His roving eye caught a disturbance in the water on the port bow, perhaps a mile off. He paused, whipped up his glasses and looked again.
Yes. It was coming. A black mass boiled up through the waves; a hatch flew back; half a dozen men popped out on the dripping hull. Clouds of smoke billowed out along her stern; she was heading to cut him off. He saw the muzzle of a gun elevate, flash. A shell screamed by his bow.
Erickson picked up the telephone, slipped the receivers over his ears, pushed his transmitter button.
“Hello, L-20.”
“Knowles speaking.”
“Stand by for the show. A U-boat’s firing at us off our port bow! I’ll keep you posted.” He released his button.
Toni’s heart pounded. At last! He looked in his periscope. The eye piece was just above the surface. No use to take chances. He lowered the periscope a yard.
In a voice which he tried to keep low, but which all the same throbbed with excitement, he called out:
“Stand by, boys! A U-boat’s shelling the Galway!”
The effect was electric. All over the room men straightened up, gripped their controls, gazed eagerly toward him. Discomfort, jolting, the maddening roar of the wake beating their sides — all were instantly forgotten.
The enemy was in sight!
On the Galway, excited men scurried everywhere. Mr. Mate and his assistants forgot the frozen wildcat, ran to the side, took one look to port, and vanished hastily from the forecastle. Seamen rushed aft, joined the solitary man at the gun on the poop.
Another shell whistled down on the Galway, crashed through the plating of the fore hold and burst inside with a muffled roar. The battened down hatch cover swelled up like a balloon, ripped wide apart. Smoke started to curl up through the cargo hatch, to envelop the bridge.
Erickson watched with a wry face. Not so good. He crouched behind the bulkhead and whispered into his phone:
“Sub there! We’re turning to starboard. Watch yourself!” Then he called to his own helmsman:
“Hard aport!”
On his poop, the six-pounder, hastily cast loose and provided, was swinging in a wide arc as the ship turned, with Mr. Mate’s bowler hanging over it conspicuously as he sought to steady the sights on his target. The six-pounder flashed, a shell shrieked down their wake, burst nearly a quarter of a mile wide of the U-boat racing up on their port quarter. Erickson laughed out loud. Mr. Mate, as a heavy gun pointer, had for two years running been the main reason for the Texas’ winning the Gunnery Trophy!
They were straightening away now. The mate looked aft over his rail. Vaguely through the clearer water inside their wake, he could make out the outline of the L-20 close astern, heeled considerably as it dragged around, following their turn but on a smaller radius.
The six-pounder gun crew strove frantically to reload, but apparently a panic had them. The shellman dropped his cartridge; it bounced once on the deck and fell overboard.
A shell from the U-boat screamed across their poop, dropped into the water on their starboard side and burst close aboard. From their pursuer’s bridge it must look like a hit.
Erickson decided to wait no longer. Crouching low, he leaped for a hidden valve lever under his chart board, jerked it open. Instantly a cloud of steam, released from invisible pipes, poured up around the smokestack, the engines stopped, and the Galway came slowly to rest, her power gone. To the U-boat’s gun crew, it was plain that they had landed a shell in her boilers. They ceased firing.
The panic on the Galway was now complete. The crew of the six-pounder abandoned their gun and fled disgracefully for the boats, leaving Mr. Mate shaking his fists at them and unsuccessfully endeavouring to load the gun again himself. Finally he gave up and with a last shake of his fist at the distant U-boat, climbed down the poop and disappeared, leaving the abandoned gun pointing uselessly toward the sky.
On the midship island superstructure, a knot of seamen were struggling to lower the boats, not wholly in pantomime, for the U-boat might reopen fire at any second.
On the bridge, Erickson dropped to the deck, tossed his cap to the navigator, who, after donning it and peering wildly over the port bridge rail to make sure his identity registered, hastily rushed down the ladder to the superstructure, followed by the helmsman, leaving the ship drifting helplessly, but still with a little headway on.
Crouched on the deck, invisible behind the bridge railing, Erickson watched anxiously through a slit. The sub was closer now, he could read her number, the U-19. In despair, he watched her gun crew disappear below, her decks settle. Would she submerge, satisfied she had finished them? No, she was only going awash.
