The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet Part 5

"If we don't bring down one of these prowlers before this night is over I'll go back home and ship as deckhand on a Jersey City ferry-boat."

Suspended fifty feet below the surface of the sea, the _Dewey_ floated like a cork in a huge basin while her officers took further observations on the movements of the German warships above them. Now that their presence was known the American officers realized they would be accorded a stiff reception when they next went "up top.".

"I'm going to try it," announced McClure shortly. "We'll take a chance and pay our respects to one of their tubs."

The _Dewey_ forthwith began to rise. At the direction of the navigating officer two hundred pounds of ballast were expelled. Tilting fore and aft like a rocking horse, the submersible responded gradually to the lightening process until at last the depth dial showed only a margin of several feet needed to lift the eyes of the periscopes above the waves. The little steel-encased clock in the conning tower showed ten minutes past one---just about the right time for a night raiding party to be getting under way.

"Guess we'll lie here and wait for them to come along," whispered McClure to Cleary as the periscopes popped up out of the depths into the night gloom.

"We seem to be right in their path and may be able to get one of them as he shoots across our bow," added Cleary as he took another telephone report from the wireless room.

According to Sammy Smith's observations there were two vessels coming up to starboard, while the third, the one the _Dewey_ had missed, was dim in the port microphone and almost out of range. Engines shut off, the submarine lay entirely concealed, awaiting the coming of her prey.

It was McClure's idea to lie perfectly still in the water until one of the enemy warships swung right into the range gla.s.s of the _Dewey_ and then give it a stab of steel---a sting in the dark from a hidden serpent!

The waiting moments seemed like hours. Gradually, however, the leader of the silent ships drew nearer. There was no mistaking the telltale reports in the wireless room. Basing his calculations on the chief electrician's reports, McClure figured the leader of the oncoming squadron to be now not more than half a mile away and moving steadily forward toward the desired range---a dead line on the bow of the _Dewey_.

Executive Officer Cleary at the reserve periscope was first to detect the ma.s.s of steel looming up out of the darkness. Lieutenant McClure swung his periscope several degrees to starboard and drew a bead on the German warship an instant later.

"We'll drop this chap just as he shoots across our bow," declared the _Dewey's_ commander.

Five hundred yards away came the speeding warship. It was close enough now for the American officers to make out her outlines in detail and to satisfy themselves that this was another member of the raiding party out of the great German naval base in back of Heligoland.

"All right, here goes," shouted the doughty Yankee skipper a moment later as the German cruiser drew up until her bow edged into the circle that McClure had marked off on the periscope as the exact spot on which to aim his fire.

Swish! went the torpedo as it shot from the bow of the _Dewey_ and straightened out in the water on its foamy trail, cutting through the sea like a huge swordfish.

It took only a moment---an interval of time during which the torpedo from the American submarine and the German cruiser seemed irresistibly drawn toward each other. And then came the crash---the impact of the torpedo's war-nose against the steel side of the cruiser, the detonation of the powerful explosive, the rending of the German hull.

And then, loud enough for his crew forward to hear his words, McClure called out:

"A perfect hit, boys; torpedo landed plumb in the engine room of a big German cruiser."

A great cheer resounded through the hull of the American undersea craft as the good news was borne to the torpedo crew forward and to the engine room aft.

Keeping his eyes to the periscope, McClure beheld the most spectacular picture that had yet been glimpsed through the eye of the American submarine. The torpedo had struck squarely abaft the ship's magazine and wrecked her completely. The night was painted a lurid glow as a t.i.tanic explosion shook the sea and a ma.s.s of yellow flame completely enveloped the doomed warship from stem to stern.

"Look, she is going down by the stern," called out Officer Cleary as he took one last squint at the _Dewey's_ quarry just before the stricken warship slipped away into the depths.

The jubilation of the crew knew no bounds. The men were wild with joy over their success. Jack and Chief Gunner Mowrey were "mitting" each other like a prize fighter and his manager after a big fight, while Ted and Bill Witt were clawing each other like a pair of wild men.

Through the main periscope Commander McClure was noting the death struggle of the German cruiser, when Executive Officer Cleary, swinging the reserve periscope around to scan the horizon aft the _Dewey_, suddenly called out sharply:

"Submerge, quick! Right here abaft our conning tower to starboard comes a destroyer. She is aimed directly at us and almost on top of us. Hurry, or we are going to be run down!"

