The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet Part 4

Off Falmouth, the transports, accompanied by three of the American destroyers and two English "limeys "---as the British destroyers are known in the slang of the sea---slipped off silently into the twilight.

The American infantry and marines were to be landed "somewhere in France." Jack and Ted viewed the departure with mingled pride and regret.

"Reckon they will be in the trenches before long," ventured Ted.

"Frisking bean b.a.l.l.s at the Fritzes," snapped Bill Witt with a chuckle as he joined his mates.

And now the submarine fleet continued on its way into the North Sea.

An American destroyer, two English "limeys" and a French vessel of the same type were to escort the Yankee subs the rest of the way.

By morning the _Dewey_ had slipped through the Strait of Dover and emerged at last into the North Sea---the field of her future activities!

There, in due time, the subs reported to the American admiral. Without any delay they were detailed for duty in the vast arena stretching down the Strait of Dover northward to the Norwegian coast---from Wilhelmshaven to the east coast of England and Scotland.

Provisioned and refueled after an inspection and test of her engines, the _Dewey_ lost no time in getting out on the firing line. London papers, brought on board while the Yankee submersible rested in the English naval station at Chatham, told of a daring raid by German light cruisers on the east coast of England only the night before.

Eluding the allied patrol ships, the raiders had slipped through the entente lines and bombarded a number of coast towns, escaping finally in a running fight with English cruisers.

"That was before we got over here," said Bill Witt with a show of irony as he read the meager dispatch in the London Times. "Wait till we Yanks meet up with the Huns!"

An opportunity came shortly. One night, little more than a week after the _Dewey_ had put out into the North Sea, she ran plumb into a huge warship. The little submarine had taken a position about twenty miles directly west of the great German stronghold at Heligoland in a lane likely to be traveled by any outcoming warships.

Executive Officer Cleary, alone in the conning tower, had suddenly been apprised of the approach of the vessel by a message from the wireless room. The _Dewey_ was floating in twenty feet of water with only her periscopes, protruding above the surface. Hardly had he gazed into the gla.s.s before he made out dimly the outlines of the approaching vessel.

At once the crew was sounded to quarters.

"German raider!" the m.u.f.fled cry ran through the ship.

CHAPTER V

THE GERMAN RAIDERS

As the _Dewey_ settled into the water. Lieutenant McClure and his executive officer peered intently though the periscopes, hoping to catch sight of the unknown craft and speculating on her nationality.

The sky was flecked with clouds and there was no convenient moon to aid the submarine sentinel---an ideal night for a raid! "Little Mack," as the crew had affectionately named their commander, was in a quandary as to whether the approaching vessel was friend or foe.

"We'll lie right here and watch him awhile," he told his executive officer. "Pretty soon he'll be close enough for us to get a line on his silhouette."

It had been an interesting revelation to the Brighton boys soon after their entry into the navy to learn that each ship was equipped with a silhouette book. By means of this it was possible to tell the vessels of one nation from another by the size and formation of their hulls, their smokestacks and general outline. Each officer had to be thoroughly well informed on the contents of the book.

Quietly, stealthily the hidden submarine awaited the approach of her adversary, for it seemed only too certain that the ship that had suddenly come dashing up out of the east was out of Cuxhaven or Wilhelmshaven, and had but a short time before pa.s.sed under the mighty German guns on Heligoland.

Chief Gunner Mowrey and his crew in the torpedo chamber forward were signaled to "stand by the guns ready for action," which meant in this case the huge firing tubes and the Whitehead torpedoes. Jack and Ted fell into their places, stripped to the waist, and making sure that the reserve torpedoes were ready for any emergency.

By adjusting the headpiece of the ship's microphone to his ears Chief Electrician Sammy Smith kept close tabs on the approaching vessel with the underwater telephone. With the receivers to his hears he could hear plainly the swish of the vessel's propeller blades as she bore down upon the floating submarine. With his reports as a basis for their deductions, the _Dewey's_ officers were able to figure out the position of the mystery ship and to tell accurately the distance between the two vessels.

"Reckon he'll be dead off our bow in a minute or so," observed Cleary as he completed another observation based on Smith's latest report.

McClure sprang again to the periscope.

