WHAT A FLOATING MINE DID
AS Dave reached the deck he caught a fleeting glimpse of a big steamship
ahead, which was revealed in the glare of the destroyer's searchlight.
But he did not stop to linger there. Up to the damaged bridge he ran as
fast as he could go.
Evidently putting on her best effort at speed the steamship was moving
forward fast in a zig-zagging course.
"She was working her radio and blowing her whistle, all in the same
moment, sir," Lieutenant Fernald explained. "She must have seen a torpedo
that passed by her. There must be a submarine somewhere, but we haven't
picked up a sign of it as yet."
The ship was nearly two miles away. Having seen the destroyer's
searchlight the big craft's whistle was again blowing.
"Her master hardly expects to get away from the submarine," Dave
observed, and instantly turned his night glass on the dark waters to try
to pick up some sign of the Hun pirate craft that was causing all this
excitement aboard a respectable neutral liner.
"She's a Dutch craft," Dave commented. "Head in, Mr. Fernald, as that
will give us a better chance to try to find out on which side of her the
pest is operating. Ask her which side."
Promptly the signal flashed out from the blinkers of the "Grigsby."
Plainly the excited skipper of the liner hadn't thought of offering that
important bit of information.
"Starboard side, probably eight hundred yards away," came back the
Dutchman's blinker response.
Dave accordingly ordered the "Grigsby" laid over to starboard and raced
on to place the Yankee ship between the pirate and the intended victim.
Hardly had the course been altered, however, in the roughening sea, when
a dull lurid flash some twelve or fifteen feet high was seen just under
the liner's starboard bow. A cloud of smoke rose, the lower half of which
was promptly washed out by a rising wave.
"That was a mine, no torpedo!" cried Dave, his eyes snapping. "Full speed
ahead, Mr. Fernald, and prepare to clear away our launches. That ship
cannot float long!"
Through the night glass it could be seen that throngs of passengers were
rushing about the deck of the Dutch vessel. Ship's officers were trying
to quell the panic that was quite natural, for the mine, if it were such
a thing, had torn a huge hole in the bow, and the liner was settling by
the head.
Up raced the "Grigsby," the "Reed" arriving less than a minute afterward.
Both destroyers had manned their launches, and these were now lowered and
cleared away.
Even though the passengers appeared to have lost their heads, the Dutch
skipper proved true to his trust. He was lowering his own boats and rafts
as rapidly as he could, and making swift work of getting human beings
away from the stricken ship.
Fully two-score passengers of either sex jumped. Striking the water they
bobbed up again, for they had not neglected their life-belts.
In the hurry one lifeboat was overturned just before it reached the
water. The "Grigsby's" leading launch raced to the spot. Half a dozen
jackies promptly dove over into the icy water to give a hand to
passengers too frightened to realize the importance of getting quickly
away from the sinking liner.
"No more men go overboard," sternly ordered Ensign Andrews, as he saw
more of his men moving to the side of the launch. "Stand by to haul the
rescued aboard!"
All care was needed, for the liner was a big one, and doomed soon to take
her final plunge. The suction effect on small boats would be tremendous,
if they were caught too close to the scene of the foundering.
Lines were cast to jackies who were towing frightened passengers. Rescue
moved along swiftly, the launches from both destroyers backing slowly
away from the settling craft.
"Here y'are, lady!" coaxed one seaman from the first launch, catching a
line at twenty feet and placing it in the hands of a frightened woman
whose teeth chattered and who was nearly dead from the cold that the icy
water sent through to the marrow of her bones. "Think y' can hold on,
lady? If y' can, I can go back and help some one else."
The woman, though she spoke no English, guessed the meaning of the
question, and shrieked with terror.
"Oh, all right, ma'am," the sailor went on, in a tone of good-humored
resignation. "I'll make sure of you, and hope that some one else won't
drown."
With one arm around her, the other hand holding tight to the rope the
jacky allowed himself to be hauled in alongside the launch.
