Army Boys in France Part 15

Frank's eyes had been idly roaming over the sea while they were talking, but suddenly his gaze became fixed and he started to his feet.

"Did you see that, fellows?" he demanded, sharply.

"Where?" asked Billy

"I didn't see anything," said Bart.

"It looked like a flash of light on the water," explained Frank.

"There it is again. Great Scott, it's a periscope!"

Almost as he spoke, the forward guns on the liner roared their challenge, followed by the deeper ba.s.s of the guns from the nearest destroyer.

In an instant there was great excitement, though without the slightest trace of panic. The ship swung around in response to a bell from the bridge and began to zigzag in a bewildering fashion.

Then a great white furrow appeared in the sea and along that whitening lane came hissing a monster torpedo. Nearer and nearer it came with lightning speed straight toward the vessel.

Had the liner kept its course the torpedo would have struck it amidships. As it was, it pa.s.sed just back of the stern, missing it by not more than a dozen feet.

The destroyers came racing like mad toward the spot from which the torpedo had been launched. No trace of the submarine was visible but the destroyers circled round and round the spot, dropping their deadly depth bombs in the hope of striking their unseen foe.

Thousands of pairs of eyes watched for the result, while in their excitement their owners almost forgot to breathe.

Minutes pa.s.sed and then a mighty cheer went up. For on the waters appeared a gradually widening smudge of oil on which floated bits of wreckage that told their own story.

The U-boat had fired its last torpedo. One of the depth bombs had sought it out in its invisible lair, battered in its sides, wrenched open its seams and sent its pirate crew to their last account. For that one boat, at least, the Kaiser's admirals would watch in vain.

"We got it!" yelled Billy Waldon exultingly.

"They can't always get away with it!" cried Bart, jubilantly.

"What did I tell you about our navy?" crowed Frank. "They can't put one over on Uncle Sam!"

CHAPTER XIV

THE WAR-SWEPT LAND

"You've got to hand it to that fellow, though," said Billy. "He had his nerve right with him to try to cop out a transport right under the nose of a convoy."

"Yes," agreed Bart. "Although, after all, it may simply have been a chance meeting. The captain of the U-boat might have been as surprised as we were when he came up to breathe and found himself so close to us.

But being there it was too good a chance to miss and he let fly."

"Maybe there wouldn't have been a high old time in Berlin if the torpedo had reached its mark," said Frank. "Think of being able to boast that they'd sunk thousands of Uncle Sam's troops! They'd have hung out the flags and rung the bells and given the school children a holiday."

"Well, a miss is as good as a mile," returned Billy. "It's a heap more comfortable sitting here and talking about it, than it would be to be in the water or rowing about in small boats while the submarine sh.e.l.led us."

"Well, that particular submarine will never do any more sh.e.l.ling," said Bart. "It's all over with them now. It must be a fearful thing to die the way those fellows did, like rats in a trap. It's no wonder that the Kaiser finds it hard to get men to man his U-boats."

"It is pretty rough on them when luck goes against them," admitted Frank. "But if those fellows played the game fairly I'd feel sorrier than I do. Don't forget, that if they saw us struggling in the water they'd be standing on the deck of the submarine, if there were no destroyer about, grinning and mocking at us. And if women and children were drowning, it would make no difference to them."

"Right you are," declared Billy. "Do you remember what that U-boat did that sank the _Belgian Prince_? Smashed the small boats, threw away the oars, and took those of the crew who were left on top of the submarine."

"Yes," said Bart. "Then the Germans made everything tight and went below, leaving their prisoners on the deck. The U-boat sailed along the surface for a few hours and then slowly sank leaving their captives to drown. If that wasn't brutal, cold-blooded murder, there never was any in the history of the world."

"I hope this submarine was the one that did the trick," said Frank.

"Perhaps drowning didn't seem such a rich joke to them when their turn came."

From that time on, the vigilance aboard ship was redoubled, for although the general opinion was that it was only a chance meeting, no one knew but what this U-boat was simply one of a fleet whose companions might look for better luck where their comrade had failed.

But nothing more was seen of the undersea terror until they were approaching the French coast and then the boys were witnesses of an exciting game that held them breathless.

"Look at that speck up there in the sky," exclaimed Frank.

"Biggest bird I ever saw," remarked Billy.

"That's no bird," declared Bart, after a prolonged inspection through a pair of gla.s.ses that he produced from his kit. "That's an aeroplane."

"An aeroplane!" exclaimed Billy. "So far away from sh.o.r.e as this?

You're dreaming."

"You can see for yourselves," replied Bart, as he handed the gla.s.ses around. "Take a squint at it and you'll see that that bird never wore feathers."

"It must be a seaplane," announced Frank. "It's been launched from the deck of some vessel and now it's hovering up there like a hawk, looking for submarines. It's a funny thing, but they say that those seaplane pilots can look right down through the water and see a submarine when it can't be seen from the deck of a ship."

"What's the dope?" asked Billy, with great interest. "Suppose he does spot one, what good does it do?"

"He's got a wireless equipment," explained Frank, "and he sends out signals to trawlers and destroyers. They come on the jump and the seaplane tells them just where the submarine is lying."

"By jiminy, I think he sees one now!" exclaimed Tom Bradford, who had just come up. "See that smudge of smoke over there? That means a steamer's coming and there's another."

As though by magic one boat after another hove in sight until there were four, coming from as many points in the compa.s.s and heading toward that point in the sea over which the seaplane hovered.

The boys were on edge with excitement at the prospect of being in at the death and as the liner was rapidly approaching the scene of action, they had a clear view of what followed.

Guided evidently by signals from the seaplane, two of the trawlers stretched a long chain between them and advanced slowly toward the other two who, with a similar chain approached from the other direction.

"What do you suppose they're trying to do?" asked Billy, curiously.

"The idea is, to get those chains under the submarine," explained Frank. "After they've done that, they'll crisscross them from above.

If they once succeed in doing it the sub is done for. He's got to come up and surrender or else they'll slip him a depth bomb and blow him to flinders."

Deftly and quickly the work went on under the direction of the skilled veterans who held command of the trawlers. Then they waited for the submarine to come up.

But it did not come. Instead, it released a group of mines on the chance of wrecking one or more of its captors. But they were on the lookout for just such a contingency and fended off these "floating deaths," waiting till they had finished their more important work before rendering them harmless.

Minutes pa.s.sed and still the U-boat lay like a sullen monster, trapped but not subdued.