In a bay among bleak hills of the Irish coast, an American submarine rolled a wet back out of water and swam slowly ahead like a tired whale coming up to breathe. Through the top of the conning tower crawled two young officers who found room to stand upon the bit of convas-screened bridge where they faced the nipping winter wind and filled their lungs with it. Their blue uniforms were shabby and sea-stained, the trousers stuffed into rubber boots, heavy sweaters worn beneath the blouses. Their faces, framed in knitted helmets, reminded one of athletes trained to a wire-edge, as though their nervous endurance had been taxed beyond the ordinary. The elder of the two was a senior lieutenant who commanded this S-14 which had strayed so very far from home. His eyes snapped and there was no trace of fatigue in his voice as he said:
"I'll bet you the cigars we slipped into him that time, Pete! What's he trying to wig-wag? Here, take the glasses."
The navigator gazed at another submarine which had emerged half a mile away. An energetic manikin of a sailor was waving a flag in a series of jerky motions which translated themselves into the message:
"A clean hit. Captain's compliments. Make one more run."
The commander of S-14 grinned with honest pride and danced a jig-step to warm his congealed toes. This was the last day of practice with the British submarine flotilla, the end of weeks of making ready to fight Fritz with his own weapon. These Englishmen knew the tricks of the trade. For two years they had been playing hide and seek on the North Sea patrol, lurking near Heligoland Bight, dodging German mine fields, ready to ram or torpedo at glimpse of a hostile periscope or conning tower awash. They had been successful, although the cost was heavy, and this was why the American submarines had made a wild voyage of it across the Atlantic in mid-winter to join forces.
Down below in S-14 the crew relaxed during the brief respite and gathered amidships to breathe the sweet air which gushed through the open hatch. They, too, were muffed and booted to withstand the damp and penetrating chill of their steel-walled prison. They suffered their manifold discomforts with an amazing and courageous good-nature and rather pitied the lads who had been left on home duty. The word was passed that they had officially destroyed their friendly antagonist, the British submarine, by plunking a torpedo with a dummy head into him at a thousand yards, and all hands seemed as delighted as if they had received an increase of pay. The commander's long legs came clumping down the steel ladder, preceded by the chubby navigator. Then the round hatch plate was screwed down, the boat was again tightly sealed, and the order given to stand by to submerge.
Deftly trimmed, the boat sank with a slant barely perceptible and hung at twenty-five feet while the skipper and the navigator stood at the two periscopes and turned them to rake the wide bay. The British submarine had vanished. It was a guessing match. S-14 dropped a little lower until the exposed sections of her slender periscopes had sunk beneath the surface lest they betray her position. The electric motors purred softly in the brilliantly lighted compartment, which was fairly crammed with machinery. The submarine stole ahead, guided by the gyroscope compass in its great bowl. A few minutes and the pumps throbbed as water was expelled from ballast tanks. The boat rose a little for a hasty observation through the lenses of the magical tubes. The skipper discerned something that looked like a bit of stick floating upright. His boat turned, poised itself, and the gunners crouching at the forward torpedo gearing were told to flood the port tube. Presently the bow lifted a trifle, there was the cough of compressed air expanding, and the long missile sped on its run.
"All done," said the skipper to the sallow engineer officer. "Hook her up and let's go as soon as she is awash."
Again S-14 boiled up to show a dripping deck, and this time as many of the crew as were not on watch scrambled outside to crowd upon the narrow platform and greedily light cigarettes. The oil engines sang noisily and the diving rudders folded back against the hull very much as an elephant moves its ears. Presently the British submarine appeared and laid a course to jog homeward in a sociable manner. Her commander shouted through a megaphone:
"A close call -- that last run of yours -- missed us by twenty feet; but it was a jolly good morning's work, old man."
"Well, I scuppered you once, and that is usually considered enough," replied the Yankee lieutenant.
"The blighter of a Hun might think so, what? Dinner at seven-thirty tonight. Don't forget. Right-o! See you later."
Soon the two submarines steered divergent paths to make for their respective mother ships which were anchored some distance apart. S-14 slackened speed and turned to find a resting-place against the outermost submarine of the row of them which snuggled abreast beside the big steamer. The crew poured out and recklessly footed it across the narrow planks from one deck to the next, and dived into the spacious quarters of this mother ship, where they could eat hot meals at real tables and find room to swing hammocks until the call should come for the first long tour of patrol duty. Lieutenant James Slayback, skipper of S-14, stripped off his greasy garments, danced under a hot shower, and proceeded to array himself in a spick-and-span uniform. This was likewise the programme of Peter Morton, navigating lieutenant, and young Penfield, engineer officer.
