Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers Part 8

"It was a good fight, men," Dave said, as he pa.s.sed through the bay.

"Then I'm not kicking at what I found," cried one young sailor lad, cheerily.

"Nor I," added another. "It was worth something, sir, to take part in a fight like that. Ouch! O-o-o-h!"

Dave paused to bend over the sufferer, resting a hand on his nearer shoulder.

"I beg pardon, sir," said the lad. "I didn't mean to make such a fuss.

You'll think me a regular baby, sir."

"No one is to be blamed for yelling, with a pair of sh.e.l.l fragment wounds like yours," broke in the surgeon, bending over and examining. "My boy, you have regular man's-size wounds."

"Not going to croak me, are you, sir?" asked the young sailor, looking up into Medico's eyes.

"Oh, no; not this trip, my lad."

"Then I don't care," returned the young seaman. "Wouldn't care much, anyway, but there's a mother at home who would! Ouch! There I go again.

My mother'd be ashamed of me."

"No, she wouldn't," smiled the surgeon. "Look here, what I took out of that hole in your leg."

He held up a jagged fragment of sh.e.l.l. It was somewhat oval-shaped, about an inch and a half in length and half as wide.

"It hurt you more when I took that out than it would to pull a dozen of your teeth at once. Let's look at this other hole, the one on the other thigh. That's going to be a tougher job. I'll give you a few whiffs of chloroform, so you won't notice anything."

"Do I have to have the chloroform, sir?" demanded the sailor lad, who was not more than eighteen.

"You don't have to, Ba.s.sett, but it will be for your comfort," replied Medico.

"Then don't ask me to smell the stuff, sir. When this war is over I want to look back and think of myself as a fighting man--not as a chap who had to be ga.s.sed every time the sawbones looked at him. Beg your pardon, sir."

But Medico merely smiled at being called sawbones.

"Chloroform or not, just as you like, lad," the surgeon went on. "Either way, you can always look back with satisfaction on your record as a fighting man, for your grit is all of the right kind."

"Much obliged to you, sir, for saying that," replied the young sailor.

"Ouch! Wait, please, sir. Let me get a grip on the cot frame with both hands. Now, I'm all ready, sir."

"Same old breed of Yankee sailor as always," Darrin smiled down into the lad's face while the surgeon began the painful work of extracting another sh.e.l.l fragment. This one being more deeply imbedded, the surgeon was obliged to make a selection of scalpel and tissue scissors and do some nerve-racking cutting. But the seaman, his hands tightly gripped on the edges of the operating table, which he had termed a cot, did not once cry out, though ice-cold sweat beaded his forehead under Darrin's warm hand.

Then a bayman washed down the enameled surface of the table, rinsing the blood away, and another attendant skilfully dressed and bandaged the second wound as he had done the first. Two baymen brought a stretcher and the lad was taken to a bunk. Here he was given a drink that, after five minutes, caused him to doze and dream fitfully of the battle through which he had lately pa.s.sed.

By this time nearly all of the wounded had received first attention.

Dave Darrin, followed by a junior officer, went forward to another, still smaller room, where he gazed down with heaving breast at the forms of the seamen who had given up their lives under the Stars and Stripes in the gallant work of that night.

Over the face of each dead man lay a cloth. Each cloth was removed in turn by a sailor as Darrin pa.s.sed along.

"A good fighting man and a great romp on sh.o.r.e," said Dave, looking down at the face of one man. "One of the best fellows we ever had on any ship I've ever served on," he said, glancing at another face. "A new lad," he said, of a third, "but he joined on so recently that I know only that he was a brave young American!" And so on.

It was just as the sailor was laying the cloth back over the features of the last one in the row that a seaman sprang into the room precipitately.

"Beg pardon, sir," he called excitedly, "but telephone message, with compliments of executive officer, and commanding officer's presence is desired on the bridge--instantly!"

That surely meant business!

CHAPTER IV

WHAT A FLOATING MINE DID

AS Dave reached the deck he caught a fleeting glimpse of a big steamship ahead, which was revealed in the glare of the destroyer's searchlight.

But he did not stop to linger there. Up to the damaged bridge he ran as fast as he could go.

Evidently putting on her best effort at speed the steamship was moving forward fast in a zig-zagging course.

"She was working her radio and blowing her whistle, all in the same moment, sir," Lieutenant Fernald explained. "She must have seen a torpedo that pa.s.sed by her. There must be a submarine somewhere, but we haven't picked up a sign of it as yet."

The ship was nearly two miles away. Having seen the destroyer's searchlight the big craft's whistle was again blowing.

"Her master hardly expects to get away from the submarine," Dave observed, and instantly turned his night gla.s.s on the dark waters to try to pick up some sign of the Hun pirate craft that was causing all this excitement aboard a respectable neutral liner.

"She's a Dutch craft," Dave commented. "Head in, Mr. Fernald, as that will give us a better chance to try to find out on which side of her the pest is operating. Ask her which side."

Promptly the signal flashed out from the blinkers of the "Grigsby."

Plainly the excited skipper of the liner hadn't thought of offering that important bit of information.

"Starboard side, probably eight hundred yards away," came back the Dutchman's blinker response.

Dave accordingly ordered the "Grigsby" laid over to starboard and raced on to place the Yankee ship between the pirate and the intended victim.

Hardly had the course been altered, however, in the roughening sea, when a dull lurid flash some twelve or fifteen feet high was seen just under the liner's starboard bow. A cloud of smoke rose, the lower half of which was promptly washed out by a rising wave.

"That was a mine, no torpedo!" cried Dave, his eyes snapping. "Full speed ahead, Mr. Fernald, and prepare to clear away our launches. That ship cannot float long!"

Through the night gla.s.s it could be seen that throngs of pa.s.sengers were rushing about the deck of the Dutch vessel. Ship's officers were trying to quell the panic that was quite natural, for the mine, if it were such a thing, had torn a huge hole in the bow, and the liner was settling by the head.

Up raced the "Grigsby," the "Reed" arriving less than a minute afterward.

Both destroyers had manned their launches, and these were now lowered and cleared away.

Even though the pa.s.sengers appeared to have lost their heads, the Dutch skipper proved true to his trust. He was lowering his own boats and rafts as rapidly as he could, and making swift work of getting human beings away from the stricken ship.

Fully two-score pa.s.sengers of either s.e.x jumped. Striking the water they bobbed up again, for they had not neglected their life-belts.

In the hurry one lifeboat was overturned just before it reached the water. The "Grigsby's" leading launch raced to the spot. Half a dozen jackies promptly dove over into the icy water to give a hand to pa.s.sengers too frightened to realize the importance of getting quickly away from the sinking liner.