The U-boat hunters Part 6

The skipper's first act was to shake up the second watch-officer, who also happened to be acting as chief engineer of the ship, and to pa.s.s him the word to speed the ship up to twenty-five knots. We were steaming at the head of the convoy column at eighteen knots at the time. The first watch-officer, having finished his breakfast and a morning watch, was just then taking a little nap on the port ward-room transom with his clothes and sea-boots still on. The active messenger shook him up too.

The two officers made the deck together, one b.u.t.toning his blouse over a heavy sweater, the other a sheepskin coat over his blouse.

Word was sent to the _Luckenbach_ that we were on the way. Within three minutes the radio came back: "Our steam is cut off. How soon can you get here?"

Up through the speaking-tube came a voice just then to say that we were making twenty-five knots. At the same moment our executive officer, who also happened to be the navigator, handed the skipper a slip of paper with the course and distance to the _Luckenbach_, saying: "That was at nine-fifteen."

It was then nine-seventeen. Down the tube to the engine-room went the order to make what speed she could. Also the skipper said: "She ought to be tearing off twenty-eight soon as she warms up. And she's how far now?

Eighty-two miles? Send this radio: 'Stick to it--will be with you within three hours.'"

By this time all hands had an idea of what was doing and all began to brighten up. Men off watch, supposed to be asleep in their cots below, began to stroll up and have a look around decks. Some lingered near the wireless door, and every time the messenger pa.s.sed they sort of stuck their ears up at him. He was a long-legged lad in rubber boots who took the deck in big strides. His lips never opened, but his eyes talked. The men turned from him with pleased expressions on their faces.

There was a little steel shelter built on to the chart house to port. It was for the protection of the forward gun crew, who had to be ready for action at any minute. Men standing by for action and not getting it legitimately, try to get it in some other way. So they used to burn up their spare energy in arguing. It did not matter what the argument was about--the President, Roosevelt, the Kaiser, the world series--any subject would do so long as it would grow into an argument. The rest of the crew could hear them--threatening to bust each other's eyes out--clear to the skid deck sometimes. But now all quiet here, and soon they were edging out of their igloo and calling down to the fellows on the main deck: "That right about a ship being sh.e.l.led by a sub? Yes. Well!" They went down to their shelter smiling at one another.

Ship's cooks, who rarely wander far from their cosey galley stoves, began to show on deck; ward-room stewards came out on deck; a gang black-painting a tank hatch--they all slipped over to the rail and, leaning as far out as they could and not fall overboard, had long looks ahead. And then they all turned to see what 352's smoke-stacks were doing. There was great hope there.

The black smoke was getting blacker and heavier. They were sure feeding the oil to her. The chief came up the engine-room ladder. An old petty officer waylaid him. Doing well, was she, sir?--She was. Hem! About how well, sir?--d.a.m.n' well. She was kicking out twenty-eight--twenty-eight good--and picking up.

Twenty-eight and picking up? And the best she showed in her builders'

trial was twenty-nine-one! What d'y' know about her? Some little old packet, hah?

It was a fine day, the one fine day of the trip, a rarely fine day for this part of the northern ocean at this time of year. It was cloudy, but it was calm. There was a long, easy swell on, but no sea to make her dive or pitch. The swell, when she got going in good shape, set her to swinging a little, but that did not hurt. A destroyer just naturally likes to swing a little.

Swinging along she went, rolling one rail down and then the other, but not making it hard to stand almost anywhere around deck, except that when you went aft there was a drive of air that lifted you maybe a little faster than you started out to go. Swinging along she went, a long, easy swing, carrying a long white swash to either side of her, vibrating a thousand to the minute on her fantail, streaming out a long white and pale-blue wake for as far as we could see, and just clear of her taffrail piling up the finest little hill of clear white boiling water.

Twenty-nine, they say, she was making, and still picking up. What!

Thirty? And a little more left in her? What d'y' know--some little baby, hah?

Another radio came to the bridge: "A sh.e.l.l below our water-line.

Settling, but still afloat and still fighting."

"Good work. Stick to it," they said on the bridge, and wondered whether it was the skipper or the radio man who was framing the messages. He had the dramatic instinct, whoever he was.

