QUICK “DOINGS” OVER THE SHOAL
For several days after that Darrin and the “Logan” cruised back and
forth over the area assigned for patrol. During these days nothing much
happened out of the usual. Then came a forenoon when Darrin received a
wireless message, in code, ordering him to report back at once to the
commanding officer of the destroyer patrol.
Mid afternoon found the “Logan” fifteen miles off the port of
destination.
“Be on the alert every instant,” was the order Darrin gave out to
officers and men. “There have been several sinkings, the last month, in
these waters. We are nearing Fisherman’s Shoal, which is believed to be
a favorite bit of ground for submarines that hide on the bottom.”
Over Fisherman’s Shoal the water was only about seventy feet in
depth—an ideal spot for a lurking, hiding undersea craft.
Five minutes later the bow lookout announced quietly:
“Trail of bubbles ahead, sir.”
Leaving Ensign Phelps on the bridge, Dave and Dan darted down and
forward.
A less practised eye might have seen nothing worth noting, but to the
two young officers the trail ahead was unmistakable, though Darrin
quickly brought up his glass to aid his vision.
“Pass the word for slow speed, Mr. Dalzell,” Dave commanded, quietly.
“We want to keep behind that craft for a moment. Pass word to Mr. Briggs
to stand by ready to drop a depth bomb.”
Quietly as the orders were given, they were executed with lightning
speed. The destroyer began to move more slowly, keeping well behind the
bubble trail. At any instant, however, the “Logan” could be expected to
leap forward, dropping the depth bomb at just the right moment. Then
would come a muffled explosion, and, if the bomb were rightly placed, a
broad coating of oil would appear upon the surface.
Dave was now in the very peak of the bow. Watching the bubbly trail he
knew that the hidden enemy craft was moving more slowly than the
destroyer, and he signalled for bare headway. And now the bubbles were
rising as though from a stationary object under the waves.
“Buoy, there!” he ordered, quickly. “Overboard with it.”
Slowly the destroyer moved past the spot, but the weighted, bobbing buoy
marked the spot plainly.
“Have a diver ready, Mr. Dalzell,” Dave called. “Make ready to clear
away a launch!”
In the matter of effective speed Darrin’s officers and crew had been
trained to the last word. Only a few hundred yards did the “Logan” move
indolently along, then lay to.
Soon after that the diver and launch were ready. Dave stepped into the
launch to take command himself.
“May I go, too, sir?” asked Dan Dalzell, saluting. “I haven’t seen this
done before.”
“Clear away a second launch, Mr. Dalzell. The crew will be armed. You
will take also a corporal and squad of marines.”
That meant the entire marine force aboard the “Logan.” Dalzell quickly
got his force together, while Darrin gave orders to pull back to where
the bobbing buoy lay on the water.
“Ready, diver?” called Dave, as the launch backed water and stopped
beside the buoy.
“Aye, aye, sir.” The diver’s helmet was fitted into position and the air
pump started. The diver signalled that he was ready to go down.
“Men, stand by to help him over the side,” Darrin commanded. “Over he
goes!”
Hugging a hammer under one arm the diver took hold of the flexible cable
ladder as soon as it had been lowered. Sailors paid out the rope, life
line and air pipe as the man in diver’s suit vanished under the water.
Down and down went the diver, a step at a time. The buoy had been placed
with such exactness that he did not have to step from the ladder to the
sandy bottom. Instead, he stepped on to the deck of a great lurking
underseas craft.
He must have grinned, that diver, as he knelt on top of the gray hull
and hammered briskly, in the International Code, this message to the
Germans inside the submarine shell:
“Come up and surrender, or stay where you are and take a bomb! Which do
you want?”
Surely he grinned hard, under his diver’s mask, as he noted the time
that elapsed. He knew full well that his hammered message had been heard
and understood by the trapped Huns. He could well imagine the panic that
the receipt of the message had caused the enemy.
“We’ll send you a bomb, then?” the diver rapped on the hull with his
hammer. “I’m going up.”
To this there came instant response. From the inside came the hammered
message:
“Don’t bomb! We’ll rise and surrender!”
Chuckling, undoubtedly, the diver signalled and was hoisted to the
surface. The instant that his head showed above water the seaman-diver
nodded three times toward Darrin. Then he was hauled into the boat, and
the launch pulled away from the spot.
“It took the Huns some time to make up their minds?” queried Dave Darrin
smilingly, after the diver’s helmet had been removed.
