DAVE HUNTS A BIGGER FIGHT
Of much less beam for her length than the average yacht, the “Logan” was
rolling from side to side at a dizzy angle when Dave Darrin, after a nap
of an hour and a half in the chart-room, turned out.
The wind had freshened; spray dashed over the decks and water flooded
the scuppers. Every now and then a spurt of water raced across the
bridge as the destroyer heeled over in that roughening sea.
Dave had pulled on his rubber boots, strapping the hip extensions high
up. His sheepskin coat was fastened up tightly under his chin, and the
collar turned up over the lower part of the knitted helmet that he drew
over his head.
Thus covered and concealed until his mother would not have known him had
she encountered him unexpectedly, Dave stepped out on deck, clumsily
clambering the steps to the bridge, one hand holding tightly to the
hand-rail. Dalzell was up there, standing not far from Lieutenant
Curtin. Forward, up in the bow, looking half drowned, paced an ensign
whose night glass was not long at any time from his eyes.
On the superstructure amidships another officer paced, and still another
on the deck astern.
There was little sleep for any officer. Not one of them but was aware
that at any instant the lurking foe might strike, and then would begin a
desperate, tragic game of blind man’s buff over the slashing,
spray-topped waves.
A shaded light threw a confined ray on the bridge compass. Dave barely
glanced at this latter instrument, for had not Dan been there while the
young commander slept?
“Nothing seen, sir; some signals—that’s all,” was Dalzell’s terse
report.
No grin appeared on Dan’s face now. It had been a tense vigil for him.
“Go below and get some sleep,” urged Dave.
“Don’t need any,” Dalzell declared stubbornly.
“It’s an order, then, Mr. Dalzell,” Dave answered briefly.
Grumbling, Dan took a final look into the night, then slowly clambered
down the steps.
“I’m aware, sir, that an attack may be tried at any minute,” said
Lieutenant Curtin, “but don’t you believe that it will be postponed
until after daylight?”
“Yes,” Darrin made reply. “And if we’re to have an attack between here
and port, I’d rather have it to-night. Neither troopship nor destroyer
is showing lights, so the Huns couldn’t use their periscopes. They
might, of course, use their sound devices, and launch torpedoes towards
the sources of sounds, but that’s a clumsy and wasteful way of
torpedoing an enemy. Attacking on a night like this, the only sure way
would be for them to come to the surface. That would give us an ideal
chance. With searchlights playing in every direction we’d pick up a lot
of the submarines and hit them within the first minute and a half. No;
unless for the novelty of the thing, the German commander won’t risk a
night attack. Results for him are more certain just after dawn. I
believe, as much as I believe anything, that the enemy’s submersibles
are now waiting for us at the point where they figure that we will be at
dawn.”
“It will be great to meet them at their convenience,” remarked Curtin,
after a pause of a few minutes. “After what we did to them yesterday
forenoon we know how we can rush some of ’em to the bottom, and leave
the rest so far astern that they’d have to come to the surface to
overtake our troop-ships.”
“We know what we did, but we don’t know that we can do it again,” Darrin
retorted. “The greatest mistake that we can make is to become
over-confident. That never pays when dealing with any enemy, and least
of all when the Hun is the enemy. We got away yesterday, Curtin, but has
it struck you that we may have met the inferior half of the underseas
fleet that the enemy has concentrated against us? Yesterday forenoon’s
work may have been play compared with the job that has been cut out for
us. The surest way to lose a few destroyers, a few transports and
thousands of soldiers and sailors, is for the naval officers with this
fleet to let their confidence get the better of their alertness. Even in
spite of our utmost watchfulness and best work, we may lose five
thousand American lives before we reach port.”
“Maybe our country would fight better hereafter if we did,” muttered the
younger officer. “A loss like that would serve to rouse Americans rather
than to kill their fighting instinct.”