"Take this lady in, quick!" ordered Jacky. "She's about all in with the
cold."
"Better come on board, too, Streeter," advised a petty officer on the
launch.
"Too much to be done," replied Seaman Streeter, shoving off and starting
to swim back.
"Your teeth are chattering now," called the petty officer, but Seaman
Streeter, with lusty strokes, was heading for a hatless, white-haired old
man whom he made out, under the searchlight glare, a hundred yards away.
This man, too chilled to swim for himself, though buoyed up by a belt,
Streeter brought in.
"Come on board, Streeter," insisted the same petty officer.
But surely that jacky was deaf, for he turned and once more struck out.
By the time that the liner had been down four minutes, and the last
visible and living person in the water had been rescued, Seaman Streeter
had brought in six men and women, five of whom would surely have died of
the cold had he not gone to their aid. And he had turned to swim back
after a possible seventh.
Nearly six hundred passengers and members of the sunken liner's crew had
been saved. Of these the greatest sufferers were taken aboard the
"Grigsby" and the "Reed" and the remainder were left in the boats, which
were towed astern.
Dave decided that the rescued ones should be landed at an English port
twenty-two miles away. This port had rail communication and prompt,
effective care could be given to these hundreds of people.
As soon as the start had been made for port, roll-call was held of those
who had put off in the launches. Seaman Streeter was not present, nor
even accounted for. Promptly Darrin ordered the course changed and the
two destroyers went back, making careful search under the searchlights of
the surface of the sea near the scene of the foundering. No trace of the
missing seaman was found.
Seaman Streeter did not die in battle. He perished in the gentler but no
less useful field of saving human life! An orphaned sister in Iowa, his
only living near relative, gazes to-day at the appreciative letter she
has received from the Navy Department at Washington. Then she turns to a
longer and more glowing letter written by the, to her, strange hand of
David Darrin, Lieutenant-Commander, United States Navy.
In less than two hours the destroyers, with their respective strings of
towed boats, arrived at the British port and the work of transferring the
rescued to shore began. Dan's dead and wounded were also sent ashore.
It was afterward reported that nine human beings were unaccounted for.
Four more died in the boats on the way to land.
While the transfers to shore were being made Dan Dalzell came aboard the
"Grigsby" to greet his chum. They chatted while the damaged bridge was
being repaired.
"Danny-boy," Dave remarked seriously, "that exploding mine showed us
clearly what is expected of us. It is our task to see that all these
near-by waters are cleared of such dangerous objects."
"Surely we cannot get every mine that the Huns plant," objected Dalzell.
"We must get as many of them as we can. I know that all the British
mine-sweepers are constantly on the job, but if necessary we must have
more mine-sweepers. We must keep the paths of navigation better cleared
than proved to be the case to-night."
"Oh, say!" expostulated Dalzell, his eyes wide open, "we simply cannot,
even with twice as many mine-sweepers, find every blooming mine that the
Huns choose to sow in the Channel and North Sea."
"To find and take up every mine should be our standard," Dave insisted,
"and we must live as close to that standard as we possibly can."
"Then we did wrong to go after the destroyers this night?" Dan demanded,
curtly.
"Of course not, for that bombardment of that defenseless little town,
carried on longer, might have cost as many lives as are likely to be lost
in the case of a steamship hitting a floating mine."
"We can't do everything at the same time," Dan contended.
"Then we must strive to do ninety-nine per cent. of everything," Darrin
urged, his jaws set. "Danny-boy, I feel as badly as you do when a single
innocent life is lost in the area that we are held responsible for."
"How soon do you put for sea?" Dalzell asked.
"As soon as our boats return and are hoisted on board."
Darrin was as good as his word. Twenty-one minutes later, while dawn was
still invisible, the two Yankee destroyers turned seaward again. There
was more work, and sterner, for them to do, and it lurked just beyond!