CONCLUSION
"Stand by, gunner!" warned Darrin.
"Aye, aye, sir!" came from the man at the one-pounder.
The crew had ceased to be on tension, for it had dawned upon them
that, as the two craft were approaching each other almost head on,
there was hardly a chance that a torpedo could be made to register.
"Ready!" Darrin ordered.
There was a sharp bark from the throat of the one-pounder. Smash! A
cheer went up from the watching seamen. The shot hit the mark. But the
two men with Runkle were cleaning and loading for still another shot
at the conning tower.
"Any more, sir?" inquired Runkle, with a grin, after firing and
landing a second shot in the submarine's superstructure.
"Not unless ordered," Darrin answered, crisply. "If that fellow dives
now he'll go below and stay there for good."
Instead of diving, however, the top of the submarine's conning tower
was seen to rise higher and higher above the water.
"She's rising, but she's lost her steerage way, sir," announced the
corporal of marines.
"The helmsman was undoubtedly killed by the first or second shot,"
suggested Dave. "It looks as if the survivors mean to surrender, but
we'll watch out for tricks."
He gave the order for slow speed ahead, soon reducing it to mere
headway.
"Marines prepare to board," ordered the ensign, as the launch came up
close to the now unmanageable submarine, whose deck showed a bit more
than awash.
It called for fine work on the part of the quartermaster to set his
launch alongside without crushing it.
Gauging closely with his eye, Ensign Darrin called out:
"Ready to board! Board!"
Making the first leap himself, Dave landed on both feet on the
slippery deck of the undersea boat, the marines following eagerly and
quickly.
"Lay off and wait!" Dave called back to the quartermaster. Then he
stepped closer to the conning tower, through which two holes had been
drilled by the two registering one-pound shells.
"Open up, you fellows down there!" Dave called, briskly. "And don't
attempt any tricks."
Inside he heard shuffling movements, but there was no evidence of
intent to obey his order. So he called again, but this time spoke in
French, believing that order might be more easily understood by those
inside the submarine.
"Don't shoot! I'll come up and open," answered a voice in broken
French, strongly tinged with Maltese accent.
After a few moments the hatch was raised. Then, one after another,
eight or ten of Darrin's crew went below.
"No more men below," ordered Dave, who then followed his men in.
It was a miserable spectacle that met his eyes. A heavy body lay face
downward in a pool of blood on the steel deck.
"Who was this?" demanded Dave of the other four men who crouched to
one side in fear and trembling.
"Gortchky," answered one of the quartette sullenly.
There could be little danger of mistaking the dead man. Though no
feature of the face had been preserved, every line in that odious body
stood out clearly in Dave Darrin's mind. It was, indeed, all that was
left of Emil Gortchky. Mr. Green Hat would never again steal the
secrets of nor plot trouble between nations!
"An able man, even if a wicked one," said Dave slowly, uncovering in
the presence of Death.
The body of Emil Gortchky was allowed to remain where it lay. The
other four men of the submarine crew, one of whom was proved later to
be an expert submarine commander and a deserter from the Swedish navy,
were taken up to the platform deck, and thence transferred to the
launch, where they were put beside Mender, Dalny, the badly-scared
Filipino, and the other prisoners removed from the yacht.
In the meantime, Dan Dalzell had ranged up alongside, followed by
Sutton of His Majesty's Navy. Both of these young officers went aboard
the submarine and below deck for a look.
Rocket signals had informed those on anxious watch in Grand Harbor of
the capture of the submarine. Congratulations had been signaled back.
Just as the dawn broke, watchers in the waters near Valetta saw Dave
Darrin's launch enter the harbor, the submarine limping along in tow.
Early as the hour was, a band was lined up on the quarter deck of the
"Albion." When Darrin's boat was within six cable-lengths, the band
broke out exultingly into the strains of "See the Conquering Hero
Comes!"
Probably no naval officer so young as Dave Darrin had ever been so
signally honored by a foreign naval commander as was Dave Darrin then.
