. The cover was
+ripped from an ammunition box and a loader caught a shell in his arms
+and shoved it home. Then silence and expectancy.
+
+“Can you see her?” was the anxious question. But from the forecastle
+only darkness met the straining gaze. “Seven thousand, five hundred
+yards!” came the word. The gun muzzle nosed upward. “Seven thousand
+yards!” The muzzle dropped again. And then, magically, a glare of
+white light sprang from above and shot radiantly over the ocean,
+encompassing in its broad path a something that lay like a glistening
+wet bottle far off in the sea.
+
+“Are you on, down there?” came the cry.
+
+And, after a moment that seemed ages long: “All ready, sir!”
+
+“Six thousand, five hundred!”
+
+“Stand by to fire!”
+
+Another moment of aching impatience, and then:
+
+“Fire!”
+
+A three-inch shell flew toward the distant goal, and ere the bark of
+the gun was passed the shellman had pushed another charge into the
+breech. The trainer turned his wheel a fraction as the word came down:
+“Missed!”
+
+“Skinned her, though!” muttered the plugman.
+
+“Fire!”
+
+Again Number Four barked, and, almost simultaneously a second gun
+echoed. A roar of triumph went up and travelled back along the deck.
+
+“Got her!” said the gun captain calmly. “Fire!”
+
+Once more the shriek of a shell echoed from across the deck. In the
+glare of the searchlight the wet bottle was almost gone from sight,
+for she had started to submerge the instant that fierce glare had
+reached her conning tower. Only the tower was above water now, and,
+even as they looked, that went under quickly, as though some mighty
+hand had seized the hapless craft from below and pulled her down.
+
+“Cease firing!”
+
+The already loaded gun was opened and a shellman withdrew the cartridge
+case, while a cheer arose from the crew.
+
+“Two hits to us!” sang the pointer elatedly. “Two hits to us, boys! A
+fair hole aft in the superstructure and another through the tower!”
+
+“Well done, Number Four gun!” came the message through the tube. “We’ve
+sunk her.”
+
+“Sure, we’ve sunk her!” muttered the plugman. “That’s what we aimed to
+do. There’s one less devil-fish in these waters, boys!”
+
+“Will they all drown?” asked Steve awedly.
+
+“With half the Atlantic Ocean pouring in on ’em? They’re dead rats
+already, Jack. Was any of them trying to get out, boys?”
+
+“I didn’t see any,” someone answered. “They didn’t have time. They’d
+closed their lids to go down and then we put one through her shell. It
+was water rushing in that sank her at the last.”
+
+Meanwhile the _Warren_ was ploughing on, searchlights glaring about
+her path. Presently the engines ceased their roar and suddenly the
+destroyer floated into a calm expanse of oil-smeared water. Once a
+great bubble broke under the destroyer’s bow, but after that there was
+no sign of the tragedy, although the searchlights played over the scene
+for several minutes. Oil lay in vast pools that rose and fell on the
+waves and spread themselves in strange patterns. The smell of it was
+heavy on the air. Steve, looking down from abaft the forecastle break
+shuddered and felt a little sick. Then the lights went out as suddenly
+as they appeared, for there was no knowing that another underseas craft
+was not around, and the _Warren_, swinging about, poked her nose again
+into the wind. The hum of the engines became higher and the thin steel
+frame of the ship took on its tremor once more. Behind them as they
+hurried back to the patrol area only an oily stretch of water was left
+to tell the story.
+
+Down in the forecastle they talked it over from start to finish.
+Incidents seen and forgotten in the tenseness of the moments were
+recalled, usually with laughter. There had been some “dumb” work here
+and there, but it was excusable, for this was the _Warren’s_ first
+real encounter with the enemy. Now and then a soberer word was given
+to the crew of the submarine lying fathoms deep back there. Steve
+heard no expressions of pity nor any of callousness. There was very
+evident elation aboard the _Warren_, but it was elation for work
+well performed. There was a business-like tone to the talk, some of
+which he could scarcely follow, so filled it was with “elevation” and
+“trajectory,” “deflection” and “range,” that made him wonder if he
+would ever become so seasoned as to forget the horror of such a thing
+in scientific discussion. But he was not, he found, the only one aboard
+whose thoughts dwelt with those lives so suddenly snuffed out. Joe
+talked about it later as they sat swinging their feet from his bunk.
+
+“Somehow,” he said thoughtfully, “it seemed worse because we didn’t
+even see them. Though,” he added, “I don’t know why it should. They
+didn’t have a fair chance, Steve.”
+
+“Neither did the folks on the _Lusitania_, Joe.”
+
+“I know.” Joe nodded, frowningly. “Of course, it’s war. And war’s no
+parlour entertainment, but――somehow, I’d feel better about it if those
+chaps had fired a shot at us or――or something.”
+
+“Maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you’d be feeling a lot worse,” replied
+Steve, dryly. “You would if they’d happened to place a torpedo against
+our hull. We certainly caught them napping. Hearn says they don’t often
+steam around on top for long at a time. That fellow had evidently given
+up the chase of the freighter and gone below, and then, not seeing
+anything around, had come up for a quick run to some place. Perhaps he
+had word of another ship to blow up and was trying to get to her. That
+was a peach of a shot we made with Number Four.”
+
+“Wasn’t it? Right through her plates, they say.”
+
+“Where were you when we were firing?”
+
+“On the blinker. Nothing doing, though. Gee, she’s beginning to roll
+again. Guess I’ll tumble in and get a few hours of sleep.”
+
+“Me, too, only I don’t believe I can sleep much. Guess I’ll go topside
+for a bit first and see what’s doing. Good night, Joe.”
+
+Steve returned to a darkened deck to find the _Warren_ fairly racing
+into the wind. He still had his life-belt on, and now he unstrapped
+it as he made his way aft to where some of the men were gathered
+abaft the stern gun turret. That was a favourite lounging place in a
+head wind. Tonight, however, although Steve found four or five dark
+figures gathered there between turret and torpedo tubes, it was not
+very sheltered. As he seated himself on the uneasy deck a shaft of weak
+light fell on them and was gone. Steve turned with the rest and saw,
+miles away, a ship’s blinker at work.
+
+“Too late, my hearty,” chuckled someone. “What’s she saying, Bob? Is
+she a Limie?”
+
+“No, one of ours. Get your old head out of the way till I see if I
+can read it. I’ve lost her name. Wants to know what’s up and have we
+seen an enemy sub around here. There goes the luff with his come-back.
+Hope he tells it straight.” The winking light across the darkness went
+out, but presently reappeared. “Dot, dash, dot, dot――what’s he trying
+to say?” muttered the unseen Bob. “Oh, he’s extending his blooming
+congratulations. He’s a polite dub. ‘Report me to flag-ship.’ Sure
+thing. ‘Good night!’ Say, he’s the chatty party, ain’t he? Bet you
+they’re mad as hatters over there because they got around too late.
+It’ll teach ’em to hustle when they’ve got the little old _Warren_ to
+beat out! Well, I’m going to hit the hay, fellows. Tomorrow’s another
+day. If we find another tin fish, Jimmy, wake me early, for I’m to be
+Queen of the May.”
+
+Bob stumbled off. Steve sat on a while longer, listening to the talk,
+and then he, too, crept down through the hatch and went lurching to his
+bunk where, in spite of his doubts, he fell promptly asleep and didn’t
+awake until the watch was tumbled out in the first grey of morning.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV
+
+                           LETTERS FROM HOME
+
+
+They picked up a line of transports the next forenoon being convoyed by
+five black Limie destroyers and exchanged signals. “Canadians,” was the
+report below deck. They didn’t get close enough to have a look at them,
+but turned southward before the last of the troop-ships had emerged
+from the mist. It alternately rained and shone that day, and a stiff
+wind sang in the aerial. Steve worked at cleaning Number Four gun in
+the morning, and in the afternoon began his turn in the foretop. There
+was only an empty sea until shortly before supper when a tiny British
+chaser that looked no larger than the _Adventurer_, in which he and
+Joe and others had made a memorable voyage last Summer, bore down for
+a chat. A chipper-looking Reserve Lieutenant wearing much gold braid,
+had a good deal to say, all of which was Greek to Steve, and then the
+chaser turned in her length and went jauntily off again, tossing about
+like a dish-pan.
+
+“I’m glad I’m not on her,” said Joe thankfully. “Think what she must do
+in a gale!”
+
+“I’d rather not,” replied Steve. A machinist’s mate beside them laughed
+reminiscently.
+
+“When we were in Brest, a month ago maybe, there was a sort of a
+ferryboat-lookin’ contraption lyin’ near us. She was a single-stacker
+and burned coal. They’d tore off a cabin above-deck――you could see the
+saw marks through the black paint――and they called her a chaser or
+a patrol or something she wasn’t at all by rights. They’d mounted a
+five-pounder forward and a rapid-fire aft. You had to sort of look at
+her twice to see was she bow-on or stern-on, and then it didn’t seem to
+make much difference.”
+
+“French?” asked Joe.
+
+“Naw, British. Well, there was a luff in charge of her that must have
+been sixty if he was a day: nice, cheerful, pink-cheeked old geezer
+with white whiskers that danced when he talked. Him and me got into a
+bit of talk――we was lyin’ close to――and he tells me he’s been runnin’
+the Channel for five or six months in that ferryboat thing. ‘You
+must have seen some weather,’ I says. ‘Why, yes, that’s so, my man,’
+says he. ‘An’ we been wrecked two or three times――I forget just how
+many.’ ‘Wrecked!’ I says. ‘Not in that, sure-ly!’ He nods. ‘Yes, but
+you’d never know it, would you? That’s what comes of havin’ a fine,
+staunch boat under you,’ he says, as proud as you please. ‘There’s few
+destroyers as would have gone through what this boat’s been through!’
+An’ he looks around that wooden fresh-water jitney like she was the
+_Royal Sovereign_. Say, fellers, that’s what I call a dead game sport,
+eh?”
+
+The boys agreed heartily, and the machinist’s mate, tearing the wrapper
+from a package of chewing gum and offering the delicacy, added: “An’
+say, let me tell you somethin’ else funny. This old geezer tells me
+that before the war he never crossed the English Channel that he wasn’t
+as sick as a pup, but since he’d got his commission and had been
+floppin’ around in that pocket dreadnought of his he hadn’t missed a
+meal! How’s that for mind over matter, or whatever you call it?”
+
+The _Warren_ found no further adventures, although she remained on
+patrol five days longer. Of course there were the usual alarms that
+came to nought, and there was a three hundred mile scamper one night
+to assist a French scout cruiser who had bumped her nose into a mine.
+But other ships were nearer, and the _Warren_ arrived too late to aid.
+The cruiser had sunk in forty minutes without loss of life. Every day
+they spoke ships, but anything German was beyond their good fortune.
+They might easily have considered that in sinking one submarine they
+had done their duty for that time, especially as the officers were
+unanimous in the verdict that the destroyed craft had been one of the
+latest and biggest of the German underseas fleet. But that adventure
+had only whetted their appetite and as the last twenty-four hours of
+sea duty began they bemoaned their luck and said scathing things of the
+lookouts, accusing them, for instance, of going to sleep in the foretop
+cage. There was one brief gleam of hope about midnight when they sent
+a shell across the bows of a suspicious-looking steamer who failed to
+answer signals. But she proved to be only a Norwegian cargo boat making
+for Huelva. The next day they were creeping through the mine fields
+again, with the misty green Irish coast beckoning, and in the afternoon
+the destroyer sent her anchors rattling down into the mud of Queenstown
+Harbour. More mail and newspapers awaited them, and it was in a New
+York paper that Joe found the first mention of any of their friends at
+the Training Station. There had been a fire at “a United States naval
+base” and among those mentioned for heroic conduct in fighting flames
+adjacent to munition stores was Abraham Libinsk. Joe looked up and
+called across to Steve:
+
+“What was the name of that Polish chap at Newport? Abie, they called
+him.”
+
+“Abie? Abraham, I guess. Oh, his last name? Search me, Joe. I heard it
+often enough, but――――”
+
+“Libinsk?”
+
+“Yes, that was it. It had about twenty-seven letters in the original,
+but he shortened it because the recruiting officer couldn’t get it
+right; or didn’t have time; I forget which. What about him?”
+
+Joe read the dozen lines aloud and Steve nodded. “Just what I expected.
+That chap’ll come out of this fuss with gold stripes, I’ll bet!”
+
+There was news of other friends, as well. Steve had a much-travelled
+letter from Neil Fairleigh written at “an Atlantic port.” Neil, a
+member of the Adventure Club, had just got his corporal’s chevrons and
+was evidently extremely proud of the fact. They were, he wrote, off to
+France in a few days. “I’m in the Field Artillery, and it’s great work.
+We’ve got a splendid lot of fellows. By the way, I had a letter from
+old Wink just before I left the West. He’s down in Texas learning to
+fly and he’s as sore as a boil because they aren’t going to let them
+go across until late in the Fall. I suppose you heard that Cas Temple
+‘got his’ last month. He’s in a hospital in Paris and is doing finely,
+I hear. Write me sometime, care American Expeditionary Forces, and tell
+me what you know. How’s Joe? And Han? Remember me to them, please. I
+suppose you’ll be thinking about coming in after college closes. Maybe
+I’ll run across you over there sometime. Looks like the old Adventure
+Club is due to see some real stunts, what? Don’t forget to write.
+Letters are great things these days. Yours till Berlin falls, Neil.”
+
+And there was a funny scrawl from another member of the club, Perry
+Bush. Perry was still at preparatory school where they had left him the
+year before but was ardently patriotic and militant. They were drilling
+at Dexter, he wrote: had six companies: and he was a lieutenant. And
+as soon as school was over he was going to enlist somehow. “I’m only
+seventeen, you know, but I look a good deal older, don’t you think I
+do, Steve? They say you can pass if you fib a little and put false
+heels in your shoes. I know a fellow who’s a month younger than I and
+he joined the National Guard last Fall and now he’s in France I guess.
+I saw by the Yale News that you and Joe had joined the Navy. I’d like
+that, too, but they say they keep you in training six months and the
+war might be over by that time. I wish you’d write and tell me what
+it’s like and whether you think I’d have to stay in training camp or
+wherever they send you very long. It’s drill time now so I’ll close
+with best wishes to you and old Joe from yours truly, Perry.”
+
+“Perry’s punctuation,” laughed Joe, returning the letter, “is no great
+compliment to Dexter Academy, is it?”
+
+“He’s too good-natured,” said Steve. “He doesn’t like to overwork the
+poor little comma. How are your folks, Joe?”
+
+“Fine. Dad writes that he’s been up at Albany for three days. They’ve
+made him something-or-other on some commission that has to do with
+food.”
+
+“Hope he knows more about it than you do, then! Mother writes that she
+has knitted so many sweaters this Summer that she can’t bear the sight
+of a needle. Wants to know if I need a new one. Well, I don’t, but
+I’m going to say that I do, for there are a dozen chaps aboard this
+ship that would like one, I guess. Mother seems to have an idea that
+we dress like the soldiers and wear sweaters and wristers and woollen
+helmets. I dare say she’d be horribly disappointed if I wrote her that
+the only time I can wear a sweater is when I’m on liberty: and then
+it’s generally much too warm.”
+
+“You let the Old Man see you hiking around with that sweater on and
+you’ll get what for, Steve!”
+
+“Then you tell him to make over this Irish weather. For a warm place
+you can get colder here than any spot I ever found. If they’d have a
+little more sunlight it would be all right, but these ‘moistures’ and
+fogs simply seep right into a chap’s inmost being!”
+
+“Well, put up that raft of newspapers and let’s get ashore and stretch
+our legs. Tell you what I’ll do with you, Steve: I’ll walk over to
+Ballycottin with you.”
+
+“Bally which?” asked Steve suspiciously.
+
+“Ballycottin.”
+
+“How far is it as the horse flies?”
+
+“Oh, about twelve or fourteen miles.”
+
+“Irish or American?”
+
+“What’s the difference?”
+
+“About twenty-six hundred and forty feet, as near as I can determine.
+Haven’t you noticed in this country that when a native says a place is
+a mile away it’s always a good mile and a half? You show me this bally
+place on the map first, old top.”
+
+“Haven’t got a map, but it really isn’t awfully far. We can get a ride
+back maybe.”
+
+“Yes, maybe. And maybe not so. Pick out a place on a tram line, Joe,
+and I’ll talk business with you.”
+
+“Well, come ashore, anyhow. I’m fed up with this old oil tank. I want
+to smell real smells.”
+
+“Get Hearn’s ball and we’ll go over to that thing they call a diamond.
+Say, maybe there’s a game on this afternoon. Let’s go and see, eh?”
+
+They found a contest about to begin when they arrived, and, not caring
+particularly whether the destroyer crew or the supply ship crew won,
+they joined a perfectly neutral group of British tars and Tommies and
+had more enjoyment listening to the comments than in watching the game.
+A tall Australian chap in khaki who walked with a perceptible limp and
+whose pallour suggested a recent return from “Blighty,” was, perhaps,
+even more amusing than his English friends, for he undertook to explain
+the points of baseball in a drawl that would have done for a Texan
+cowboy and from a knowledge far from ample. But the audience took it
+all in and for the rest of the contest tried their best to reconcile
+what they had learned with what they saw, with scant success. Later,
+when the supply ship’s team ran wild on the bases and piled up a six
+run lead Steve and Joe took the part of the under dog and joined the
+destroyer’s forces and cheered vociferously until, in the last half
+of a startling ninth inning, the destroyer came from behind and nosed
+out the game by a run. Even the Britons forgot their stoicism and
+yelled during that finish, and Joe overheard a small English midshipman
+observe that for a game that wasn’t cricket it wasn’t half bad!
+
+Life at the base wasn’t exciting. At sea they all looked forward to
+getting back into port, but once in port they longed to be outside
+again. There was the constant fear that “something big might be pulled
+off” while they were kicking their heels along the water-front. There
+were always startling rumours to be picked up in Queenstown. They
+almost never proved true, but they made something to talk about, and
+one could always hope that this time it was really so that the British
+Admiralty had finally consented to try smoking the German Fleet out and
+that there’d “be fur flying around Helgoland this time next week!”
