Chapter V: “surrender!”

The chaser picked up Cape Finisterre the next afternoon and for an hour or more had the coast of Spain in sight. Then land fell away again and their course was laid for Ireland, and Pete was jubilant. A second day without event brought them fairly into the submarine zone and since, of officers and men, only Kennedy, of the after gun crew, had sailed those waters during war time, there was a good deal of poorly disguised excitement aboard. They never got very far from their life-vests and when any one had nothing else to do he leaned against something somewhere on deck and strained his eyes for periscopes. And, of course, with so much looking and so much expectancy something was bound to happen, and did.

Just at sunset that evening Stearns, on lookout duty forward, raised his voice in a shout that was part triumph and part alarm. “Submarine broad off the port bow!” yelled Stearns. “Submarine, sir! You can see her plain!” Every one within sound of the lad’s voice flocked to the rail, while, on the bridge, Captain Cowan already had his glasses to his eyes. And there she was, as plain as the lookout had promised, some two miles distant, just awash and apparently motionless. The sun’s rays showed bright on the curve of her hull, and, while no conning tower was visible, she was unmistakably a U-boat. Even Kennedy agreed to that. There were two courses open to the _944_. One was to get away from that place as quickly as her engines would take her and the other was to fight. To the credit of the chaser be it said that several seconds before the order came from the bridge, both bow and after guns had lost their jackets and two crews were very busy with breech mechanism and ammunition.

Captain Cowan put his mouth to the engine room tube, eager hands fastened on lifebelts, the _944_ swept to port, the engines played a louder tune and the broad, slanting funnel poured black smoke. Soon the chaser was doing her best, or perhaps a little better, for down below engineers and firemen knew what the stake was and were working with a will. Half a mile was swept astern. The submarine paid them no heed. At the bow gun the crew watched the bridge imploringly and growled impatiently over inaction. Finally:

“Ready, down there?” called the luff.

“Ready, sir!”

“Nineteen hundred yards!”

“Nineteen, sir!”

“Eighteen-fifty!”

“Right, sir!”

Then came a disgusted wail from the foretop: “’Taint a sub, sir! It’s a capsized boat!”

A moment of silent dismay followed. The _944_ plowed on, ducking her bows and spraying the forward gun crew. Then, from the bridge: “The lookout’s right,” came the disgusted tones of the luff, “But you’ll never have a better target, men. Fire!”

Well, there was some satisfaction in that, and the crew made the best of it. Perhaps it was just as well that the target was not a U-boat, after all, for the first two shells dropped far short and the third was only a doubtful hit. But after that that floating hulk never had a chance. The after gun crew requested to be allowed to join in the festivities and were given permission, and for a few minutes that small area of the North Atlantic was noisy indeed. The after crew claimed the honors later, and the subject afforded animated and even heated debate all the rest of the evening, but the question was never settled. The only thing certain was that the hull of a small schooner, possibly that of a French fisherman, was the recipient of some ten shells and finally sank gracefully from the scene.

That night there was a second alarm, but this time it was a glimmering fish that darted past the bow and caused the cry of “Torpedo!” The excitement had subsided by the time Dave had reached the companion, still fumbling with his life-vest. The rest of the night passed uneventfully, save for the sighting of two patrol boats.

Morning came with a calm sea and a silvery mist, and Dave was busy with pail and brush in the lee of the after-house when there came a startled cry from a lookout in the waist, echoed by others. Dave dropped his brush, straightened up and gazed about him. On deck everything looked normal. Then his eyes swept seaward and his jaw dropped. Not fifty yards away, spectrally visible in the ocean haze, rode a long, low shape that kept pace with them and drew gradually closer. He had often and often speculated on what it would be like to find a U-boat alongside, and now he knew! For the first moment surprise crowded out all other emotions. He could hear and almost see the water running from the scuppers, and he did see the sudden appearance of the two guns, one forward and one aft of the conning tower, that arose as if by magic from the deck. Then he came to life and stopped being curious. Already the after gun crew was at stations and the chaser was a small hive of activity. And just then a voice came across the water through a megaphone.

“Surrender, sir, or I’ll blow you out of the water!”

