THE MEETING WITH A PIRATE
Thirty-six hours’ work at the dry dock, with changing shifts, put the
“Logan” in shape to start seaward again.
Under another black sky, moving into thick weather, the “Logan” swung
off at slow speed, with little noise from engines or propellers.
“I feel as if something were going to happen to-night,” said Dalzell,
coming to the bridge at midnight after a two-hour nap. A little shudder
ran over his body.
“I hope something does,” agreed Darrin, warmly. “But remember—no Jonah
forebodings!”
“I—I think it will be something good!” hesitated Dalzell.
“Good or bad, have me called at six bells,” Dave instructed his second
in command. “Before that, of course, if anything turns up.”
He went slowly down and entered the chart-room, closing the curtains
after him. Taking off his sheepskin coat and hanging it up, Dave dropped
into a chair, pulling a pair of blankets over him. Inside of thirty
seconds he was sound asleep, dreaming, perhaps, of the night before at
the hotel, when he had enjoyed the luxury of removing his clothing and
sleeping between sheets.
At three o’clock to the minute a messenger entered and roused him. How
Darrin hated to get up! He was horribly sleepy, yet he was on his feet
in a twinkling, removing the service blouse that he had worn while
sleeping, and dashing cold water in his face. A hurried toilet
completed, he drew on and buttoned his blouse, next donned his sheepskin
coat and cap, and went out into the dark of the early morning.
“All secure, sir!” reported Dalzell, from the bridge, meaning that
reports had come in from all departments of the craft that all was well.
“You had better turn in, Mr. Dalzell,” Dave called, before he began to
pace the deck.
“I’m not sleepy, sir,” lied Dalzell, like the brave young gentleman that
he was in all critical times. Dan knew that from now until sun-up was
the tune that called for utmost vigilance.
Darrin busied himself, as he did frequently every day, by going about
the ship, on deck and below deck, on a tour of inspection. This occupied
him for nearly an hour. Then he climbed to the bridge.
“Better turn in and get a nap, Danny-boy,” he urged, in an undertone.
“Say!” uttered Danny Grin. “You must know something big is coming off,
and you don’t want me to have a hand in it!”
Dave picked up his night glass and began to use it in an effort to help
out his subordinate, who stood near him. From time to time Dan also used
a glass. A freshening breeze blew in their faces as the boat lounged
indolently along on its way. It was drowsy work, yet every officer and
man needed to be constantly on the alert.
Despite his denials that he was sleepy, Danny Grin braced himself
against a stanchion of the bridge frame and closed his eyes briefly,
just before dawn. He wouldn’t have done it had he been the ranking
officer on the bridge, but he felt ghastly tired, and Darrin and Ensign
Tupper were there and very much awake.
With a start Dan presently came to himself, realizing that he had lost
consciousness for a few seconds.
“Oh, it’s all right,” Dan murmured to himself. “Neither Davy nor Tup
will know that I’m slipping in half a minute of doze.”
His eyes closing again, despite the roll of the craft, he was soon sound
enough asleep to dream fitfully.
And so he stood when the first streaks of dawn appeared astern. It was
still dark off over the waters, but the slow-moving destroyer stood
vaguely outlined against the eastern streaks in the sky.
Ensign Tupper was observing the compass under the screened binnacle
light, and Darrin, glass to his eyes, was peering off to northward when
the steady, quick tones of a man of the bow watch reached the bridge:
“’Ware torpedo, coming two points off port bow!”
That seaman’s eyesight was excellent, for the torpedo was still far
enough away so that Dave had time to order a sharp swerve to port, and
to send a quick signal to the engine room. As the craft turned she
fairly jumped forward. The “Logan” was now facing the torpedo’s course,
and seemed a bare shade out of its path, but the watchers held their
breath during those fractions of a second.
Then it went by, clearing the destroyer amidships by barely two feet.
Nothing but the swiftness of Darrin’s orders and the marvelously quick
responses from helmsman and engineer had saved the destroyer from being
hit.
On Dave’s lips hovered the order to dash forward over the course by
which the torpedo had come, which is the usual procedure of destroyer
commanders when attacking a submarine.
Instead, as the idea flashed into his head, he ordered the ship stopped.
Danny Grin had come out of his “forty winks” at the hail of the bow
watch. Now Dave spoke to him hurriedly. Dalzell fairly leaped down from
the bridge, hurrying amidships.
“All hands stand by to abandon ship!” rang the voice of Ensign Tupper,
taking his order from Darrin. The alarm to abandon ship was sounded all
through the ship.
There was a gasp of consternation, but Dalzell had already met and
spoken to three of the junior officers, and these quickly carried the
needed word.
The light was yet too faint, and would be for a few minutes, to find
such a tantalizingly tiny object as a submarine’s periscope at a
distance even of a few hundred yards. Lieutenant-Commander Darrin,
therefore, had hit upon a simple trick that he hoped would prove
effective. All depended upon the speed with which his ruse could be
carried out. Cold perspiration stood out over Darrin as he realized the
chances he was taking.
