THE ATTACK ON THE HIGH SEAS
“Hello, there, Tom, it is daylight at last, and we didn’t meet a
submarine in the night.”
With these cheery words Jack crawled out of the lower berth, and at
once began to feel his head.
Tom, in the upper bunk, stirred, and then pushed his head into view.
“How are you feeling this morning after your adventure, Jack?” he
asked, with a vein of real solicitude in his voice.
“Pretty punk, to be honest about it,” admitted the other, cringing when
he pressed a trifle too hard on the swollen part of his head. “But that
lump has subsided considerably, for which, thanks. Mebbe after all I
can bear to have that new plaid cap on, by stretching it a bit. I hate
to pay good money for a thing, and then not use it.
“How about telling the purser or the captain about what happened to me
last night, Tom?” and Jack grew serious.
“I’ve been thinking it over, and concluded that we’d better keep quiet
about it,” the other replied. “In the first place we have nothing to
show who the men were, and it would be silly to ask the officers of
the ship to search every stateroom, as well as put questions to every
passenger, in hopes of discovering a German spy aboard.”
“Just as you say, Tom. We have only our suspicions to guide us, and
they mightn’t interest the captain, who has problems of his own to
wrestle with now that we’re getting so close to the danger zone. So
we’ll call the incident closed; and after this take our walks on the
hurricane-deck by daylight only.”
After breakfast the boys again made their way to the deck.
Jack wanted very much to have a chance to talk again with Bessie, but
failed to find it. She walked the deck, but in company with her grim
guardian; and never once did Mr. Potzfeldt allow her to be alone.
“Like as not he suspects she brought you along last night, before
they had a full chance to search me through and through, Tom,” Jack
remarked, well on toward noon.
“Just what I was thinking myself,” the other told him. “And I rather
imagine you’ll not have another chance to get a word with the girl. If
all goes well we ought to get to our destination by another morning.
They say that by nightfall we’ll surely run across several destroyers,
as they are always sent out to act as a convoy to big steamers in these
tough times.”
“But the rest of the day is still ahead of us,” Jack ventured, “and
nobody can say what may happen before the convoy reaches us. Notice
that everybody has his or her glass in constant use. They scour the
surface of the water ahead, and on both sides as far as they can, and
are always looking for a stick that pokes up out of the sea like a
warning finger; which would be a sub periscope, to a surety.”
“And up on the bridge the captain keeps a constant vigil in addition,”
added Tom excitedly, for it would be impossible for any one not to be
deeply impressed with all these thrilling events happening around him
every minute of the time.
“Yes. And there are others of the crew watching also. They know what
it must mean to be torpedoed. I shouldn’t be surprised if some of them
have passed through the experience at least once; for the survivors,
I’m told, hunt another berth right away on landing.”
Noon came and went. In spite of many false alarms nothing untoward had
happened. Some of the passengers even began to pluck up courage and an
occasional laugh was heard again; something that had been foreign to
the promenade deck for twenty-four hours at least.
The afternoon too was wearing away.
Both boys lounged in their chairs; indeed, it was next to impossible
for any of the trans-Atlantic travelers to keep below longer than was
necessary to eat their hurried meals. They wanted to be in the open
air all the time. There was some sort of unexplained fascination about
having the opportunity to see the danger when it bore down on them, if
so be they were fated to endure an attack.
The sea was not calm, but could hardly be called rough. The waves rose
and fell in a methodical way that allowed a splendid view of the near
distance. Even the dorsal fin of a hungry shark that was sweeping
around in eccentric circles in his search for food, was plainly visible.
Just then there were exclamations of interest, not unmixed with alarm,
coming from a group of passengers close to where the boys with reading
matter gripped in their hands, lay under their steamer rugs.
“What is it?” asked Jack, as he glanced hurriedly up.
“Porpoises wallowing, I should say,” replied the other, adjusting
his binoculars to his eyes. “Yes,” he added, “I guessed it right the
first shot. They are having a great time off there and I can see no
end of the dumpy things rolling along, all following the same general
direction.”
After that the same vigil was continued. The captain had not left the
bridge long enough to eat his dinner, some of the passengers said, but
had had it carried up to him. If anything came to pass, and a tragedy
occurred, it could never be said that the commanding officer, who
belonging to the British Naval Reserve, had neglected his duty.
“Honestly now,” Jack said, when the subject arose between the two
chums, “I believe the old man means to stick it out on the bridge until
we arrive in port. I take off my cap to him. If that’s the stubborn
sort these British naval men are, I don’t much wonder Britannia Rules
the Waves.”
“_Did_, you ought to say, Jack,” corrected Tom, with a chuckle; “for
since the submarine came along it’s anybody’s fight now as to who is
mistress of the sea. Great Britain has Germany’s Grand Fleet cooped up
in the Kiel Canal; at the same time the subs roam the ocean as they
please. One rules the surface, and the other seems to have control of
the undersea part.”
From that starting point the boys began to speak of the remarkable
changes that had occurred in many things since the great world war
broke out. Fleets of airplanes were serving as the eyes of each army
and raining down tons upon tons of explosives on ammunition dumps,
reserves, trains, railway stations where troops were gathered; and an
endless number of other astonishing feats were of daily occurrence that
a short time ago would have been looked on as wild dreams.
Suddenly came a warning from the crow’s-nest of the steamer, “Periscope
off the weather bow!”
This time it was no false alarm. The experienced seaman who spent his
watch aloft in the crow’s-nest with a glass glued to his eyes would not
be apt to make a mistake.
The greatest excitement followed. Every one sprang to his feet. Faces
turned white. Hands that gripped glasses trembled as with sudden palsy.
Excited voices were heard. There was a sudden quiver throughout the
great vessel, as the watchful commander on the bridge gave the order to
change instantly her course.
All glasses were pointed in one direction. Some of the most sanguine
declared they could make out a slender moving object that came and
went as the billows rolled onward, and which could be only the dreaded
periscope of the waiting submarine pirate.
Then again loud cries were heard. This time they carried an even more
terrible menace. It was bad enough to be told that a periscope had
been sighted off the weather bow, but when many quivering fingers
pointed to the near-by water, and the import of the fresh alarm could
be understood, the sudden dread caused every heart, for the moment, to
cease beating.
“A torpedo coming!”
“Look! You can see the bubbles swinging out on either side as it heads
this way!”
“Everybody get his life-preserver on!” shouted an officer, running
along the promenade deck and swinging his arms violently to attract
attention.
“Gee, Tom, this looks bad!” gasped Jack.
“So it does, Jack,” was the brief reply.