+
+Tales of tragedies came into port every day: British dreadnoughts sunk,
+American transports torpedoed, thousands drowned. Fortunately these
+rumours were as idle as those others, usually traceable to Dublin,
+that credited the German Emperor with having evolved another perfectly
+good peace proposal. Life wasn’t dull, but there was an exasperating
+sameness about it, and by the end of the second day in port the
+_Warren’s_ crew――and her officers, as well,――began to look forward
+impatiently to the time for up-anchoring. There was a certain amount
+of satisfaction to be had from swapping yarns with the “gobs” from the
+British chasers or from ships of their own fleet, and some tall tales
+were told around Queenstown that Summer, but telling wasn’t doing, and
+after twenty-four hours on shore or lying in harbour there came an ache
+for the whistling winds and the feel of the trembling decks. After all,
+their business was to “raus” the Huns, and lying in port was only a
+waste of time!
+
+The _Warren_ filled her oil tanks again, loaded a few boxes of
+cartridges and many, many boxes of food supplies and presently stole
+forth again.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XV
+
+                               OVERBOARD!
+
+
+“The Huns have got a new trick, they say,” remarked First-class
+Electrician John Hempsell Higgins, taking a two-by-two bite from a slab
+of bread and washing it down with a mouthful of steaming coffee from a
+tin cup.
+
+“Uh-huh,” responded Grover, yeoman of the second class. “They’ve got
+more tricks than a prestidigitator. What’s the latest? Giving poisoned
+candy to kids?”
+
+“It’s a new way to drop mines,” said Jack Higgins. “They――――”
+
+“Is that all?” said Sam Hearn, piling his mess kit.
+
+“Dry up, Sam. I got this from the ensign. It seems there’s been three
+new fields planted in the last two weeks right under our noses and no
+one’s been able to find out how it’s done. A few days ago a Limie gob
+was making Lorient, I think it was, and ran square into a mine field.
+She scraped three or four before she knew it and then went smash into
+one and lost everything forward of her stacks. They weren’t floaters,
+either: they were anchored mines in three depths. What do you know
+about that?”
+
+“Don’t believe it,” said Grover. “It couldn’t be done.”
+
+“It was done, though, sonny. And it was done in two other places
+besides. Maybe more, Connell says.”
+
+“Connell’s been reading the Berlin _Murderzeitung_,” scoffed Hearn.
+
+“How do they do it?” asked Joe.
+
+“Nobody’s certain yet, but we’ve all got orders to watch for a neutral
+ship that might have mines instead of cargo.”
+
+Hearn whistled expressively. Then: “Do you believe it?” he asked.
+
+“I wouldn’t believe it of anyone except the Germans,” replied Higgins
+dryly.
+
+“Heaven help that ship if she’s caught,” said someone fervently. “It’s
+a fine trick, though. It’s so cunning it makes me think it must be so.
+It’s just what the Germans would do if they thought of it.”
+
+“Well, I guess they’re doing it,” replied Higgins. “If we don’t pay a
+lot of polite attention to lone cargo boats this trip I’ll be mightily
+mistaken.”
+
+“I hope we find her,” said Hearn grimly. “It would be a sweet task to
+shove in the cartridge that’d blow her higher than Haman!”
+
+“It wouldn’t be hard to do,” said Meyrowitz, of the torpedo watch,
+reflectively. “A neutral ship could lay to for engine repairs, or
+something, right under a shore battery and lower any number of mines
+she wanted to without anyone the wiser. Or she could do it at night,
+running slow. What was that Norwegian steamer we fired across the other
+night, Sam?”
+
+“I forget: _Peruna_, or something like that, I think.”
+
+“_Varuna_,” corrected Grover. “I saw it on the log. Do you think she
+might have been the one?”
+
+“No telling,” said the torpedo man. “She was mighty slow answering
+signals.”
+
+“She was too far out,” suggested Hearn.
+
+“Maybe, but I’ll bet you anything you like that if we catch up with the
+_Peruna_ again she’ll have a visit,” offered Higgins. “Hi!” He made a
+clutch at his cup as the _Warren_ swung far to port. “She’s breezing
+up, fellows. The foretop spotters will need gyroscopes tonight, I’m
+thinking.”
+
+Jack’s prophecy came true. By supper time the destroyer was wallowing
+along at ten knots in a southeasterly gale that piled the waves over
+the forward deck and tossed the ship about like a chip in a maelstrom.
+It was the boys’ first experience of a real storm, and Joe, for one,
+was in the depths of despair. “I’ll be sick as sure as shooting,” he
+told Steve. “She must be rolling fifty this minute!”
+
+“Not quite so bad as that,” consoled his chum. “Best way is not to
+think about it.”
+
+“That’s easy to say,” groaned Joe, “but how the dickens can you help
+thinking of it when your tummy’s trying to turn over inside you? And
+I’m on ‘graveyard watch’ tonight, too.”
+
+“You’ll be better on deck than below,” said Steve. “Let’s get some
+grub.”
+
+Joe agreed half-heartedly, but managed to fortify himself with a
+generous allowance of “submarine turkey,” which is only a poetic name
+for canned salmon. The only way to eat that evening was to wrap an arm
+around something and hold on tightly. Joe said he wished, for once
+in his life, that he was a monkey so he could hold on by a tail! By
+the middle of the evening the gale was much worse and the _Warren_
+seemed to be trying her best to shake loose her plates. The motion
+was about as bad as it could be, for the destroyer tossed her nose
+high in air as she climbed up a long sea, flirted her tail as she slid
+down into the trough, her propellers racing, and all the time rolled
+fearsomely and shook and shivered. Progress along even the lower deck
+was a series of quick, staggering runs, while life above was a series
+of hair-breadth escapes from drowning either in the great seas that
+came aboard or by being washed over the side. The ship’s veteran, a
+boatswain who went by the name of “Baldy” and who was well into the
+latter forties, regaled the forecastle with tales of destroyers that
+had broken clean in two from “sagging” between wave-crests and offered
+the gloomy reminder that the _Warren_ was an old ship and built on the
+old lines. Joe, listening, jumped apprehensively whenever a heavy sea
+thundered across the deck overhead and was, on the whole, rather an
+unhappy youth that night. Since his watch began at midnight he should
+have been in bed long since, but he was afraid to lie down for fear
+that seasickness would conquer him. The destroyer branch has no use for
+men who are subject to that malady and such are quickly transferred
+to the larger ships, and Joe by this time would have been absolutely
+heart-broken had he been forced to leave the _Warren_. So, his
+countenance strained with the effort of striving to keep his thoughts
+from his middle latitudes, he sat on and listened to “Baldy’s” gruesome
+yarns under the dim light of the forecastle lantern.
+
+Once he drowsed for a few minutes, but real sleep was practically out
+of the question. The wind howled and the seas surged and every joint in
+the destroyer squeaked and groaned. And all the while the deck slanted
+violently to port, back to starboard, up, down again. One braced one’s
+feet against whatever was stable or wrapped an arm around a stanchion
+and did one’s best not to think too much. And yet at such times life
+went on much as usual. In stoke hold and fire room machinists, firemen,
+oilers toiled at their tasks amidst a roar of burning oil. In the
+galley the cook, grey life-preserver strapped about him, balanced
+himself dexterously and sliced slabs from great loaves. In the foretop
+a lookout swung through an arc of fifty degrees, huddled in a canvas
+cylinder, and prayed for his relief. In the wardroom the decoding
+officer worked on the messages from the wireless hutch. Behind the
+wind-shield of the bridge an officer swayed to and fro in darkness and
+flying spume. Below, mutters and groans issued from bunks where men
+off duty tried to catch scattered periods of forgetfulness. On such a
+night a destroyer is little better than a slender steel cylinder filled
+with clutching men in grey canvas life-preservers, a reek of oil and a
+roar of boilers.
+
+[Illustration: On such a night a destroyer is little better than
+a slender steel cylinder filled with clutching men in grey canvas
+life-preservers]
+
+At midnight the first watch tumbled below, in dripping rain clothes,
+and the middle watch went on duty. Joe was glad of something to do to
+keep his mind off his troubles and forebodings. Climbing the ladder
+and squirming through the hatch was in itself an adventure tonight,
+while, once on deck, grasping the life-lines that had been strung and
+making one’s way forward or aft was a process that called for nerve
+and strength. He had been assigned to after main deck lookout and
+eventually gained his station, though not before he had been drenched
+from head to foot and tossed, clutching to the line, against every
+obstruction in his path. Pitch darkness was all about him. The sea
+was a tumbled thing that dropped below him, arose to towering heights
+above, threatened each moment to engulf him. Spotting under such
+circumstances was a veritable jest. One could only cling in his place
+and endure. The wind drove past in a frenzy, howling madly, chill from
+its far journey across the Atlantic. Joe tried to whistle once but
+the wind tore the sounds from his lips so quickly that he couldn’t
+even hear them! Somewhere, a few yards away, another unfortunate was
+trying to peer over the mountainous tops of the waves, but so far as
+companionship was concerned he might as well have been on another
+hemisphere.
+
+Joe pulled the tapes of his waterproof hat tighter and snuggled further
+into his jacket and prayed that the sickness wouldn’t come. So far he
+had miraculously escaped more than a few qualms, and out here in the
+fresh air――and it certainly was fresh, he thought grimly――it seemed
+that he might come through. He tried to follow Steve’s advice and not
+think about it, but sooner or later he always did. An hour passed and
+only another hour remained to be lived through out there. The chill was
+striking through his clothing now. He chafed his hands, one at a time,
+against the rough canvas of his life-preserver. The odd conception that
+the _Warren_ was motionless came to him and he had to sniff for the
+smell of oil smoke and listen for the thud of the propellers before
+he could dispel the impression. He did his best to watch the tumbled
+surface of the ocean, but when you are one moment poised dizzily far
+above that surface and the next instant are wallowing far beneath it,
+keeping the gaze on the horizon level is hard work! Joe told himself
+that a dozen U-boats could sneak up on the destroyer without his being
+a bit the wiser tonight. Then he wondered what would happen to him if
+a torpedo struck the stern. He was unpleasantly aware of those depth
+charges, generously loaded with “TNT,” stored a few yards forward!
+
+Once he was almost certain that he saw a faint twinkle of light a few
+points to port, but at that moment the ship’s stern slid down into a
+trough, and when it was high again the light was not to be seen. He
+doubted his sight then and waited and watched. He didn’t see it again,
+if he ever had seen it, and that brief interest passed out of his
+vigil. The _Warren_ was changing her course slightly now, for the wind
+struck him from a new angle and a spent wave came flopping over the
+side and washed his boots. The smother seemed worse than ever after
+that, but the stern held itself down better. His feet were frightfully
+cold and he tried stamping them on the wet deck. He tried to reckon
+time but had nothing to go by. His turn might be nearly over or might
+have half an hour to go. At least, he had escaped being sick so far,
+and that was something to be thankful for. A minute or two later
+something a trifle darker than the darkness itself ranged alongside
+and a voice shouted:
+
+“All right, matey! Seen anything?”
+
+“No!” Joe had to hold his lips close to the other’s ear to make himself
+heard. “Once I thought I saw a light, but I couldn’t find it again.”
+
+“Hold tight going back,” advised the relief. “They’re breaking right
+across by the third stack. This is a sweet job for a Christian, ain’t
+it?” The relief’s voice ended in a growl as Joe, clinging with chilled
+fingers, edged around to leeward.
+
+“Good luck!” he called back, but the wind scattered his words over
+the torn sea. He found the life-line and pulled himself warily onward
+past the after gun turret, meeting there the full force of the gale
+and nearly losing his feet under it. He groped for the ladder and fell
+back against it and held tight, his body feeling as though flattened
+out under that mighty onslaught. The din of the tempest was deafening
+after the partial shelter he had enjoyed, and through it he could hear
+the rushing fall of water across the deck somewhere ahead. Above, dimly
+against the wrack of flying clouds, the nearer mast swayed and whipped.
+He took a breath and went on. The hatch was only a little distance
+now. Then there was a sudden crash that brought his heart to his mouth,
+and an avalanche of water flung itself upon him. The force of it
+drove the breath from his body and wrested his chilled hands from the
+line. He felt himself tossed to the sloping deck, half-drowning, and
+instinctively groped for hand-hold. Then, turning over and over, like
+a log in a whirlpool, gasping, fear-stricken, he felt the deck go from
+beneath him. An icy coldness enveloped him, his ears were filled with
+a great hollow roaring and his lungs were bursting for air. He tried
+to cry out, but water strangled the scream in his throat. He thrashed
+his arms wildly, struggled against the terror that clutched him and
+felt the rush of air in his nostrils. And then, and not until then, he
+realised.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI
+
+                           THE FLOATING MINE
+
+
+Sheer fright took possession of him in that first moment of realisation
+and he hurled his voice time and again into the tempest, shouted until
+his breath was gone and the knowledge that all his appeals were vain
+settled upon him. Aboard the destroyer they had not even known, and now
+she was far off in the darkness, and all help from her was past praying
+for. He could have fainted from terror and the numbing cold of the sea,
+but somehow he fought off the weakness. He was swimming mechanically as
+well as his cramped arms would let him, weighted down by heavy clothing
+and yet kept barely afloat by the life-preserver under his rain jacket.
+He tried to think calmly, to plan, and, gasping, shaking with the
+chill of the icy water and the fear that clutched his heart, he forced
+himself into a calmer state.
+
+He could, he supposed, manage to keep afloat indefinitely, for sinking
+was impossible so long as that life-preserver remained strapped under
+his arms, but how long he would be able to stand the chill of the icy
+water was another question. He recalled numerous stories of shipwrecks,
+but none supplied him information on the problem. There was, however,
+one thing certain, which was that he didn’t need that heavy waterproof
+jacket and trousers and hat. They made it more difficult for him to
+keep his head up and more difficult to swim, and swimming was the only
+thing to do if he was to keep his blood in circulation. After many
+attempts he kicked himself free from the trousers and removed the
+jacket and cap. It was no easy matter while battling with the waves and
+keeping his head above water.
+
+But he did it somehow, and the effort restored his courage and drove
+some of the numbness from around his heart. Relieved of the stiff
+garments, swimming was far easier, although real swimming was out of
+the question. About all he could do was work arms and legs and shake
+the water from his eyes and do his best not to swallow it. He was a
+good swimmer and as much at home in the water as any American boy of
+his age, but no amount of swimming ability would have availed much
+here. He was swept up the long slope of a wave, poised helplessly for a
+moment on the high crest and then dropped down and down into the next
+seething hollow. He breathed when he could and fought on, swimming as
+easily as he might to conserve his strength and finding to his joy that
+the chill was no longer intolerable. He longed intensely for daylight
+and tried to think how long it would be in coming. He had been relieved
+at two o’clock and it began to grow light about four. With daylight
+he might sight land or, at least, tell better in which direction to
+guide himself. Now it was only guesswork. And by day there was always
+the chance of rescue. He found what encouragement he could in these
+thoughts and struggled on, changing stroke from time to time as one set
+of muscles tired.
+
+He recalled those first moments of panic and felt ashamed of them, and
+was glad that Steve hadn’t witnessed them. If one had to drown one
+could, he told himself, do it decently and not squeal like a kid. He
+didn’t want to drown a bit: life had never looked more desirable than
+it did at that moment. There was a lot to live for. Why, he _couldn’t_
+die until they had settled that war! That would be too horrible, never
+to know how it came out! Unless――well, he somehow doubted if they
+troubled themselves much with wars in Heaven! Of course, he might not
+get to Heaven, though. He reviewed a very blameless life in detail and
+was relieved to discover that, after all, he hadn’t been desperately
+wicked. There were some things he preferred not to dwell on overlong,
+to be sure, but as a whole he seemed to stand a fair chance of getting
+by!
+
+He was sorry that his mother and father would be so worried. The
+_Warren_ would report him lost at sea, and, whether he was rescued
+or――well, wasn’t rescued, it would be a long time, he supposed, before
+he could reach them with the news of his safety. That troubled him a
+good deal. Then he wondered about Steve. Steve would feel pretty badly,
+he guessed. They were rather fond of each other, although they each
+took mighty good care not to let the other suspect it! Yes, Steve would
+be rather broken-up in the morning. And――why, it _was_ morning――almost!
+From the dizzy summit of a wave his eyes, half-blinded with salt water,
+glimpsed a new greyness in the sky. After that he thought of morning
+and sunlight――he longed for sunlight――and watched the first signs of
+dawn creep up in the east until, presently, he could see about him.
+And, seeing, a touch of the old terror came back, for all that met his
+gaze was mile on mile of surging, stormy, wind-swept ocean, stretching
+off on every side to an empty horizon! The immensity of it frightened
+him and he closed his eyes and for a long moment didn’t dare open
+them again. When he did the sea had taken on colour from the leaden
+dawn――there was to be no sunlight for him, after all――and he was
+floating in a green world flecked with white foam, a tiny, helpless,
+forgotten atom.
+
+But presently the atom took courage again. The ocean was no bigger now
+than it had been last night, while his chance of rescue was a thousand
+times better. At least, he would keep on hoping until the very end. He
+wouldn’t be a quitter even if there was no one to know it. He stopped
+swimming and floated for a long while, swallowing more water than was
+pleasant, but managing to rest his tired lungs. Then the chill warned
+him and he went on. It was broad daylight now: probably five o’clock,
+or a little after. The wind seemed less violent, although the waves
+still ran as high as ever. He had been in the water fully three hours,
+he reckoned. He believed he could swim for an hour longer, by resting
+at times, but the chill of the icy element was gradually producing
+a kind of paralysis in his muscles. He had felt nothing approaching
+cramp, but that might, probably would, come later. He thought he would
+retain consciousness most of the day. After that――well, unless he had
+his senses and could keep his head up the life-preserver wouldn’t
+deserve its name!
+
+He experienced a trying ten or fifteen minutes when a fit of shivering
+and nausea attacked him, but after being slightly sick at his stomach
+he felt better. Thirst made itself felt, and he mentally predicted a
+day of discomfort, if not suffering, from that cause. His throat and
+mouth were parched with the salt and swallowing was difficult. He felt
+no interest in food.
+
+At times the sky grew perceptibly lighter in the east, but the low,
+lead-hued clouds never actually parted. At those moments the giant
+waves became more translucent and he could look down for what seemed
+many fathoms into shadowed green depths. Only twice did he see any life
+about him. Once a large bird scudded down-wind, and once a ghostly,
+dully-gleaming denizen of the sea passed slowly beneath him as he was
+swept up the curving side of a wave. He thought the bird was probably
+an albatross, although he had never seen one to his knowledge. At
+least, it was much too large for a gull. The fish caused him to think
+unpleasantly of sharks, but common sense comforted him. No dangerous
+shark, he told himself, would be found in water of this temperature!