They went off in a launch to the British ship which had once been an Australian liner, and were escorted into the ward-room as guests of a score of submarine officers who might have told you something about what the Royal Navy was doing. But they turned red and were frightfully embarrassed when one questioned them about their own exploits, and preferred to talk shop among themselves in the most matter-of-fact manner. Cordial and genuine was the hospitality displayed toward the American guests. They were all men of the same trade with a feeling of mutual respect. There was no such thing as bluffing it in submarines. The officers were picked men, survivals of the fittest.
After dinner the captain commanding the British flotilla entered the ward-room to greet the visitors and bid them god-speed. Their admiring gaze was held by the bit of ribbon upon the breast of his coat. It was the token of the Victoria Cross. No words could have conveyed, with such thrilling emphasis, what men had dared and done in submarines. The captain's manner was winsome, his demeanor almost shy, but the occasion seemed to demand a speech of some sort and he said:
"It has been awfully pleasant to have you Americans with us. You have shown no end of pluck and -- er -- not a bit of what we used to call Yankee brag, don't you know. It was a mistaken impression, I fancy. Tourists and that sort of thing may have fostered it. And I imagine you thought the Englishman was an ass. There were some dreadful bounders traveling about -- impossible persons who posed as typical Britons. However, we begin to know each other a trifle better, I'm sure."
"Er -- your S-14 will be the first American submarine to finish training and be assigned to sea duty. I have encountered Fritz several times -- that is to say, I was lucky enough to strafe a U-boat or two, if you will pardon this personal reference. I mention it merely to assure you that the Hun is a cowardly fighter at close quarters in submarine warfare. He doesn't like it. Go at him hell-for-leather and you'll get his wind up. This service of ours in uncomfortable and all that, but it's immensely sporting. One is rather certain to have a run for his money, which is what we are here for, isn't it? Gentlemen of the wardroom, I propose the health of S-14 and her gallant officers and men! Here's to a successful cruise and our hearts will be with you."
The fine simplicity of this farewell touched the emotions of the guests, who briefly spoke their thanks like manly sailors. This evening in the ward-room impressed them with the fact that in addition to the high traditions of the American naval service as an inspiration they were inseparably linked with the cause of their British comrades. For the time they were as one navy and England was glad to honor such victories as they might win. When the three Americans had returned to their own ship, they sat and smoked in Lieutenant Jim Slayback's cabin and concluded that there was no life like hunting the foe in a submarine.
Two days after this, S-14 moved out of the bay, running on the surface, and the bold coasts of Ireland dropped slowly astern. At sunset the solitary submarine was a speck on the surface of a rolling ocean otherwise untenanted. Not yet compelled to submerge, she held on her way through the night and moved at ten knots toward the area designated as a patrol block. The crew slept and stood watch in turn, curling up on the floor or in odd corners, stowing themselves as best they could, never bothering to remove their clothes. They led what would have been called an intolerable existence ashore.
When daylight came, S-14 began to find the voyage otherwise than monotonous. A British seaplane, soaring like a great bird of prey, came swooping out of the east at a hundred miles an hour. The American submarine dallied not to attempt a recognition signal, but dived in haste. Into the foaming wash as she went under, the vigilant seaplane dropped two depth bombs which exploded with annoying violence. They shook S-14 from bow to stern, smashed a dozen electric light-bulbs, and caused the coffee-pot to jump off the heater. This last calamity was resented by Lieutenant James Slayback, who testily remarked to the navigator:
"I call that discourteous, to heave bombs on us just at breakfast-time. The fool of a seaplane has scalded a perfectly good cook, and came mighty near getting out number."
"Yes, and he'll probably claim that he potted a Hun," bitterly replied Peter Morton. "That's the only part of this game that I don't fancy. Your own friends seems so infernally anxious to put a crimp in you."
