CHAPTER III
QUICK "DOINGS" OVER THE SHOAL
For several days after that Darrin and the "Logan" cruised back andforth over the area assigned for patrol. During these days nothing muchhappened out of the usual. Then came a forenoon when Darrin received awireless message, in code, ordering him to report back at once to thecommanding officer of the destroyer patrol.
Mid afternoon found the "Logan" fifteen miles off the port ofdestination.
"Be on the alert every instant," was the order Darrin gave out toofficers and men. "There have been several sinkings, the last month, inthese waters. We are nearing Fisherman's Shoal, which is believed to bea favorite bit of ground for submarines that hide on the bottom."
Over Fisherman's Shoal the water was only about seventy feet indepth--an ideal spot for a lurking, hiding undersea craft.
Five minutes later the bow lookout announced quietly:
"Trail of bubbles ahead, sir."
Leaving Ensign Phelps on the bridge, Dave and Dan darted down andforward.
A less practised eye might have seen nothing worth noting, but to thetwo young officers the trail ahead was unmistakable, though Darrinquickly brought up his glass to aid his vision.
"Pass the word for slow speed, Mr. Dalzell," Dave commanded, quietly."We want to keep behind that craft for a moment. Pass word to Mr. Briggsto stand by ready to drop a depth bomb."
Quietly as the orders were given, they were executed with lightningspeed. The destroyer began to move more slowly, keeping well behind thebubble trail. At any instant, however, the "Logan" could be expected toleap forward, dropping the depth bomb at just the right moment. Thenwould come a muffled explosion, and, if the bomb were rightly placed, abroad coating of oil would appear upon the surface.
Dave was now in the very peak of the bow. Watching the bubbly trail heknew that the hidden enemy craft was moving more slowly than thedestroyer, and he signalled for bare headway. And now the bubbles wererising as though from a stationary object under the waves.
"Buoy, there!" he ordered, quickly. "Overboard with it."
Slowly the destroyer moved past the spot, but the weighted, bobbing buoymarked the spot plainly.
"Have a diver ready, Mr. Dalzell," Dave called. "Make ready to clearaway a launch!"
In the matter of effective speed Darrin's officers and crew had beentrained to the last word. Only a few hundred yards did the "Logan" moveindolently along, then lay to.
Soon after that the diver and launch were ready. Dave stepped into thelaunch to take command himself.
"May I go, too, sir?" asked Dan Dalzell, saluting. "I haven't seen thisdone before."
"Clear away a second launch, Mr. Dalzell. The crew will be armed. Youwill take also a corporal and squad of marines."
That meant the entire marine force aboard the "Logan." Dalzell quicklygot his force together, while Darrin gave orders to pull back to wherethe bobbing buoy lay on the water.
"Ready, diver?" called Dave, as the launch backed water and stoppedbeside the buoy.
"Aye, aye, sir." The diver's helmet was fitted into position and the airpump started. The diver signalled that he was ready to go down.
"Men, stand by to help him over the side," Darrin commanded. "Over hegoes!"
Hugging a hammer under one arm the diver took hold of the flexible cableladder as soon as it had been lowered. Sailors paid out the rope, lifeline and air pipe as the man in diver's suit vanished under the water.
Down and down went the diver, a step at a time. The buoy had been placedwith such exactness that he did not have to step from the ladder to thesandy bottom. Instead, he stepped on to the deck of a great lurkingunderseas craft.
He must have grinned, that diver, as he knelt on top of the gray hulland hammered briskly, in the International Code, this message to theGermans inside the submarine shell:
"Come up and surrender, or stay where you are and take a bomb! Which doyou want?"
Surely he grinned hard, under his diver's mask, as he noted the timethat elapsed. He knew full well that his hammered message had been heardand understood by the trapped Huns. He could well imagine the panic thatthe receipt of the message had caused the enemy.
"We'll send you a bomb, then?" the diver rapped on the hull with hishammer. "I'm going up."
To this there came instant response. From the inside came the hammeredmessage:
"Don't bomb! We'll rise and surrender!"
Chuckling, undoubtedly, the diver signalled and was hoisted to thesurface. The instant that his head showed above water the seaman-divernodded three times toward Darrin. Then he was hauled into the boat, andthe launch pulled away from the spot.