+
+Time and again, suspended momentarily on the crest of wave, he
+searched the ocean on all sides. But not even a bit of wreckage met his
+gaze. He had but scant idea of his whereabouts. He might be anywhere
+from fifty to a hundred and fifty miles west of the Scilly Islands, as
+to latitude, and somewhere in a general southerly direction from Cape
+Clear. But that was only guesswork. What did seem probable was that he
+was in the path of trans-Atlantic shipping. If, he told himself many
+times, he could fight off the cold and the thirst he would surely be
+picked up before night. But there were less hopeful moments when he
+realised that in such a tumbled sea so small a speck as he presented
+might never be seen.
+
+Another hour went by: perhaps more: that, too, was only guesswork,
+for his watch had stopped at seven minutes to three. Then from the
+frothy, wind-tumbled summit of a wave his eyes received the fleeting
+impression of an object perhaps a quarter-mile away. The next instant
+he was plunging down into the lead-green trough. He swam hard to win
+the crest of the next hill of water, and when he had done so looked
+eagerly again. But only wind-hurled water met his gaze, and a keen
+disappointment took possession of him. He tried to bring back the
+picture of the small, dark speck, but his glimpse had been so brief
+that memory failed him. Once more he was borne aloft and once more he
+swept the sea. And this time, just as his descent began again, the
+object sprang into sight. He swung his course and, fighting the forces
+of wind and water, swam desperately in the direction of the thing that
+might be an empty boat or a piece of wreckage, that, whatever it was,
+would be something to lay hand to.
+
+He was soon tuckered, for he was struggling at an angle with the sweep
+of the seas, but he persevered, and presently the floating object
+appeared close ahead of him, something round and rusty-yellow seen
+momentarily against the grey horizon. It bobbed over the edge of a wave
+and went from sight. As he pursued it he speculated puzzledly. It had
+looked somehow like a buoy, but there were no buoys so far from shore;
+unless it had been torn from its moorings. Then he plunged breathlessly
+down a long glacis of green, foam-patterned water and at the same
+moment the object of his search topped the crest of the further summit,
+and he realised what it was. For an instant his disappointment was
+keen. Then reason told him that even a floating mine was better than
+nothing, and he struggled up the slope of a wave and, shaking the water
+from his eyes, saw the thing almost above him. Two strokes and he had
+the fingers of one hand about a rusted ring-bolt and, relaxing, drew
+grateful breaths of air into his tired lungs.
+
+Presently he had recovered sufficiently to examine his prize. It was
+just such a mine as he had seen a dozen times, a metal sphere some
+three feet in diameter, its lower and upper halves held together by
+bolts passing through flanges. Three ring-bolts were set at equal
+distances around the top, while at intervals “horns,” or firing pins,
+stuck out. Joe guessed there must be eight of these. That the mine
+had been in the water a good while was evidenced by the thick scales
+of rust around flanges and bolts and by a slimy deposit of greenish
+growth on the underwater half of it. There was nothing he could see to
+tell him whether the instrument of destruction was of Allied or German
+origin. He thought, however, he could detect a difference in the shape
+and length of the horns from those on the mines he had seen. Later he
+glimpsed a short length of wire cable depended from below and knew then
+that the mine had in some manner been parted from its anchor and swept
+away from a field. How long it had been bobbing around in the path of
+navigation he couldn’t guess.
+
+At another time, under other circumstances, Joe might have smiled at
+the incongruity of making friends with a couple of hundred pounds of
+high explosive, but just now the thought didn’t occur to him. The big
+metal ball, harmless enough so long as it didn’t collide with anything
+hard enough to detonate it, seemed very friendly out there in that
+watery void. It was a rather erratic and unsteady friend, to be sure,
+for it nodded and bobbed and dipped and turned continually, but it
+was something a bit more stable than the waves and it offered help
+in keeping afloat. Joe tried holding to the rim, but the mine didn’t
+approve of that, apparently, for it slipped away several times. Then he
+again grasped a ring-bolt, which, while demanding a strained position
+of the arm, was far more secure. He began to talk to it presently:
+called it “old chap”: speculated on their chance of rescue: found a
+deal of comfort in the sound of his voice until his parched tongue
+ached and he had to stop. Up and down they went, mine and boy, lifted
+to the wind-topped summits, drawn to the deep hollows, dashed with
+spray, flung about like the two tiny atoms they were, while about them
+a grey-green desert of ocean stretched emptily to meet an empty leaden
+sky.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVII
+
+                          ABOARD THE SUNDSVALL
+
+
+“Submarine broad off the starboard beam!” sang out the lookout at the
+bow. A tall, yellow-bearded Viking in a dirty blue uniform turned
+swiftly and followed the sailor’s pointing hand. Then he raised
+binoculars to his eyes and, steadying himself on the swaying bridge,
+focussed them on a tiny dark speck that danced into sight and out again
+two miles to the southward. A look of perplexity came over his face and
+he made a motion toward the engine-room telegraph beside him. Then he
+paused and again viewed the object. A second man joined him, a short,
+squat figure in the dress of a ship’s mate. He spoke in a language that
+was not English whatever it may have been.
+
+“What do you make it?” he asked.
+
+“A boat, I think, Carl,” replied the first man, in the same language,
+“and yet――――”
+
+“Let me look.” The man set the glasses above a red, tilted nose and
+for a moment gazed in silence. At last: “Not a sub, at all events,” he
+decided. “Nor yet a small boat. Probably a piece of wreckage.”
+
+The other accepted the glasses back and shrugged his broad shoulders.
+“I think we had better have a nearer look at it, however.”
+
+The mate nodded, and presently the steamer, a small cargo boat bearing
+the legend SWEDEN and the Swedish flag along each side of her hull,
+slowly turned a blunt nose toward the puzzling object. Aloft, the
+lookout called again:
+
+“Floating mine, I make it, sir, with something dragging.”
+
+“Mine, you say?” The captain again raised the binoculars. “That is
+right,” he said, turning to the mate. “It is a floating mine. There is
+a piece of canvas, I think, or possibly seaweed attached. Shall we pick
+it up?”
+
+“Why not, if it is of use to us? We can find a better place for it than
+this.” He smiled faintly.
+
+And so it happened that at shortly after six bells that afternoon the
+steamer _Sundsvall_ stopped her engines, lowered a gig and added to
+her possessions one rusty mine and to her complement one half-drowned
+American seaman.
+
+The mine was lifted aboard by means of a small crane, the seaman came
+up lying in the bottom of the gig as she was swung to her davits. That
+the seaman came at all was no foregone conclusion. The captain had
+spoken most discouragingly of the project of including the American in
+the salvage.
+
+“Let him go,” he had advised. “He’s as good as dead already. If he
+comes around he will be in the way and eat our precious food. Better
+hit him on the head now and drop him back where he came from.”
+
+But the mate demurred. “Give him a chance,” he suggested. “If he proves
+troublesome we can throw him over later. There’s life in him yet, and
+we can drop him in port tomorrow. He’s American, Flink,” he added. “I
+like to hear them talk. Besides, my wife’s sister is married to one of
+them and lives in a place called Chicago.”
+
+“Have it so, then.” The captain shrugged and turned on his heel. “But
+see that he is kept in the fo’castle. He mustn’t see――anything.”
+
+“He will be in no condition to see much,” replied the mate. “Take him
+for’ard and put him in a bunk, a couple of you, and tell Mr. Heilsberg
+to have a look at him.” He turned back to the captain. “A thing I never
+saw before,” he went on. “A man lashed to a mine in mid-ocean. What do
+you make of it?”
+
+“Nothing. Who knows it is not some infernal Yankee trick?”
+
+“Not likely. More probably the fellow fell overboard in the gale
+of yesterday and found the mine by luck. He had passed the cuff of
+one sleeve through the eye of a ring-bolt and held it so by his
+pocket-knife thrust through the cloth. He would have torn loose in
+another hour or so, I think.”
+
+“Pity he didn’t,” growled the other. “Take the ship. I must look over
+that chart again. Pass the word to the lookouts to keep their eyes
+peeled.”
+
+Below, in a smelly bunk in an even smellier forecastle, Joe, under
+the grunting administrations of a bewhiskered second mate who had a
+smattering of medicine, was opening his eyes.
+
+“Where am I?” he muttered perplexedly.
+
+“You are safe, my young friend,” replied the mate in fair English.
+“Swallow this. It will choke and burn you and do you much good.”
+
+Joe obeyed, and the first part of the promise was fulfilled. “Water!”
+he gasped. “Water!”
+
+“Ach, to be sure! You shall have it.” The mate disappeared muttering,
+while Joe, his salt-scorched throat smarting horribly, writhed and
+gasped. In the dim light clothing on hooks swayed to and fro and the
+beat of the engines was deafening. The water, insipid and warm, was
+like nectar, and Joe let his head fall with a long sigh of relief.
+
+“What ship is this?” he asked faintly.
+
+“_Sundsvall._”
+
+“German?” he asked in quick dismay.
+
+“_Nein!_ No, no! It is Swedish.”
+
+“But you――are German,” Joe persisted.
+
+“No, I am, too, Swedish. We are all Swedish this ship hereon.”
+
+“Oh!” Joe closed his eyes. “Thanks. I think――I’ll――go to sleep.”
+
+“So! That is well. Sleep is good for you, my friend. I come again
+later. Sleep well.”
+
+But Joe didn’t hear, for he was already slumbering.
+
+When he awoke next it was night, for a dim electric light shed a wan
+glow overhead. A sailor was darning a woolen sock nearby and several
+others lolled in bunks or sat beside the table that stretched,
+knife-scarred, stained and littered, between two iron stanchions.
+They talked a language Joe could not understand, although it sounded
+throaty, like German. Some words held a close similarity to German,
+just as the men themselves, slow, phlegmatic, looked like Germans. The
+_Sundsvall_ was evidently running slowly, and her forecastle was a most
+uneasy place. Joe remained silent, his mind busy in a drowsy way with
+the events of the day.
+
+That it was still less than twenty-four hours since he had been washed
+from the deck of the _Warren_ was difficult to believe, and he was
+greatly inclined to suspect that he had floated around with that
+friendly mine for two days instead of one until he realised that had
+he done that he would not now be alive. The last he could recall was
+talking to a gull that had circled closely and inquisitively around
+him. That must have been just short of noon. That he had absolutely
+talked, he doubted, for he remembered how painfully swollen his tongue
+and lips were, but he recollected trying gravely to warn the gull that
+if it tried to peck one of the “horns” of the mine and explode it,
+he――Joe――would pull its tail-feathers out! Previous to that, unable
+to keep his wet, chilled fingers locked about the ring-bolt, he had
+laboured for what must have been the better part of a half-hour to
+get the cuff of his sleeve through the eyelet and secure it there
+by running his knife through it, and had finally succeeded. By that
+time he was raging with thirst and his legs had lost sensation. And,
+although he didn’t know it, he had been slightly out of his head and
+had talked a great deal of nonsense――or tried to――to the mine. Now,
+stripped of his wet clothes and lying between soiled but gratefully
+warm blankets, he felt sleepily thankful for his rescue and, presently,
+hungry.
+
+Later he was fed a sort of stew by a grinning, slant-eyed boy in a
+questionably white jacket who talked a strange patter of pidgin-English
+which Joe understood scarcely better than the Swedish he had listened
+to. The stew was greasy and somewhat tasteless, but Joe consumed it and
+felt better. Refusing a pannikin of something the boy called tea, he
+turned over and went to sleep again.
+
+He awoke to the touch of a hand on his shoulder and looked confusedly
+up into the face of the squat first mate. The mate, speaking fair
+English, asked how he had happened to be floating around on a mine, and
+Joe told his story. The mate nodded from time to time, closing his eyes
+like a wise owl. Then he inquired: “The _Varren_, you said? Ah, and she
+iss an American ship, yes?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“She iss perhaps on duty hereabouts?”
+
+Joe nodded.
+
+“If we could find the _Varren_ we should give you to her back.” The
+mate smiled genially. “Perhaps you could tell us where to look for her?”
+
+“No, sir.” Joe shook his head. “We aren’t allowed to know her patrol
+district. I guess it will be all right if you’ll just land me somewhere
+or hand me over to one of the Allies’ ships.”
+
+“Yes, but it would be so much better for you could we find your own
+ship. You do not know where she iss?”
+
+“No, sir, I don’t.”
+
+“She iss perhaps convoying?”
+
+“I don’t believe so.”
+
+“Or perhaps looking for something? A submarine or――or something?” The
+mate’s eyes closed slightly, although the grin remained. Joe, scenting
+danger, again shook his head. Then he replied carelessly:
+
+“No, she isn’t looking for anything, sir. She’s just doing patrol.”
+
+“Well――――” The mate seemed slightly disappointed. “Then we will land
+you at the first port or perhaps put you aboard one of your own ships,
+my man. You live in America?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Where, please?”
+
+“New York.”
+
+“Ah, New York. And you perhaps have been to Chicago?”
+
+“No, sir, I’ve never been there.”
+
+“So? The sister of my wife is married to a man that lives in Chicago.
+She writes in letters that it iss a very big city. Some day I shall see
+your America and visit this Chicago. And your New York, too. Yes, maybe
+it will be before long, also.”
+
+Again came the odd closing of the eyes, and Joe experienced a sudden
+antagonism. But he didn’t let the fact appear as he asked: “Where is
+this ship bound, sir?”
+
+“Santander.”
+
+“That’s in Spain?”
+
+“Yes. We go in ballast but we return with much cargo for our starving
+country.”
+
+“Oh, is Sweden starving, sir?”
+
+“Sweden? Yes, Sweden has but little food now since the blockade. It is
+dreadful! My poor suffering country! But she does not complain. She
+remains at peace with all countries. It is the war.”
+
+He took his departure. As he vanished the half-dozen occupants of the
+forecastle exchanged growling remarks, one of which produced a laugh
+that sounded extremely unpleasant to Joe. As he closed his eyes again
+he said to himself: “You’re just about as much Swedish as I am, and
+I hope that if ever the _Warren_ runs across this tub she’ll have a
+look at your papers. The _Sundsvall_ may be Swedish, but her officers
+aren’t, and if she’s taking food to Sweden it doesn’t stay there. I
+guess it’s up to me to see what’s going on here.”
+
+He lay with closed eyes for a long time, thinking it over. The clothes
+he had worn had been dried in the galley and were now lying across the
+bottom of his bunk. He decided to await his chance and put them on.
+But the chance didn’t come readily, for of the watch below someone
+was always awake. He heard four bells strike and was sorely tempted
+to yield to the demands of sleep. In fact, he had reached a condition
+on the borderland of slumber when he was awakened by a voice at the
+companion. The words it spoke were Greek to him, but the meaning was as
+clear as though they had been: “All hands on deck!” From the bunks here
+and there a grumbling figure appeared, stretched, yawned and stumbled
+away. After waiting a minute or two Joe sat up and peered around. So
+far as he could determine the forecastle was empty of occupants other
+than he. To make quite certain he waited another few minutes, but
+then, fearing that someone might return before he had accomplished his
+object, he swung his feet over the edge of the bunk and, supporting
+himself against the side, for he felt pretty weak and wobbly and the
+ship’s motion, while much less than earlier in the evening, was still
+erratic, hurriedly drew on his clothes. There was, he told himself,
+no reason why he shouldn’t dress and go on deck, but nevertheless he
+knew that such a thing was not included in the officers’ plans for his
+conduct, and he realised that it would be just as well to keep out of
+sight.
+
+From the forecastle a short central passage led to the companion-way,
+past the open door of the galley, on one side, and a second door,
+closed, on the other. The galley was deserted, and a single lamp
+burned above the simmering stove. Cautiously Joe climbed the ladder
+and peered out. The ship was in darkness. The bridge, however, showed
+against the sky, as did a figure which stood motionless at one end
+of it. Well up on the foremast what appeared to be a lookout made a
+blotch of darker black. Joe hesitated an instant and then slipped out
+on deck and, accommodating himself to the roll of the ship, scurried to
+the starboard rail. The _Sundsvall_ was three-housed, cut low between
+forecastle and bridge and between bridge and after-cabin. The sea had
+abated a good deal, but the ship still rolled and plunged. There was
+a faint light from the engine-room hatch and he could hear the engine
+slowed down to headway only turning slowly over below. He had wisely
+left off his shoes, which made progress more certain and more quiet.
+Half-way along the deck he heard voices and, his eyes accustoming
+themselves to the darkness, made out forms. He slipped into the shadow
+of a boat and listened.
+
+Whatever was going on was enlisting the entire working force of the
+ship, since, excepting the man on the bridge and the lookout on the
+foremast, no one else was to be seen or heard forward of the after
+deck. The sound of chain and the muffled blow of a hammer came to him,
+and then the squeaking of a tackle-block. He left his hiding place and
+slipped nearer, keeping to the deeper gloom of the house. Overhead a
+few stars showed faintly, but gave no perceptible light. From his new
+position he could discern dimly many figures at work along the port
+rail and could hear low voices. The notion came to him then that they
+were lowering a boat, but presently, in the quick, tiny light of a hand
+torch, flashed on and off in the fraction of a second, he saw the boat
+still lying in her chocks. A dozen explanations of the secrecy of the
+work came to him only to meet rejection. Then once more the hand torch
+gleamed and the mystery was a mystery no longer.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII
+
+                      THE SIGNAL FROM THE FO’CSLE
+
+
+The momentary flash of the electric torch had shown a picture that
+remained stamped on Joe’s vision long after darkness had returned to
+the scene. A confusion of busy men, a small crane leaning over the side
+where a section of the rail had been removed, and, stretching from
+crane well toward the middle of the deck, a line of spherical shapes
+each lying beside a coil of cable and a smaller square object. Joe’s
+heart jumped into his throat as the truth came to him.
+
+The _Sundsvall_ was laying mines!
+
+Then the recollection of Jack Higgins’ revelation in the forecastle
+of the _Warren_ the night before flashed on him. New mine fields had
+been discovered and none knew how they had been planted, but suspicion
+rested on an unknown ship posing as a neutral! And Fate, he reflected
+awedly as he slipped back into the farther shadows, had tossed him into
+the sea, given him miraculous help in the shape of that floating mine
+and at last had landed him on the very ship that was engaged in the
+nefarious work! Crouching there in the darkness, Joe tried to think
+calmly. There was nothing he could do to prevent the murderous work
+from going on. His only course was to return unseen and unsuspected to
+his bunk in the forecastle and wait until he was landed or transferred
+to another ship. Then, however, he told himself with a sudden gripping
+of his hands, the _Sundsvall_ would need to look out for herself!