“Bow watch, there! Keep sharp lookout for torpedoes! Half a second might
save us!”
Tupper stood with hand on the engine-room telegraph. He already had
warned the engineer officer in charge to stand by for quick work.
Dalzell and the officers to whom Darrin had spoken saw to it that nearly
all of the men turned out and rushed to the boats. Even the engineer
department off watch came tumbling up in their distinctive clothing.
To an onlooker it would have appeared like a real stampede for the
boats. Tackle creaked, making a louder noise than usual, but seeming to
“stick” as an effort was made to lower loaded boats. The men in boats
and at davits were grinning, for their officers had explained the trick.
Dawn’s light streaks had become somewhat more distinct as Dave peered
ahead. Mr. Beatty and three men crouched low behind one of the forward
guns.
The submarine commander must have rubbed his eyes, for, while he had
observed no signs of a hit, he saw the American craft drifting on the
water and the crew frantically trying to abandon ship.
Then the thing for which Darrin had hoped and prayed happened. The enemy
craft’s conning tower appeared above water four hundred yards away.
“The best shot you ever made in your life, Mr. Beatty!” called Dave in
an anxious voice.
The officer behind the gun had been ready all the time. At the first
appearance of the conning tower he had drawn the finest sight possible.
The three-inch gun spoke. It seemed ages ere the shell reached its
destination.
Then what a cheer ascended as the crew came piling on board from the
boats. The conning tower of the submarine had been fairly struck and
wrecked.
“Half speed ahead!” commanded Dave’s steady voice, while Dan gave the
helmsman his orders. As Tupper sent the signal below the “Logan”
gathered headway.
But Darrin had not finished, for on the heels of his first order came
the second:
“Open on her with every gun!”
After the wrecking of his conning tower the German commander began to
bring his craft to the surface. Perhaps it was his intention to
surrender.
“Full speed ahead!” roared Darrin, and Ensign Tupper rang in the signal.
The hull of the submarine was hardly more than awash when five or six
shots from the “Logan” struck it at about the same time.
Veering around to the southward the “Logan” prepared to circle the dying
enemy. The German craft filled and sank, and Darrin presently gazed
overboard at the oil-topped waters through which he was passing.
“A wonderful job! I wonder that you had the nerve to risk it,” muttered
Dalzell.
“I don’t know whether it was a wonderful job, or a big fool risk,” Dave
almost chattered. “It would have been a fool trick if I had lost the
ship by it. I don’t believe that I shall ever try it again.”
“If you hadn’t done just what you did, a second torpedo would have been
sent at you,” murmured Dalzell. “You saved the ‘Logan’ and ‘got’ the
enemy, if you want to know.”
Grinning, for the responsibility had not been theirs, and the ruse had
“worked,” the men of the watch returned to their usual stations, while
those off duty returned to their “watch below.” Darrin, however, was
shaking an hour later. He had dropped the usual method of defense for
once and had tried a trick by which he might have lost his craft. As
commander he knew that he had discretionary powers, but at the same time
he realized that he had taken a desperate chance.
“Oh, stop that, now!” urged Danny Grin. “If you had steamed straight at
the submarine you would have taken even bigger chances of losing the
‘Logan.’ Even had she given up the fight and dived, there wasn’t light
enough for you to follow by any trail of bubbles the enemy might have
left. The answer, David, little giant, is that the submarine is now at
the bottom, and every Hun aboard is now a dead man. In this war the
commander who wins victories is the only one who counts.”
Through that day Dave and Dan slept, alternately, only an hour or two at
a time. All they sighted were three cargo steamers, two headed toward
Liverpool and one returning to “an American port.”
At nine o’clock in the evening Darrin, after another hour’s nap, softly
parted the curtains of the chart-room door and peered out. He saw a
young sailor standing just back of the open doorway of the radio room.
Slight as it was there was a something in the sailor’s attitude of
listening that Darrin did not quite like. He stepped out on the deck.
Sighting him, the sailor saluted.
“Jordan!” called Dave, even before his hand reached his visor cap in
acknowledgment of the salute.
“Yes, sir!” answered the seaman, coming to attention.
“You belong to this watch?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your station is with the stern watch?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then what are you doing forward?”
“I left my station, by permission, to go below, sir.”
“Have you been below?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then why are you loitering here?”
Seaman Jordan hesitated, shifted on his feet, glanced down, then
hurriedly replied:
“I—I don’t know, sir. I just stopped here a moment. There’s a relief
man in my place, sir.”
“Return to your station, Jordan!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied the sailor, saluting, wheeling and walking
away.
“And I’ll keep my eye on you,” mused Darrin, as he watched the departing
sailor. “I may be wrong, but when I first sighted him there was a look
on that lad’s face that I didn’t like.”
Even before he reached his station Seaman Jordan was quaking inwardly
more apprehensively than is usual with a sailor caught in a slight
delinquency.