“But confidence in the Navy would be largely gone,” Dave rejoined. “At
present the folks at home are whooping up the Navy. That’s because we’ve
had such fine luck so far. Let us lose several thousand soldiers at sea
and then see how much our home people would boost for the Navy. We’re
judged by the goods we deliver in the form of results.”
Not all of this had been said in continuous conversation, for not once
did either officer remove his gaze from the black waters around them.
Dave and his junior officer had spoken by snatches as they came
together.
Off to starboard, several hundred yards, the dimly defined shape of a
huge transport appeared. The transport ahead of her, and the one behind
her, had to be located by judgment rather than by vision.
“A fellow cannot help getting nervous out here—I mean nervous for the
transports,” said Lieutenant Curtin, ten minutes later. “Before you came
up, sir, there was a time when neither Mr. Dalzell nor I could see that
nearest troopship at all.”
“Did you change your course?” asked Dave, with a smile.
“No, sir; I knew we must be right, for we had followed the course to a
fine line. But it was uncanny, just the same—the knowledge that we must
guard the transports, combined with the belief that they had slipped
miles away.”
“Before you came across to this side of the ocean, Mr. Curtin, you were
inclined to be a bit stout, weren’t you?” Dave quizzed.
“Nineteen pounds over weight, sir.”
“Cheer up! You won’t grow fat during this war.”
“I don’t care about loss of sleep, or anything,” declared the junior
officer, earnestly. “I believe that I could get along without sleep,
except when in port, if we could range the seas with a daily average of
one enemy submarine sunk.”
“If you could do that, and the other destroyers did anything at all,”
laughed Darrin, “the seas would soon be as safe as they were in 1913.”
“Do you remember that time, sir, a month ago, when we answered an S. O.
S. call and arrived in time to jump at a submarine engaged in shelling
the small boats that were pulling away from the wrecked Norwegian
steamer?”
“Yes.”
“We missed that infernal Hun. He got away, and I am certain that I
didn’t sleep a real wink in the next twenty-four hours.”
“Take things more easily,” Dave advised. “Do your best, Curtin, and then
if the Hun boat gets away, take it out in chuckling over the big scare
you gave the enemy officers and crew. That’s the way I do.”
Calling the officer amidships on the deck to take a turn on the bridge
with Lieutenant Curtin, Dave, after receiving the engine-room report
over the bridge telephone, went on a swift but thorough tour of
inspection. Dark as it was, he discovered that the breech mechanism of
one of the forward guns was not oiled to his fancy. Three or four other
slight oversights he found, and promptly rapped out orders to remedy the
faults.
“In a campaign like this,” he told Ensign Carter, tersely, “there can be
no knowing at what moment we shall be called upon to fight for our
lives, nor how many seconds of fatal delay may be caused by any lacking
detail. Constant inspection is the only way to be certain that one is up
to fighting mark. Inspection is not enough when made only by commander
and executive officer. ‘Inspection’ should be engraved on the brain of
every watch and division officer.”
Dave glanced at the chronometer in the chart-room on his way to the
bridge, and knew that the first streaks of dawn should appear in the
east in fifteen minutes. Sending the relieving officer back to his
station amidships, Darrin resumed his bridge vigil.
First signs of dawn came in due time. The light gained in strength until
the long line of the transport fleet stood revealed, extending back
further than the eye could see. Obeying signals, some of the destroyers
stood further out from their charges and then raced on ahead to inspect
that portion of the sea which must very soon be traversed.
“If we don’t run into something before the middle of the forenoon,” Dave
confided to Dan, who now reappeared on the bridge after a short rest, “I
shall feel easier. The nearer we draw to land the more help is likely to
be afloat near us.”
Just then a boom came over the water. A gun of one of the foremost trio
of destroyers had spoken. Swiftly the signals came back.
Dave gave the order to have all hands sounded to quarters.
“Gentlemen,” said the young commander after the crew had reached the
deck, “this morning’s work will undoubtedly be the real test. Within
twenty minutes we’ll be in the thick of a real fight!”