"It took the Huns some time to make up their minds?" queried Dave Darrinsmilingly, after the diver's helmet had been removed.
"They didn't answer until they got the second signal, sir," replied thediver.
Dalzell's launch was hovering in the near vicinity, filled with sailorsand marines, a rapid-fire one-pounder mounted in the bow.
Both boats were so placed as not to interfere with gun-fire from the"Logan." Officers and men alike understood that the Huns might attempttreachery after their promise to surrender.
Soon the watchers glimpsed a vague outline rising through the water. Thetop of a conning tower showed above the water, then the rest of it, andlast of all the ugly-looking hull rose until the craft lay fully exposedon the surface of the sea.
The critical moment was now at hand. It would be possible for thesubmarine to torpedo the destroyer; there was grave danger of theattempt being made even though the vengeful Germans knew that in allprobability their own lives would pay the penalty.
The hatch in the tower opened and a young German officer stepped out,waving a white handkerchief. He was followed by several members of thecrew. It was evident that the enemy had elected to save their lives, andsmiles of grim satisfaction lighted the faces of the watchful Americanjackies.
"Give way, and lay alongside," Dave ordered his coxswain, whilesignalling Dalzell to keep his launch back for the present.
Then Dave addressed the young German officer:
"You understand English?"
"Yes," came the reply, with a scowl.
"We are coming alongside. Your officers and men will be searched forweapons, then transferred, in detachments, to our launch, and takenaboard our craft."
The German nodded, addressing a few murmured words to his men, who movedwell up forward on the submarine's slippery deck.
As the launch drew alongside two seamen leaped to the submarine's deckand held the lines that made the launch fast to it.
Half a dozen armed seamen sprang aboard, with Darrin, who signalled tothe second launch to come up on the other side of the German boat.
"Be good enough, sir, to order the rest of your men on deck," Davedirected, and the German officer shouted the order in his own tongue.More sullen-looking German sailors appeared through the conning towerand lined up forward.
"Did you command here?" Dave demanded of the officer.
"No; my commander is below. I am second in command."
Dave stepped to the conning tower, bawling down in English:
"All hands on deck. Lively."
Another human stream answered. Darrin turned to the German officer toask:
"Are all your crew on deck now?"
Quickly counting, the enemy officer replied:
"Yes; all."
"And your captain?"
"I do not know why he is not here. I cannot give him orders."
By this time the marines were aboard from the second launch. Already thefirst detachment of German sailors, after search, was being transferredto the launch.
"Corporal," called Darrin, "take four men and go below to find thecommander. Watch out for treachery, and shoot fast if you have to."
"Aye, aye, sir," returned the corporal, saluting and entering the tower.His men followed him closely.
"I've seen the outside of enough of these pests," said Dave to
his chum."Suppose we go below and see what the inside looks like. The Germansubmarines are different from our own."
Dalzell nodded and followed, at the same time ordering a couple ofstalwart sailors to follow. A boatswain's mate now remained in commandon the submarine deck.
"You get back there!" growled the corporal. Dave reached the lower deckjust in time to see the corporal pointing his revolver at a protestingGerman naval officer.
"Look what he's been doing, sir," called the corporal. "Look on thefloor, sir."
On the deck lay a heap of charred papers, still smoking.
Charred papers still smoking.]
"If I'd got down a minute earlier, sir, he wouldn't have had a chance tohave that nice little bonfire," grumbled the corporal.
Dave gave a great start as he took his first look at the face of theGerman captain.
As for the German, he seemed at least equally disconcerted. Dave Darrinwas the first to recover.
"I cannot say that I think your German uniform becoming to a man of yourname, Mr. Matthews," Darrin uttered, in savage banter.
"Matthews?" repeated the German, in a puzzled voice, though he spokeexcellent English. "I cannot imagine why you should apply that name tome."
"It's your own fault if you can't," Darrin retorted. "It's the name yougave me at the hotel."
"I've never seen you until the present moment," declared the German,stoutly.
"Surely you have," Danny Grin broke in. "And how is your firm inChicago, Mr. Matthews?"
"Chicago?" repeated the German, apparently more puzzled than before.
"If Matthews isn't your name, and I believe it isn't," Darrin continued,"by what name do you prefer to be addressed."
"I am Ober-Lieutenant von Bechtold," replied the German.
"Very good, von Bechtold; will you stand back a bit and not bother thecorporal?"