+
+He wished there was some way of finding the present latitude and
+longitude so that he could locate the mines now being lowered into the
+sea, but there was no way of getting that information without having
+access to the chart or log, and that was far too dangerous. Once
+suspected of having witnessed the ship’s operations his life would
+be worth even less than it had been a dozen hours ago! They would
+simply knock him on the head, in all probability, and quietly drop him
+overboard: in which case he would not only be of no further use to
+himself but of no further use to his country and her allies. No, the
+only course was to wait and secure his release from the _Sundsvall_,
+and with that settled in his mind he began to retrace his steps toward
+the bow. He had reached a point midway between bridge and forecastle
+when a gleam of light shot across the water. Startled, he stood in his
+tracks and turned.
+
+A mile away, according to his reckoning, a searchlight was flashing the
+three dashes of the International Code that stood for O and signified
+“Who are you?” From the bridge came a sharp exclamation and as Joe
+dashed for the shelter of the companion, footsteps came running along
+the deck and shouted orders broke the silence of the night. Suddenly a
+sharp stream of white light shot from the bridge and the _Sundsvall’s_
+shutter clicked and clicked as she answered. Joe, ready to flee if
+anyone approached the companion, watched and read. The operator at the
+occulting light was slow, but he answered with painstaking care and a
+fine avoidance of abbreviation.
+
+“_Sundsvall_, Sweden, Stavanger to Santander, in ballast,” replied the
+steamer.
+
+Again the distant light twinkled. “Why are you off your course?”
+
+“We have strained our propeller shaft and are making repairs,” answered
+the _Sundsvall_ without hesitation. There was a long silence from the
+other ship, and then, finally, the laconic: “Right!” flicked over the
+sea.
+
+Joe was already hurrying down the short companion-way, his thoughts
+racing fast through his mind. The unseen questioner was undoubtedly a
+patrol ship. She was only a mile distant. If――――
+
+He stared eagerly about the forecastle. Overhead a single electric
+light burned pulsatingly and dimly. On each side were two ports, closed
+and carefully covered inside the glass by painted canvas. Joe stepped
+to the door of the passage, unhooked it, closed it and shot a rusty
+bolt. Then with trembling fingers he tore the covering from a port on
+the starboard bow and, unfastening the round frame containing the glass
+pulled it open. If only the lookouts aboard the patrol had sharp eyes!
+
+With a jump he reached the table and his hand fumbled for the key at
+the electric lamp. To his dismay it had none. But in the next instant
+an expedient occurred to him and he quickly unscrewed the bulb until
+connection was barely severed and the forecastle was in darkness.
+
+For as long as it took his heart to beat a half-dozen times he stood
+motionless in the gloom, one hand on the electric bulb. Then he turned
+it slightly to the right and the light came on. For a second it
+continued. Then darkness once more. Again light, but this time only a
+quick flash. Again darkness. And so, slowly and anxiously, he formed
+of dashes and dots the single letter that is the “negative” of the
+British code. And when it was done he started again. And then, to
+make assurances doubly sure, he changed to the dash-dot-dash of the
+International. A long minute passed. In the brief moments of darkness
+between signals he strove to look through the port and find the patrol.
+But he was too high and the patrol was out of his range of vision. He
+tried the negative in the secret code of his own country then, and
+was half-way through with it when a glare of light swept through the
+port and made a shaft of white brilliancy across the forecastle. It
+glared for an instant and then passed away, but Joe knew that it was
+travelling slowly toward the vessel’s stern, wafting up and down,
+playing on deck and masts and bridge. And even as he leaped from the
+table heavy footsteps pounded in the passage, a body was hurled at the
+door and fists beat on the heavy woodwork.
+
+But the door held firmly and only wild, guttural threats entered. Joe
+backed away and looked about him for a weapon. Nothing more deadly than
+a stool presented itself and he seized that and poised himself near the
+door. Fortunately, it opened toward the passage and those beyond could
+only tug and beat. As he stood there, awaiting what he felt must be the
+inevitable so soon as one of his besiegers thought to fetch an axe,
+he found a grim pleasure in picturing the scene on deck. The patrol
+would have put her blinker on now and would be impatiently questioning.
+The throng at the _Sundsvall’s_ rail would have scattered under the
+searching beams of the light. On the bridge the painstaking signal man
+would be spelling out lies. If only the patrol didn’t allow herself to
+be hoodwinked!
+
+Suddenly he felt the jar of the engines, and his heart leaped. “The
+fools!” he muttered joyously. “They’re trying to run away! They can
+never do it and they’re showing their hand!”
+
+The blows and imprecations outside the forecastle door ceased for
+a moment as though in response to an order from beyond. Then feet
+scuffled and a ship’s axe dug its blade deeply into the upper panel
+of the door. And simultaneously the white glare of the distant
+searchlight sprang in again at the open port. Again the axe crashed
+into the splintering wood. The steamer was fairly shaking now with
+the reverberations of her hurrying screws, and the seas were pounding
+against her nose and swishing past the open port. Joe, stool held aloft
+to greet the first head that appeared, watched in a horrid fascination
+as the axe blade bit and smashed at the panel. The disc of white
+radiance travelled from the bunks to the forward partition, as the
+_Sundsvall_ swung to port, and came to rest squarely on the yielding
+portal. A gaping hole appeared and the muzzle of a revolver was thrust
+through. Joe flattened himself against the bulkhead as the report rang
+out. Then the stool descended swiftly and the revolver clattered on the
+floor.
+
+He reached out with his foot and drew the weapon toward him until he
+could reach it without placing his body in range. Beyond the door a
+howl of mingled pain and anger had followed the swift descent of the
+stool, and now several voices arose in threats and curses. The axe
+tore at the frame beyond the bolt and the blows drowned the sound of
+the throbbing engines. Joe spun the cylinder of the revolver. It was
+six-chambered and five cartridges remained. To hold the door after the
+bolt had given would be impossible. He thought swiftly. Well forward
+in the narrowing forecastle an upper bunk――they were built in tiers
+of three――was so draped with swaying garments that it was almost as
+if curtained. He appraised its possibilities and then listened in an
+effort to judge of the number beyond the portal. He thought there were
+four men there. Evidently he had gained possession of the only revolver
+amongst them, which suggested that the force was composed of one
+officer and three men; possibly four. He could, he knew, shoot through
+the door and trust to luck, but cartridges were few, and, if truth were
+told, he had little stomach for it. The searchlight which for a full
+minute had lain on the door in a round disc now moved slowly aside and
+the place was left in darkness.
+
+Stool in hand, Joe crept away toward the bunk. Then he was crouched
+up there in the unrelieved gloom, his eyes trying to pierce it in the
+direction of the door. What he knew would happen happened. In the
+darkness the besiegers could safely reach in and draw back the bolt,
+and this they did. Joe heard the door grate softly and then slam back
+as it was pulled quickly outward.
+
+Lying face down on the upper bunk, with evil-smelling garments swaying
+past his face, the hand holding the revolver stretched out and down,
+he waited a brief instant. Then a footfall sounded and he pressed the
+trigger.
+
+In the darkness the flame from the barrel made a quick flash of
+scarlet. There was a sharp cry of anguish, mutters and silence.
+Joe strained his ears, his heart beating faster than the rapid
+_thump-thump_ of the racing engines. He knew they had located him by
+the flash of the revolver, but they would have to climb to get him.
+A groan broke the silence that held above the sounds of the ship, and
+steps shuffled in the passage. Were they drawing off? He waited, finger
+trembling on trigger. Then a sound like a deeply-drawn breath came from
+beneath him and he pointed toward it and fired again.
+
+The spouting flame lit up a snarling countenance just below the bunk.
+He swung the muzzle toward it, but at that instant a hand gripped
+his wrist. Instinctively he pulled the trigger. A bullet crashed
+downward toward the floor but the grasp on his wrist only tightened and
+strained. He could no longer hold the weapon and his fingers relaxed.
+He heard the revolver thud on the boards below. Struggling, he strove
+to beat off his assailant, but his blows fell harmlessly. He was being
+pulled over the edge of the bunk. He tried to find something to hold
+to, but couldn’t. His captor grunted a word, was answered from the
+darkness and in a moment other hands were about Joe’s legs and he was
+pulled into space.
+
+He fell crashing to the forecastle deck, but the violence of the
+fall was in a measure broken by the men beneath him, for even in the
+darkness and confusion he was aware that one of the enemy had gone down
+with him. With his breath half driven from his body, he could only lie
+there in a litter of garments pulled down in the struggle and gasp. And
+then they were on him.
+
+Blows rained about him, and only the darkness and the fact that the
+enemy hindered each other, saved him for the moment. A giant fist
+grazed his forehead and crashed onto the boards. Joe wrested an arm
+free and struck blindly upward and got home under a bearded chin. The
+grunt that answered the blow filled him with savage joy. Kicking,
+thrashing, heaving under the weight of other bodies, he fought madly,
+regardless now of punishment. Hands groped at him, at his legs and
+arms, at his throat. He tore them aside. But the struggle was far too
+uneven to endure long. They had his legs helpless now, crushed under
+the weight of a great body. Then one arm was pinned to the floor and
+a big hand closed merciless fingers about his throat. He tried to
+tear them off, but it was no use. A knee settled on his free arm, the
+fingers tightened and tightened. He struggled until the perspiration
+stood on his forehead. Lights danced before his eyes crazily, a great
+sound of roaring filled his head and his straining muscles relaxed. A
+last wondering thought came to him on the verge of suffocation: this is
+the end!
+
+And then, coincident with the thought, a great crashing sound beat on
+his brain, a sound that seemed to fill the world with its monstrous
+voice.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX
+
+                             H.M.S. LINNET
+
+
+He came to himself in darkness. A great weight lay across his body.
+Wondering, striving to recollect, he put forth an aching hand and
+pushed at the weight. His fingers pressed against something that
+yielded slightly. Exploring, they sensed cloth and, beneath it flesh
+and bone. It was a man’s arm! And with that knowledge came recollection.
+
+The first question he asked himself was: Am I dead? Then the painful
+throbbing of his bruised throat, the ache of his tired muscles answered
+with a decisive no. But what had happened? He recalled that devastating
+noise that had seemed to crash his very skull in with its violence.
+What had it meant? Painfully he struggled from beneath the body that
+lay across him, and as he did so he became aware of the wind that blew
+about him and of strange, tangled things that littered the floor.
+Groping to his feet, swaying dizzily, he looked about in the darkness.
+From somewhere came the sound of escaping steam. The _Sundsvall’s_
+engines were still. Perplexed, he groped for a stanchion and found
+none, but saw instead a gaping, jagged hole in the ship’s side through
+which he could see dimly the waves and feel the rush of the night wind!
+As his eyes grew used to the darkness he made out the tangled, twisted
+stanchions, the splintered planks about him and knew then what had
+happened!
+
+For the first time he viewed near-to the effect of a three-inch shell!
+
+“They’ve got her!” He had meant to cry it aloud joyously, but all that
+came from him was a hoarse croak which so surprised him that he stood
+open-mouthed for a second in dismay. Then, grinning to himself in
+the dark, he started toward the door. Half-way to it he tripped over
+something that, with a shudder, he realised was the form of a man. He
+wondered how many there were in there and whether they were all killed:
+wondered, too, by what freak of fortune he had escaping the flying
+fragments of steel and iron and wood.
+
+In the passage all was dark. Even the light in the galley had been
+turned out or wrecked by the exploding shell. He stumbled up the
+companion ladder. Before him stood three figures. A revolver gleamed
+dully.
+
+“Halt!” said a voice sharply. “Put your hands up!”
+
+Joe obeyed with fine alacrity.
+
+“Advance! Halt! Search him!”
+
+One of the figures stepped forward and went over him with swift fingers.
+
+“I am unarmed,” said Joe, in a hoarse whisper.
+
+“We’ll see,” was the dry response. Then, with evident surprise: “How do
+you happen to speak English so well?”
+
+“I’m an American, sir.”
+
+“What!” The petty officer stepped nearer. From the patrol ship lying
+a few fathoms away two paths of white light led from her searchlight
+platform to the _Sundsvall’s_ deck, and though the nearer one did not
+encompass the group at the head of the companion it afforded enough
+light to enable the officer to see the braid and stars on Joe’s shirt
+collar.
+
+“Hello!” said the officer in a very English tone. “American seaman?
+What are you doing aboard this ship?”
+
+“I was washed off my ship, the destroyer _Warren_, and picked up by
+this ship yesterday afternoon.”
+
+“Was it you who signalled to us?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“By Jove! What luck! Are there any more of the crew forward?”
+
+“Several, but I think they’re either dead or badly injured. The shell
+came into the fo’c’sle where we were――were arguing.”
+
+“Good! Have a look, men, and fetch ’em out if they’re worth it. You
+come with me, Yankee. What’s your name, eh?”
+
+“Ingersoll.”
+
+“Mine’s Cashell. We’re the _Linnet_, torpedo boat.”
+
+“British?”
+
+“Rather! Here’s the junior luff. Spin your yarn to him.” Joe’s
+companion saluted a young officer amidship near the starboard rail.
+“Here’s the man gave us the signal, sir.”
+
+The lieutenant, turning from shouting orders to a small boat alongside,
+viewed Joe with swift appraisement as he returned the salutes.
+“American?” he demanded.
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“What’s your ship?”
+
+“_Warren_, destroyer.”
+
+“Right-o! Drop into the boat. We’ll be going back in a minute.”
+
+Joe climbed down the ladder and tumbled aboard the small boat.
+
+“Hello, matey, where’d you drop from?” asked a voice from the bow. Joe,
+making out the figure of a sailor standing with boat-hook in hand,
+answered croakingly: “Out of the moon, Limie.”
+
+“Ho! American, ain’t yer? What was you doing on this floatin’ lie?”
+
+“Oh, I was in command,” said Joe.
+
+“If you was you’ll be up agin a stone wall bloomin’ soon! Take my word
+for that, Yankee!”
+
+“Stow the talk,” advised a voice from the stern, and from the deck
+above came the order: “Pass down the prisoners!”
+
+They came, three of them in all, and sank onto the thwarts in listless
+silence. Then Joe’s acquaintance, the petty officer, followed and the
+boat pulled across to the _Linnet_. There the prisoners, amongst them
+the Viking-like captain, were marched aft, while Joe, conducted by
+Cashell, was taken to the presence of the Commander, a middle-aged,
+kindly-looking Lieutenant.
+
+“Lieutenant Briggs’ compliments, sir,” said Cashell, “and we’ve fetched
+away the captain and two mates, sir. There’s sixteen left aboard, most
+of ’em Huns.”
+
+“Mines?” asked the Commander.
+
+“Ten of ’em, sir, all German. Lieutenant Briggs says if he can have
+five men he can manage her into Bordeaux.”
+
+“Good! Ask Mr. Farnsworth to step here. And now, my man, who might you
+be?”
+
+Joe explained. There was no time for a detailed story of his adventures
+then, for the Commander interrupted him to order a prize crew aboard
+the _Sundsvall_. “Instruct Mr. Briggs to watch those prisoners closely.
+He had better iron some of ’em. He won’t need them all to navigate.
+Tell him to make Bordeaux. We’ll keep with him as long as we can. Douse
+those lights up there! We’ll have the whole submarine fleet on us!” He
+turned to Joe again. “Report to me in the wardroom in twenty minutes. I
+want to hear more of this.”
+
+“Yes, sir, but may I suggest that the Lieutenant should swing wide of
+the place the _Sundsvall_ was lying when you first saw her? She was
+dropping mines, sir.”
+
+“Quite right.” He bawled a warning through a megaphone to the other
+ship, and then, addressing Joe once more, said: “Find the surgeon and
+get him to look after those bruises.” He went briskly forward and
+climbed the ladder to the bridge, and Joe, seeking the lower deck hatch
+on a boat that was strange to him, heard the Commander’s voice come
+crisply aft:
+
+“All clear?”
+
+“All clear, sir!”
+
+Somewhere a bell tinkled, the _Linnet_ quivered from stem to stern and
+there was a mighty splashing from the propellers. When Joe reached the
+lower deck he could hear the water swashing fast beyond the steel hull.
+An oiler led him to the surgeon, a mere slip of a lad scarcely older
+than Joe, it seemed, and again the latter had to croak out a brief
+outline of his story. The surgeon said “Dear me! Dear me!” when he came
+to an examination of Joe’s neck. “My word, the blighter nearly did for
+you! You can count all ten fingers on your throat. No, nine. He only
+registered one thumb! Arnica will help that. You stand steady a bit.”
+
+Joe had his first glimpse of himself in the little mirror on the
+white wall above the washbowl as he waited. He looked pretty fairly
+disreputable. His neckerchief was frayed and pulled into a hard knot,
+his hair had not been brushed since the night before, a place the
+size of a half-dollar was minus skin over his left eye, his jaw was
+swollen on one side and at some time his nose had bled. His knuckles
+were puffed and scarred, as well. Add to that that he was shoeless
+and hatless and that his shirt and trousers showed the results of
+long immersion in salt water followed by a hasty drying and you will
+understand that he was scarcely a model example of the United States
+seaman! But those things were all remedied in ten minutes. Some sort
+of very smelly liquid was applied to the raw places and soothed the
+smarting instantly, a bandage dipped in diluted arnica was placed
+around his throat, he enjoyed the wonderful privilege of washing face
+and hands and, finally, he was provided with a pair of shoes and a cap.
+And by that time he was due in the wardroom and, the surgeon conducting
+him, made his way to it.
+
+The Commander and a Lieutenant were there when he entered, and these,
+with the surgeon, whose rank Joe judged to be that of ensign, were his
+audience when, having seated himself, by direction, at one end of the
+wardroom table, he told his story from the time of being washed from
+the deck of the _Warren_ until he had been confronted at the head of
+the companion-way by Petty Officer Cashell. And he had an attentive
+audience. He told his story modestly enough and was listened to with
+no interruptions from the listeners. But when he had finished they had
+plenty of questions to ask.
+
+“Did you know what the _Sundsvall’s_ game was when you first got
+aboard?” inquired the Commander.
+
+“No, sir, not until I crept out on deck and saw them slinging the mines
+over. But I suspected that something wasn’t right before that. The
+first mate was no more Swedish than――than I am, sir.”
