Air Service Boys Flying for France/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI
ONE SUBMARINE LESS
"We are doomed!"
"What shall we do?"
"We can't do anything!"
"Oh, why did I undertake this trip!"
Such were some of the exclamations that rent the air. It was a moment of intense excitement. Some of the passengers quailed at the spectacle and fell to their knees, although unable to tear their horrified eyes away from the advancing trail of bubbles marking the coming of the deadly torpedo.
But the captain had done the right thing, and the vessel, having sheered aside to some extent, the torpedo missed striking the bow by twenty feet. When this fact was made apparent a husky cheer arose. The danger was averted, although, of course, another missile might already be on its way toward them.
It was generally thought that the captain would endeavor to run away at top speed, pursuing a zigzag course in order to avoid being struck when the crew of the submarine, finding the torpedo had missed its mark, brought their boat to the surface and commenced to shell the steamer.
This was just what happened. One thing, however, some of the passengers had forgotten. It was suddenly brought to their attention when a loud crash came. Shrieks arose from some of the women, although they had up to then borne themselves wonderfully well. The first thought was that the ship was under fire and that a shell had burst aboard.
"It's our own gun crew getting busy!" cried Tom.
At this there was a faint cheer. Confidence began to return and color again to tint cheeks that had become pallid.
Tom had surmised the truth. The "seaslinker" as Jack called the enemy craft, had come to the surface and was already chasing after them. It was time for those manning the quick-firing three-inch gun in the stern of the steamer to show what they could do to a pursuing submarine.
Bang!
A shell burst to one side of the steamer. The German gunners could play at that game also, it seemed. They meant to pursue the big steamer and keep up a constant fire in the hope that some lucky shot might cripple her propellers or machinery, so that being unable to escape she would fall into their clutches.
Some of the more timid among the passengers hastened below, unable to look the peril directly in the face. Others, and women among them, remained on deck and cheered every time the gunners sent a shell back toward the low-down hull of the German submersible.
"That was a dandy shot!" shouted Jack, wild with excitement. "A little short of the mark, but in a direct line. Next time look out, Kaiser Wilhelm, or you'll get it in the neck!"
One shell from the pursuing boat had burst so close to the steamer that several of the passengers received slight wounds. Nothing serious resulted, however. A woman., who found her arm bleeding—in her excitement she had not felt the tingle of the scratch—wrapped her pocket handkerchief about the wound and continued to watch and cheer. Jack was glad to know she was an American woman, the wife of a consul over somewhere in France, going to offer her services to one of the hospitals.
The steamer, a fast one, was constantly increasing the distance between pursuer and pursued. This interfered with the aim of the gunners, and in order that they might be better able to gauge the distance the captain had the engineers cut down the speed. That was a bit of valor worthy of the best traditions of the British navy.
Suddenly there arose a shout.
"A hit! A hit!"
The last shot made by the British gunners had struck fairly and squarely. It burst directly against the low deck of the submersible craft.
"She's stopped short!" cried one man gleefully.
"Yes, and she's going down by the head in the bargain!" yelled another.
The excitement increased as this was seen to be the truth. Instead of submerging in the ordinary way, the submarine was going down with her stern high in the air, so that the powerful propellers could be seen spinning aimlessly. Yes, she was sinking, and would never again lie in wait for a passenger steamer.
Again there came a cry, partly of frantic delight and not unmingled with awe:
"There! She'd disappeared! She's gone down! Hurrah for our brave gunners! They scored a bull's-eye that time!"
Everybody was shaking hands and carrying on in the most extravagant fashion.
There were hundreds of lives in the captain's keeping, as well as vast quantities of valuable merchandise. It would of course have been the part of wisdom for him to order full speed ahead and to leave the victims of the tragedy to their justly merited fate. A companion submarine might be somewhere in the vicinity, for they generally hunt in couples, it is said.
But that would not be according to the traditions of the navy in which he was a reserve officer. So the steamer was brought around in a great circle and headed back for the exact spot where the enemy craft had last been seen.