The submarine was anchored on a spot indicated by the port authorities
of Valetta. Then Dave Darrin shaped his course for the "Hudson."
From hundreds of men, lined up on the decks of the flagship, rose
lusty cheers.
"Bully boy, Darrin!" shouted a group of officers from the
quarter-deck.
"Ensign Darrin," cried Admiral Timworth, striding forth from his
quarters and grasping the young ensign by the hand. "I offer you my
heartiest congratulations! For reward you shall have anything within
my power to grant."
"Sir, I know what I want most at present," Ensign Darrin replied,
gravely.
"What?" asked the Admiral, quickly.
"A nap, a bath, clean clothing and a breakfast, sir."
"But later on, Mr. Darrin?"
"At Port Said, sir, I shall ask Captain Allen to grant me, if it does
not interfere with duty, three days ashore to meet my wife, whom I
expect to find there when the fleet arrives."
For, as readers of the Boys of the Army Series are aware, Dave and his
High School sweetheart, Belle Meade, were wedded immediately at the
end of some border troubles in which Dave and Dick Prescott were
involved on the Mexican border.
Despite, or perhaps on account of, the stirring experiences through
which he had passed, Darrin was asleep five minutes after his head
touched the pillow.
Danny Grin, who had been in only at the finish, lay awake for an hour
before slumber visited him.
All that was left of Emil Gortchky was dropped into an unmarked,
unhonored grave at Malta. Mender, Dalny and the Filipino were
condemned by a British court-martial to be shot, a sentence that was
soon after carried out.
As for the master and crew of the yacht, they persisted to the end in
strenuously denying any guilty knowledge of the real intentions of the
plotters. They escaped the death sentence, but, as their conduct was
none the less of a guilty nature, the master of the yacht received a
sentence of twenty years in prison, while his subordinate officers and
the members of the crew were imprisoned for ten years each.
On information supplied to the Italian government Countess Ripoli was
arrested. She was not an Italian woman, but had married an Italian
nobleman who had died, after which she had turned to spy work. She was
locked up and held for trial at Rome, but died of a fever before the
day of her trial arrived.
The minor spies and the thugs employed by Gortchky and Dalny, unless
they have since fallen into trouble with their own local police, have,
of course, gone unpunished.
George Cushing, the secret service agent, is now on duty in the Panama
Canal Zone.
M. le Comte de Surigny was a happy man when Dave visited him ashore on
the day following the capture of the submarine. Surigny is now in
Paris, the valued friend of a noted advocate, in whose offices he is
studying law. An inheritance of comfortable proportions has since come
to the Count, but he has determined upon a career of hard work. He is
a strong, fine character in these days, and is proving, to the full,
the manhood that Dave Darrin awakened in him.
The fleet remained a week at Port Said, Egypt. Dave had three happy
days ashore with Mrs. Belle Darrin, and Danny Grin was often to be
found in their company.
Jack Runkle received his promised rating, becoming a boatswain's mate.
He is now industriously climbing the ladder of promotion.
It is reluctantly, indeed, that we take leave of Dave Darrin in this
volume, but we shall meet him and Danny Grin again, and very soon, in
the pages of the next volume of this series, which will be published
under the title, "DAVE DARRIN'S SOUTH AMERICAN CRUISE; or, Two
Innocent Young Naval Tools of an Infamous Conspiracy." In this
absorbing story Dave Darrin and Dan Dalzell are shown at their best as
faithful and loyal officers of Uncle Sam's Navy.
THE END
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Transcriber's Notes:
Punctuation normalised.
Page 35, "hunderd" changed to "hundred" (a hundred he)
Page 89, paragraph break inserted between the following two lines:
"I will see you, Captain, in five minutes."
"Thank you, sir. I request permission to bring
Page 130, word "to" inserted into text (happen to us)
Page 192, "vigilant" changed to "vigilantly" (tenfold more vigilantly)
The Boys of Steel Series, word "a" inserted into text (presents
a vivid picture)
Text uses both someone/some one and anyone/any one.