+
+“Not a bit,” replied the Lieutenant dryly. “His real name is Schmier
+and he’s a reservist. He was second in command of a submarine that
+went ashore on the coast of Holland two months back. He was interned
+and escaped. The captain claims to be really Swedish, and possibly he
+is. The crew are mostly Germans and Austrians.” He paused and looked
+questioningly at his superior. “It’s all right to tell this, sir?
+This――er――fellow is intelligent and won’t repeat what he shouldn’t, I’m
+sure.”
+
+The Commander smiled and nodded. “No harm, I fancy. He deserves a bit
+of wardroom gossip for his service. You see, Ingersoll, we’ve all been
+after that ship for a month. We didn’t know what her name was or what
+she was like, but we knew she was doing her devilish work about here,
+and we wanted her. It’s a lesson to us, Farnsworth, not to take any
+ship’s innocence for granted these times. Ingersoll says, you see,
+that they were planting mines the very moment we signalled her. In a
+way, I’m sorry we couldn’t have sunk her at it!”
+
+“I, too,” said the Lieutenant heartily. “But with bottoms as valuable
+to us as they are today, I fancy it wouldn’t have done, eh?”
+
+“Briggs’ll be lucky if she doesn’t sink before he makes port,” said the
+surgeon cheerfully. “I could see a ripping old hole where that shell
+went in.”
+
+“It’s too high to flood her,” said the Lieutenant. “And Briggs’ll have
+it patched by now.” He smiled and then chuckled. “I’ve been wondering,
+sir, ever since whether that hit was an accident. The order was
+distinct enough to fire across the bow.”
+
+The Commander shook his head gravely. “I prefer to think it an
+accident, Farnsworth. If I thought otherwise I’d have to deal very
+severely with that gun captain. By the way, was the ship armed?”
+
+“The _Sundsvall_? I think not, sir.” The Lieutenant looked inquiringly
+at Joe, and the latter shook his head.
+
+“I saw no guns, sir.”
+
+“I doubt if she had any,” mused the Commander. “Relied on her
+appearance and a set of false papers, I fancy. You heard nothing and
+saw nothing, my boy, to indicate the existence of other ‘neutral’
+mine-layers in these waters?”
+
+Joe answered no, and for the succeeding quarter of an hour he was kept
+busy replying to questions as to the ship’s course after she had picked
+him up, her speed and so on, the officers being anxious to learn where
+she had been the day before. But Joe could give little information
+on that subject, although he “guessed” that her speed after he had
+awakened in the forecastle had been about twelve knots. At last the
+Commander said:
+
+“That’s all, Ingersoll. We’re very much obliged to you. That prize
+would have slipped out of our hands nicely had you not displayed
+such――ah――commendable ingenuity and bravery. I shall take pleasure in
+reporting your conduct to your Commander. If your pluckiness and quick
+thinking are to be found in the other men of your fleet I believe we’ll
+soon have these waters as quiet and well-behaved as Bond Street of a
+Sunday morning.” He reached his hand out as Joe, having arisen, now
+saluted and started past on his way to the door. “The thanks of the
+officers and men of the _Linnet_, my boy,” said the Commander, smiling.
+
+Joe shook hands, saluted again and went out, picking his way carefully
+along a swaying deck to the hatch. Below he was taken in charge by
+a big boatswain with a fringe of red whiskers and a strong Scotch
+accent and introduced to the _Linnet’s_ tiny forecastle where, amidst
+a strange medley of bunks, tables, ditty boxes and clothing, some
+twenty-odd men were crowded. There, fortified by hot coffee supplied
+by an admiring cook, he told his story once more. When he had finished
+the big boatswain remarked with much conviction: “Laddie, ye were ne’er
+meant to be drownded! I ken that fine!”
+
+In the small hours Joe crawled into a bunk and, with a long, tired
+sigh, closed his eyes for sleep. The _Linnet_ bobbed about like a cork
+and was filled with strange sounds, and Joe, thinking: “I believe I
+could be seasick if I wasn’t so sleepy,” passed into slumber.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XX
+
+                         THE BATTLE IN THE FOG
+
+
+Two days later, Joe, walking up from the landing in Portsmouth,
+descried a smart appearing officer of the United States Navy standing
+in front of a tiny shop and looking at the motley array of objects in
+the small-paned window. His sleeve bore the single stripe and star
+of an ensign. Joe stopped stock-still and stared. There was nothing
+surprising in the presence of an American officer in Portsmouth, since
+Joe had himself seen three separate American ships between Culver Cliff
+and the harbour, and the pier had been liberally sprinkled with United
+States marines. But to walk plump into this particular officer was a
+bit startling.
+
+Now there are certain rules of the Navy defining the attitude and
+behaviour of an enlisted man toward his superior. For instance, it is
+not considered strictly proper for a seaman to thump an ensign on the
+back and call him “Old Scout.” Such familiarities are not encouraged
+by the General Staff. Fortunately, Joe knew all this and so resisted
+his first impulse. Having approached to within a few yards of the
+ensign without that gentleman having turned from his rapt contemplation
+of dusty, faded food packages, Joe paused irresolutely. It would be
+a severe breach of discipline to yell “Hey, there!” or to even range
+himself alongside at the window, since the window was so small that the
+procedure would cause man and officer to fairly rub elbows. Nor did
+Joe care to remain there all the afternoon while the other recovered
+from his trance. He gave the problem careful consideration for a few
+seconds and then arrived at a solution. There is nothing in the rules
+prohibiting an enlisted man from whistling in the presence of an
+officer, petty, warrant or commissioned. So Joe fixed his eyes on the
+roof-line across the narrow thoroughfare and whistled softly. The tune
+he chose was known in a certain institution of learning in New England
+as “Mother of Our Youth.” In short, it was the school hymn of Dexter
+Academy. It was rather a slow and stately air, and had been known to
+induce drops of moisture from the tear ducts on such occasions as class
+days and reunions, or when, in the gathering darkness, hundreds of
+young voices sang it and soothed the bitterness of a football defeat.
+Joe had reached the third line:
+
+    “Other memories may fade,
+     Hopes grow dim in evening’s shade,
+     Golden friendships that we made――――”
+
+The straight-backed, wide-shouldered, slim-waisted officer turned
+quickly from the window, surprise on his countenance, gave one glance
+at the somewhat dilapidated looking seaman on the curb and then, with a
+roar of delight, hurled himself across space.
+
+“Joe!” he cried. “Where’d you come from? Gee, but I’m glad to see you!”
+
+“Hello, Han, you old duffer!” laughed Joe. “How’s the boy?”
+
+They fairly fell into each other’s arms and then performed a brief and
+ecstatic dance over the uneven pavement to the evident but unnoted
+interest of the neighbouring populace. Then, releasing each other, they
+simultaneously and a bit sheepishly saluted!
+
+They didn’t have much time together, since Joe was under orders to
+rejoin his ship at Queenstown, and railway and steamship travel in
+those days was slow and uncertain. But they managed, by talking very
+fast, to acquaint each other with their histories to date. George
+Hanford was on liberty from the _Carthage_, undergoing engine repairs.
+The cruiser had been in British water nearly a month and had been on
+duty almost continuously until two days before, Han explained.
+
+“We had a peachy scrap with a bunch of subs a week ago last Sunday.
+There was the _Carthage_ and three American chasers and a Limie torpedo
+boat. They got home on one of the chasers early in the game and missed
+us with the next ‘fish.’ There were three of them, we think, but I
+only saw two. We got one, anyway, after about half an hour of it, and
+the Limie dropped three depth-bombs around another and signalled that
+they ‘fancied they’d got the blighter.’ Our gun crews had the times
+of their young lives and hit everything in sight except the U-boat we
+were after. Bet you anything that the bottom of part of the North Sea
+is a foot deep in shell fragments! It was great while it lasted, Joe.
+Wish you’d been there. What have you been up to? They say the Huns are
+keeping themselves pretty scarce down the coast these days.”
+
+“Well, there’s one that’s awfully scarce just now,” answered Joe dryly,
+and told of the submarine they had sunk. After that he recounted his
+voyage on a mine and Han’s eyes stood out of his head. When the story
+was ended he insisted on gravely shaking Joe’s hand. “Joe,” he said
+earnestly, “you’re a credit to my training and a credit to Dexter, to
+say nothing of the United States Navy! I’m proud of you, son! Shake
+again!”
+
+Han saw Joe off on the train for Bristol and trotted alongside the
+carriage window until he couldn’t go any further. “Remember me to
+Steve,” he shouted. “And tell him if he isn’t careful you’ll beat him
+to it! We’re basing here now, so drop me a line now and then, like a
+good chap. So long, Joe, and good luck to you!”
+
+Joe spent that night in Bristol and the next morning secured passage
+on a steamer for Queenstown. The boat didn’t sail until dark, however,
+and the day was pretty dull and monotonous since no one was allowed to
+return on shore after having once set foot abroad. St. George’s Channel
+was in an evil mood that night, the boat was far from seaworthy and
+Joe, to his horror, had a relapse. It wasn’t a bad one, and the worst
+of the trouble was over in half an hour, but he was rather discouraged
+since he had concluded that he was through with seasickness for all
+times. Afterwards, though, he found consolation in the explanation
+that a tiresome train trip and much unfamiliar food had been at fault.
+
+The _Warren_ was not in port when he arrived and he found accommodations
+in a rather dirty little hotel on the water front and then, having
+exactly two shillings and a one-franc piece to his name, went shopping.
+Fortunately, two shillings in Queenstown go much further than a like
+amount of money in New York, and he was able to supply his immediate
+wants.
+
+The _Warren_ slid into harbour the next afternoon, looking rather rusty
+of hull and bearing marks of her recent encounter with the gale. Joe
+expected his mates to show surprise when he stepped on board, but they
+didn’t. They hailed him with an exaggerated respect that annoyed and
+embarrassed him until he discovered that his safety had been announced
+from the _Linnet_ by wireless several days ago. After they had had
+their fun with him, however, his shipmates showed that they were both
+glad to see him and proud of his exploit. Steve only smiled and said:
+“Hello, you old fraud!” and gripped his hand very hard. And Joe grinned
+and said: “How’s the boy?” and gazed about the reeking, confined
+quarters of the ship with something very much like emotion. Getting
+back to the little old _Warren_ was quite like coming home, he thought!
+
+The following morning he was summoned before the Old Man. The
+commander, it appeared, had received a letter from the commander of the
+_Linnet_, and he said some nice things to Joe and ended with: “I shall
+mention you in my report, Ingersoll, and I trust you will hear from it.
+And now――er――I’d like to hear just what happened.”
+
+Three days after her arrival at the base the _Warren_ put to sea
+again. It was convoy duty this time, and she picked up two companion
+destroyers off the Scilly Islands and the three kept in line for
+two days and nights and reached the rendezvous, some eight hundred
+miles west, at dawn of a foggy day. Five troop-ships and a cargo boat
+were waiting them and before they had taken their positions a fourth
+destroyer, a black hulled Limie three-stacker, joined their party.
+It was Bordeaux this time. There was the usual cheering from the
+transports as the destroyers raced past, the usual tumultuous waving of
+khaki-hued hats from the decks, and then, signals having been exchanged
+for the better part of an hour, the fog closed down between the
+destroyers and the transports and the bows pointed toward the distant
+Cordouan Light.
+
+It was good to sit aloft again in the swaying canvas cage trying to
+pierce the fog, good to hear the wind playing in the wireless aerial
+with the sound of a high-pitched tuning-fork, thought Steve the next
+morning. While the ocean haze perhaps scarcely deserved the name of
+fog, it was thick enough to hide things a quarter of a mile away and
+sometimes shut down even closer. From the foretop, though, he could
+frequently see above it, and up there the world was a golden, misty,
+sea-scented world, haunted by gulls and tiny dark-hued birds that drove
+past in swarms, tweetering like mournful sparrows. When the breeze died
+for a moment――it was only a breath at most this morning――he could hear
+the sparking of the wireless below, the murmur of voices on the bridge,
+a song from some gay-hearted Jackie aft. And then, in the very heart
+of the peaceful morning, a sharp detonation came across the water from
+starboard and a sharp voice came up the tube.
+
+“Did you see the flare of that gun?” demanded the executive.
+
+Steve hadn’t, and said so. But it was of no moment, for a second
+later a destroyer’s siren screeched a message in Morse, and the
+_Warren_, picking up speed, slipped off at a tangent through the
+fog, zig-zagging, her whistle yelping a warning to the transports. In
+the foretop Steve watched with tense gaze. Suddenly a monstrous form
+loomed ahead, there was a confused chorus of signals, a quick turn
+of the destroyer’s nose and the latter slipped past the steamship’s
+bows so close that Steve could, he thought, have jumped in safety
+to her foredeck. There was a brief glimpse of orderly haste on the
+transport: life-belted figures hurrying to boat stations, officers
+starting to starboard from the bridge, the crew of the bow gun swinging
+the five-inch around with an emotional deliberateness that deceived
+no one. From further back in the mist came the six blasts of another
+troop-ship’s whistle that spelled “Submarines!” to all on board. Still
+yelping, the _Warren_ plunged ahead, raced through the second transport
+column without sight of a ship and swirled off on a wide circle. Then:
+
+“Destroyer’s topmasts three points off the starboard bow,” sang Steve
+down the tube. “About half a mile, sir.”
+
+“Right!”
+
+The _Warren_ veered to port. As she did so guns barked again in that
+direction. A siren, deeper and hoarser than the _Warren’s_, shrieked
+close astern and a long, fog-coloured ship, trailing black smoke from
+her four funnels, crept slowly up. Cheers floated over and back again.
+Signals came and went. The bigger destroyer edged past into the fog and
+as her stern melted from sight a bow rifle began to talk. She went off,
+firing rapidly, and the _Warren_, cutting through her tumbled wake,
+reduced speed. They were firing from a transport now somewhere at the
+head of the column. It was easy enough to distinguish the five-inch
+guns from the destroyers’ three. Something that left a diverging
+wake behind swam into Steve’s vision for an instant. Then a swirl of
+mist hid it. Blank incredulity held him silent for the length of a
+heart-beat. Then he sent his voice down to the bridge:
+
+“Torpedo, just submerged, running parallel about fifty yards to port!”
+
+“We saw it! Watch for destroyer to starboard!”
+
+Steve, his very finger-tips tingling with the excitement of the moment,
+watched, and presently she appeared, broke out of the yellow mist like
+a great black log. Queer violet-pink flares showed against the gloom of
+her hull as her guns spoke. And yet, up here in the _Warren’s_ foretop
+cage, nothing was to be seen as, leaving the British destroyer astern,
+she sped roaring on into the fog. Afar off two shots boomed, and were
+repeated. Minutes passed, the _Warren_ circling and circling, boilers
+“lit up,” stacks spouting oily smoke, gun crews muttering wrathfully
+over the fate that was taking them through a battle without the chance
+to fire a shot. And then, somewhere to west of the Limie craft, that
+hoped-for and yet unexpected happened. Between wavering, low-hanging
+puffs of sea-mist, a periscope!
+
+And then they, too, were in it! Shots barked from bow guns, propellers
+churned. Like a greyhound the _Warren_ darted in pursuit. The fog
+settled and hid the target, lifted and showed it, sea-coloured,
+shortened, disappearing. Overhead a shadow flitted and Steve, glancing
+up for a wondering instant, saw a great seaplane skim along, the French
+colours painted on her wings. The sunlight melted through the varnished
+fabric and made her seem like a thing of carved amber. The whirring
+roar of her motors came down in a gust of sound and faded again. A
+second ghost-like form followed on its heels, and, further off to the
+east, a third. The _Warren_ swerved to starboard, back to port, a cloud
+of smoke enveloped the cage. The guns were silent now, but there was
+activity at the stern. The attempt to ram the submarine had failed, for
+she was fathoms deep when the destroyer shot across her position, but
+a depth bomb might do as well, and down they went, one, two, three,
+as the _Warren_ almost spun above the spot. Behind her, to port, to
+starboard, the surface spouted like a geyser. The destroyer shook with
+the force of the quakes as she fled.
+
+Then she was back again in a long turn and anxious, hopeful eyes
+watched the surface for oil streaks. But only foam topped the water.
+The junior luff shook a clenched fist over the bridge in rage and
+disappointment. Ahead, where the double column was zig-zagging on,
+whistles talked and talked, but guns were silent. An airplane came
+winging back out of the northwest, flying low, searching, hawk-like,
+for the under-surface shadows that mark the position of lurking “fish.”
+She disappeared in a roar of explosions, her pilot waving a hand in
+seeming benediction.
+
+The _Warren_ sped dejectedly back. Steve, in a slump of disappointment
+and resentment, stared the countenance out of the shrouding mist.
+Below, on the bridge, the executive gesticulated to the Old Man and the
+Old Man nodded and nodded sorrowfully. Despair held the _Warren_ from
+Number One gun to Number Five, from foretop to stoke-hold.
+
+“Ship dead ahead!” shouted Steve. “Smoke one point off――――”
+
+The _Warren_ shook from stem to stern as her engines answered the order
+to reverse and she steered hard aport. Sirens shrieked. It was a close
+call. Steve wondered how far under he would go when he leaped. But the
+_Warren_ slid by, shaking and shivering, close to the stern of a grey
+destroyer, and as she passed a shrill cheer went up, a cheer that Steve
+joined in wild elation and triumph. Beyond the destroyer that they
+had so narrowly avoided lay, like a green-grey whale on the surface,
+a German U-boat, the water still trickling from her deck, where,
+phlegmatic and seemingly unconcerned, a little group of uniformed
+officers and men stood and awaited their fate. The submarine’s stern
+was tilting skyward, her nose dipping, and there was havoc about her
+conning tower, and one periscope was missing. It was only a fleeting
+glimpse that those aboard the _Warren_ had, for she picked up her feet
+again and poked on into the mist, but what it revealed made up to a
+great extent for her own ill-fortune, and long after the fog hid the
+two destroyers the men on the _Warren_ sent their voices back in cheers.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI
+
+                           THE ZEPPELIN RAID
+
+
+So ended that battle in the fog, and two hours later, back in
+positions, the convoy steamed at full speed again, with French
+seaplanes hovering about like golden-winged birds, leading the way to
+safety. In the afternoon the bulletin told them all they could expect
+to know on the _Warren_. Four submarines had attacked. Of these one
+had been captured in a sinking condition, and her officers and crew,
+fifty-two in all, taken prisoner, and a second had been driven off in
+a crippled condition. Fog had defeated the efforts of the destroyer to
+determine her ultimate fate. One transport had been struck by a torpedo
+just under the bow and had escaped with slight damage. The British
+destroyer ―――― had been struck aft with the loss of four lives but was
+being towed by one of our ships. Much, it seemed to Steve and Joe, had
+happened considering the fact that at no time had the _Warren_ so much
+as glimpsed an action save when she had pursued that elusive periscope!