CHAPTER VI

RAMMED BY A DESTROYER

It was a critical moment aboard the American submarine. Out of the darkness the destroyer---speed king of the modern navies---had emerged just at the moment the _Dewey_ was sending home the shot that laid low the German cruiser.

Dashing along at a speed better than thirty knots an hour, the greyhound of the Teutonic fleet was bearing down hard upon the Yankee. Evidently the lookout on the destroyer had marked the path of the _Dewey's_ torpedo in the dim gray of the night sea, and with his skipper had sent his craft charging full tilt at the American "wasp."

"If they get to us before we submerge we are done for," gasped Lieutenant McClure, as he bellowed orders to Navigating Officer Binns to lower away as fast as the submerging apparatus would permit. Then the quick-witted commander rang the engine room full speed ahead at the same time he threw the helm hard to port in an effort to bring his craft around parallel with the charging destroyer and thus make a smaller target.

Down, down, down sank the _Dewey_ as her valves were opened and the sea surged into the ballast tanks. The periscopes had been well out of water when the destroyer had first been sighted. It was now a race between two cool and cunning naval officers---the German to hurl his vessel full upon the American submarine and deal it a death blow; the American skipper to outwit and outmaneuver his antagonist by putting the _Dewey_ down where she would be safe from the steel nose of the destroyer.

Although no word was spoken to the crew, they could sense the situation by the sharp commands emanating from the conning tower and the celerity with which the navigating officer and his a.s.sistant were working the ballast pumps.

Great beads of perspiration stood out on the forehead of Officer Binns as he stood over the array of levers and gave directions, first to ship ballast in one tank, and then in another, shifting the added weight evenly so as not to disturb the equilibrium of the _Dewey_ and cause her to go hurtling to the bottom, top heavy in either bow or stern.

Nearly two minutes were necessary to get the little undersea craft down far enough to evade the prow of the oncoming destroyer, and even then the conning tower furnished a target that might be crushed by the nose of the enemy ship and precipitate an avalanche of water into the hold---with disaster for the men a.s.sembled at their posts of duty.

"They are right on top of us now," screamed Sammy Smith as he hugged the microphone receivers to his ears.

If the destroyer was going to get the submarine, now was the fatal moment!

The _Dewey_ suddenly lunged like a great tiger leaping from the limb of a tree upon its prey. Responding to a signal from his commander, Chief Engineer Blaine had suddenly shot into the submarine's engines the full power of the electric storage batteries and hurled the _Dewey_ forward with a great burst of speed. There was a slim chance that the swift-moving German warship might be sidestepped by a quick maneuver, and the crafty McClure was leaving no deep-sea trick unturned.

"Nice place for the Fritzes to swing overboard one of those infernal depth bombs," muttered Bill Witt.

A depth bomb! Jack and Ted knew all about the latest device being employed by the warring nations in their campaigns against submarines.

Gigantic grenades, they were, carrying deadly and powerful explosives timed to go off at any desired depth. One of them dropped from the deck of the destroyer as it pa.s.sed over the spot where the _Dewey_ had submerged might blow the diminutive ship to atoms.

With reckless abandon big bluff Bill Witt began to sing:

_"It's a long way to Tipperary, It's a long way to go. It's a long way---"_

The song was interrupted by a harsh grating sound---the crashing of steel against steel---and then the _Dewey_ shuddered from stem to stern as though it had run suddenly against a stone wall.

Hurled from his feet by the fearful impact Jack sprawled on the steel floor of the torpedo room. Ted, standing close by his chum, clutched at one of the reserve torpedoes hanging in the rack in time to prevent himself falling.

For a moment the _Dewey_ appeared to be going down by the stern, with her bow inclined upward at an angle of forty-five degrees. Above all the din and confusion could be heard the roar of a terrific explosion outside. The little submersible was caught in the convulsion of the sea until it seemed her seams would be rent and her crew engulfed.

From the engine room Chief Engineer Blaine and his men retreated amidships declaring that the submarine had been dealt a powerful blow directly aft the conning tower on her starboard beam.

"Any plates leaking?" asked Lieutenant McClure quietly.

"Not that we can notice, sir," replied Blame. "It appears as though the nose of that Prussian sc.r.a.ped along our deck line abaft the conning tower."

At any moment the steel plates were likely to cave in under the strain and the submarine be inundated.

"Stand by ready for the emergency valve!" shouted Lieutenant McClure.

This was the ship's safety contrivance. The Brighton boys had been wonderfully impressed with it shortly after their first introduction to the "innards" of a submarine.