For the rest of the day, S-14 went warily with an eye cocked for trouble, as one might say. It was safer to stay submerged, for she was crossing the routes of merchant traffic and gunners were alert to blaze away at the first glimpse of a periscope. Reluctant to run on his storage batteries any more than could be helped, the commander made a surface run whenever the sea seemed clear, but an American destroyer caught him at it and surged at thirty knots to ram and scatter the merry depth bombs. It was then that the hunted submarine broke its best record for quick submersion and slid a hundred and forty feet toward the bottom before the flickering needles of the depth gauges showed that she was held and steadied.
"This service of ours is immensely sporting, what?" pensively echoed Navigating Lieutenant Peter Morton as he wiped a perspiring brow. "'One is rather certain to have a run for his money, don't you know.'"
"And the executive of that destroyer is a cousin of mine. He owes me money," said Slayback. "I recognized the boat in spite of her drunken dazzle paint. He has visions of a 'well done' signal from Admiral Sims."
"Well, we'll soon be clear of those wild-eyed destroyers, Jim. They don't frequent our beat."
"Out of the frying-pan into the fire, Pete. Those British destroyers are wide-awake, believe me. And the trawlers lay miles of nets with neat little mines tied to 'em. It's up to you to keep clear of them."
"They are plainly marked on our Admiralty charts, but I can't answer for the set of the tides and currents," was the cheerful reply. "And the confounded nets and mines are always going adrift and then you bump into 'em where they hadn't ought to be. Did you know I own a farm in Virginia? An uncle wished it on me. There are times when it appeals."
The submarine veered from the wide Atlantic and crept into shoaling waters. She groped and felt her way through perils unseen where an error of judgment or a blunder in direction meant instant death. There was no opportunity to climb on deck and find relief from the cramped quarters and heavy, clammy air. The grimmest part of the long ordeal had begun. For hours she would lie on the bottom while the officers clamped the receiver of the listening device to their ears and the delicate microphones conveyed the distant sounds of a throbbing engine or the beat of a propeller. The hardships were not so severe and unremitting as during the stormy winter passage across the Atlantic, but the nervous tension was more acute.
This was the first cruise on actual patrol against the enemy. The conditions were novel. Their task was the intercept the predatory U-boats as they followed the secret channels in and out through their own mine fields. It was one thing to hunt them, another thing to feel that they might be also hunting you. At intervals more or less regular S-14 lifted her periscopes and scanned the sea around the circle of the horizon. The weather was rough, and if they tried to lie awash and open a hatch at night, a gray comber was likely to slap aboard and flood the boat. They had to risk it now and then, of course, in order to freshen the air below. After ten or twelve hours of submersion, headaches were common and one had to fight drowsiness. The men suffered from lack of exercise, and the monotony was deadly.
Now Lieutenant James Slayback was a first-class submarine officer and as a commander he had won the confidence of his crew. His physique was not robust, however, and his nerves were strung too taut. The winter of terrifically hard work had wearied him more than he realized. He had scoffed at the idea of a few days' leave and a trip to London while training with the British flotilla.
Under the strain of this cruise on patrol his temper became a bit ragged, although he was unaware of it. Chubby Peter Morton, whose well-cushioned body sheltered the soul of an imperturbable optimist, perceived that the skipper's feelings were easily hurt. He discussed it with young Penfield, the engineer officer, who was too busy with the temperamental machinery and batteries to think about himself.
"The old man is as irritable as a setting hen," observed Peter. "He bawled out the boatswain's mate this morning for no reason at all. And this made some of the other men sulky. You have to humor 'em, 'specially when they are shy of sleep and haven't had a smoke for two days."
"I've noticed it," agreed young Penfield. "But we must jolly him along and swallow his insults. He is the best that ever was."
"It's the wife and baby," sagely suggested the navigator, who was a dashing bachelor. "Jim is one of those family men that take it awful hard. He has never seen the baby. It was born after we came over, and he sits and fusses and yearns and worries until it gets his goat."
"Single men for submarine service," said the sentimental engineer, who had left a girl in every port. "I don't mind telling you, Pete, that I am in love, and she is a perfect dream -- but as for mourning over her -- nix on that stuff."
"Right you are, old top. Now, if I had a wife and she knew I was sitting down here under fifty feet of water, waiting to see if Fritz gets me before I get him, I'll bet she would worry a lot about me. That's the way women are built. There is my mother, for instance. She's as brave as they make 'em, but she didn't like it when I was assigned to submarine duty overseas."