Dave bent over to stir the charred, smoking heap of paper with his foot.But the job had been too thoroughly done. Not a scrap of white papercould be found in the heap.
"Of course you do not object to telling me what papers you succeeded inburning," Darrin bantered.
Ober-Lieutenant von Bechtold smiled.
"You wouldn't believe me, if I told you, so why tax your credulity?"came his answer.
"Perhaps you didn't have time to destroy all your records," Dave wenton. "Under the circumstances I know you will pardon me for searching theboat."
Thrusting aside a curtain, Dave entered a narrow passageway near thestern. Off this passageway were the doors of two sleeping cabins oneither side. Dave opened the doors on one side and glanced in. Danopened one on the other side, but the second door resisted his efforts.
"This locked cabin may contain whatever might be desired to conceal,"Dan hinted.
Turning quickly, Darrin saw that von Bechtold had followed. This thecorporal had permitted, but he and a marine private had followed, tokeep their eyes on the prisoner.
"If you have the key to this locked door, Captain, it will save us thetrouble of smashing the door," Dave warned. He had followed the usualcustom in terming the ober-lieutenant a captain since he had anindependent naval command.
"I do not know where the key is," replied von Bechtold, carelessly. "Youmay break the door down, if you wish, but you will not be repaid foryour trouble."
"I'll take the trouble, anyway," Darrin retorted. "Mr. Dalzell, yourshoulder and mine both together."
As the two young officers squared themselves for the assault on the doora black cloud appeared briefly on von Bechtold's face. But as Darrinturned, after the first assault, the deep frown was succeeded by a darksmile of mockery.
Bump! bump! At the third assault the lock of the door gave way so thatDave and Dan saved themselves from pitching into the room headfirst.
"Oh, whew!" gasped Danny Grin.
An odor as of peach-stone kernels assailed their nostrils. They thoughtlittle of this. It was a sight, rather than the odor, that instantlyclaimed their attention.
For on the berth, over the coverlid, and fully dressed in civilianattire of good material, lay a man past fifty, stout and with prominentabdomen. He was bald-headed, the fringe of hair at the sides beingstrongly tinged with gray.
At first glance one might have believed the stranger to be merelyasleep, though he would have been a sound sleeper who could slumber onwhile the door was crashing in. Dave stepped close to the berth.
Dalzell followed, and after them came the submarine's commander.
"You will go back to the cabin and remain there, Mr. von Bechtold," Davedirected, without too plain discourtesy. "Corporal, detail one of yourmen to remain with the prisoner, and see that he doesn't come back hereunless I send for him. Also see to it that he doesn't do anything elseexcept wait."
Scowling, von Bechtold withdrew, the marine following at his heels.
As Darrin stepped back into the cabin he saw the stranger lying as theyleft him.
"Dead!" uttered Dave, bending over the man and looking at him closely."He lay down for a nap. Look, Dan, how peaceful his expression is. Henever had an intimation that it was his last sleep, though this lookslike suicide, not accidental death, for the peach-stone odor is that ofprussic acid. He has killed himself with a swift poison. Why? Is it thathe feared to fall into enemy hands and be quizzed?"
"A civilian, and occupying an officer's cabin," Dan murmured. "He musthave been of some consequence, to be a passenger on a submarine. Hewasn't a man in the service, or he would have been in uniform."
"We'll know something about him, soon, I fancy," Darrin went on. "Hereis a wallet in his coat pocket, also a card case and an envelope wellpadded with something. Yes," glancing inside the envelope, "papers. Ithink we'll soon solve the secret of this civilian passenger who has metan unplanned death."
"Here, you! Stop that, or I'll shoot!" sounded, angrily, the voice ofvon Bechtold's guard behind them.
But the German officer, regardless of threats, had dashed past themarine, and was now in the passageway.
"Here, I'll soon settle you!" cried the marine, wrathfully. But hedidn't, for von Bechtold let a solid fist fly, and the marine, caughtunawares, was knocked to the floor.
All in a jiffy von Bechtold reached his objective, the envelope.Snatching it, he made a wild leap back to the cabin, brushing the marineprivate aside like a feather.
"Grab him!" yelled Dave Darrin, plunging after the German. "Don't lethim do anything to that envelope!"
Dave Darrin and the German Submarines Page 4