“Yes, it’s – ”
“Sh-h-h!” Dave suddenly stiffened, bringing his glasses quickly to his eyes. “Bow watch there, did you hail?” he demanded in a low, sharp voice.
“Aye, aye, sir,” came the prompt reply, also pitched in a low tone, though full of repressed excitement.
Whatever wind there had been in the cloud Dave had observed to the northeast, had passed. Only the gentlest of breezes blew, though the sky remained overcast, giving an almost ink-black night – a night for dark deeds.
So long did the “Logan” drift that probably every wakeful soul on board felt irritated by the monotony. Suddenly Dave stiffened, bringing his glass quickly to his eyes.
“Sounds and looks like a craft two points off starboard and about half a mile away, sir,” reported the bow watch.
“Aye,” Dave responded. “I see it. Mr. Curtin, pass the word for all hands to quarters.”
Silently officers and men were soon streaming over the decks, on their way to their various stations. Curtin stood with one hand on the engine-room telegraph, awaiting the order for headway.
The three-inch guns were loaded, and also the one-pounders and the machine guns. Two men stood by the darkened searchlight.
“Searchlight men!” Dave called, in a low voice. “You know where we’re looking?”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Stand by to put a beam squarely across its conning tower if it proves to be a submarine.”
Again Dave took a long, careful, steady look through his night glass. Secretly he was a-quiver with excitement; outwardly he was wholly calm.
“Throw the beam!” called Dave sharply, a few seconds later. “Gun-crews in line with the enemy, stand by!”
A broad band of light from the searchlight played into the sky, then descended. As the beam reached the water it revealed the tower and deck of a large submarine rolling awash a little more than half a mile away. A muffled cheer rose from some of the members of the watch. The men at the guns were too much occupied to open their mouths.
“Silence in the watch!” Dave commanded, sternly. “Mr. Curtin, half-speed ahead. Bear straight down on the enemy! Ram him if possible! Ram him at all hazards if he is submerging when we reach him,” commanded Lieutenant Commander Darrin.
“Aye, aye,” answered the quartermaster at the wheel.
Like a bloodhound the “Logan” sprang forward.
“Bow guns fire!”
Boom! roared one sharp-tongued three-inch gun. Bang! sounded a one-pounder. The larger shell threw up a column of spray beyond the submarine; the small shell struck the water on the nearer side.
“Full speed ahead, Mr. Curtin. Hold her steady there, quartermaster!”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The “Logan” was soon racing at more than thirty knots an hour, her nose burrowing into the sea, throwing up great volumes of water.
The enemy submarine had plainly been taken utterly by surprise by the first flash of the “Logan’s” searchlight, for the warning sound that had come across the water had been caused by an oil-burning engine that was supplying power for the recharging of the submarine’s storage batteries.
Such a craft, however, hated and at all times hunted, carries crews trained to swift work. Soon after the “Logan’s” second three-inch gun had fired without registering a hit, a five-inch gun of the submarine was brought into action. Overhead whizzed a shell that just missed the “Logan’s” wireless aerials. A second shot, aimed at the destroyer’s water line, passed hardly more than four feet to starboard.
“Get him!” roared Dave Darrin. “Gunners have their wits about ’em!”
Dan Dalzell took the door curtains with him as he leaped out and ran for the bridge.
The submarine had swung around, and at the same time brought her after gun into action. The submarine swung again bow on. There was no time to dive. She was caught and must fight.
“Torpedo coming, sir!” reported the bow watch, but Darrin had already caught sight, under the searchlight’s glare, of a trail of foam heading straight for the destroyer.
Quick as was the helmsman’s obedience of orders, the “Logan” escaped the torpedo by little more than a hair’s breadth as it rushed on past. Then came a second torpedo. The “Logan,” still driving bow on, save for swerves to avoid torpedoes, escaped the second one by what appeared to breathless watchers to be an even closer margin.
Lieutenant Beatty had taken personal charge of sighting one of the forward guns. He now let fly a shell that tore part of the top of the enemy’s conning tower away.
“That settles him for diving!” cried Darrin, tensely. “Land a shell in the hull and force him to take the dive he doesn’t want!”
Onward came a third rushing torpedo. As the “Logan” swerved to avoid it, a shell from the submarine’s after gun struck and tore away a one-pounder aft on the destroyer, fragments stretching two men on the deck, seriously but not fatally injured. An instant later a shell aimed at the destroyer’s water line forward pierced the hull just below the gun-deck. A fair hit at the water line would have put the “Logan” in a sinking condition, but, owing to the oblique position of the target, the shell, as it struck, glanced off.
“Great work, Mr. Beatty!” shouted Dave hoarsely, as another three-inch shell struck the enemy, this time at the waterline. “Mr. Curtin, half speed ahead!”
As the destroyer began to lose headway and slowly circle the undersea boat, the “Logan’s” crew cheered, this time without rebuke from the bridge. The submarine craft was rapidly filling and sinking.
At a safe distance Darrin watched, for he was humane enough to wish to rescue the German survivors, should there be any. So swift was the sinking of the enemy, however, that there was no time for them to launch and man the collapsible lifeboat that they undoubtedly carried.
Then the seas closed over the hated craft. A few moments later Lieutenant-Commander Darrin gave the order to steam forward slowly, the watch standing by to discover and heave lines to any swimmers there might be afloat. Not a head was seen, however. Three men at the after gun had been observed to jump before the submarine went down, but no trace of them could now be found.
“We’ll never know how many hundreds of decent lives the work of the last minute has saved,” declared Dalzell hoarsely as he reported on the bridge.
“Find out as promptly as possible what damage we have suffered,” Dave ordered. “We were struck several times.”
As Dan saluted and hurried away, Darrin picked up his night glass and once more resumed his scanning of the sea. Lieutenant Curtin had already received orders that the destroyer was to cruise slowly back and forth over and around the spot where the submarine had gone down.
“It seems almost wasted sympathy to try to pick up enemy survivors,” muttered Mr. Curtin rather savagely.
“But it’s humanity just the same,” Darrin returned. “And Americans must practise it.”
“Of course, sir.”
Dalzell, who had summoned the aid of other officers and some of the warrant officers, soon returned.
“Two breaches, one just above water line, and the other below it, sir,” was Dan’s beginning of the report. “I wasn’t aware that a torpedo touched us. If it did, it made a dent, but glanced off without the explosion that a direct hit would have produced. That may account for the dent below the water line. But a shell hit us above water line. Is it possible that a large fragment glanced low enough to make the dent under water? It doesn’t seem possible.”
“Not likely,” smiled Darrin.
“The