The cook interrupted to tell that supper was ready, so they joined the commander at a tiny, swinging table in the open space amidships which was dubbed the ward-room by courtesy. Lieutenant Jim Slayback scowled at the canned beans and sliced ham, and had little to say until Peter Morton, in an amiable effort to promote sociability, ventured to exclaim:
"By Jove, you haven't shown us the baby's picture more than twice a day! Trot it out again and brighten our cheerless lives."
There was a tone of this which the skipper obviously resented, but the topic was so dear to him that he replied:
"He must be a wonder of an infant. Far be it from me to boast, but he's an extraordinary youngster for four months, I give you my word--"
"The image is something, of course," observed the navigator who had a fatal weakness for teasing. "It walks, talks, and tells all visitors that it was sired by the most promising and efficient officer in this man's navy."
"Oh, shut up, Pete!" snapped the proud parent. "I didn't mean to bore you. I'll stow the picture away."
"By no means, Jim. If the child inherits your disposition, it must be a little gleam of sunshine. Try a plate of beans."
"The grub is rotten, and you're a cursed nuisance with your eternal joshing," hotly retorted the skipper.
Poor Morton perceived that he had blundered. His innocent merriment was ill-timed. The engineer nudged him, and he replied with feeling:
"That's a bit strong, Jim. You don't really mean it. I'm sorry if I rubbed you the wrong way, but I think you owe me an apology."
"Apology be hanged. It's time somebody put the lid on your chatter!" cried Slayback, shoving his plate aside.
"Whew, you are pleasant to live with, aren't you?" rapped out the navigator, who had a temper of his own. "My chatter, as you call it, will annoy you no longer. It's all off."
"Thank God for that," growled the other man as he left the table. "Stand by to blow tanks. I'm going up to take a look-see before dark."
From her resting-place on the sandy bottom, S-14 floated toward the surface with positive buoyancy. Instead of breaking water she paused quiescent and concealed while only the tops of the periscope tubes betrayed her presence. The wind was dying with the sun and the sea had subsided. The air was unusually clear. The field of vision was unmarred. The skipper stood at the eye-piece, gripping the handles with which he revolved the long tube. As he slowly swung it, a startled ejaculation burst from his lips. Sharply defined in miniature, he beheld the outline of a submarine etched black against the rim where sea and sky met. The powerful lenses disclosed this other boat as awash with conning tower exposed, and moving at a leisurely gait as though confident that no danger threatened.
The skipper of S-14 marked the course which the distant submarine was steering. It was an enemy, bound in from an offshore cruise. No friendly boats would be found in this patrol area. Steady and cool, his ragged nerves forgotten, Lieutenant Jim Slayback swiftly calculated what should be done. A gesture told the navigator to jump to the other periscope. They gazed for a moment in silence and glanced at the compass. Together they worked out the enemy's speed and direction and the angle of intersection for S-14. A word of command and the crew went quietly about their several duties. There was no excitement, but an eagerness tense, restrained, disciplined, to commit no faults, to operate the boat at the top-notch of efficiency. As still as graven images the two petty officers sat perched upon their stools in front of the depth gauges and controlled the mechanism of the diving rudders as a good rider feels the mouth of a spirited horse.
"I doubt if Fritz caught a glimpse of us," muttered Slayback, who was talking to himself. "We were almost in the path of the sun with no more than three feet of periscope showing."
"Ready to dive, there!" he exclaimed, in a slightly louder voice. "Crack the main valve! Lively, now! Hold her at thirty feet and go ahead on your motors."
Wholly beneath the surface, S-14 stole forward, blind and yet directed by a trained intelligence which had been arduously schooled for just such an episode as this. Her speed increased, reckless of draining the precious current from the storage batteries. The skipper held his watch in his hand, checking off the run, minute by minute. S-14 rose a little and the wake of the periscope made a V-shaped ripple. It was for a momentary observation. Then they vanished. The course had been true. The U-boat was no more than four hundred yards distant. Slayback ordered the helmsman to swerve a trifle to starboard. Then from where he stood at the periscope he pulled trigger, once, again, and launched both bow torpedoes.
Breathlessly all hands waited for the muffled shock of an explosion. Nothing happened.
"Missed with both barrels," groaned the navigator. "For Heaven's sake, Jim, let me have a squint at him."