+But they had brought their convoy safely out of danger, which, after
+all, was the thing that counted.
+
+The fog turned to rain as they approached the French coast, and it
+was not until they had entered the wide estuary of the Girondé that
+they really saw their companions again. The troop-ships went on up to
+Bordeaux, cheering the destroyers as they passed, while the latter,
+all save the Limie, turned seaward once more. The British ship, with a
+gaping, half-patched hole in her black hull aft of her fourth stack,
+and her deck messed with twisted plates and stanchions, went off in tow
+of a noisy tug in the wake of the transports, cheered to the echo by
+the rest of the ships.
+
+Joe was inclined to be disgruntled over that engagement. “Why, hang
+it, Steve, we went messing around there just as though we were trying
+our hardest to keep out of trouble! Every time we heard guns in one
+direction the Old Man headed in another! Talk about your punk luck!”
+
+“For a fellow who was a double-dyed pacifist three months ago,” laughed
+Steve, “you’re frightfully keen on a scrap!”
+
+“Never mind what I was three months ago,” returned Joe warmly. “I’ve
+learned since then. And I’ve seen things, too,” he added darkly. “Why,
+let me tell you something, Steve. I believe that if we made peace with
+Germany tomorrow I’d say ‘Nothing doing!’ and keep on fighting!”
+
+“So would a lot of us, I guess,” answered the other grimly. “But don’t
+you worry, my boy. There won’t be any peace until we’ve got the Huns
+begging for mercy.”
+
+“I know, but you’re always hearing about one country or another being
+ready for it, or talking about it. It makes me ill!”
+
+“Me too! I wish they’d run rubber-neck wagons to the front trenches so
+a lot of these peace talkers could see what’s really going on. Even you
+and I don’t ever see the real awfulness of it, Joe.”
+
+“No, fighting on sea is a sort of polite picnic compared to holding
+down a front-line trench, I guess. I mean we don’t see the suffering
+and all that sort of thing. We aren’t cold and dirty――――”
+
+“Well, if anyone is much colder than a foretop lookout in a northeast
+gale――――”
+
+“You know what I mean,” interrupted Joe impatiently. “Besides, we don’t
+get a chance to do anything, anyway, except about once a month. That’s
+the worst thing about the Navy, Steve. I thought we would be right in
+the thick of it all the time, didn’t you? And here we’ve been scouting
+around for two months, more or less, and not a blessed thing has
+happened to us!”
+
+“No, nothing except that we’ve been in a corking nice scrap and have
+sunk one U-boat all by ourselves and――Great Scott, Joe, didn’t you get
+any thrills the night you went overboard?”
+
+“Thrills? Yes, cold thrills. Oh, that was sort of exciting, in a way.
+I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. But I want to be in a good
+stand-up fight with some of those Fritzes! I want to see the shots go
+home. I want――――”
+
+“You want to be killed, that’s the matter with you!” scoffed Steve.
+“Besides, you can’t get a Fritz to agree to a stand-up fight. He wants
+to sneak up in the dark or in a fog and let fly a moldie and then beat
+it. Fritz is――is what you might call prudent.”
+
+“Prudent! He’s more than that! He’s yellow!”
+
+“Well, I suppose there’s his side to it. A submarine’s of use only so
+long as it’s afloat, Joe, and his idea is to play the game safe. But it
+_is_ riling, the way they pop up and strafe something and then pop down
+again before anyone can talk to them about it! I wish――――” He stopped,
+with a shake of his head.
+
+“So do I,” said Joe.
+
+“What?”
+
+“Why, that we’d join forces with the British and pay ’em a visit around
+the corner there, up north.”
+
+Steve nodded. “Yes, I guess if you asked any sailor with either fleet
+what he wanted most he’d say just that. Well, it may come yet.”
+
+“If it ever does,” said Joe longingly, “I hope I’ll be around. There’s
+just one thing that has me scared whenever I think of it, Steve. It’s
+that I might get mine before this thing’s ended, before we’ve beaten
+the Huns! That would be fierce!”
+
+“Rot! You’ll live to bore folks for sixty years with the story of
+the time you were swept off a United States destroyer and captured a
+mine-layer single-handed. Why, ten years from now, Joe, folks’ll be
+running away whenever you turn the corner!”
+
+Joe laughed. “That’ll be about all from you. Lend me your thimble, will
+you? I’ve lost mine somewhere. Say, did you ever think you’d be able to
+darn a pair of socks the way you can now?”
+
+“No, and I never thought I’d be able to wear holes in ’em the way I can
+now, either,” replied Steve disgustedly.
+
+Three days later, in Queenstown, they read all about that engagement
+with the German U-boats, or as much about it as the censors thought
+fit for the public to know, which wasn’t a great deal after all. But
+what the papers told them, told them something they hadn’t known at
+the time, which was that had the submarines had their way with the
+transports the Allied armies would have been poorer by some twelve
+thousand soldiers and a million dollars’ worth of ammunition. That, it
+seemed to them, was worth saving!
+
+The _Warren_ had her bottom scraped and a new coat of paint put on, and
+for that purpose was hauled out high and dry. It meant five days ashore
+instead of three and Steve and Joe obtained liberty and managed by much
+manœuvring to get across to Portsmouth. There, however, disappointment
+awaited them, for the _Carthage_, with Han aboard, was at sea. Not that
+they could get anyone to actually say so, though. They based their
+presumption on the fact that she was not in port, and the evidence
+seemed rather strong. There was nothing to do in Portsmouth for them,
+and, since they had all their last month’s wages in pocket, they went
+up to London.
+
+Neither had ever been there before and all the way up on the London
+and South-Western Railway they peered excitedly at stations whose names
+sounded familiar but which looked like no stations they had ever seen.
+Joe declared that Wimbledon was as well-known to him as New Rochelle,
+and Clapham Junction was like an old friend. But that didn’t keep them
+from being a little bit awed when they alighted at Waterloo Station.
+A train on a neighbouring track had just pulled in with a load of
+“blighties” and they stopped and watched the scene. Such wrecks of men
+as they saw emerge from those coaches! And yet scarcely a man failed
+to smile as he came painfully forth. Hundreds and hundreds of them
+there seemed to the boys, but, as Steve granted later, when you have
+tears in your eyes you’re likely to see double! Friends, relatives,
+nurses flocked about them and soon the platform was empty and the boys
+went their way, rather more sober than before. But there were so many
+“blighties” all over the city that they soon grew accustomed to the
+sight, and one can’t well stay sad for long on such an occasion as
+one’s first visit to London. It was mid-afternoon when they arrived and
+it was well on toward dark when they found themselves at Oxford Street
+and Edgware Road, quite lost and quite unconcerned but decidedly
+weary. They sought direction and presently found a restaurant and
+had their first meal since early morning. Afterwards they walked
+again through the soft, lingering daylight of a star-sprinkled August
+evening, and, when the lights were twinkling subduedly――for London was
+dark in those days――they stumbled on a theatre and bought seats and
+entered.
+
+The play was rather too serious for two American Jackies on liberty,
+but they sat it through, finding more of interest in the audience than
+on the stage. Uniforms dotted the pit and boxes, but save for that
+there was naught to show that this was London in war time. Afterwards
+they sought the Embankment and watched the darkened craft moving like
+shadows through the star-lit gloom. They still had lodgings to find and
+so, just before midnight, went in search of a small hotel that had
+been recommended to them at the restaurant. It was across the river,
+near Waterloo Station, and they made their way to the nearest bridge.
+But before they reached it a sudden strident alarm awoke the murmurous
+silence. They stopped short and viewed each other in surprise and
+something approaching apprehension. The air seemed to be filled with
+the shrill whistling.
+
+“What the dickens is it?” demanded Steve anxiously.
+
+“I don’t know, unless――――” Joe stopped and turned his face toward the
+sky.
+
+“By Jove!” cried Steve. “That’s it! It’s an air-raid, Joe! It’s
+Zeppelins! Beat it!”
+
+“Wait! Let’s have a look. I don’t see anything, do you?”
+
+“See anything! No, and I don’t want to! And, what’s more, I don’t want
+to _feel_ anything! Come on and get under cover somewhere. They’ll
+arrest us if we don’t!”
+
+“Well, but I want to see, hang it,” grumbled Joe, as he followed the
+other up a side street. The warning tocsin was still wailing, making
+Steve think of Banshees, as they came in sight of the dark bulk of
+Charing Cross Station. There the streets were filling with a silent and
+apparently unalarmed throng, all gazing skyward. Now into the blare of
+the whistles came other sounds, the distant popping of anti-aircraft
+guns, they guessed. A policeman, very matter-of-fact, was pressing the
+crowd toward the sidewalks.
+
+“Under cover, if you please, ladies and gentlemen, under cover now!
+Don’t ’ave me askin’ yer over an’ over!”
+
+Suddenly a murmur went up and the boys, following the direction of
+the staring eyes of the throng, saw, far in the heavens, eastward, a
+ghostly, silver shape. Long streams of searchlights played upon it,
+converging from wide distances. It seemed to hang motionless there,
+thousands of feet above the darkened city, until the fact that they
+were gradually turning their heads convincing them that the Zeppelin
+was in reality travelling at a rapid pace. It was miles away from where
+they stood, but even had it been overhead it is doubtful if the sense
+of danger would have prevailed over the fascination they experienced.
+The thing seemed unreal to them, a clever mechanical effect such as one
+sees at a theatre. The element of danger never made itself felt for a
+moment. Wonder and admiration and a queer thrilling excitement was what
+they experienced as, in common with thousands of others all over the
+great city, they stood and watched spellbound.
+
+Stars that were bursting shells from the guns broke around the silver
+ghost, but she appeared oblivious to them. With what seemed the speed
+of a floating thistledown the big balloon drew diagonally across the
+city from northeast to southwest. “She might be over Hornsey now,” said
+a voice at Steve’s elbow, but a second speaker contradicted him. “Not
+’arf so near, gov’ner, and more toward Hendon-way.”
+
+“Isn’t it wonderful!” murmured Steve. “Do you suppose there are others?”
+
+“Bound to be, I guess. Hello, look there! Great Scott, Steve!”
+
+A great glare of yellow light enveloped the Zeppelin so that it seemed
+to stand out against the blue-black heavens like a monstrous elongated
+lamp. Then, amidst a murmurous sigh of awe from the watchers, a sheet
+of rosy light shot high from the balloon and dyed the whole city
+with its unearthly radiance, so that shadows played where there had
+been only darkness before. The throng stood hushed as the strange
+light rippled like flame high in the sky and, suddenly, the Zeppelin
+collapsed in the centre and began to float gently to the earth. And as
+she descended there appeared, above her, a smaller vision, an airplane
+gliding eastward and downward through the glowing heavens. Flames
+could be seen plainly about the Zeppelin as she settled faster and
+faster, and a cloud of black smoke billowed and trailed. Then, as she
+passed from the sight of the watchers, a lurid flare told of exploding
+gas-tanks, went out as suddenly and left the city in blackness again
+save for the beams of light that crossed and recrossed, searching the
+sky. Silence held for a long moment, and then there arose from the
+throats of the watchers a cheer that grew and grew as it was taken
+up on all sides and spread across the vast immensity of London, a
+cheer of exultation that lasted for minutes and minutes. Even after
+it had ceased there at Charing Cross, the murmurous sound could still
+be heard, a dim roar of triumph. A group of Australian Tommies broke
+through the throng, shattering the air with long-drawn “coo-ees,” while
+about a lamp-post nearby four British Jackies danced, with joined
+hands, and sang themselves hoarse.
+
+Steve and Joe turned back and found their way across a long-arching
+bridge through the star-lit darkness. The city was silent again save
+for an occasional belated cheer. They were too affected to talk much,
+and so reached the little hotel almost in silence.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXII
+
+                        OLD FRIENDS COME ABOARD
+
+
+They were back in Queenstown two mornings later, returning by way of
+Fishguard. The _Warren_ was at anchor and waves of heat above her
+four grey stacks indicated that she was getting ready for business
+once more. That noon the starboard mess was entertained with a vivid
+first-hand account of a Zeppelin raid on London. There was a big batch
+of mail in the afternoon, and Joe and Steve each fared well. The home
+papers proved interesting reading, for they covered a period of nearly
+three weeks, during which much had happened back in what Steve called
+“the little old U. S. A.” The draft for the National Army had been
+made, the government had taken over all merchant ships of twenty-five
+hundred tons or more then building and the President had put his
+signature to a bill to control the country’s food supply. In Russia,
+too, events had transpired, for because of the disaffection of certain
+regiments the army was in general retreat in Galicia. But from Flanders
+came better news, for the British and French had smashed the German
+lines over a twenty-mile front. Rumours of that success had reached
+them before, but experience had proved the advisability of discrediting
+most rumours. That advance made up for the disruption of the Russian
+defences in the east, in Steve’s opinion, but Joe refused to be
+placated by it and stated his opinion of the Russians in an earnest
+manner that carried conviction. There was no argument forthcoming, for
+although his audience consisted of half the starboard watch no one had
+the heart to disagree.
+
+The _Warren_ put in an eventful turn on patrol that lasted six days and
+nights, most of which were squally. The events, though, were neither
+novel nor exciting, but consisted of false alarms, unfruitful chases
+and frequent battles with the gales. Back in port Steve came down with
+a cold that put him ashore in the hospital for two days, but just
+before the destroyer weighed anchor again he came piling back, better
+but by no means well. Joe lectured him severely, but Steve only grinned.
+
+The second morning out the wireless picked up a call for help from
+an American steamer which had just entered the danger zone on the
+eastward passage. The _Warren_ was a good sixty-five miles off, but she
+kicked up her heels and started for the scene. The boys will always
+remember that bit of steaming, for the destroyer ran straight into the
+seas at a gait just under thirty knots for more than two hours. The
+waves were high in consequence of the gales which had been lashing the
+Atlantic for more than a week and life on the bridge was no better than
+a prolonged shower bath. The seas washed the deck clean aft of the
+forecastle and every opening of the hatches brought buckets of water
+down to the lower deck. There were times when the _Warren_ stuck her
+nose so far under that it seemed only a miracle could wrench it out
+again. But she always shook herself free and staggered on, leaping and
+bucking like a broncho. Even the foretop cage was a spray-drenched
+place during those wild hundred and forty minutes. But the _Warren_
+did herself proud, and every man-Jack aboard thrilled to the plucky
+struggle she made. In the radio hutch such messages as “Hold on, we’re
+coming!” “With you in forty minutes!” and “Stick it out!” were sent at
+intervals, but there came no reply from the steamer and it seemed that
+the destroyer was to be too late. But the Old Man was taking no chances
+and as the _Warren_ drew near the scene the bow guns were manned and
+the little ship was in readiness.
+
+It was just after six bells when the foretop spotter gave the word that
+smoke was ahead. Before that they had heard the sounds of gunfire and a
+cheer broke out when the submarine was sighted a mile or so away from
+the steamer which lay, evidently helpless, rolling in the seas. The
+_Warren_ made straight for the U-boat, but the latter had apparently
+got wind of the destroyer’s approach, for she submerged quickly before
+the _Warren_ could get within range. Circling repeatedly about the
+spot, the destroyer let go five depth-charges, but no signs of the
+enemy were seen again.
+
+Later they got the steamer’s story. She had just entered the danger
+zone when a lookout reported a submarine on the port bow. Immediately
+the U-boat fired a shell which passed a few yards from the steamer’s
+stern. The captain then sent out his wireless appeal for help, since
+the location of the submarine was such that escape seemed impossible.
+A long range battle began between the two craft, the steamer firing
+at nine thousand yards and the submarine manœuvring to keep out of
+range and at the same time keeping up a running fire. The steamer’s
+shells fell short, but the U-boat made several hits, wounding four
+men. After the battle had gone on almost two hours, during which
+the steamer’s gun crews fired two hundred and sixty shots and the
+submarine two hundred and thirty-four, the latter made a lucky hit,
+exploding a shell in the engine room and putting the vessel out of
+commission. The submarine had then approached nearer and had continued
+to rain shots, but for some reason, perhaps in the hope of taking the
+steamer afloat, had fired no torpedoes. The steamer’s wireless had
+been disabled shortly after the beginning of the engagement and the
+_Warren’s_ messages had not reached her. Consequently the captain had
+been as surprised as delighted when he had seen a low streak of black
+smoke to the northeastward and, later, the destroyer ploughing toward
+him head-on. He had given up all hope of saving his vessel at the time
+of the destroyer’s unexpected appearance.
+
+The surgeon and two assistants made a perilous trip across to the
+steamer and attended to the wounded, after which the _Warren_ stood by
+while engine repairs were made with great difficulty. Toward night the
+two ships started for the French coast. They lost each other once but
+came together again soon after daylight and the _Warren_ steamed within
+sight until the steamer was safely in-shore.
+
+That incident was fairly typical of the sort of work that fell to
+the _Warren_, although sometimes she arrived at the scene too late
+and sometimes, as on a later occasion, her services went for nought
+because of the pigheadedness of a skipper. That time the _Warren_ was
+convoying a steamer with new engines which had never been properly
+worked in. Instead of keeping in column she kept up a series of zig-zag
+excursions to port and starboard that puzzled the _Warren’s_ commander
+considerably. When she had crossed the destroyer’s bows the fourth
+time in less than an hour the _Warren_ signalled and the reply came
+back that she couldn’t slow down to the destroyer’s pace. “You’ll have
+to,” replied the _Warren_. “Dangerous channel ahead. Keep astern and
+follow.” So said the destroyer’s blinker in the semi-darkness of early
+morning. Whether the cargo boat read the signal aright or, reading,
+couldn’t make up her mind to obey, wasn’t apparent just then. But the
+natural thing happened, for the steamer piled herself up on a reef and
+went down with three thousand tons of much needed coal. The _Warren_
+rescued the crew of thirty men and, metaphorically shrugging her
+shoulders, went off on her business.
+
+There was another case of pigheadedness soon after which, however,
+did not end disastrously. The convoy in that case was an American
+freighter, a rusty old junk of a ship that almost racked herself to
+pieces in the effort to keep her place in the column. The first night
+the _Warren’s_ lookout observed, to his horror, that the tramp was
+showing a stern light that might easily have been seen twenty miles
+away.
+
+“Dim that stern light!” ordered the destroyer’s captain.