With nothing but her conning tower showing, a very poor target for gunfire, the U-19 steamed slowly past his port side, over a thousand yards off, with her skipper watching the Galway carefully through his glasses. He was well versed in mystery ship tactics. The U-19 was taking no chances.
Erickson glanced aft. Stokers were pouring up from his hold, joining in the confusion round the boats. That scene was going beautifully, the men had been well rehearsed, certainly their acting could stand anybody’s scrutiny.
The first boat landed in the water with a splash, started to pull forward. The second boat was swung out of its chocks, pushed outboard, lowered even with the rail. It started to fill rapidly with excited men.
Erickson crawled to a special voice tube and called into it:
“Ready aft, Mr. Mate?”
Mr. Mate, crouching in the poop, two decks down, alongside a pelican hook threaded through the towing shackle, gripped his sledge firmly and growled out:
“All set, captain; whenever you give the word!”
Erickson lifted his transmitter, closed the contacts. Knowles answered instantly.
“Stand by, Knowles. I’ll let you go in a minute now. The sub’s the U-19. She’s awash, headed down our port side, half a mile off. I think we got him fooled, but he’s gun-shy and he’s not showing his hull. Afraid we’ve got some masked guns waiting for him, maybe. He’s heading for our bow now, still awash. He’ll probably break surface and commence shelling us again as soon as he gets well forward on our bow, so if we turn out to be a mystery ship, our guns won’t bear on him.” Erickson ceased speaking, looked out again through the slit.
The U-boat, well forward of his beam now, had changed course slightly and was heading for a point off his bow. His second boat was halfway down the side, lowering clumsily. The falls slipped, it dropped the last four feet and hit the water with a tremendous smack. Erickson smiled contentedly, his part had gone off perfectly. Now for the L-20’s.
He picked up his phone, pressed the button for the last time.
“Hello, Knowles? Yes, he’s now on our port bow, still awash. Are you ready? Good luck, old man!” He leaned over the voice tube, called out fiercely, into both voice tube and transmitter:
“Let go!”
Mr. Mate’s sledge swung on the pelican hook; it flew apart, the shackle surged down the hawse pipe, vanished. Swiftly then he yanked out the jack on the L-20’s end of the telephone cable, watched it jerk aloft and disappear over the rail. With a sigh of satisfaction, Mr. Mate crawled to the side, and peered out an oval hole cut just above the deck, painted outside to look like a scupper. There was his bowler, adorning the head of the coxswain of the first boat; he caught a glimpse of the captain’s gold-braided cap, perched rakishly on the man steering the other boat. The captain’s violent profanity, as he cursed luridly the awkward landlubbers who were continually catching crabs as they struggled away from the side of the deserted ship, could certainly be easily heard on the bridge of the U-19, a quarter of a mile away.
Mr. Mate hitched his legs farther aft along the deck, sprawled out low, and, squinting as far forward as he could, tried to get a better view of the sea on his port bow.
“This is sure fierce,” he grunted, “after me waitin’ more’n a week fer the curtain to go up. I’ll have to get me a better seat ’n this fer the next show.”
>
CHAPTER XXII
Tom heard a loud click in his ears as the telephone connection parted. He tossed aside the useless headset.
“Watch your depth now, we’re free,” he breathed fiercely over his left shoulder to the men at the diving wheels, then, turning to Ingram, ordered sharply:
“One third astern, both motors!” and leaning over the voice tube, shouted into it:
“All clear forward! Heave in that towline!”
An unnatural quiet pervaded the boat. The roar from the churning propeller of the Galway was gone; to the deafened ears of the L-20’s crew, the boat seemed silent as a tomb.
Through the stillness came the groaning of the capstan from forward, sharply contrasting with the low hum from aft as the main motors spun slowly round, and the submarine moved gently astern.
Tom gripped the periscope handles and pressed the hoisting button. The eye piece rose till it just cleared the waves sweeping by; he stopped it there, peered out.
