Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Illustration: THE "MONDAVIA" SWUNG IN UPON HER VICTIM--THE IRON BOWS
SMASHED INTO THE U93. See page 249.]
SUBMARINE
U93
A Tale of the Great War, of German Spies,
and Submarines, of Naval Warfare, and
all manner of Adventures.
BY
CAPTAIN CHARLES GILSON
_Author of 'A Motor Scout in Flanders,' 'The Lost Empire,' 'The Sword_
_of Freedom,' 'The Pirate Aeroplane,' 'The Spy,' 'The Race Round the_
_World,' 'The Sword of Deliverance,' 'The Fire-Gods', 'The Lost
Island,'_
_'The Lost Column,' etc._
[Illustration: THE VERY FIRST PROJECTILE BURST DIRECTLY OVER THE BRIDGE]
LONDON
"THE BOY'S OWN PAPER" OFFICE
4 Bouverie Street
1916
_UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME._
THE BOY'S LIBRARY OF
ADVENTURE AND HEROISM.
The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's. By Talbot Baines Reed.
A Hero in Wolf-skin. By Tom Bevan.
The Adventures of Val Daintry in the Greco-Turkish War. By V. L. Going.
The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch. By Talbot Baines Reed.
The Cock-house at Fellsgarth. By Talbot Baines Reed.
Wild Life in Sunny Lands. By Gordon Stables, M.D., R.N.
A Dog with a Bad Name. By Talbot Baines Reed.
The Master of the Shell. By Talbot Baines Reed.
From Scapegrace to Hero. By Ernest Protheroe.
My Friend Smith. By Talbot Baines Reed.
Comrades under Canvas. By Fredk. P. Gibbon.
Parkhurst Boys. By Talbot Baines Reed.
Reginald Cruden. By Talbot Baines Reed.
Roger Ingleton, Minor. By Talbot Baines Reed.
For Queen and Emperor. By Ernest Protheroe.
The Cruise of the Golden Fleece. By Sardius Hancock.
That Boy of Fraser's. By Ernest Protheroe.
A Collegian in Khaki. By William Johnston.
With Rifle and Kukri. By Frederick P. Gibbon.
Meltonians All! By F. Cowley Whitehouse.
Myddleton's Treasure. By Ernest Protheroe.
The Baymouth Scouts. By Tom Bevan.
The Last of the Paladins. By Charles Deslys.
Rollinson and I. By W. E. Cule.
Under the Edge of the Earth. By F. H. Bolton.
Derrick Orme's Schooldays. By Edith C. Kenyon.
Sir Ludar. By Talbot Baines Reed.
Tom, Dick, and Harry. By Talbot Baines Reed
LONDON: THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.
----
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I--The Admiral's Sixpence
CHAPTER II--In Defiance of Authority
CHAPTER III--The World Plot
CHAPTER IV--Shadowed
CHAPTER V--Dropping the Pilot
CHAPTER VI--Captain Crouch
CHAPTER VII--In the Hold
CHAPTER VIII--A False Witness
CHAPTER IX--The "Dresden"
CHAPTER X--The Mysterious Message
CHAPTER XI--The Middle Watch
CHAPTER XII--The U93
CHAPTER XIII--To the Boats!
CHAPTER XIV--The Doomed Ship
CHAPTER XV--The Penitence of Captain Crouch
CHAPTER XVI--At the "Goat and Compasses"
CHAPTER XVII--Number 758
CHAPTER XVIII--"Mr. Russell"
CHAPTER XIX--A Clue
CHAPTER XX--Commander Fells
CHAPTER XXI--On Board a White Star Liner
CHAPTER XXII--By the Dogger Bank
CHAPTER XXIII--The Loss of the "Kitty McQuaire"
CHAPTER XXIV--The Tables Turned
CHAPTER XXV--Vae Victis
CHAPTER XXVI--The Titans
CHAPTER XXVII--The Battle of the Dogger Bank
CHAPTER XXVIII--The Wounded "Lion"
CHAPTER XXIX--Conclusion
----
ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
By GEORGE SOPER
THE "MONDAVIA" SWUNG IN UPON HER VICTIM . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
THE VERY FIRST PROJECTILE BURST DIRECTLY OVER THE BRIDGE _Title-page_
THE BOY SPRANG ASIDE TOO LATE. HE WAS SEIZED ROUGHLY BY THE THROAT
THE "HARLECH" HAD TAKEN A MARKED LIST TO PORT--NO ONE COULD LIVE UPON
THE DECK
LIKE AN EVIL EYE IN THE NIGHT THERE APPEARED AN ANSWERING LIGHT
"YOU'RE HEADING THE WRONG WAY, MAN! PUT ABOUT AND STAND CLEAR WHILE THE
TROUBLE'S ON"
CROUCH SEIZED RUSSELL BY HIS LONG, FLOWING BEARD, WHICH HE TORE BODILY
FROM THE OLD MAN'S WRINKLED FACE
AS THEY SANK OUT OF THE RED GLARE OF A WINTER'S SUNSET THERE APPEARED
THE THREATENING FORM OF THE U93
SUBMARINE U93
_In the following story fact is blended with fiction. The account of
the Battle of the North Sea, in which the "Bluecher" was sunk, is as
historically accurate as is possible with the details at present
available. On the other hand, it would be well for the reader to know
that the description of the pursuit of the "Dresden" in mid-Atlantic is
wholly fictitious. The incident is introduced "for my story's sake," as
Robert Louis Stevenson used to say, and also because it is illustrative
of the character of the "Sea Affair" in the earlier days of the war._
CHARLES GILSON.