+
+“It’s only what we always carry,” was the response.
+
+“Dim it,” was the prompt reply, “or I’ll blow it off you!”
+
+It was dimmed.
+
+The _Warren_ picked up strange guests at times. One bright and blowy
+morning a trampish-looking steamer came close and signalled that she
+was under sealed orders from London and had on board survivors from
+the crew of a British steamer torpedoed at daylight. She asked if
+the _Warren_ would take them aboard. The executive gestured despair,
+but a whaleboat was lowered from the tramp and the survivors of the
+_Castle Something_――no one there ever found out her exact name――were
+tumbled into it. They were a strange looking lot when they reached the
+_Warren’s_ deck. Cingalese, they were, with black skins and straight
+hair matted from hours in the water. Most were clad only in blankets
+and iodine-stained bandages. They were washed and freshly bandaged and
+fed hot coffee and stowed forward, fourteen philosophical Mohammedan
+castaways who expressed neither resentment at Fate nor gratitude for
+rescue. They ate and dozed and jabbered softly amongst themselves and
+were finally put ashore on the west coast of Ireland in a drizzly dusk.
+
+And so life went with the “Suicide Fleet.” In three months of service
+the American flotilla had collectively steamed over five hundred
+thousand miles in British waters, and so far without the loss of a life
+or a serious mishap. Patrolling the sea lanes, convoying merchantmen
+and troop-ships, fighting the submarines, rescuing survivors of
+torpedoed craft: that was their duty and they performed it well. And
+meanwhile they gained by experience, officers and men. They learned new
+things constantly, such as smoke-screening, hardly more than a theory
+with them before, and the use of depth-charges. And gunnery improved
+day by day. The _Warren_ in September had a record of a shattered
+periscope at two thousand yards. That was Number Four gun, and there
+was no living with that crew for days afterwards!
+
+Steve and Joe became first-class seamen in due time, and, to get ahead
+of our story somewhat, in the Autumn Joe received his reward for the
+_Sundsvall_ exploit when he was made a gunner’s mate of the second
+class and blossomed forth proudly in his rating badge of spread eagle,
+crossed guns and two chevrons. Steve was divided between pride in his
+chum and envy of his fortune, and secretly determined to win his petty
+officership too. Whether he did or did not does not belong to this
+narrative. Nor does the way in which he did it!
+
+It was well toward the last of August and on a beautifully warm day
+that the _Warren_, skimming a leisurely path across a shining ocean
+with almost no swell, sighted a speck in the distance. They were some
+three hundred and forty miles off the Irish coast. Steve had just
+finished his turn aloft and was standing near the port torpedo tube
+in conversation with Jack Higgins when the word went down to the
+bridge and was answered by the straining of the steering cables as the
+_Warren_ turned her nose to starboard.
+
+“Wonder what it’ll be this time,” muttered Jack when they could see
+the object from the deck and had made her out a small boat. “Maybe
+Chinese, eh! We haven’t had any Chinese yet. Awfully careless of the
+Old Man, too.”
+
+Twenty minutes later eighteen chattering, half-starved men were helped
+over the side: seamen, firemen, a ship’s steward and two lads in the
+bedraggled uniform of the United States Naval Reserve. Of the latter
+one carried the mark of a gun-pointer and the other of a seaman gunner.
+Steve, watching curiously and sympathetically as the pale-faced throng
+came aboard, suddenly gave a startled exclamation.
+
+“_Phil!_” he gasped.
+
+The lad with the gun-pointer’s insignia on his sleeve turned and looked
+along the deck in the direction of the voice. Then his tired face
+lighted up and a tremulous smile flitted across it as he held up a hand
+in greeting. Steve, scarcely believing his eyes, edged nearer. The
+second Reserve gunner was looking, too, now, and he also grinned and
+formed words with his lips that Steve couldn’t read. Then they were all
+hustled below and Steve set excitedly forth to find Joe. He hadn’t far
+to go, for Joe was one of a group looking on from further aft. Steve
+grabbed him and pulled him around.
+
+“Did you see?” he cried.
+
+“See? See what?”
+
+“See who came aboard!”
+
+“Sure. A dozen and a half hungry――――”
+
+“No, but the fellows in Reserve uniforms! Did you recognise them!”
+
+“Not a bit. Who were they? Say, what’s the big idea, Steve? You look
+all upset.”
+
+“It’s Phil and Harry!” declared Steve in a breath.
+
+“Finnan haddie? _What’s_ Finnan haddie? Say, for the love of――――”
+
+“Oh, dry up and listen! _Phil and Harry_, I said! Phil ... and....”
+
+“Never!”
+
+“Honest!”
+
+“_Get out!_”
+
+“Cross my heart, Joe! What do you know about it, eh?”
+
+“Where are they?” Joe started toward the hatch, but Steve seized him.
+
+“Wait! No use going down now. The Old Man’ll have them, I guess. Wait
+till they’ve had some eats. They saw me. I yelped right out when
+I caught sight of Phil, and the junior luff looked daggers at me.
+Couldn’t help it. Say, honest, doesn’t it beat everything?”
+
+“It sure does! Still, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be here,
+you know. I suppose they got strafed.”
+
+“Do you really? Aren’t you the bright little laddie? What made you
+think that?” Steve was too excited to talk sense. “Just because
+they were in a life-boat a-floating around the ocean you jump at
+the conclusion that they’ve been strafed. Gee, but you’re a regular
+Sherlock W. Holmes, you are, Joe! Think of old Phil and Harry turning
+up like this! I wonder what happened.”
+
+“So do I,” replied Joe resolutely, “and I mean to find out.” And,
+avoiding Steve’s grasp he strode to the hatch, squeezed through and
+tumbled down the ladder. Steve followed on his heels, but it wasn’t
+until a full hour later that the four members of the Adventure Club
+found themselves together in the lee of the stern gun and that Steve
+and Joe heard the story of the sinking of the _Arapahoe_.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII
+
+                           ON BOARD THE 3-U-9
+
+
+Philip Street was a tall, dark complexioned lad of eighteen, rather
+serious looking, but with a pleasant if infrequent smile. His
+companion, Harry Corwin, was of like age, although his rounder,
+good-humoured countenance suggested a disparity in Phil’s favour.
+They had eaten their first meal in nearly sixty hours and showed an
+inclination to go to sleep, and it was only by resolute efforts that
+they kept their eyes open and told their tale. Phil was spokesman, but
+Harry, prodded into wakefulness at intervals by Steve’s elbow, threw
+in occasional interpolations or corrections. Here is the story as they
+told it.
+
+“We’ve been over and back four times,” said Phil. “Twice on the _Lake
+City_, a Huron coal steamer, once on the _North Easton_――――”
+
+“The Huns got her off Belle Isle in July,” interjected Harry. “We never
+had a chance with the gun. One moldie did for us.”
+
+“Then we were assigned to the _Arapahoe_. She was a small affair,
+but mighty seaworthy and a comfortable ship, take her all around.
+We went over and back on her last month, Philadelphia to Plymouth,
+and never saw so much as a periscope. It was rather deadly. This time
+we had copper and steel rails and I heard that the insurance on our
+cargo was something like three hundred thousand dollars, so you can
+see that when the Huns got her they got something worth while. Well,
+we were due in Plymouth tomorrow and were about four hundred miles
+off――forty-eight–thirty north and twelve–twenty west――when the trouble
+began. It was just at sun-up. I was off duty when we got the alarm,
+which was in the shape of a bunch of bursting shrapnel about the top of
+our forward stack. Someone came down yelling ‘Submarine!’ and there was
+a lot of goings-on for about a minute. I piled out in what I had on,
+which wasn’t much, and added a life-preserver. When I got on deck there
+was Harry training the bow gun on every point of the compass and saying
+things that weren’t nice to hear from the lips of innocence.”
+
+“So would you have,” grumbled Harry. “There they were shooting shrapnel
+at us every forty seconds and not a thing in sight!”
+
+“What do you mean, nothing in sight?” demanded Joe.
+
+“True as true, Joey. They were squarely between us and the sun, which
+was just half out of the ocean, do you see, and you couldn’t catch even
+a glimpse of them.”
+
+“But we caught something else,” said Phil grimly. “Never tell me those
+Germans can’t shoot. They hit us somewhere about every puff of their
+gun, a four-inch it proved to be later. We were fairly peppered, and
+there was no come back. We couldn’t see them a little bit. Of course we
+knew where the shots came from and we aimed in a general way at the sun
+and tried various elevations. But you might as well hope to hit a――hit
+a――――”
+
+“Of course you might,” agreed Steve. “Then what?”
+
+“They got Atkins, one of our gun crew, and two of the sailors. And
+they wounded about eight others. They kept it up a good fifteen
+minutes before we saw the folly of staying around there. The captain
+was crazy mad and kept shouting to us to ‘do something’ and swearing
+at us most――ah――reprehensibly.” Harry chuckled. “So we cut away two
+life-boats and abandoned the ship. We didn’t want to, I can tell you.
+In fact, the gun crews pretty nearly mutinied. But, after all, the
+captain was right. You couldn’t do anything as long as that sub stayed
+right square in the eye of the sun, and there wasn’t any use waiting
+for the sun to get out of the way, because they were making about every
+shot a bullseye and by the time the sun had got up out of our way we
+wouldn’t have been there much! So we got off in two boats, thirty-two
+of us in all, leaving three dead aboard. Our boat was the first away
+and the first officer sent us off to lie by out of range. Somebody
+stopped to get the ship’s dog and the second boat was five minutes
+later than we were, I guess. Most everyone of any consequence was in
+her, including the officers and the rest of the two gun crews. Just
+what happened I don’t quite know, for we had pulled a half-mile away,
+but it looked as if a shell came through the hull and went plump into
+that life-boat on the further side. Our engines were banged to bits
+by then and the _Arapahoe_ was drifting side on to the sub. We rowed
+back as quick as we could and picked up two men, a sailor and a stoker.
+That was all that ever showed up, although we laid around two or three
+minutes. The sub was still pegging away, just as though they were
+having target practice. The stoker died about half an hour afterward.
+He’d got a piece of shrapnel in his lung.”
+
+“Were any of the officers in your boat, Phil?” asked Joe.
+
+“Not one. The second mate was supposed to come off with us, but he
+didn’t.”
+
+“Phil was in command of that life-boat,” said Harry, “and you want to
+believe he filled the bill, too.”
+
+“How’d you get your glad rags on?” inquired Steve. “Go back for them?”
+
+“I did,” said Phil. “Harry was dressed and on watch at the time. I
+thought I might as well have something on besides a life-preserver,
+which isn’t very warm. Well, we started off finally and pulled
+eastward, partly to keep out of the way of the sub and partly with the
+notion of making the French coast. We’d rowed about an hour, I suppose,
+and were thanking our lucky stars that we’d got off when suddenly there
+was a commotion and we saw that confounded U-boat coming straight for
+us. She was about three-quarters of a mile away, well out of water and
+doing about sixteen knots. As she came nearer we could see about a
+dozen men on her deck. There wasn’t any use in trying to run away, so
+we took it easy and waited. She proved to be one of the smaller class,
+about two hundred feet over all, but she looked brand new and had
+‘3-U-9’ on her hull. There was a four-inch forward and a four-seven
+aft.”
+
+“Nice guns they were, too,” said Harry sleepily. “Awfully――awfully
+_intelligent_ looking beasties!”
+
+“‘Who is captain?’ shouts a voice on the sub. I called back that the
+captain was not there. The sub ran up close to us and stopped and
+we saw that three of the men on the deck were officers: captain,
+lieutenant and a junior. The rest were seamen and gunners, I guess.
+Smart appearing they were, too. Lots of gold braid on the officers, and
+their uniforms looked as though they’d just been pressed. Maybe they
+had. Anyway, they had about everything you could think of on that sub,
+and if there wasn’t an electrical clothes-presser it isn’t my fault.”
+
+“Did you go aboard her?” asked Steve eagerly.
+
+“Yes. Wait a bit. I’m coming to it in my own peculiar way. Gee, but I
+am sleepy, fellows!” Phil yawned and stretched. “The captain refused
+to believe we weren’t hiding our officers somewhere for awhile, and
+when we’d convinced him he asked who was in charge and someone said I
+was. ‘Stand up,’ he shouted. I stood up. Then he pointed to Harry. ‘You
+stand up, too!’ So Harry stood up.”
+
+“I stood up so quick,” chuckled Harry, “that I almost fell overboard.”
+
+“It’s lucky you understood German and knew what he was saying to you,”
+said Joe.
+
+“German nothing! He spoke as good English as you or I. He told Harry
+and me to come aboard. The rest were to stay in the boat and help get
+salvage from the steamer. We went onto the deck of the sub and four
+or five men and the junior officer got into the life-boat and pulled
+back to the _Arapahoe_. The captain, first lieutenant, Harry and I
+went below, all quite sociable and polite, although I wanted terribly
+to bash that captain in the eye! Down there he asked us a bunch of
+questions. First of all wanted to know our branch of the service.
+Guess the Reserve uniform had him beat. He seemed kind of annoyed when
+he found we weren’t officers, and I was afraid for a minute that he
+would shoot us or something. But he got over it and he and the luff,
+who didn’t talk the lingo, growled at each other in German. Then he
+asked the name of the steamer, what her tonnage was, who owned her and
+when and where she was built. I told him all I knew, which wasn’t so
+much, and blessed if he didn’t check me off in a Lloyd’s register! And
+afterwards, when they brought back the ship’s papers――or some of them,
+anyway――with the first load in the life-boat he checked off again. ‘You
+see,’ he said, sort of grinning, ‘we get a bonus for tonnage over a
+certain amount that we sink, so it pays us to be accurate.’ What do you
+think of that? Aren’t they the――the――――”
+
+“S-sh,” said Harry soothingly. “You’ve said it all twenty times, Phil.
+It always excites you, you know.”
+
+“It surely does! Well, when he said that I couldn’t help asking him
+if he’d had much luck. ‘Oh, several hundred thousand tons so far,’ he
+said, ‘and we’re still on our first month of duty. We take three months
+at a time.’ ‘Huh,’ said Harry, ‘it’s pretty profitable, isn’t it, so
+long as you don’t get caught!’ Well, the captain didn’t like that very
+much and he looked ugly for a minute. He growled something to the luff
+and then they both went topside again, leaving us down there with a
+sailor and a couple of mechanics. I’d noticed right along that the
+sailor was dying to speak and so, as soon as the officers were gone, he
+burst out:
+
+“‘Profitable, eh?’ he said, pulling out a roll of bills. ‘Throw your
+eyes over that, feller. Some roll, eh?’ Well, it was. There must have
+been three or four thousand dollars of all kinds of money in that wad.
+‘Are you German?’ asked Harry. ‘Sure, but I lived in America fourteen
+years. I was an American citizen, too, feller: mate in the coastwise
+trade. When war broke out I beat it home. There’s another feller here
+just like me, good American citizen.’ He grinned and I wanted to punch
+his ugly face for him. I wanted to ask him what sort of an American
+citizen he considered himself, but I thought it was just as well not
+to. I had to kick Harry’s shins to keep him from saying something to
+get us in wrong.”
+
+“I hope some day I’ll come across that chap again,” said Harry,
+wistfully. “Sometime when he hasn’t got his gang with him!”
+
+“So do I,” said Phil. “He couldn’t seem to understand why the United
+States had entered the war and asked us to explain it to him. But
+what was the use? He wouldn’t have understood if we’d drawn him a
+diagram and thrown pictures on the screen! So we said we guessed it
+was principally to lick Germany. That didn’t seem to bother him a bit,
+for he just laughed and winked, and said, ‘Well, I should worry. We’ll
+have the lot of you licked in six months. Isn’t that what you think?’
+I told him I guessed about three years more of it was coming, and he
+looked as though he thought I was crazy. ‘Gee whiz!’ he said. ‘Three
+years! You’re just talking, aren’t you?’ We said no, and he looked a
+bit serious for a minute. Then he shrugged and said: ‘Well, I’ve been
+submarining two years and I’ve had them go down under me, so I guess
+I’ll worry through all right. But this three year business is new stuff
+to me. And I hope you’re wrong. I’m dead sick of it, in spite of the
+good money.’
+
+“‘How did you escape drowning when your submarine went down?’ Harry
+asked him. So he pulled his coat open and showed us a life-belt
+underneath. It was deflated, but he said it only took a minute to blow
+it up, and he made fun of our bulky ones. Then he invited us to have
+a look over the boat and you can bet we were ready to. They had ten
+torpedoes in sight forward, small fourteen-inch ones they were, and
+a bunch of shells big enough to sink the British Navy. And then the
+instruments strewn around the bunks! Everyone seemed to have a passion
+for sextants and chronometers. I suppose they’d swiped them off various
+ships they’d sunk, and Harry guessed they were keeping them on account
+of brass being worth so much in Germany. Anyway, they had about a
+thousand dollars’ worth of truck lying around loose. There were about
+thirty men in the crew, I think, and all looked pretty fit. I asked
+that ‘American citizen’ if submarine work didn’t get on the nerves and
+he said it didn’t. ‘Still,’ he added, ‘only a fool would pick a job
+on a submarine. We can’t help ourselves. We don’t have any say in the
+matter. I don’t mind it much, though.’ He took us all over the boat and
+explained everything beautifully. On the captain’s desk was the chart
+and I said that it didn’t look much different from any other ship’s
+chart.
+
+“‘It isn’t,’ he said, ‘only we take our position every four hours.’ He
+spread it out for us and traced the sub’s course from Kiel into the
+North Sea and down around the Shetlands, past Ireland and into the
+transatlantic lanes. ‘Here’s where we are now,’ he said, pointing, ‘and
+here’s our North Atlantic ocean base.’ And blowed if he didn’t point
+out the very spot, or what he said was the very spot! Maybe he was
+lying. It looked to me about eighty or ninety miles northwest of where
+we were lying then. I told your captain and he made a note of it, but
+he didn’t say whether he took any stock in the yarn or not. The Huns
+are such frightful liars that they’ll have to show me. Anyway, this
+crook said that they have big cargo subs, like the _Deutschland_ that
+came over to see us once, lying at these ocean bases filled with oil
+and ammunition and supplies of all sorts. Every so often, or whenever
+necessary, I suppose, the subs make for a base and a mother boat and
+put off their sick men, give up their loot and take on fresh supplies.
+That’s how they can stay out for three months at a stretch sometimes.”
+
+“Do you believe it?” asked Joe doubtfully.