Looming right ahead in his field was the Galway, her forecastle burning fiercely, steam pouring from her uptakes amidships. The sea was choppy, spray washed his outer lens, interrupted his view. Hurriedly he swung the periscope to port, searching. And there, all unsuspecting, was the U-19, or, at least, her conning tower, leisurely moving toward the Galway's bow!
He swung back to the Galway. His boat was sufficiently clear now, at least a hundred yards astern, but he dared not go ahead with that towline still dangling down his bow, likely to foul in the torpedo tube shutters.
The groaning of the capstan ceased. Biff’s voice swelled from the tube at his ear.
“Towline all secured, sir.”
Tom glanced at the depth gauge. 30 feet. Good.
“One-third ahead, starboard!” Ingram, his new electrician, swung his forward controller, the starboard motor came to rest, started again in the opposite direction. The L-20 quivered, came to a pause, pivoted on her tail and then swung slowly to port. The Galway’s stern drifted off the right in the periscope field.
“Dead slow ahead, both motors!”
“Dead slow ahead, both motors, sir!” echoed Ingram. He shifted his control wheels to the lowest ahead notch. The L-20 stopped swinging and moved slowly ahead. The diving wheels spun round, hurriedly adjusting the planes to suit their forward motion.
Knowles glued his eye to the periscope. After each wave, the U-19 flashed into view, moving more slowly now. But still awash. Would she come up? That would give him more chance for a second shot if his first one missed.
“Five degrees left rudder!” He must keep clear enough of the Galway to manoeuvre if he had to. The freighter’s stern was too close aboard his starboard side for comfort now.
“Five left, sir!” repeated the helmsman.
Tom leaned over the voice tube.
“Torpedo room! Stand by, starboard upper tube!” Another glimpse through the periscope. The U-19 was still awash, five hundred yards away, a little beyond the Galway’s bow, and, without doubt now, going to cross over to the starboard side to examine her victim all around before she broke surface again. That was not so good. Hard to say what might happen in the manoeuvring necessary to follow the U-19 round the Galway. “Steady on your course!”
The wheel moved a little, stopped.
“Steady, sir!”
The U-19 wasn’t such a bad target now, crossing his bow, broadside on, conning tower out, part of her gun showing. Tom clamped his periscope pointing dead ahead; the muzzle of that gun was just touching the crosswire. His fingers gripped the firing trigger. The pedestal of the U-19’s gun came on the vertical wire. He squeezed his fist.
CHAPTER XXIII
In a wide slick of oil the two boats from the Galway cruised slowly back and forth, searching. The L-20, on the surface, with practically her entire crew lining the rail, lay abeam the silent tramp, watching the oil bursting through the surface in large globules, spreading swiftly out. A stiff breeze whipped by; nevertheless, for half a mile to leeward of the Galway, not a white cap showed, and the flattened waves undulated gently beneath an oily blanket.
Several times a mass of air bubbles roiled the spot, then died away. “Another compartment crushed,” muttered Tom. The water was a mile deep there; there’d be nothing left intact when the broken halves of the U-19 finally stopped sinking.
A hatless figure on the Galway’s bridge, cupping his hands, megaphoned through them:
“In the boats, there! No use searching any more. Come alongside! We’re on fire ourselves!”
Erickson was right. There were no survivors. The captain of the U-19, blown overboard as his ship broke under him, had landed in the water; but long before the nearest boat could get there, without swimming a stroke, he had disappeared beneath the spreading oil. Stunned certainly, perhaps killed, by the explosion. His heavy winter clothes quickly pulled him under.
Very seamanlike now, in startling contrast to their previous exhibition, the boat crews lay back on their oars; with long swinging strokes the lifeboats rapidly neared the side of their burning vessel. Mr. Mate appeared from aft, flung over a Jacob’s ladder, and both boats and their crews were soon back on the Galway. There was work enough for them there; before long, the whole ship’s company, except the black gang, were manning the fire hoses and pouring water on the burning timber in the fore hold. It took two hours’ struggle in the smoke and darkness of the closely packed cargo space, before the blazing pit props finally quit smouldering and it was safe to cut off the water. By that time, the Galway was very noticeably down by the head, and it was a much blackened and blear-eyed Mr. Mate who, after finally mustering the crew, reported to the master that there had been no personnel casualties.