"Yes, we ought to get a line on him soon enough now," was his rejoinder.

For a moment the two officers studied the haze of the night sea around them, unable yet to discern the form of the approaching vessel.

And then came a huge specter, looming up directly off the starboard quarter of the _Dewey_ in the proportions of a ma.s.sive warship.

"Looks like a German cruiser," said the American lieutenant as he gripped the bra.s.s wheel of the periscope and gave himself intently to the task of divining the ident.i.ty of the unknown ship.

Cleary was making observations at the reserve periscope, the two officers having plunged the conning tower of the _Dewey_ in utter darkness that they might better observe the shadowy hulk bearing down upon them.

"It is a German cruiser---_Plauen_ cla.s.s---and coming up in a hurry at better than twenty knots," exclaimed McClure, as the outline of the ship was implanted clean-cut against the horizon dead ahead of the _Dewey_.

His hand on the firing valve, the submarine commander waited only until the bow of the German warship showed on the range gla.s.s of the periscope, and then released a torpedo.

Instantly a great volume of compressed air swirled into the upper port chamber; the bowcap was opened and the missile sped on its way.

"Gee, I hope that 'moldy' lands her!" shouted Jack at the sound of the discharged torpedo.

Although but a short time in the North Sea and just getting well acquainted with their English cousins, the American lads were fast learning the lingo of the deep. To every man aboard the _Dewey_ a torpedo was a "moldy," so named by the English seamen.

As the torpedo crew sprang to reload the emptied chamber the _Dewey's_ diving rudders were turned, ballast was shipped and she started to dive. The plunge came none too soon. A lookout on the German cruiser, eagle-eyed about his daring venture, had noted the approaching torpedo and sounded an alarm. At the same moment the ship's rudder was thrown over and she swung to starboard, paralleling the position of the _Dewey_. And just as she came around one of her big searchlights aft flashed into life and shot its bright rays over the water. For a moment or two a finger of ghostly white shifted aimlessly to and fro over the surf ace of the sea and then centered full upon the disappearing periscope of the _Dewey_! Instantly came the boom of the ship's guns as they belched a salvo at the tormenting submarine.

"Missed him by inches," growled McClure after waiting long enough to be convinced that the torpedo had sped wide of the mark.

"And he is firing with all his aft guns," added Cleary as he observed further the flashes of fire from the turrets of the German cruiser.

McClure signaled for the _Dewey_ to be submerged with all speed.

"He'll never get us," he announced a few seconds later as the submarine dived down out of sight.

Jack and Ted, with the rest of their crew, had by this time shunted another Whitehead into position, adjusted the mechanism and were standing by awaiting developments.

"Just our luck to slip a moldy to the blooming Boche and draw a blank,"

grumbled Mike Mowrey, who was mad as a hornet over the "miss."

Ted was inclined to be a bit pessimistic, too; but Jack was sure the _Dewey_ would make good on her next try. Bill Witt started to sing: "We'll hang Kaiser Bill to a sour apple tree," but got little response.

The torpedo crew were glum over their failure to bag the German raiding cruiser and in no mood for singing.

"Cheer up, boys; better luck next time," called out Navigating Officer Binns as he peered into the torpedo compartment.

All at once the boys were startled by a cry from Sammy Smith, who had suddenly leaped to his feet and stood swaying in the wireless room with both microphone receivers tightly pressed to his ears. Above the clatter of the _Dewey's_ engines the gunners forward could hear the electrician talking excitedly to Lieutenant McClure.

"Listen, listen, other ships are coming up," Smith was shouting. "I can hear their propellers. That's the fellow we missed moving off there on our port quarter. You can hear at least two more here in the starboard microphone. We seem to have landed plumb in the nest of a German raiding party," rattled off the electrician glibly as he pa.s.sed the receivers to his commander for a verification of his report.

McClure s.n.a.t.c.hed the apparatus and clamped it to his ears. For a moment he listened to the mechanical whirr of churning propellers, borne into his senses through the submarine telephone.

"Great!" he exclaimed. "Some more of the Kaiser's vaunted navy trying to sneak away from their home base for a bit of trickery."

As he rang the engine room to shut off power, the American commander added, with flashing eyes: