Dave Darrin and the German Submarines. Or, Making a Clean-up of the Hun Sea Monsters

Just as the two were going out for another stroll the double doors flew briskly open to admit a group of more than a dozen British naval officers.

“Hullo, there, Darrin! I say there, Dalzell!”

Surrounded by Britain’s naval officers, our two Americans had to undergo almost an ordeal of handshaking in the lobby.

“But I thought you were far out on the water, Chetwynd,” Dave remarked to one of the officers.

“And so I was, but a bad break in a shaft sent me in,” grumbled the commander of an English destroyer. “Beastly luck! And I was needed out there,” he added, in a whisper, “for the Germans are attempting a big drive underseas. We’ve new information, Darrin, that they’ve more than twice the usual number of submersibles loose in these waters.”

“I’ve been told the same,” Dave nodded, quietly.

“What brought you in?”

“Shell hits, I think they were, though one dent might have been made by a torpedo,” Darrin answered.

“Then you had a fight.”

“A short one.”

“And the German pest?”

“Went to the bottom. I know, for we saw her sink, and her conning tower was so damaged that she couldn’t have kept the water out, once she went under. Besides, we found the surface of the water covered with oil.”

“I’ll wager you did,” agreed Chetwynd, heartily. “You Yankee sailors have sunk dozens of the pests.”

“And hope to sink scores more,” Darrin assured him.

“Oh, you’ll do it,” came the confident answer. “But come on upstairs with us. We’ve a private parlor and a piano, and plan a jolly hour or two.”

From one end of the room, in a lull in the singing, an exasperated English voice rose on the air.

“What I can’t understand,” the speaker cried, “is that the enemy appear to have every facility for getting the latest gossip right out of this port. And they know every time that a liner, a freighter or a warship sails from this port. There is some spy service on shore that communicates with the German submarine commanders.”

“I’d like to catch one of the rascally spies!” Dan uttered to a young English officer.

“What would you do with him?” bantered the other.

“Cook him!” retorted Dan, vengefully. “I don’t know in just what form; probably fricassee him.”

Little did Dalzell dream how soon the answer to the spy problem would come to him.

CHAPTER II – THE MEETING WITH A PIRATE

Thirty-six hours’ work at the dry dock, with changing shifts, put the “Logan” in shape to start seaward again.

Under another black sky, moving into thick weather, the “Logan” swung off at slow speed, with little noise from engines or propellers.

“I feel as if something were going to happen to-night,” said Dalzell, coming to the bridge at midnight after a two-hour nap. A little shudder ran over his body.

“I hope something does,” agreed Darrin, warmly. “But remember – no Jonah forebodings!”

“I – I think it will be something good!” hesitated Dalzell.

“Good or bad, have me called at six bells,” Dave instructed his second in command. “Before that, of course, if anything turns up.”

He went slowly down and entered the chart-room, closing the curtains after him. Taking off his sheepskin coat and hanging it up, Dave dropped into a chair, pulling a pair of blankets over him. Inside of thirty seconds he was sound asleep, dreaming, perhaps, of the night before at the hotel, when he had enjoyed the luxury of removing his clothing and sleeping between sheets.

At three o’clock to the minute a messenger entered and roused him. How Darrin hated to get up! He was horribly sleepy, yet he was on his feet in a twinkling, removing the service blouse that he had worn while sleeping, and dashing cold water in his face. A hurried toilet completed, he drew on and buttoned his blouse, next donned his sheepskin coat and cap, and went out into the dark of the early morning.

“All secure, sir!” reported Dalzell, from the bridge, meaning that reports had come in from all departments of the craft that all was well.

“You had better turn in, Mr. Dalzell,” Dave called, before he began to pace the deck.

“I’m not sleepy, sir,” lied Dalzell, like the brave young gentleman that he was in all critical times. Dan knew that from now until sun-up was the tune that called for utmost vigilance.

Darrin busied himself, as he did frequently every day, by going about the ship, on deck and below deck, on a tour of inspection. This occupied him for nearly an hour. Then he climbed to the bridge.

“Better turn in and get a nap, Danny-boy,” he urged, in an undertone.

“Say!” uttered Danny Grin. “You must know something big is coming off, and you don’t want me to have a hand in it!”

Dave picked up his night glass and began to use it in an effort to help out his subordinate, who stood near him. From time to time Dan also used a glass. A freshening breeze blew in their faces as the boat lounged indolently along on its way. It was drowsy work, yet every officer and man needed to be constantly on the alert.

Despite his denials that he was sleepy, Danny Grin braced himself against a stanchion of the bridge frame and closed his eyes briefly, just before dawn. He wouldn’t have done it had he been the ranking officer on the bridge, but he felt ghastly tired, and Darrin and Ensign Tupper were there and very much awake.

With a start Dan presently came to himself, realizing that he had lost consciousness for a few seconds.

“Oh, it’s all right,” Dan murmured to himself. “Neither Davy nor Tup will know that I’m slipping in half a minute of doze.”

His eyes closing again, despite the roll of the craft, he was soon sound enough asleep to dream fitfully.

And so he stood when the first streaks of dawn appeared astern. It was still dark off over the waters, but the slow-moving destroyer stood vaguely outlined against the eastern streaks in the sky.

Ensign Tupper was observing the compass under the screened binnacle light, and Darrin, glass to his eyes, was peering off to northward when the steady, quick tones of a man of the bow watch reached the bridge:

“’Ware torpedo, coming two points off port bow!”

That seaman’s eyesight was excellent, for the torpedo was still far enough away so that Dave had time to order a sharp swerve to port, and to send a quick signal to the engine room. As the craft turned she fairly jumped forward. The “Logan” was now facing the torpedo’s course, and seemed a bare shade out of its path, but the watchers held their breath during those fractions of a second.

Then it went by, clearing the destroyer amidships by barely two feet. Nothing but the swiftness of Darrin’s orders and the marvelously quick responses from helmsman and engineer had saved the destroyer from being hit.

On Dave’s lips hovered the order to dash forward over the course by which the torpedo had come, which is the usual procedure of destroyer commanders when attacking a submarine.

Instead, as the idea flashed into his head, he ordered the ship stopped.

Danny Grin had come out of his “forty winks” at the hail of the bow watch. Now Dave spoke to him hurriedly. Dalzell fairly leaped down from the bridge, hurrying amidships.

“All hands stand by to abandon ship!” rang the voice of Ensign Tupper, taking his order from Darrin. The alarm to abandon ship was sounded all through the ship.