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.