Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns Part 22

"Some old tub taking a chance with a rich cargo," suggested the warrant officer, as Ensign MacMasters' second in command. "Why, at the present time, freight rates are so high and wages so much advanced, that shipowners can find skippers and crews willing to take regular sieves to sea!"

"She looks peculiar," Mr. MacMasters said. "If it wasn't for Grant, here, being in such pain, poor fellow, I'd throw a sh.e.l.l at her and hold her up. But we've got our orders to hasten to the Roads and return again to the _Kennebunk_ as soon as possible."

Therefore the strange craft was allowed to pa.s.s unchallenged. Later they had reason to believe that they had made a small mistake regarding the unknown vessel, yet they had made no mistake in allowing her to go unmolested.

In time they raised the Capes of Virginia, and a few hours later steamed into the dock at Fortress Monroe. Grant, the injured fireman from the _Kennebunk_, was taken ash.o.r.e and sent to the marine hospital.

Ensign MacMasters had his full orders from the commander of the battleship; but he had a wireless message relayed to the _Kennebunk_ stating his arrival. The wireless instrument aboard the steamer was of too narrow a radius to reach the superdreadnaught in her present position.

Orders were soon repeated for the auxiliary craft to make for the battleship again, and laying the course for Ensign MacMasters to follow.

There were storm signals flying; but the steamer was to keep near the sh.o.r.e until she got around Hatteras. It was presumed that she would find the _Kennebunk_ within a week at the most, and the tender was well provisioned and took on extra fuel at the dock.

She went to sea without the boys having had an hour of sh.o.r.e leave; but they did not mind that. The fun of running on the steamer was all right; but they were getting eager now to return to the superdreadnaught.

They ran out between the Capes into what the warrant officer called "a Liverpool particular," meaning a fog almost thick enough to cut with a cheese-knife.

Every once in a while the nose of a steel-gray ship, small or large, poked through the mist, and her growling siren warned the smaller craft to get out of the way.

These patrol boats were very plentiful off the Virginia Capes at that time. A mine-laying enemy submarine would have small chance getting into Hampton Roads.

But that such a craft was in the vicinity the crew of the _Kennebunk's_ tender learned was the fact within a few hours. Their course was southerly, and almost in sight of the coast in clear weather. But they broke out of the fog bank the next morning to see dead ahead two boats, each pulled by four pair of oars, wearily approaching the course of the coastwise steamships.

"I smell a U-boat about!" declared Ensign MacMasters, when he had directed the steamer's course to be changed to run down to the row-boats.

He was right. The boats contained the crew of the schooner _Hattie May_, out of Baltimore, which had been sh.e.l.led and sunk twenty-four hours before by a German undersea craft.

And the report of the wearied crew included a description of the submarine. She was camouflaged by a high bow and a rail all around, as well as by a canvas smokestack to make her look like a tramp freighter.

"The craft we raised going into the Roads!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the warrant officer. "It's her, for a penny!"

"No argument," growled Ensign MacMasters. "We fell down that time.

Although we might have had our hands full if we had tackled her with our two small guns."

It seemed that the disguised undersea boat mounted four guns on her deck, but she was a slow sailer. She had moved up close to the schooner before showing her teeth.

Then she dropped two sh.e.l.ls near the _Hattie May_ to show the skipper that she had the range of his schooner. He had to surrender, and the U-boat moved up and gave him and his crew ten minutes to get into the boats. Then they sank the _Hattie May_ by hanging bombs over her sides and exploding them simultaneously by an electric arrangement.

The skipper of the schooner was taken aboard the U-boat and said he was shown all over the ship. The German captain seemed to be inordinately proud of his craft and what she could do.

"She's got torpedoes, but she don't use 'em because they are expensive,"

said the skipper. "They are saved for a last resort. But she is a mine layer, for I saw two wells and saw the mines, too. She has been out five weeks and is numbered U-Two Hundred Fifty."

"Two hundred fifty!" gasped Whistler to his chums, who were hanging over the rail to listen to this report. "What do you know about that?"

