THE LURKING PERIL
The shipping of the men had been carried through so smoothly and
swiftly, and everything had moved with such clockwork precision, that
before the sun fairly rose the giant steamer was out of sight of land.
And any spy who might have been lurking at any point on the coast would
have had his trouble for his pains.
The night had been a broken one, but the army boys were so excited that
no one cared for the loss of sleep. Here at last was action. Now they
were fairly launched on the great adventure. Every mile that the great
ship traversed was bringing them nearer to the scene of actual
fighting, the roar of the cannon, the shriek of shells, the hand to
hand conflict with the enemy.
"It must make the Huns sore," laughed Frank, "to think that one of
their own great ships is carrying us over the ocean to fight the men
who built it."
"Sort of poetic justice, eh?" grinned Billy Waldon.
"They felt they had the goods on us when they smashed the machinery,"
said Bart. "They figured it would take at least a year before we could
get the ships in shape again, and yet its only five months since they
scrapped the engines and here they're pounding along as good as new."
"It's not the first mistake the Kaiser's made," agreed Frank. "What
was it that fellow Von Papen called us?--idiotic Yankees."
"We weren't so idiotic after all, that we didn't get on to his game and
send him and his pals packing," said Tom.
"There goes the call for breakfast," cried Billy, as the bugle rang out
its welcome summons. "This sea view is great but we'll have plenty of
time to enjoy that. Me for the mess and we'll have to get in line
quick or with this crowd we won't have a Chinaman's chance."
"Billy wants to eat while he can," grinned Bart, as they plunged along
in his wake. "He's afraid he'll be seasick, later on."
"Not on your life," flung back Billy. "You can't get seasick on this
ship. She's so big she rides half a dozen waves at once and she's as
steady as a church."
Although the great ship was unchanged as regards the external
appearance, a complete transformation had been effected inside. When
it had first been built, it had been fitted out and decorated with
princely magnificence but now all the costly and beautiful fittings had
been ruthlessly torn out. It was like a great, hollow cavern from
stern to stern. Everything had been sacrificed to the need for space.
Cots and hammocks by the thousands took up every available inch that
was not absolutely needed for other purposes.
It was a gigantic, floating hotel and apart from the crew, who
themselves ran into the hundreds, it carried many thousands of Uncle
Sam's fighting men.
"A U-boat would certainly make a ten-strike if it sent a torpedo into
this craft," remarked Frank, as, after breakfast, the three friends
secured a point of vantage on the upper deck.
"He'd get the iron cross from the Kaiser, sure enough," replied Billy.
"It's so big a target that he could hardly miss it if he took a pot
shot at it."
"I don't think there's much danger," said Frank, as he glanced at the
guns with their trained crews that guarded the liner fore and aft. "If
a U-boat attacked us she'd be the more likely of the two to get sunk.
These guns out-range anything that a submarine carries."
"To say nothing of the convoys," put in Bart. "It's all right to
attack an unarmed merchant ship but it's a different thing when United
States destroyers are on the job."
"Where are they?" said Billy, looking about over the broad expanse
which showed no trace of any other vessel.
"They'll meet us when we get further out," said Frank. "There will be
no danger for a day or two yet. The U-boats are hugging the English
coast pretty tight."
"I don't think we ought to reckon too much on that," said Billy. "You
know, a U-boat did cross the ocean a year or so ago and sank five ships
right off Nantucket. That's coming too close home for comfort."
"One swallow doesn't make a summer," replied Frank. "At that time we
were neutral and after the U-boat once slipped past the British fleet
there was nothing to stop it before it got to the American coast. But
you bet it would be no cinch to do it now, with the United States navy
on the job."
The next two days were fair and the sea smooth. The great liner reeled
off the miles with tremendous speed. As Billy had prophesied, the ship
was so steady that there was very little sea-sickness and there was so
much to be seen and done under these novel conditions that every waking
hour was filled with interest.
Two days later they picked up their convoy and all felt a very
comforting sense of security in the presence of the destroyers with
their business-like air and wicked looking guns.
They kept pace with the liner, within easy reaching distance,
occasionally exchanging signals, and keeping sleepless watch day and
night over the huge transport.
"The finest navy in the world!" cried Frank, with enthusiasm, as his
kindling eyes rested on these "bulldogs of the sea." "That's one
branch of the service where Uncle Sam has never fallen down. Man for
man, gun for gun, and ship for ship, there's nothing in the world can
beat them. Just watch them clean out that U-boat nest when they once
get over there in force."
"They'll do to them what Decatur did to the Barbary pirates years ago,"
said Bart. "Every other nation was paying tribute to them, but that
idea didn't make a hit with us and we went in and wiped them off the
face of the earth--or rather the face of the water. And what we did
once, we can do again."
Frank's eyes had been idly roaming over the sea while they were
talking, but suddenly his gaze became fixed and he started to his feet.
"Did you see that, fellows?" he demanded, sharply.
"Where?" asked Billy
"I didn't see anything," said Bart.
"It looked like a flash of light on the water," explained Frank.
"There it is again. Great Scott, it's a periscope!"
Almost as he spoke, the forward guns on the liner roared their
challenge, followed by the deeper bass of the guns from the nearest
destroyer.
In an instant there was great excitement, though without the slightest
trace of panic. The ship swung around in response to a bell from the
bridge and began to zigzag in a bewildering fashion.
Then a great white furrow appeared in the sea and along that whitening
lane came hissing a monster torpedo. Nearer and nearer it came with
lightning speed straight toward the vessel.
Had the liner kept its course the torpedo would have struck it
amidships. As it was, it passed just back of the stern, missing it by
not more than a dozen feet.
The destroyers came racing like mad toward the spot from which the
torpedo had been launched. No trace of the submarine was visible but
the destroyers circled round and round the spot, dropping their deadly
depth bombs in the hope of striking their unseen foe.
Thousands of pairs of eyes watched for the result, while in their
excitement their owners almost forgot to breathe.
Minutes passed and then a mighty cheer went up. For on the waters
appeared a gradually widening smudge of oil on which floated bits of
wreckage that told their own story.
The U-boat had fired its last torpedo. One of the depth bombs had
sought it out in its invisible lair, battered in its sides, wrenched
open its seams and sent its pirate crew to their last account. For
that one boat, at least, the Kaiser's admirals would watch in vain.
"We got it!" yelled Billy Waldon exultingly.
"They can't always get away with it!" cried Bart, jubilantly.
"What did I tell you about our navy?" crowed Frank. "They can't put
one over on Uncle Sam!"