Perhaps twenty minutes later came: "Water in our engine-room."

And then: "Fire in our forehold, but will not surrender. Look for our boats."

And: "They are now shooting at our antennae."

Radios to the bridge are not posted up for the crew to gossip over, but there was no keeping that last one under cover.

"Sh.e.l.ling their attenay? Well, the mortifying dogs! Whatever you do, don't let 'em get your attenay, old bucket."

Our thirty-knot clip was eating up the road. We were getting near the spot. The canvas caps came off the guns, and the gun crews were told to load and stand by. A chief gunner's mate was told to make ready his torpedo-tubes. He was a famous torpedo-man. He would stay up all night with an ailing gyro or hydrostatic piston and not even ask to sleep in next morning for a reward, and he had a record of making nothing but hits at torpedo-practice. But he had been glum all the trip. He had stayed past the legal hour on liberty the last time in, and the sh.o.r.e patrol had come along and scooped him up. A court-martial was coming to him and so he had been glum; but not now. He went around decks smiling, with a little steel thing that looked like a wrist-bag but wasn't. It held the keys to the magazines.

Pretty soon he had torpedo-tubes swinging inboard and outboard, and between every pair of tubes a man sitting up in an iron seat that looked like the kind that goes with a McCormick reaper, which all helped the gunner's mate to feel better. He stopped ten seconds to tell the story of the new gun-crew man who was sent up the yard to the storekeeper for a pair of spurs to ride the torpedo-tubes with.

There were four guns, one forward, one aft, and two in the waist. They had been slushed down with vaseline to keep the salt-water rust off; now they were swabbing the grease off. Grease on the outside of a gun does not affect the shooting of the inside, but a gun ought naturally to look slick going into action.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Our thirty-knot clip was eating up the road. We were getting near the spot.]

Trainers and pointers stood beside their loaded guns, and other members of the gun crew held up sh.e.l.ls, the noses of the sh.e.l.ls stuck into the deck mat and the b.u.t.ts resting against the young chests of the gun crews as they stood in line. There was a nineteen-year-old lad who, when I knew him two years before, was doing boy's work in the Collier bookbindery. Now he was a gun-captain standing handy to his little pet and trying not to look too proud when he peeked up toward where I was.

The foretop reported smoke on the horizon ahead. That would be on the _Luckenbach_. And where she was the U-boat was. The forward gun was trained a point to right of the smoke.

One senior watch-officer, now in the foretop, called down that he could now see the ship. Smoke was coming out of her hull. Soon he reported sh.e.l.ls splashing alongside of her. Those would be from the U-boat. Soon we all could see the ship from the bridge.

The foretop then reported the U-boat. She was almost dead ahead. She could not be seen from the bridge, but, directed by the foretop, the gun was trained on the horizon dead ahead; 11,000 yards was the range. The gun was one of the latest type--only a 4-inch--but a great little gun just the same.

"Train and fire," said the skipper. Bo-o-m! it went, flame and smoke. We could not see the splash from the bridge, nor could they in the foretop.

It probably dropped beyond the submarine, which soon we could see--a pretty big fellow she looked with two guns. She had been sh.e.l.ling the ship even while we were running up, and as our first shot boomed out she let go another sh.e.l.l. We expected her to send a couple our way--she probably carried bigger guns than we did--but she did not; she let go another at the steamer. "Maybe at the antennae," said a chief quartermaster on the bridge.

We shortened our range. The gun was trained and ready for firing when a sea rolled up on us. The ocean was smooth enough, but the swell was still on--a long swell of the kind that does not sputter, but walk right up and announce their arrival by arriving. This long blue swell rolled up to our bow.

We were doing thirty knots and at thirty knots a little ship doesn't need a masthead sea to get action. We went into it head first. It came right on over our bow, over our foc'sle head, over the forward gun. The shield to the forward gun stood probably six feet above the foc'sle deck. That wave rolled right over the gun-shield.