The disgusted skipper told his men to let her come up. Then he perceived that the U-boat, taking alarm, had veered from her course in a desperate zigzag maneuver and baffled the torpedo attack in the nick of time. Fritz was about to dive in a tremendous hurry and hunt for safety in the depths. He could not fire his own torpedoes without swinging so as to bring his broadside to bear and he cared not to risk making himself so easy a target.
"Full speed ahead and ram the son of a gun!" yelled Slayback, shaking his fist at the image in the periscope. "He's ducked like a scared rabbit. Cut him in two! Hold her as she is. Easy with the helm. He's our meat. Look out for the devil of a bump."
The American submarine rushed forward for a hundred yards before slanting upward to finish her charge. It was to be a duel on the surface if she could overtake the U-boat before it fled to cover. Taken by surprise, perhaps dazed by this deadly onslaught, the German sailors were not swift enough. Their boat had begun to settle. The deck was under water, but the conning tower was still visible, and from its top a long heavy wire cable or stay which extended to a ring-bolt in the bow.
S-14 arrived just too late for the head-on collision which would have crushed the enemy's hull like an egg. Instead of this terrific impact, the rounded, blunt-nosed bow slid across the enemy's deck with a jar and a scrape which knocked the American crew this way and that. The attacking submarine failed to pass over the half-submerged U-boat, and halted abruptly, seemed to rebound, then hung where she was, the two boats somehow interlocked. S-14 could neither back away nor forge ahead. She was resting across the U-boat, the two hulls at right angles to each other.
"Any damage?" Lieutenant Slayback anxiously asked his engineer.
"Motors turning over all right, sir, and her skin seems as tight as a bottle," calmly answered young Penfield whose sallow complexion showed a distinct pallor. "We seem to have waltzed on top of old Fritz with the intention of roosting there. It's 'immensely sporting,' really."
"My word, yes," blandly chimed the navigator. "What are we going to do about it? Fritz is still going down."
The commander appeared absurdly purplexed, but rallied to say: "This beats me, and then some. Try to hold him up, if you can, and perhaps we can get clear. If we are able to lay him aboard, it will be an old-fashioned scrap. Rifles and cutlasses, boys. Get 'em ready, and fix bayonets."
There were yelps of delight as the men jumped for the racks, but the engineer who stood by the pumps and motors with his machinist's mates was seen to shake his head in a dubious manner. Intent on his job he exclaimed:
"If the darned Hun is heading for the bottom, I guess we have to go along with him. And I don't see ourselves getting clear. What did we do, Pete? Jam our nose under that wire stay that is stretched from his conning tower?"
"Precisely that, dear old thing," replied the navigator. "That wire stay of his has a saw-toothed edge and is rigged to cut through nets. It will stand more strain than we can put on it, all right. We drove under it and caught ourselves on something or other."
S-14 was trying to rise by emptying ballast tanks as fast as the water could be blown out of them, but the fateful depth gauges showed that she was very slowly going down at an uncomfortable slant. The crew was no longer elated, and the men who had been buckling on the cutlass-belts were waiting for further orders. Although undismayed they were hushed. They confided to each other in whispers. In the bright illumination of the electric bulbs, their youthful faces seemed suddenly to have become haggard with anxiety. The boatswain's mate, who was a veteran at the submarine game, swore in a peevish manner. This seemed to ease the strain. One or two men laughed.
The commander was absorbed in his own thoughts, weighing his knowledge and experience, testing this conclusion and that. He knew that the men were keenly watching him. In this supreme crisis he was the hope of salvation. It was possible that he had damaged the German submarine sufficiently to dent or start the plates and rivets and cause leakage. In this event the enemy was slowly drowning instead of deliberately diving, but there was no way of getting at the facts. Slayback pored over the chart to which the navigator silently called his attention. The depth of water was marked as ten fathoms, or sixty feet, a stretch of sandy bottom where the sea was comparatively shoal. Locked in a deadly embrace like two monsters of the deep which had blindly grappled with each other, the two submarines were vanishing from the surface upon which they would leave no trace.
"Fritz is dragging us down with him," admitted the commander as he looked up from the chart. "We can't get buoyancy enough to hold up all that dead weight. And we don't seem to be wiggling out of the mess."