CHAPTER I--The Admiral's Sixpence
The following incident is well known to those who are acquainted with
Naval history, and is mentioned here for the sole benefit of those who
are not.
At the time of the Crimean war, and the bombardment of Sebastopol, an
officer of the name of Burke commanded H.M.S. "Swiftsure," a ship which
at one time approached to within point-blank range of the Russian shore
batteries, which it silenced with a series of terrific broadsides. This
feat, however, was not accomplished without considerable loss. Several
men were struck down on the battery decks in the very act of serving the
guns; and the life of the captain--who bellowed his orders from the
bridge in a voice that was audible throughout the length and breadth of
the ship, despite the roar and thunder of the cannon and the groans of
wounded men--was saved as by a miracle.
A round of grape-shot raked the ship from fore to aft as she swung into
position; and one of the little leaden pellets struck Burke immediately
above the heart. Now, it so happened that he carried, suspended around
his neck by a little silver chain, a "lucky" sixpence which he had got
from his grandfather, Michael Burke, of the Inner Temple, and which bore
the head of His Majesty, King George III.
At the time, Captain Burke was hardly conscious of a wound,
which--according to the Fleet Surgeon--came under the official heading
of a "severe contusion" not serious in nature. He remained upon the
bridge in command of his ship, which he brought safely out of action, to
the great credit of himself and the eternal glory of the British Navy.
But his lucky sixpence, which he found that night before he flung
himself down upon his bunk, was ever after something of a curiosity--a
thing to be talked about and passed from hand to hand in a London club.
It was dented so deeply that it was shaped almost like a spoon, and as
for the features of His Majesty, the third George, they were so
obliterated that he might have been Queen Elizabeth or, for the matter
of that, Julius Caesar or the Cham of Tartary. In short, in plain
words, it was a narrow squeak; and ever afterwards, both in the Navy and
out of it, this officer, who rose to the rank of admiral and lived to
the ripe old age of eighty-six, was known as "Swiftsure Burke." That he
and his kind have lived and moved amongst us since the days of Drake and
Hawkins is, after all, the best security we have against the invasion of
these island shores.
There is a certain irony in the way things happen. No man can say for
sure what destiny awaits those whom he loves and cherishes after he
himself is gone. There was once--as a fact that can be proved--a man
who sang for pennies in the street, whose ancestor, with the rank of
colonel in the Army, headed his regiment as it charged at Blenheim. In
the year 1914--which is not so long ago--Jimmy Burke, grandson of this
same captain of the "Swiftsure," by a series of unmerited misfortunes,
found himself, at the age of seventeen, an orphan and alone, in one of
the greatest cities in the world. How that came about can be told in a
few words. It was certainly through no fault of his own.
"Swiftsure Burke" had a son, whose name was John, who had neither his
father's luck nor iron constitution. John Burke married a fair girl who
had been thought the fairest in Dublin--that is to say, in the world.
They had one son, a boy--the Jimmy Burke with whom these pages are
concerned.
For three short years John Burke was happy--more happy, perhaps, than a
man has a right to be. And then his wife died quite suddenly, and his
frail health broke like a reed.
He was overcome by grief, and for a time his friends even feared for his
state of mind. At last, acting on a famous doctor's advice, he realized
all the property he possessed, packed up his worldly goods, and
accompanied by his little five-year son, betook himself to the great
United States, which was about the last place in the world where he had
any right to be.
New York City, with all its flare and rush and hurry, was no place for
this poor, broken English gentleman. Unsettled and unnerved, he took to
speculation, and fell into the hands of a certain firm of financial
brokers, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to wit, famous even in New York
for their sharp practices and hardness of heart. They had no more mercy
on John Burke than on any other of their clients, and when the poor
fellow was well-nigh destitute, he fell into a rapid consumption. Then,
knowing that his days were numbered, he called his son to his bedside,
and gave Jimmy a dying father's advice.
In the first place, he asked the boy's pardon for the wrong that he had
done him. He told Jimmy to try to live honourably and well, and never
to forget three things: his duty to God, the example of the mother whom
the boy could only just remember, and the fact that he was an English
gentleman--the grandson of "Swiftsure Burke."
And after that, John Burke died. The life flickered out of him like a
candle in the wind, whilst Jimmy was left kneeling at the bedside, his
young frame numbed by a great feeling of weakness that pervaded every
limb, and his face all streamed with tears.
The doctor lifted the boy to his feet, and just then something fell from
the bed to the floor, which the doctor picked up and gave to Jimmy. It
was a little coin--all, indeed, that the boy possessed in the world, all
Jimmy Burke's inheritance. It was the "lucky" sixpence of Admiral
"Swiftsure Burke."