There was a C. P. O. standing quite close to the shield. He grabbed a vertical rod on the outside of the shield, and just managed to hook in the fingers of one hand. The sea, all white and solid, rolled over the gun and the shield. The C. P. O. was swept off his feet, but he was a stubborn one and hung on. Behind him was the officer in charge of the firing. When he saw that sea rolling up there was nothing near but the C. P. O., so he grabbed the C. P. O. with both hands around the waist.

He too was swept off his feet, but he hung on--to the C. P. O. They both floated flat out on the white roller, and the white roller went smash-o!

up against the chart house.

The chart house was just under the bridge, and the gla.s.s windows had been taken out from the bridge railing so that they would not be smashed by the concussion of the forward gun. We were leaning out of these open s.p.a.ces, just getting ready to laugh at the people below when, swabbo! up the side of the chart house and through the open s.p.a.ces and into our open mouths came the wash of the sea.

Another wave followed that one, but not quite so high. As soon as it pa.s.sed the forward gun was trained and fired. We had been making great leaps ahead all this time--the range now was under 9,000 yards. The foretop reported it short.

The U-boat was still there. We still expected her to send one our way.

But nothing doing for us. She sent another sh.e.l.l toward the steamer. The steamer had quit firing. No use. The U-boat had simply taken position beyond range of the steamer's guns and leisurely as she pleased was sh.e.l.ling her. Our third sh.e.l.l landed close to the sub. And then down she went and wasted no time at it. Before we could train and fire again she was gone.

The sub, as we learned later, had landed fifteen sh.e.l.ls into the steamer and wounded nine of her people, of whom three were of the bluejacket gun crew.

One young bluejacket had been hit twice. He was carrying a sh.e.l.l to the gun when he caught the second one--a piece of flying sh.e.l.l in his shoulder. He laid his own sh.e.l.l on the deck to see how about it, and got hit again; this time in what our navy calls the stern sheets. That made him mad. He shook his fist toward the sub. "No d.a.m.n' German's going to hit me three times and get away with it." He grabbed his sh.e.l.l off the deck and slammed it into the gun-breech. "Hand it to 'em, Joe!" he yelled to the gun-pointer. Joe did his best, but he didn't have the gun--the shot splashed where most of them had, about half a mile short of the sub.

Still pouring the black smoke out of our funnels, we leaped toward the _Luckenbach_ and hailed her through the megaphone when we breasted her.

She hailed back that she had water in her afterhold and fire in her forehold, and gave us the number of her wounded. Two of the three wounded bluejackets were injured seriously. We could see them stretched out under the gun.

We were steaming around the _Luckenbach_ at twenty knots while we were hailing: this in case the sub took it in her head to pop up again and catch us slowed down. We did slow down and stop when it came time to clear away a whale-boat and send it over to the steamer with our senior watch-officer and the surgeon, with the needful surgical supplies.

We continued to steam circles around the steamer all the time they were aboard, with our lookouts keeping eyes skinned for the U-boat. By her manner of sh.e.l.ling the steamer after he had opened fire our skipper judged she was a tough one. She did show once while we were circling the _Luckenbach_. Her periscope popped up about a mile abeam of us. It may have popped up again--it was getting to be a nice little choppy sea good for sub work and no saying that it was not--but we only sighted it once, and then it did not linger.

The sea was growing lumpy when the whale-boat came bouncing back with our senior officer. It was right about the _Luckenbach_ having nine injured, but all would get well. The doctor was looking after them. She was a cotton steamer. The kid who had been hit twice was all right. He was walking around deck with his cap over his port ear and proud as Billy-be-d.a.m.n'--three times wounded by German sh.e.l.l fire and got away with it!

The fire in the forehold? Most of it was from two old mattresses--at least that was all he found.

"Did you put the fire out?"

"Yes, sir. The steamer's crew were too tired to do any more hustling around to put any fire out, so we got out a hose and put it out."

"How about that bulkhead?" asked the skipper. "He hailed that he didn't think it would stand the strain of steaming."

"Maybe so, sir, but I don't agree with him. I don't see how that bulkhead's going to cave in with all those bales of cotton jammed up against it. What the most of them over there are suffering from is the reaction from that three hours of sh.e.l.ling--everything was looking pretty blue to them, sir."