"Nothing doing," agreed Peter Morton, trying to steady his voice. "We got our Hun, first crack out of the box, but we don't know what to do with the blighter. Anyhow, he can't be feeling very snappy himself."
Slayback's manner was curiously formal, as though he could not forget the affronts exchanged over the supper-table.
"Better turn off some of the lights, Mr. Morton. There's no sense in wasting current. We may be under water for some time."
There was no sense of motion within the submarine excepting a somewhat sharper slant of the floor as she continued to descend. Occasionally a slight tremor passed through the steel shell of the hull as the keel scraped upon the deck of the U-boat. It was futile to attempt release by means of the motors. If the wire stay should break under the strain, S-14 would instantly shoot up to the surface with every ounce of buoyancy she possessed. Young Penfield rubbed a grimy nose and spoke what was in every one's mind.
"A diver could cut that stay and free us in a jiffy."
A boyish seaman giggled at this and was unable to check his mirth. It was a symptom of hysteria. The commander threw up his head and stood as erect as if on parade. He was indomitable. Sternly he exclaimed:
"None of that stuff, boys. You are not that kind. The Navy expects every man to do his duty, sink or swim. We are not licked, by a long shot. This isn't the first submarine that has had to sit on the bottom when she didn't want to. I don't expect to hear any growling until we have stood twenty-four hours of it. I'm not going to twiddle my thumbs, understand?"
Some of them grinned at this, and a few stretched themselves on the floor with coats or sweaters under their heads. They would have to go on watch later in the night, but it might have been observed that they stared at the ceiling and felt no desire for sleep. S-14 had finished the descent and was now stable. Her bow was upheld by the U-boat upon which she rested. It was comprehended by the American officers that nothing more could be done until morning came. The sea above them was enveloped in darkness. Any scheme for revealing their plight to passing ships must wait for the light. They fell to wondering what had happened to the U-boat and its imprisoned crew separated from them only by the steel plates of the two hulls.
After a time they heard sounds of metal striking metal, like the rap-rap of machinists' hammers. It was uncanny, painful to listen to, for the men trapped in S-14 felt no inclination to gloat over a foe who was in the same tragic predicament. The Huns deserved it, but there are limits to vengeance. The noise of hammers and other tools became louder, more insistent, as though the artisans were toiling in a frenzy of haste.
"We busted things for 'em somehow," said Peter Morton, his ear against the side of the boat. "They are certainly trying to make repairs."
"We did our best to drown the pirates," replied the engineer. "Maybe we turned that same little trick."
"Do you know, I'd be mighty glad to find their boat is sound and tight!" exclaimed Peter, as one advancing a bright idea. "Sooner or later they would have to blow tanks and carry us up with them. They may think we are holding them down on purpose, to see who cracks first."
"Foolish, my son. I hate to dispute you," said young Penfield. "That U-boat is in trouble. And it is not motors or diving gear. I can tell by the sounds. The beggars are doing their darndest to keep the water out. Their boat is flooding."
The surmise was correct, as was proved at midnight. There was no more rat-tat of hammers, but significant silence. At length, and after a long interval, there came a faint tapping. It was cadenced and methodical, repeated again and again. The navigator of S-14 pricked up his ears and looked bewildered. He harkened intently. Then he said to the commander:
"A message -- international Morse -- it's in English. Write it down as I spell it out."
Slayback picked up a pencil and jotted down the letters. The men approached and peered over his shoulder. They felt awe, as though a ghost were trying to signal them. Upon the slip of paper they watched the letters group themselves into these two words:
"WE S-U-R-R-E-N-D-E-R--"
They listened, in strained suspense. A few minutes passed and the metallic rapping was resumed, but more feebly, with a halting irregularity. It attempted to convey the same message, but got no farther than
"W-E S-U-R-R-E-N-D--"
Another long pause, and barely audible was the word:
"H-E-L-P--"
This was the last call from the U-boat. The silence remained unbroken. Lieutenant Peter Morton remarked, in subdued accents:
"I guessed right. They did think we were trying to hold them down. Well, there's one U-boat crossed off the list. Filled to the hatches and all hands dead."
"I don't want to croak," confided young Penfield, careful lest he be overheard by the men, "but it looks as if we had played our last bet. I was gambling on the hope that Fritz might shove us up to the top."
Conversation lagged. There were brooding lapses. The boatswain's mate had climbed from the stool in front of his depth gauge and was thumbing a greasy pack of cards in a solitaire which presaged good luck whenever it came out right, which had happened twice in four years.
