STRIKING A REAL SURPRISE
"ARE we heading straight course?" was Dave's next question through the
air.
"You're going straight," came the cheering information.
"Found out your hurt?"
"Yes; gas-bag intact, and we've withdrawn out of easy range. One motor
damaged more than we can repair in air. Can limp home, however."
"Leave the steamship to me," Darrin wirelessed back.
Inside of another minute and a half, Darrin made out the mast-tops of the
stranger sticking up from the fringe of haze as the cloudy, reddish
curtain shifted.
If Dave had sighted his intended prey, so had the stranger caught sight
of the destroyer. The steamship cut a wide circle and turned tail.
"He's going at nineteen knots, we judge," came the radio report from the
"blimp."
"That won't do him any good!" was the laconic answer that Darrin
returned, this time in plain English instead of code.
The lower masts, the stack and then the hull of the stranger became
visible as Darrin gained on him.
Bang! A shell struck the water ahead of the stranger, the war-ship's
world-wide signal to halt.
Instead, the stranger appeared to be trying to crowd on more speed.
"Give him one in the stern-post," Darrin ordered.
The shell fell just a few feet short. The third one landed on the
after-part of the stranger's deck-house.
And now there went fluttering up the top of the destroyer's mast the
international code signal:
"Stop or we'll sink you!"
It took another shell, this one crashing through the stern of the
stranger, to convince her skipper that the destroyer was in deadly
earnest.
By this time the "Grigsby" was a bare half-mile away, and going fast.
"We're bringing to bear on you to blow you out of the water," Darrin
signalled this time. "Will you stop?"
If he had made any plan to die fighting the fleeing skipper must have
lost his nerve at that point, for he suddenly swung his bow around,
reduced speed and moved ahead at mere steerage-way.
"Call Ensign Peters to clear away a launch with an armed crew," Darrin
directed. "I will accompany him, for I must see what reason that craft
had for firing on a British dirigible."
On either bow of the strange steamship was painted the national flag of
the same neutral nation to which the "Olga" had appeared to belong. She
flew no bunting.
"Stand by to receive boarding party," a signalman on the "Grigsby's"
bridge wigwagged as the launch started toward the water.
The two craft lay now not more than five hundred yards apart. Across the
water sped the fast power launch and came up alongside of the unknown
steamship, which displayed no name.
Not a human being was now visible on her deck. An undersized watch
officer had appeared on the bridge, but he now vanished.
"Who commands that destroyer?" demanded a voice in English, though it had
the broken accent of a German-born speaker.
"I do," Darrin replied.
"Then stay where you are, for you're covered!" ordered the same voice in
a frenzied tone. "We're not going to have you aboard. Signal the
destroyer to make off at top speed and we'll leave you when she is out of
sight. Refuse, and we kill you at once. Refuse, and you lose your life."
"Lower your gangway, and stop your nonsense," Dave ordered, angrily.
"You're dealing with the United States Navy, and your orders cannot
control our conduct."
"Then you are a dead man, at once!" declared the voice of the unseen
speaker.
Unnoticed by others, Darrin had given a hand signal to a petty officer in
the bow of the launch.
"If you do not lower your side gangway at once, we shall find our own
means for boarding," Dave shouted, wrathfully. "Instantly, sir!"
Thereupon half a dozen heads appeared over a bulwark above. As many rifle
muzzles were thrust over the edge of the bulwark and a prompt fire began.
Disdaining to draw his automatic Darrin stood up in the launch, the
center of such a hail of bullets that his continued existence seemed
incredible. Above the reports of the rifles could be heard the voice of
Ensign Peters as he directed the swinging around of the launch.
R-r-r-r-rip! The launch's machine gun came swiftly into play. Bullets
rattled against the iron sides of the ship.
Four of the six seamen on her deck were seen to fall back; the remaining
two fled as fast as they could go.
Then the muzzle of the machine gun was swung, and a hundred little
missiles were driven through the wheel-house.
At an unspoken signal the launch moved in until a sailor in the bow
could hurl upward an iron grappling hook. At the first cast it caught on
at the top of the rail, while the machine gunners trained their weapon to
"get" any one who endeavored to cast off the grapple.
"Up with you!" shouted Darrin. One after another half a dozen sailors
raced up the rope, swinging over to the deck.
Dave followed next, then more seamen. All were armed and ready for
instant work of the sternest kind.
Two sailors lay dead, rifles beside them. Pools of blood showed that at
least two more wounded men had been there, but had fled. No one else
belonging to the ship was in sight on deck.