The gun-crew stood at their posts, waiting and eager. If another periscope had been thrust up anywhere near by it would have instantly received a shot, and perhaps a double killing would have been brought about, something well worth boasting about when they should make port.
But no hostile persicope did they see, although many eyes kept watch over the waters surrounding them, so that nothing escaped their vigil.
"We must be getting pretty close to where she went down," remarked Jack, presently.
"I think you're right," Tom answered. "Look for signs of oil on the surface cf the sea. It seems to me the waves are softened a whole lot right ahead of us. And you know that oil will do that every time. Sometimes a bag of oil fastened to the side of a helpless drifting vessel in a storm has caused the billows to tone down and saved many a boat from being sunk."
"There is oil on the surface of the sea hereabouts, Tom!" affirmed Jack in a positive tone; and others echoed his observation.
With considerable awe and curiosity the passengers leaned over the rail and sought for some sign of a swimming mariner. Nothing rewarded their search. They cruised around the vicinity of the tragedy for all of fifteen minutes, and had a single German seaman been discovered he would certainly have been taken aboard, although the vessel must not be stopped wholly, lest they become the prey of another lurking submarine, the crew of which would not be apt to take pity on them because of their humane errand.
Here and there they discovered a few floating things such as might have come from a sunken boat, but in the foam and washing of the sea it was not possible to make absolutely certain. But of the crew of the submarine they saw nothing whatever, either living or dead.
"The entire crew must have gone down with the boat!" was the statement coming from an officer; and as the terrible nature of the tragedy was fully understood, a feeling of depression and horror fell over the passengers in spite of their thankfulness over their own escape.
"Still, it's only what those who embark on a U-boat expect," Tom told a woman who expressed to him her horror at the fate that had overtaken the German crew. "They never go out but they count themselves as good as dead, I've read. And if by great good luck they get safely back into harbor again it's as though a new life had been given to them."
"Well, we're leaving the spot at last now," remarked Jack, with a sigh of relief. "The captain feels he has done everything that could be expected. His conscience can't trouble him. Those pirates of the twentieth century took their chances, and they lost out against our superior gunners, which is all there is to it."
"And think of what a small object our men had for a mark!" Tom went on to say. "I suppose, though, it's easier shooting from the steady deck of a big liner like this than from a jerky low platform, such as the deck of a submarine must present. That's why the Germans' shooting was so poor, even at a big target."
Soon they were once again pursuing their regular course. No one was sorry, for there must always be a certain amount of additional danger attached to such an errand of mercy. These Germans would neither understand their motives, nor think of sparing them if an oppor, tunity arose whereby the mistake of the first unlucky, undersea craft could be repaired.
"What was it those gunners had with them, but failed to drop overboard?" asked Jack, pointing as he spoke to some men who were placing some object under cover again.
"I don't exactly know," his chum replied, "but I've an idea it may have been what they call a depth bomb. It was possibly intended to drop it down after we'd passed the spot, if there were no actual signs that the submarine had been destroyed. But when the captain took note of all that oil on the sea he had no doubt about it; so the bomb wasn't used, after all."
"What is a depth bomb, Mr. Raymond?" asked a woman standing beside the two air service boys.
"It's a new invention that they use with good results in hunting these sea slinkers," she was told. "When a destroyer sights a periscope it speeds to the spot at the rate of nearly forty miles an hour. If the German submerges in a hurry so the destroyer's crew can't shoot his periscope away, and so destroy him, then they drop over one of those bombs. It sinks to a certain depth and then explodes. In many cases they prove effectual, and nothing is ever seen of the sub again, while great quantities of oil and grease come up to tell what happened far below."
"Well, the many things that have been invented to take human life since this war started are wonderful—and terrible—" sighed the woman.
"As the afternoon wore away the excitement abated, and at four o'clock word was passed around that two British destroyers were in sight, coming out to convoy them through the approaching period of darkness.
"Now we'll have some protection for the rest of the trip," remarked Tom.
"And I'm glad of it," returned Jack quickly.