THE WARREN DROPS ANCHOR
The _Warren_ had two days more of sea duty to perform, but special
orders were caught by the radio “sharks” that afternoon and the
destroyer swung quickly about and stopped loafing. Just at twilight
a blinker far off to the southeast said things and an hour later a
second blinker twinkled further to the south. When morning came the
_Warren_ was bucking along through a heavy sea in company with two
Limie destroyers, black, funereal looking sleuths with their funnels
set at queer intervals along the wet decks as though the builder had
been undecided until the final moment and had then stuck them up
haphazard. High, stiff bows they had, too, those Britishers, but they
looked their parts most convincingly. All day the trio pegged eastward
to some far mid-ocean rendezvous, with only one incident to disturb the
settled monotony of standard speed and cards in the tiny room far up
in the nose. That was when a two-stack sloop, once somebody’s pet and
treasure but now a blackened, grimy, dishevelled but still lady-like
U-boat chaser, came close and signalled, and then, with, somehow, the
determined air of a school girl bent on caramels, streaked off westward
just full of business.
Two decks down, in that tiny forward compartment, they played coon-can
to the strains of “Spud” Doolan’s harmonica, while Browny gave an
imitation of Pavlowa on the cocoa matting of Number Two gun. And they
sang songs that were new on Broadway four months back and that were
by now probably forgotten. And they sang newer ballads, too, things
evolved in the forecastle to the slap of water and the wail of wind and
the hum of Diesels:
“I want to go back, I want to go back,
Back where the wind don’t blow,
Where the waves don’t leap and a gob can sleep
All night till the roosters crow.
I want to go back! Oh, _sure_, go back!
I’m tired of eating foam.
Chasing Huns may be fun, but I’m done, kid, done!
And I want to go back, back home!”
Or:
“We joined the Limie gobs, we did,
To battle with the Hun,
And still we’re waiting patiently
A Fritz who will not run!”
Or, echo of the Spanish War, this:
“Oh, it’s home, boys, home, and it’s home I want to be,
Home once again in my own countree,
Where the ash and the oak and the bonny willow tree
They all grow together back in North Amerikee!”
But it wasn’t all fun and frolic in that forward cubby hole, for there
was lookout work and a dozen other jobs calling at intervals, and there
were letters to write, too, for if one doesn’t write one is likely not
to receive, and, when all is said and done, it’s the little wrinkled
envelope with the indistinct American post-mark on it that brings the
biggest smile to the gob’s face.
Steve did his hour in the foretop and climbed down at four, chilled and
stiff, and sought Phil and Harry who had found bunks and hospitality
with the port mess. But before he had located them a hurrying Q.M.
passed the word that the transports had been sighted and Steve hustled
on deck again. They didn’t reach the ships until sunset and it was
almost dark when the commanders had finished talking things over and
the destroyers were in position. The convoy consisted this time of but
two troop-ships, but they were bigger than any Steve had seen so far
and their decks were massed with troops.
“Them’s the boys can fight,” said a voice at his elbow as they raced
under the bow of one of the monsters. Steve looked a question, and
Hearn said briefly:
“Canadians.” Then he added, with a chuckle: “They say the Kaiser looks
under his bed every night since the Canucks butted in.”
The _Warren_ turned to her place to the sound of the cheering from the
transports and the start was made. That evening they guessed Bordeaux
and Brest and Nantes, but in the morning the bulletin told them
Plymouth. The usual haze hid the ships half the time and made lookout
work maddeningly uncertain, and to add to the pleasure of the occasion
a warning came of a U-boat in their path a hundred miles ahead. That
meant a change of course, although the destroyers, could they have had
their way, would not have altered their wheels an inch.
It was mid-afternoon of the next day when Livingstone, a snub-nosed
youth whose round cheeks still held the freckles of the hayfield back
in Vermont, sighted “something.” That’s what he reported it, for he
had never reported anything before except smoke and he couldn’t lay
his tongue to any word that seemed to fit it. But what it was was the
last two feet of a submerging submarine away off to the east, and the
_Warren_, signalling to the others, picked up her skirts and lit out
with boilers roaring.
It was only the ghost of a chance that she had, for it was a thousand
to one against that U-boat showing her periscope again unless she had
other U-boats with her. But for once a Fritz didn’t run, or, at least,
not until too late. A mile from her convoys the _Warren_ again saw her.
This time it was only an innocent looking steel tube that broke the
sunlit water, but it was enough. Quarters had been sounded long ago,
and, as luck would have it, that periscope had been seen the instant it
popped its head out, so that the forward gun crew had a good seventeen
seconds to sight and fire. And the first three-inch sped true to its
mark and away went that periscope at something over six hundred
yards!