"Boatswain's mate, take the bridge," ordered Dave, as more men came up on
board. "Put two men in the wheel-house. Take command of the deck with
such men as I do not take with me."
Calling half a dozen seamen, and ordering them to draw their automatic
revolvers, Darrin proceeded to the chart-room. He tried the door, but
found it locked.
"Break it down," he ordered, and in a jiffy the thing had been done. But
the chart-room proved to be empty.
Further aft Darrin went along the deck-house. The cabins of the captain
and two mates were found to be empty.
"We'll soon know where the crew have gone to," he remarked.
In the dining-room were found three men in dingy blue uniforms, who
appeared to be ship's officers. The oldest, who scowled hardest at the
same time, Dave took to be the skipper.
"You command this ship?" Darrin inquired.
"If you say so," replied the man addressed.
"You must, for you are the fellow who ordered me to send my ship away,"
Darrin smiled grimly. "Are you a German?"
"None of your business. Why have you killed two of our crew and hurt
others?"
"Drop that nonsense," Darrin retorted, sternly. "You know why we fired on
you. And your men slightly wounded two of mine."
"We had a right to," scowled the other.
"You'll know better, by the time you've reached a British prison," Dave
rejoined. "Men, place these three fellows under arrest. Search them."
Only the man who appeared to be the craft's master resisted being
searched. He swung at one of the sailors, but Darrin jumped in, knocking
him down and holding him to the floor.
"Put irons on this scoundrel," he ordered, sharply, a command so quickly
obeyed that almost instantly the defiant one found himself manacled. Then
Dave yanked the fellow to his feet.
"You are a bully," growled the prisoner.
"I am," mocked Dave, "when I have fellows of your stripe to handle. Men,
you'd better iron that pair, too. They belong to the same outfit."
None of the three proved to have any arms on his person.
"Now, where are the members of your crew?" Dave demanded of the manacled
skipper.
"Find them!" came the surly retort.
"In what business is this ship engaged?"
"Find out!"
"Bring these prisoners out on deck," Darrin commanded. Then, as the order
was obeyed, Darrin made his way to the bridge.
"Boatswain's mate, pipe all hands on deck," he directed.
Shrilly the whistle sounded at the lips of the petty officer. But no men
came to answer.
"We'll try other tactics, then," Darrin smiled.
Stepping to the wheel-house door he pulled it open. Inside was evidence
of the havoc that the machine gun fire had worked there. Everything had
been riddled, including the helmsman, who lay dead on the floor.
At this moment, however, Dave had no time to do more than glance at the
dead man. Reaching for the whistle he blew a long blast, and caused the
fire bell to be rung, the signal to stand by to abandon ship.
That brought seamen and stokers trooping to the deck, until more than
thirty had so appeared.
"Does any man among you understand English?" Darrin called down as he
leaned over the rail in front of the wheel-house.
"I do," came from one of the crew.
"Then inform your mates that this craft has been seized as lawful prize
of the United States Navy. Where is your boatswain?"
"That's me," said the same speaker, gruffly.
"Very good. Deliver my message to the crew. Then make sure that all hands
are on deck. If you deceive me you will be held sternly to account for
trickery."
"All here," reported the boatswain, after a quick count, "except the cook
and his helpers."
"Send for them, and tell them to report here at once."
When the ship's force had been summoned, save for the two sailors known
to be dead on the starboard side of the ship, Darrin continued:
"There were some wounded men."
"Two," said the boatswain.
"Where are they?"
"Below. One is badly hurt. The other is binding his wounds."
Dave had by this time walked down on to the deck. There was a forecastle
large enough to hold the crew, and he ordered all of the men into it,
except the boatswain, whom he sent with three of his own men to find the
wounded. These latter two were brought to the captain's cabin. The two
dead seamen, after Darrin had gained their names from the boatswain, were
picked up and thrown overboard into the sea. The boatswain was then sent
to join the prisoners.
"Four of you men come with me, and we'll search the rest of the cabin
part of the ship," Darrin directed.
Off the dining room were four doors that Dave believed opened into
sleeping cabins. The first door that Darrin tried proved to be locked.
One of his men carried a sledge-hammer that had been found in the
wheel-house.
"Batter down the door!" Dave ordered.
Ere this order could be carried out the door flew open. A tall young
woman, barely more than twenty years of age, stood in the doorway, her
head thrown back, cheeks flushed, her look proud and disdainful. In her
right hand she held a revolver.
"Go away from here!" she ordered. "Else I shall kill you!"