Once more the L-20 was lying awash under the Galway’s counter. In the tiny radio booth, Lieutenant Knowles looked over Cobb’s shoulder at his radio log. It was brief enough:
“From Galway to C. in C., Queenstown. 11:27. Submarine just sighted. Latitude 500 10' N, Longitude 11° 33' W.”
“11:32 Galway being shelled by U-19. Ship on fire forward.”
“11:37 Panic party abandoning ship. L-20 cast loose.”
“11:42 L-20 has just sunk enemy submarine.”
“1:38. Fire on Galway extinguished. No survivors from U-19. What are your orders?”
“That’s the last one, captain. It just went out.”
A buzzing started in Cobb’s receivers. He seized his pencil, started to write the designating letters, the time. Tom watched the message flowing from the pencil point — “1:47. From C. in C., Queenstown, to Galway and L-20. Very well done. Please return to Queenstown.”
CHAPTER XXIV
Three months had gone by; May, 1918, had come. From behind the Hindenburg Line, the German army was erupting, driving forward in the last spring push that was to batter through to Paris and victory. On the ocean, cattle boats, tramps, passenger ships — great ocean liners and little coasters alike, everything which would float and into which the shipyards could jam bunks — all these, crowded with the hordes of the new American army, were moving in vast convoys, hurrying to disgorge in France the reinforcements for the torn and shattered remnants of the British and French divisions reeling, breaking, before the savage German onslaught.
In the German press, in the Austrian newspapers, violent criticisms were bursting out at the harassed German admiralty. Why must the German troops and their brave allies face these fresh millions, this new swarm of enemies? Flesh and blood could not hold out forever. What was the matter with their U-boats, that they were not sinking the transports, drowning these overseas enemies long before German troops, breaking through the wire, had to meet their bayonets in the bloody trenches on the Western Front?
But in Zeebrugge, in Ostend, at Kiel, in Bremerhaven, gloom and terror reigned in the U-boat bases. No one knew better than the captains of the U-boats, how foolhardy and useless it was to attempt attacks on the troop convoys, composed of faster ships, guarded with far more destroyers even than the freighter fleet
s, carefully routed through to clear all known spots where submarines might be working. No, they could not successfully attack the troop-ships; it was useless to try. Their brothers in the army must fight it out on land as best they might. Let Admiral von Capelle and his spokesmen in the Reichstag quiet the home press if they could; that did not concern the U-boat crews.
But what was concerning them was the strange series of disasters that had overtaken their shipmates in the last twelve weeks — after they reached their hunting grounds.
Everyone knew it was getting more and more difficult to pass from base to sea; the mine barrier across the Straits of Dover seemed effective at last; British and American mine-layers were working now across from Pentland Firth in the Orkneys to Udsire Light off the coast of Norway, sowing the outlet from the North Sea with mines. And who could imagine a worse horror than swimming through the mine field, locked tightly in a U-boat, seeing nothing, hearing nothing; expecting, fearing each instant to be rent asunder? Some boats had vanished there; the passage to the seas of Ireland was becoming hazardous. U-boats, loaded with torpedoes, with mines of their own, provisioned, fuelled, crews rested from two weeks in port, had sailed from their bases; experienced captains, good disciplined seamen, they had reported their arrivals near the mine barriers, their submergence for the passage to the open seas beyond.
Some boats had reported no further. Gone. Crumpled wrecks in the Straits or off the Orkneys. Yet most got through safely, continued their careers of destruction. While the strain of facing that passage through the mine fields was beginning to tell on the seamen of Germany’s underwater fleet, at least it could be stood. The passage, at the worst, took perhaps three hours; after that a boat was through and safe, the dreaded hidden mines left far behind; their work for the Fatherland ahead of them with the enemy’s helpless freighters waiting to be sunk, the precious supplies crowding their holds — without which the swelling armies in Flanders could not long live and fight — destined never to reach shore.
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