“They didn’t answer until they got the second signal, sir,” replied the
diver.
Dalzell’s launch was hovering in the near vicinity, filled with sailors
and marines, a rapid-fire one-pounder mounted in the bow.
Both boats were so placed as not to interfere with gun-fire from the
“Logan.” Officers and men alike understood that the Huns might attempt
treachery after their promise to surrender.
Soon the watchers glimpsed a vague outline rising through the water. The
top of a conning tower showed above the water, then the rest of it, and
last of all the ugly-looking hull rose until the craft lay fully exposed
on the surface of the sea.
The critical moment was now at hand. It would be possible for the
submarine to torpedo the destroyer; there was grave danger of the
attempt being made even though the vengeful Germans knew that in all
probability their own lives would pay the penalty.
The hatch in the tower opened and a young German officer stepped out,
waving a white handkerchief. He was followed by several members of the
crew. It was evident that the enemy had elected to save their lives, and
smiles of grim satisfaction lighted the faces of the watchful American
jackies.
“Give way, and lay alongside,” Dave ordered his coxswain, while
signalling Dalzell to keep his launch back for the present.
Then Dave addressed the young German officer:
“You understand English?”
“Yes,” came the reply, with a scowl.
“We are coming alongside. Your officers and men will be searched for
weapons, then transferred, in detachments, to our launch, and taken
aboard our craft.”
The German nodded, addressing a few murmured words to his men, who moved
well up forward on the submarine’s slippery deck.
As the launch drew alongside two seamen leaped to the submarine’s deck
and held the lines that made the launch fast to it.
Half a dozen armed seamen sprang aboard, with Darrin, who signalled to
the second launch to come up on the other side of the German boat.
“Be good enough, sir, to order the rest of your men on deck,” Dave
directed, and the German officer shouted the order in his own tongue.
More sullen-looking German sailors appeared through the conning tower
and lined up forward.
“Did you command here?” Dave demanded of the officer.
“No; my commander is below. I am second in command.”
Dave stepped to the conning tower, bawling down in English:
“All hands on deck. Lively.”
Another human stream answered. Darrin turned to the German officer to
ask:
“Are all your crew on deck now?”
Quickly counting, the enemy officer replied:
“Yes; all.”
“And your captain?”
“I do not know why he is not here. I cannot give him orders.”
By this time the marines were aboard from the second launch. Already the
first detachment of German sailors, after search, was being transferred
to the launch.
“Corporal,” called Darrin, “take four men and go below to find the
commander. Watch out for treachery, and shoot fast if you have to.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” returned the corporal, saluting and entering the tower.
His men followed him closely.
“I’ve seen the outside of enough of these pests,” said Dave to his chum.
“Suppose we go below and see what the inside looks like. The German
submarines are different from our own.”
Dalzell nodded and followed, at the same time ordering a couple of
stalwart sailors to follow. A boatswain’s mate now remained in command
on the submarine deck.
“You get back there!” growled the corporal. Dave reached the lower deck
just in time to see the corporal pointing his revolver at a protesting
German naval officer.
“Look what he’s been doing, sir,” called the corporal. “Look on the
floor, sir.”
On the deck lay a heap of charred papers, still smoking.
[Illustration: Charred papers still smoking.]
“If I’d got down a minute earlier, sir, he wouldn’t have had a chance to
have that nice little bonfire,” grumbled the corporal.
Dave gave a great start as he took his first look at the face of the
German captain.
As for the German, he seemed at least equally disconcerted. Dave Darrin
was the first to recover.
“I cannot say that I think your German uniform becoming to a man of your
name, Mr. Matthews,” Darrin uttered, in savage banter.
“Matthews?” repeated the German, in a puzzled voice, though he spoke
excellent English. “I cannot imagine why you should apply that name to
me.”
“It’s your own fault if you can’t,” Darrin retorted. “It’s the name you
gave me at the hotel.”
“I’ve never seen you until the present moment,” declared the German,
stoutly.
“Surely you have,” Danny Grin broke in. “And how is your firm in
Chicago, Mr. Matthews?”
“Chicago?” repeated the German, apparently more puzzled than before.
“If Matthews isn’t your name, and I believe it isn’t,” Darrin continued,
“by what name do you prefer to be addressed.”
“I am Ober-Lieutenant von Bechtold,” replied the German.