Having found the range made the rest easier, for Number Two gun
elevated her muzzle and dropped a shell squarely on top of the
submerged craft, and Number Four gun followed with a second and the
U-boat came gently to the surface and men piled up through the hatch
and opened fire with the deck guns. They managed to put a shell through
the _Warren’s_ second stack before Number Two put the submarine’s bow
gun out of action and cleared away more than half the crew on her deck.
That ended the affair, for an officer sprang to the deck with a white
flag and held it fluttering from outstretched arms, and the _Warren_
went mad with joy!
[Illustration: An officer sprang to the deck with a white flag and held
it fluttering from outstretched arms]
Behind, the first of the Limie destroyers was ploughing up, but she
was too late for anything but the cheering. She stopped, panting like
an exhausted runner, set signals, was answered, and swinging off again
went back to her duty, a trifle envious it is to be supposed.
The _Warren’s_ hope of capturing the U-boat was short-lived, for by the
time the last of the crew had reached the deck she was settling fast.
As quickly as possible the Germans were taken off to the destroyer
and then Lieutenant Lyke and four men pulled across and examined her.
Their report was discouraging and the _Warren_ chugged back, dropped
a depth-charge gingerly into the sea and fled for safety. There was a
geyser-like upheaval of water and the U-boat lifted her stern and went
down like a turtle slipping from a log. And in the moment that she
stood up-ended Steve and Harry, standing side by side on the _Warren’s_
after deck, read the inscription painted there:
“_3-U-9_”!
“_Got him!_” cried Harry, and sprang away to find Phil.
Later they talked it over below, hearkened to by a circle of interested
shipmates. They had seen the officers and recognised them beyond the
shadow of a doubt, if the evidence of that “_3-U-9_” was not enough,
and Harry had even had speech with that “American citizen” who had
entertained them so affably aboard the submarine. What he had said to
the German he would not relate, however.
“It was enough,” he growled, scowling fiercely.
But Phil laughed softly, and, in response to Harry’s frowning regard,
said: “’Fess up, Harry. You took pity on him and offered him a ‘fag.’
Now didn’t you?”
“I did not,” replied Harry with emphasis, but the disavowal somehow
didn’t sound awfully convincing.
“Well, they got theirs,” said Phil, with intense satisfaction. “And I
hope they’ll hang every mother’s son of them. But they won’t,” he added
dejectedly. “They’ll just put them in a nice comfortable internment
camp; the officers, I mean. The rest will have to work, and I hope that
‘American citizen’ has to break stones for the duration of the war!”
They were a proud lot aboard the _Warren_ all the way in to Plymouth.
It is much to sink a German U-boat, but it is infinitely more to
bring off her officers and crew first. It is done so seldom, in fact,
that there are no prescribed rules for behaviour, and the crew of the
triumphant _Warren_ debated long and seriously how best to celebrate
the feat on arrival at port.
The news had, of course, preceded them and that morning when they
passed Rame Head and entered Plymouth Sound they found their path
strewn with congratulations. Hooters and sirens greeted them and all
the way to anchorage they were kept busy replying to messages.
“If,” sighed Joe, “we could only have brought the sub in in tow!”
“Yes,” Phil agreed, “that would have been great, but you’re a lot of
unspeakable heroes already, and if you’d done that there’d have been no
living with you. Say, look yonder. Isn’t that one of our cruisers?”
“Yes, I think so. What’s the name? Can you make it out?”
“N-no. It looks like Car――Car――something. There’s a T, I think――――”
“It’s the _Carthage_!” cried Joe. “And Han’s on her! That’s great,
isn’t it? Phil, this is going to be some reunion of the Adventure Club!
You and I and Steve and Harry and now Han. Five out of the thirteen of
us! Let’s tell Steve.”
“All right. But wait a minute, Joe. I’ve been thinking. Do you suppose
Harry and I could get into this? Into the destroyer service, I mean.”
“By Jove! I wish you could! And――and I believe you can! Phil, do you
know what I think? Well, I think that, now that we fellows have got
together, the old Kaiser hasn’t the ghost of a show!”
“He never had,” answered Phil quietly.
With a deafening rattle of chains the _Warren_, momentary hero of the
“Suicide Fleet,” dropped anchor in the blue waters of Plymouth Harbour.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
――Printer’s, punctuation, and spelling inaccuracies were silently
corrected.
――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.