"I wish the guy that invented this solitaire gadget was cooped up with us," he grumbled to himself. "I'd treat him rough. This is the night for her to come through. King on a jack and I'm ditched again, by cripes."
The commander sat by the little table, his hands clasped behind his head, his eyes half-closed. His lip twitched and one foot moved restlessly. His brain was so active that the thoughts seemed to revolve in fiery circles, to be searing grooves as they incessantly pursued one another. It was approaching the hour of dawn when he rose abruptly and beckoned his two officers. The air in the submarine was becoming foul. They found it difficult to ward of drowsiness. Morton picked up the coffee-pot and took three cups from the rack.
Slayback regarded them with somber earnestness before he said: "You heard Captain Barnard tell the yarn one night aboard the British mother ship. He called it one chance in a million, but he won."
"Yes, but that was different," argued Norton. "Hew as in home waters, close to Harwich, and the destroyers were looking for his boat. They knew pretty well where he had gone down. We are well over toward the German coast and the chance of being picked up is far from merry and bright."
"If a Hun finds one of us men floating about," suggested the engineer, "he will thank you for the information and drop a few bombs on poor old S-14 instead of trying to fish her up."
"I realize all that," stubbornly protested the commander, "but one chance in a million is better than none at all. And you know what will happen to us within the next forty-eight hours."
"Please don't mention it," courteously exclaimed Morton. "We can blow some fresh atmosphere into the boat from the compressed air flasks, but that will only defer the what-do-you-call-'em -- the obsequies. I feel far from blithesome this morning. Our goose appears to be most thoroughly cooked."
"One of us three must go up in the bubble," announced the skipper, "with a coil of light line and some kind of a buoy. He can stay afloat for several hours with a kapok vest on. I stand by the ship, of course, and the engineer officer is indispensable. He can't be spared. You are elected, Morton."
"It means a chance of life for the man who goes up in the bubble, and only one can go," slowly spoke the navigator. "It is a mighty slim chance, but just that much better than no chance at all."
"About an even break, whether you try it or stay down here," said the skipper, "but a man prefers to die in the open air if he can."
"Here is where I mutiny!" exclaimed Peter Morton. "I pass the buck. After you, my dear Jim."
"Shut up and listen to me!" flared Slayback. "This is your superior officer talking."
"I understand perfectly," calmly replied the navigator. "Penfield and I were discussing things when you called us. I am strong for the bubble idea, but you have picked the wrong man. I am not joshing, Jim, and for God's sake keep your temper. It's that wife and baby of yours, old man -- the grandest baby in the Navy. I am free, single, and otherwise inconsequential. Therefore I refuse to soar in the bubble."
"Nonsense! You will do what I tell you!" angrily reported the skipper. "Do you suppose I am going to shirk my duty?"
Morton appeared to hesitate and evaded the issue. In terms highly technical the trio thrashed out the details of the hoped-for escape through the conning tower. It had been done only once in submarine history, and this was one reason why Captain Barnard wore the Victoria Cross. Carefully they rehearsed the programme of building up pressure in the conning tower by means of a pipe connection with the compressed-air flasks. With both hatches sealed the confined space would be an air-lock and the man enclosed therein would be shot toward the surface in the huge bubble or uprush of air when the upper hatch should be released. It was not referred to, but they recalled the fact that Captain Barnard had attempted it after another officer had broken his neck against the edge of the upper hatch of the conning tower, so violently was he propelled in the bubble.
The clock told them that daylight was stealing over the sea. The men pressed forward to shake Morton's hand. Their eyes wistful, their speech stammering. He was about to make ready for the forlorn adventure when the commander said, in a low voice:
"I apologize, Pete. Forget it, will you? I have been a good deal of a brute this voyage."
The navigator smiled inscrutably, but his frank features were illumined with affection as he replied:
"I was a silly nuisance, Jim. However, I'll gamble my last dollar that it's a wonderful baby. Let's go. You had better stand by to get things started."
The boatswain's mate, who was a man of muscle and decision, had stepped forward in response to a word from the engineer. They whispered together and Morton halted to say something as he passed them. They nodded, and the boatswain's mate made a singularly cryptic remark:
"Sure, I'll lend a hand to the mutiny and glad of it. I saw the baby's picture."