“Very good, von Bechtold; will you stand back a bit and not bother the
corporal?”
Dave bent over to stir the charred, smoking heap of paper with his foot.
But the job had been too thoroughly done. Not a scrap of white paper
could be found in the heap.
“Of course you do not object to telling me what papers you succeeded in
burning,” Darrin bantered.
Ober-Lieutenant von Bechtold smiled.
“You wouldn’t believe me, if I told you, so why tax your credulity?”
came his answer.
“Perhaps you didn’t have time to destroy all your records,” Dave went
on. “Under the circumstances I know you will pardon me for searching the
boat.”
Thrusting aside a curtain, Dave entered a narrow passageway near the
stern. Off this passageway were the doors of two sleeping cabins on
either side. Dave opened the doors on one side and glanced in. Dan
opened one on the other side, but the second door resisted his efforts.
“This locked cabin may contain whatever might be desired to conceal,”
Dan hinted.
Turning quickly, Darrin saw that von Bechtold had followed. This the
corporal had permitted, but he and a marine private had followed, to
keep their eyes on the prisoner.
“If you have the key to this locked door, Captain, it will save us the
trouble of smashing the door,” Dave warned. He had followed the usual
custom in terming the ober-lieutenant a captain since he had an
independent naval command.
“I do not know where the key is,” replied von Bechtold, carelessly. “You
may break the door down, if you wish, but you will not be repaid for
your trouble.”
“I’ll take the trouble, anyway,” Darrin retorted. “Mr. Dalzell, your
shoulder and mine both together.”
As the two young officers squared themselves for the assault on the door
a black cloud appeared briefly on von Bechtold’s face. But as Darrin
turned, after the first assault, the deep frown was succeeded by a dark
smile of mockery.
Bump! bump! At the third assault the lock of the door gave way so that
Dave and Dan saved themselves from pitching into the room headfirst.
“Oh, whew!” gasped Danny Grin.
An odor as of peach-stone kernels assailed their nostrils. They thought
little of this. It was a sight, rather than the odor, that instantly
claimed their attention.
For on the berth, over the coverlid, and fully dressed in civilian
attire of good material, lay a man past fifty, stout and with prominent
abdomen. He was bald-headed, the fringe of hair at the sides being
strongly tinged with gray.
At first glance one might have believed the stranger to be merely
asleep, though he would have been a sound sleeper who could slumber on
while the door was crashing in. Dave stepped close to the berth.
Dalzell followed, and after them came the submarine’s commander.
“You will go back to the cabin and remain there, Mr. von Bechtold,” Dave
directed, without too plain discourtesy. “Corporal, detail one of your
men to remain with the prisoner, and see that he doesn’t come back here
unless I send for him. Also see to it that he doesn’t do anything else
except wait.”
Scowling, von Bechtold withdrew, the marine following at his heels.
As Darrin stepped back into the cabin he saw the stranger lying as they
left him.
“Dead!” uttered Dave, bending over the man and looking at him closely.
“He lay down for a nap. Look, Dan, how peaceful his expression is. He
never had an intimation that it was his last sleep, though this looks
like suicide, not accidental death, for the peach-stone odor is that of
prussic acid. He has killed himself with a swift poison. Why? Is it that
he feared to fall into enemy hands and be quizzed?”
“A civilian, and occupying an officer’s cabin,” Dan murmured. “He must
have been of some consequence, to be a passenger on a submarine. He
wasn’t a man in the service, or he would have been in uniform.”
“We’ll know something about him, soon, I fancy,” Darrin went on. “Here
is a wallet in his coat pocket, also a card case and an envelope well
padded with something. Yes,” glancing inside the envelope, “papers. I
think we’ll soon solve the secret of this civilian passenger who has met
an unplanned death.”
“Here, you! Stop that, or I’ll shoot!” sounded, angrily, the voice of
von Bechtold’s guard behind them.
But the German officer, regardless of threats, had dashed past the
marine, and was now in the passageway.
“Here, I’ll soon settle you!” cried the marine, wrathfully. But he
didn’t, for von Bechtold let a solid fist fly, and the marine, caught
unawares, was knocked to the floor.
All in a jiffy von Bechtold reached his objective, the envelope.
Snatching it, he made a wild leap back to the cabin, brushing the marine
private aside like a feather.
“Grab him!” yelled Dave Darrin, plunging after the German. “Don’t let
him do anything to that envelope!”