+
+Phil shook his head. “I believe some of it. I believe that what that
+thug told us was what they did in theory, but I don’t believe that it
+works out in practice.”
+
+“Pipe-dream,” grunted Harry. “I wanted to tell him so. There was a
+bunch of things I wanted to tell that guy. The one thing I’m living for
+now is to run across him some day on some nice quiet street back home.
+If I ever do I hope I’ll have a United States flag with me.”
+
+“What for?” asked Joe.
+
+“So I can stuff it down his throat.”
+
+“Why soil the flag?” inquired Phil gently. “Well, if I don’t finish
+this yarn I’ll go to sleep, fellows. Say, this packet of yours sort of
+rolls, don’t she?”
+
+“Oh, in a sea she does. She’s steady enough today,” replied Steve.
+
+“Is she? You call this steady? My head’s aching from wobbling back and
+forth.”
+
+“I should think you’d call her the _Parker House_ instead of the
+_Warren_,” suggested Harry, with a sort of ask-me-why intonation.
+
+“I get you,” said Steve. “On account of the rolls. Give him a good
+heave, fellows, so the propellers won’t chop him!”
+
+“They made four trips in all,” Phil went on, “and they cleaned the
+_Arapahoe_ to the bone.”
+
+“Five trips,” corrected Harry. “The last time the boat came back she
+was so low in the water that I never thought she’d make the sub!”
+
+“They had the captain’s papers from the safe in his cabin, his
+sextants, chronometers, watch, clothes and, probably, money. They
+even carried off the photographs on the cabin wall. They swiped every
+mattress they could find, and every blanket and sheet and pillow. They
+had all the cooking things and enough brass and copper fittings to sink
+the sub. I suppose they would have taken the cargo if they could have
+stored it anywhere.”
+
+“They took a bag of dog biscuits, too,” said Harry. “I’ll bet they
+didn’t know what they were. Bet you the captain’s munching on ’em this
+minute.”
+
+“Mighty suitable chuck for him, I’d say,” observed Joe.
+
+“You’re dead right. Anyway, I’ve got to hand it to those Huns for
+salvaging. They’ve got a gang of Italian house-wreckers beaten at their
+own game. What I suspect is that when the war’s over and there aren’t
+any more murders to be done they’ll all reform and become burglars
+and safe-breakers! Well, they brought us up on deck again when they’d
+finished their neat little job and I give you my word there wasn’t room
+to set your foot because of the junk they had strewn over it! They told
+us to go back into the life-boat. Just as we were stepping in one of
+our men, a stoker named Hogan, saw a can of beef lying within reach on
+the sub’s deck and made a snatch at it, thinking he could get away with
+it. You see, we had only hard-tack and water in the boat, and that beef
+would have come in handy. But the junior luff saw him and snarled like
+a tiger. He had a hatchet in his hand that he’d been slashing things up
+with on the steamer and he came down on Hogan’s hand with it. That’s
+how Hogan hasn’t any fingers to speak of on that hand now. The hatchet
+wasn’t very sharp, but it did the business.”
+
+“Gee!” muttered Steve.
+
+“We pulled off then and they waved good-bye to us, some of the crew
+did, and Harry got fresh and shook his fist.”
+
+“Yes, and Phil wanted to yard-arm me. He couldn’t do that because we
+had no yards, so he cut me out of my allowance of grub all day, the
+brute!”
+
+“You deserved to be pitched overboard,” said Phil, grimly. “It was a
+fool thing to do, Harry. If they’d seen it and resented it it’s a fair
+bet they’d have put a shell through the boat. Your little kid-trick put
+all our lives in danger, and you got off easy when you missed out on
+two meals.”
+
+“All right. Don’t rub it in. It _was_ a crazy thing to do, but I was so
+blamed mad――――”
+
+“There are times when you can’t afford to be mad,” said Phil. “We rowed
+all that day and all last night. It was pretty cold after sun-down.
+Yesterday afternoon we passed through a regular sea of wreckage:
+empty boats, life-belts, rigging, barrels, tubs――all sorts of stuff.
+I suppose a sub had been having a pleasant strafe thereabouts. Just
+before dark we struck through an oil pool as big as the Polo Grounds.
+I guess they’d got a tanker there not very long ago. Well, that’s our
+yarn. To say that we were slightly tickled when we caught sight of your
+smoke this morning is hardly necessary. But you kept altering your
+course every little while and we were awfully afraid you wouldn’t spot
+us.”
+
+“Did they sink the _Arapahoe_?” asked Steve.
+
+“I guess so. One of the men said they placed time-bombs on her, but I
+can’t say. I know they were still firing at her the last we heard. They
+must have ammunition to burn, those chaps.”
+
+“Well, it’s the strangest thing,” said Joe, “you fellows turning up
+like this out in the middle of the ocean! I couldn’t believe my eyes
+when I caught sight of Phil coming aboard.”
+
+“Lots of queer things are happening these days,” responded Harry
+philosophically. “Nothing surprises me any more. After you’ve woke up
+at four G. M. and found yourself floating out of your bunk in the dark,
+as I did on the old _North Easton_, you――you sort of lose your ability
+to be surprised.”
+
+“Was she torpedoed?” inquired Steve.
+
+“She was. Shut up, Phil. This is my story. You’ve done all the talking
+so far, and now it’s my turn. We were off Belle Isle, on our way to
+Nantes with a cargo of supplies for the Engineers: knocked-down houses
+and steam engines and a lot of truck. It was fine weather all the way,
+and we had only had about six U-boat scares, which was quite peaceful
+in those days. It was July, you know: the fifth, I think. No, the
+sixth, because we’d celebrated the Fourth two days before by knocking
+the tar out of a deck hatch that we took for a submarine. Both Phil
+and I were off duty. It was dark, not pitch dark, you know, but that
+sort of――seven-eighths dark that is worse to see in. There wasn’t
+any warning at all, we heard afterwards. The first thing anyone knew
+there was a muffled sound alongside, a spout of water went up above
+the deck and that was all. Then the pesky thing went off inside us and
+_that_ was some noise. She got us square in the engines and there was
+a fine exhibition of escaping steam and water. I did the deck in one
+and four-fifths seconds, closely pursued by Phil and a couple of dozen
+others. The old hooker was already going down, stern first, and as
+there wasn’t a boat where there should have been one――the torpedo stove
+in three at once――we took headers into the water. My life-belt got down
+around my legs and I nearly drowned before I could pull it off and put
+it where it belonged. A lot of us swam around and watched the ship sink
+and waited to be picked up by the other transport. There were two of
+us and two destroyers. It was one of the destroyers who fished us out,
+because the transports have orders to mind their own business and beat
+it for safety.
+
+“Finally I got into a boat that was bobbing around about half-full
+and we all watched the old ship plunge. One thrilling thing was
+the exhibition of climbing and diving given by Neilsen, one of our
+lookouts. Neilsen was in the foremast cross-trees when the moldie
+struck and there wasn’t time to climb down. So as the ship sank and
+the bow came up higher and higher Neilsen kept on climbing. Finally
+the ship was standing almost straight up, about two-thirds submerged,
+and that foremast was almost parallel with the surface. And there
+was Neilsen, as cool as you like, perched on the mast with one hand
+steadying himself on a rope. Just as the water poured into the
+smokestacks Neilsen gathered himself together and made as pretty a high
+dive as I ever saw. He had to get distance, too, you see, to keep from
+being dragged under, and he did it. Swear to goodness, fellows, he made
+thirty yards straight out and struck the water head-first at a mile a
+minute! We got him when he came up and pulled him out.”
+
+“And what were you doing, Phil?” Joe asked.
+
+“Just swimming around,” said Phil, smiling reminiscently. “The water
+wasn’t bad. I went over on the other side from Harry and swam so far
+off to keep from being drawn under with the ship that I had about
+given up hope of being found when someone ran a boat-hook through the
+shoulder of my best pair of pajamas and pulled me into a whaleboat.”
+
+“The silly idiot was almost drowned when they got him,” said Harry.
+“Fact is, I thought he had been. I went all over the destroyer looking
+for him and couldn’t find him anywhere. They’d dumped him down on deck,
+thinking he was all right, and I found him rolling around and trying to
+butt a torpedo tube overboard and oozing salt water.”
+
+“Did they find the U-boat?” asked Steve.
+
+“Never even saw it. Did a lot of firing and dropped some depth bombs,
+but there was nothing doing. They landed us in Nantes the next day――or
+that day, it was――at noon.”
+
+“Well,” said Joe, “I don’t see but what you fellows have seen a bit of
+life since you joined up.”
+
+“Why, yes, that’s so, Joey. And we expect to see more before we’re
+through, don’t we, Phil? Hello, the beggar’s sound asleep! And I’m
+going to be in a minute.”
+
+“Come down and pile into my bunk,” said Steve. “We’ll wake Phil and put
+him into Joe’s. Come on, Phil! Wake up! Moldie just blew the lid off
+the coffee-pot and the galley’s awash!”
+
+“Set your sights,” muttered Phil. “Seven thousand five hundred
+yards.... Knots fifty-two....”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXIV
+
+                        THE WARREN DROPS ANCHOR
+
+
+The _Warren_ had two days more of sea duty to perform, but special
+orders were caught by the radio “sharks” that afternoon and the
+destroyer swung quickly about and stopped loafing. Just at twilight
+a blinker far off to the southeast said things and an hour later a
+second blinker twinkled further to the south. When morning came the
+_Warren_ was bucking along through a heavy sea in company with two
+Limie destroyers, black, funereal looking sleuths with their funnels
+set at queer intervals along the wet decks as though the builder had
+been undecided until the final moment and had then stuck them up
+haphazard. High, stiff bows they had, too, those Britishers, but they
+looked their parts most convincingly. All day the trio pegged eastward
+to some far mid-ocean rendezvous, with only one incident to disturb the
+settled monotony of standard speed and cards in the tiny room far up
+in the nose. That was when a two-stack sloop, once somebody’s pet and
+treasure but now a blackened, grimy, dishevelled but still lady-like
+U-boat chaser, came close and signalled, and then, with, somehow, the
+determined air of a school girl bent on caramels, streaked off westward
+just full of business.
+
+Two decks down, in that tiny forward compartment, they played coon-can
+to the strains of “Spud” Doolan’s harmonica, while Browny gave an
+imitation of Pavlowa on the cocoa matting of Number Two gun. And they
+sang songs that were new on Broadway four months back and that were
+by now probably forgotten. And they sang newer ballads, too, things
+evolved in the forecastle to the slap of water and the wail of wind and
+the hum of Diesels:
+
+    “I want to go back, I want to go back,
+       Back where the wind don’t blow,
+     Where the waves don’t leap and a gob can sleep
+       All night till the roosters crow.
+     I want to go back! Oh, _sure_, go back!
+       I’m tired of eating foam.
+     Chasing Huns may be fun, but I’m done, kid, done!
+       And I want to go back, back home!”
+
+Or:
+
+    “We joined the Limie gobs, we did,
+       To battle with the Hun,
+     And still we’re waiting patiently
+       A Fritz who will not run!”
+
+Or, echo of the Spanish War, this:
+
+    “Oh, it’s home, boys, home, and it’s home I want to be,
+       Home once again in my own countree,
+     Where the ash and the oak and the bonny willow tree
+       They all grow together back in North Amerikee!”
+
+But it wasn’t all fun and frolic in that forward cubby hole, for there
+was lookout work and a dozen other jobs calling at intervals, and there
+were letters to write, too, for if one doesn’t write one is likely not
+to receive, and, when all is said and done, it’s the little wrinkled
+envelope with the indistinct American post-mark on it that brings the
+biggest smile to the gob’s face.
+
+Steve did his hour in the foretop and climbed down at four, chilled and
+stiff, and sought Phil and Harry who had found bunks and hospitality
+with the port mess. But before he had located them a hurrying Q.M.
+passed the word that the transports had been sighted and Steve hustled
+on deck again. They didn’t reach the ships until sunset and it was
+almost dark when the commanders had finished talking things over and
+the destroyers were in position. The convoy consisted this time of but
+two troop-ships, but they were bigger than any Steve had seen so far
+and their decks were massed with troops.
+
+“Them’s the boys can fight,” said a voice at his elbow as they raced
+under the bow of one of the monsters. Steve looked a question, and
+Hearn said briefly:
+
+“Canadians.” Then he added, with a chuckle: “They say the Kaiser looks
+under his bed every night since the Canucks butted in.”
+
+The _Warren_ turned to her place to the sound of the cheering from the
+transports and the start was made. That evening they guessed Bordeaux
+and Brest and Nantes, but in the morning the bulletin told them
+Plymouth. The usual haze hid the ships half the time and made lookout
+work maddeningly uncertain, and to add to the pleasure of the occasion
+a warning came of a U-boat in their path a hundred miles ahead. That
+meant a change of course, although the destroyers, could they have had
+their way, would not have altered their wheels an inch.
+
+It was mid-afternoon of the next day when Livingstone, a snub-nosed
+youth whose round cheeks still held the freckles of the hayfield back
+in Vermont, sighted “something.” That’s what he reported it, for he
+had never reported anything before except smoke and he couldn’t lay
+his tongue to any word that seemed to fit it. But what it was was the
+last two feet of a submerging submarine away off to the east, and the
+_Warren_, signalling to the others, picked up her skirts and lit out
+with boilers roaring.
+
+It was only the ghost of a chance that she had, for it was a thousand
+to one against that U-boat showing her periscope again unless she had
+other U-boats with her. But for once a Fritz didn’t run, or, at least,
+not until too late. A mile from her convoys the _Warren_ again saw her.
+This time it was only an innocent looking steel tube that broke the
+sunlit water, but it was enough. Quarters had been sounded long ago,
+and, as luck would have it, that periscope had been seen the instant it
+popped its head out, so that the forward gun crew had a good seventeen
+seconds to sight and fire. And the first three-inch sped true to its
+mark and away went that periscope at something over six hundred
+yards!
+
+Having found the range made the rest easier, for Number Two gun
+elevated her muzzle and dropped a shell squarely on top of the
+submerged craft, and Number Four gun followed with a second and the
+U-boat came gently to the surface and men piled up through the hatch
+and opened fire with the deck guns. They managed to put a shell through
+the _Warren’s_ second stack before Number Two put the submarine’s bow
+gun out of action and cleared away more than half the crew on her deck.
+That ended the affair, for an officer sprang to the deck with a white
+flag and held it fluttering from outstretched arms, and the _Warren_
+went mad with joy!
+
+[Illustration: An officer sprang to the deck with a white flag and held
+it fluttering from outstretched arms]
+
+Behind, the first of the Limie destroyers was ploughing up, but she
+was too late for anything but the cheering. She stopped, panting like
+an exhausted runner, set signals, was answered, and swinging off again
+went back to her duty, a trifle envious it is to be supposed.
+
+The _Warren’s_ hope of capturing the U-boat was short-lived, for by the
+time the last of the crew had reached the deck she was settling fast.
+As quickly as possible the Germans were taken off to the destroyer
+and then Lieutenant Lyke and four men pulled across and examined her.
+Their report was discouraging and the _Warren_ chugged back, dropped
+a depth-charge gingerly into the sea and fled for safety. There was a
+geyser-like upheaval of water and the U-boat lifted her stern and went
+down like a turtle slipping from a log. And in the moment that she
+stood up-ended Steve and Harry, standing side by side on the _Warren’s_
+after deck, read the inscription painted there:
+
+“_3-U-9_”!
+
+“_Got him!_” cried Harry, and sprang away to find Phil.
+
+Later they talked it over below, hearkened to by a circle of interested
+shipmates. They had seen the officers and recognised them beyond the
+shadow of a doubt, if the evidence of that “_3-U-9_” was not enough,
+and Harry had even had speech with that “American citizen” who had
+entertained them so affably aboard the submarine. What he had said to
+the German he would not relate, however.
+
+“It was enough,” he growled, scowling fiercely.
+
+But Phil laughed softly, and, in response to Harry’s frowning regard,
+said: “’Fess up, Harry. You took pity on him and offered him a ‘fag.’
+Now didn’t you?”
+
+“I did not,” replied Harry with emphasis, but the disavowal somehow
+didn’t sound awfully convincing.
+
+“Well, they got theirs,” said Phil, with intense satisfaction. “And I
+hope they’ll hang every mother’s son of them. But they won’t,” he added
+dejectedly. “They’ll just put them in a nice comfortable internment
+camp; the officers, I mean. The rest will have to work, and I hope that
+‘American citizen’ has to break stones for the duration of the war!”
+
+They were a proud lot aboard the _Warren_ all the way in to Plymouth.
+It is much to sink a German U-boat, but it is infinitely more to
+bring off her officers and crew first. It is done so seldom, in fact,
+that there are no prescribed rules for behaviour, and the crew of the
+triumphant _Warren_ debated long and seriously how best to celebrate
+the feat on arrival at port.
+
+The news had, of course, preceded them and that morning when they
+passed Rame Head and entered Plymouth Sound they found their path
+strewn with congratulations. Hooters and sirens greeted them and all
+the way to anchorage they were kept busy replying to messages.
+
+“If,” sighed Joe, “we could only have brought the sub in in tow!”
+
+“Yes,” Phil agreed, “that would have been great, but you’re a lot of
+unspeakable heroes already, and if you’d done that there’d have been no
+living with you. Say, look yonder. Isn’t that one of our cruisers?”
+
+“Yes, I think so. What’s the name? Can you make it out?”
+
+“N-no. It looks like Car――Car――something. There’s a T, I think――――”
+
+“It’s the _Carthage_!” cried Joe. “And Han’s on her! That’s great,
+isn’t it? Phil, this is going to be some reunion of the Adventure Club!
+You and I and Steve and Harry and now Han. Five out of the thirteen of
+us! Let’s tell Steve.”
+
+“All right. But wait a minute, Joe. I’ve been thinking. Do you suppose
+Harry and I could get into this? Into the destroyer service, I mean.”
+
+“By Jove! I wish you could! And――and I believe you can! Phil, do you
+know what I think? Well, I think that, now that we fellows have got
+together, the old Kaiser hasn’t the ghost of a show!”
+
+“He never had,” answered Phil quietly.
+
+With a deafening rattle of chains the _Warren_, momentary hero of the
+“Suicide Fleet,” dropped anchor in the blue waters of Plymouth Harbour.
+
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+ Transcriber’s Notes:
+
+ ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
+
+ ――Printer’s, punctuation, and spelling inaccuracies were silently
+   corrected.
+
+ ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
+
+ ――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78754 ***