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.