"That's the very number that man Blake used in the restaurant, talking with the skipper of the oil tender, wasn't it?" asked Frenchy of the quick memory.

"You mean Franz Linder, the German spy!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Torry, with emphasis. "He spoke of this very sub."

"You bet!" agreed Ikey.

The steamer's wireless operator was sending out an S O S call and a destroyer quickly answered. The steamer remained by the two boats from the sunken schooner until the fast-flying naval vessel appeared in the west.

After that the boys on the steamer kept their eyes open for sight of the camouflaged U-boat. As the boat picked up speed again and kept to her course. Whistler Morgan and his mates discussed the matter with much excitement.

"Do you s'pose Mr. MacMasters will let us sh.e.l.l the Hun?" demanded Frenchy eagerly.

"She'll more likely sh.e.l.l us," declared Torry, inclined to be pessimistic.

"I bet we can run away from her," cried Ikey Rosenmeyer.

"Say! this tender is no sub chaser. In a race with the S. P. 888, for instance, she wouldn't have a chance."

"Aw, well," Frenchy broke in, "that U-boat will not have a speed of over fourteen knots on the surface. We can do better than that."

"But if she sneaks up on us as that other one did on the _Kennebunk_,"

Whistler observed, "we might easily be potted."

"Right-o!" declared Torry. "Whichever way you put it, I don't want to see that U-boat till we're aboard the _Kennebunk_ again--if ever."

After leaving the crew of the _Hattie May_ to be picked up by the destroyer, the tender continued to run parallel with the coast. Land was seldom wholly out of sight, for Mr. MacMasters had orders as to his course, expecting to meet the superdreadnaught on that vessel's return from the south.

The fog in which they had run out from the Capes was the forerunner of a storm which increased as the day advanced. The gale was behind them, however, so there was no fear of the tender being cast ash.o.r.e.

The sea around Cape Hatteras is notoriously rough in a gale, and the outlook was not promising when they sighted Hatteras Light that evening.

Seaworthy as the steamer was, she pitched terrifically in the seas that threatened now to overwhelm her.

There was a pale and watery moon that evening, with wind-driven clouds scurrying across its face and quenching its light every few minutes. The steamer pitched so that her propeller was frequently entirely out of the sea.

Phil Morgan, in his watch on deck, thought the situation was as nasty as any he had experienced since joining the Navy. With every hatch and door battened to keep the seas from flooding her, they ran on, making scarcely five knots an hour. Now and then they were completely overwhelmed with the seas; and always the craft plunged and kicked as though she actually had to fight for supremacy with each wave.

As the bitter night crept on they wore around the Cape, and then, when it seemed safe to do so, Ensign MacMasters ordered the helm shifted and they edged farther in toward the land.

In time the out-thrust of the coast partly sheltered them and the steamer ran into more quiet waters. But the gale still held, and from the same quarter.

They sighted only smacks and other small fry, including some few coastwise steamers whose routes hugged the land. Surely they might expect safety from submarines so far insh.o.r.e, for this coast is treacherous.

Another day and night pa.s.sed. The wireless operator had thus far failed to raise the _Kennebunk_, although he called every hour.

Mr. MacMasters and the warrant officer studied the chart anxiously.

There were shallow waters hereabout, and although the steamer demanded little depth, there were bights between the reefs that were dangerous.

At daybreak of the fourth day out they were in the track of Charleston craft and quite near to a string of islands. There was plenty of water between the two outer islands. The pa.s.sage was, indeed, a popular channel for both steam and sailing vessels.

The _Kennebunk's_ tender was half way through this gut when suddenly, and without warning, it seemed as though the bow of the craft hit squarely upon a rock.

She stopped with an awful shock, seemed to rebound, and then the forward part rose on a wave that shot it into the air. The explosion that followed was m.u.f.fled; but the sea about the doomed craft fairly boiled.

"We're sinking! All hands on deck!" shouted the warrant officer.