On the submarine’s deck a blue uniformed officer was dimly visible, his face hidden by the megaphone. The two guns were now trained straight on the _944_. The officer spoke in fair English and much to the point. On the chaser’s bridge there was a moment of hesitation. Then, however, the captain made his answer. It isn’t printable here. And as he replied the _944_ swung abruptly on her heel, bringing her stern around, and her after gun barked.

That shell missed badly, principally for the reason that the after gun muzzle could not be lowered far enough, and the U-boat replied instantly and with effect. Dave, hustling cartridges from the after-house, felt a blast of air in his face, there was a sharp crackling sound and he was rolling around in what seemed a world of flying fragments. His progress stopped under the small boat lashed forward of the house. Bewildered, he scrambled to his feet. Torn deck planking and splinters of wood met his gaze. A few feet away lay the box of cartridges he had been carrying. He felt dizzy and horribly confused. His left sleeve was torn from elbow to wrist and on his forearm a deep gash was oozing blood. The after gun was still firing, but the U-boat was no longer in sight. He made his way back, rescuing the cartridge box. Young Stearns came groping his way toward him, dragging one leg, supporting himself by the house.

“What is it?” asked Dave anxiously. “Are you hurt?”

“Leg,” answered Stearns, trying to smile. “Bust, I guess. I’m all right, Kid. Don’t mind me.”

He stumbled on, and Dave, feeling a little sick, made his way for the stern. Things were messy there, but the gun had escaped damage. Two of the crew had been hurt, but not badly. One shell, it seemed, had struck the boat at the stern just above the water line, but the swing of the craft had to some extent deflected the force of the explosion. A second, from the submarine’s forward gun, had passed between the gun crew and the after-house. A third, it was believed, had missed narrowly, unless it had struck somewhere forward.

“Do you think we’ve lost them?” asked Dave, ripping off the cover of the shell box.

“Don’t know,” replied Kennedy. “We’re zig-zagging and making east, and if this fog holds we may fool her.”

“Silence!” commanded Briggs, gun captain, and firing ceased.

“We’re only wasting shells,” he said. “Keep your eyes open, fellows, for she may show up again. If she doesn’t put a torpedo into us, I’m willing to fight her all day with guns.”

“Sure!” agreed Kennedy. “We’d have got her then if the Old Man had stuck it out.”

“Don’t be a chump,” answered Briggs. “She had us broadside and would have sunk us with two shots. I don’t see yet how we managed to fool her.”

“We didn’t,” ventured Dave. “She fooled herself. That captain thought we were too surprised to know what to do.”

“That’s right,” some one else agreed. “It’s lucky for us we were doing a good fourteen, or we’d never have turned in time.”

“You men that are hurt, beat it forward and get looked after,” said Briggs. “Don’t be long, for we may be busy again in a few minutes. That means you, too, Kid. Go ahead, all of you.”

“Aw, we ain’t damaged,” grumbled one of the wounded. “Suppose she pops up again?”

“Do as you’re told,” replied Briggs, shortly.

Dave followed the other two and, in the fo’c’sle had his arm hastily bathed and bound up. The _944_ was tearing off a good twenty miles an hour and still dodging from port to starboard and back again. But as Dave hurried back to the deck that erratic progress ceased and the chaser turned in a trail of foam and headed north once more. “If we had depth charges aboard, as we ought to have,” Dave overheard from the bridge, “I’d look for her, but as it is I think we’d better mind our business.” It was the captain speaking, and, although Dave couldn’t hear what Lieutenant Hyatt said he gathered that the latter was not approving of running away.

The mist had amber gleams in it now, for eastward the sun was well out of the sea. Dave satisfied himself that no damage had been wrought forward, waved a hand to Pete, who, chewing his gum steadily, was nonchalantly posed against the bow gun, and returned to his station. Already it was possible to see a much greater distance, for the sun was striking through the mist and making the ocean world a glorious amber mystery. He entered the after-house and picked up another box of cartridges, and as he stepped back to the deck he heard a short, sharp yelp from aft, and then Briggs’s voice crying:

“Carry on!”

Then so many things happened at once that he could never, in memory, place them in sequence. The box of cartridges disappeared from his hands as if by magic, the after-house fairly melted into nothingness, and for the second time on the voyage Dave found himself going down through fathoms of roaring water.