Never suspecting a fond conspiracy, Lieutenant James Slayback climbed the ladder to unclamp the lower hatch of the conning tower and give the navigator his final instructions. The engineer officer and the boatswain's mate were at hand in case of need. They were aware that the commander had put on his kapok vest during the night for the sake of warmth. The buoy and the coil of line were ready to be released. With infinite caution they prepared to launch the perilous adventure. Navigator Peter Morton clambered into the conning tower, but before the others could close the lower hatch plate and seal him inside, he was seen to trip and stumble. In the endeavor to save himself he fell through the round opening and collided with the commander who stood upon the ladder.
Lieutenant Jim Slayback was knocked to one side, and while he was recovering himself and demanding to know what the devil the matter was, strong arms pushed him from below. He was powerless to resist the tremendous heave with which he was hoisted up the ladder and jammed into the conning tower. Instantly the round plate was pulled down with a bang and secured from beneath. Bewildered, using violent language, he was conscious of the fact that he was the man who must try to go up in the bubble, for there was no return to the interior of the submarine. He was outwitted, disobeyed, kidnapped.
Anxiously and carefully he opened the valve which admitted a rush of compressed air from the storage flasks below. The pressure increased in the conning tower until it distressed him, but he endured it until he felt certain that the propulsive force would overcome the weight of the water upon the upper hatch plate and so expel him as a projectile. Methodically he released the dogs which held the plate fast and in a swirling chaos of air and water he was borne upward like a chip, choking, strangled, bruised. It seemed an eternity before he boiled to the surface almost insensible in the foaming eddies of the bubble. Soon the tingling chill of the water revived him, and he swam languidly, no more than enough to keep his head from submersion. The daylight seemed glaring. It almost blinded him as he blinked at an empty sea upon which no shipping was visible. It was splended to be alive, but he took no thought for himself. Poignantly he reflected that he had been compelled to desert his submarine, and that his loyal comrades, more than thirty of them, were waiting in sublime faith and courage for the rescue which he alone might vouchsafe to them. He was far better dead unless they, too, could be saved.
The buoy, a slab of cork coated with white paint, floated a few yards from him. He swam to it and tugged at the slender cord. The other end held firm. It was fastened to the hull of S-14. This was somehow comforting. He felt himself to be in communication with his men, although they chould not know whether he was dead or alive. Time meant nothing to him. He tried to reckon the hours by the sun as it climbed the sky, but his vision was uncertain. He was drifting into a merciful stupor caused by the shock of his expulsion in the bubble.
Two British destroyers, coursing swiftly homeward, veered to investigate a spreading slick of oil which a lookout reported from the crow's nest. At closer range the officers descried a floating body which they presumed to be that of a drowned German from a U-boat which had met disaster. Fortunately they picked him up before releasing a few depth bombs where the patches of oil were most conspicuous. While they stripped off his clothes and tucked him in a bunk, he managed to murmur something about an American submarine and a Hun that had gone to Davy Jones together. A tumbler of Scotch whiskey neat jolted Lieutenant James Slayback into life and he sat up in the bunk.
"Carry on," ejaculated the destroyer captain, who was tanned by North Sea weather. "You are an extradordinary bit of wreckage, old chap. What's this about S-14 all tight and comfy ten fathoms down? You popped up in the bubble? That scores one on Captain Johnny Barnard, eh?"
"Find a diver," muttered Slayback. "We jammed the Hun hard and fast."
"Did him in. How gorgeous! A bit awkward, though, I fancy. Been down twelve hours? There is a diving suit and a pump aboard, of course, and we'll borrow a human fish from the other destroyer. Our own diver broke a leg last trip. Awfully inconvenient! Meanwhile we'll drag with a wire sweep and find that jolly old submarine of yours. It will buck your lads up to feel the sweep bangin' and scrapin' about the hull."
The American lieutenant dug his knuckles into his eyes and cried like a tired child. The British officer stole out of the stateroom and closed the door. When he tiptoed in a little later, the commander of S-14 was deep in peaceful slumber. The lines which had been graven on his care-worn features were already erasing themselves. When he awoke, the room was shadowy. He looked through a round port and saw that the day was almost done. All his fear and anxiety rushed back to torture him. How could he have slept while his shipmates were still imperiled? He was about to go on deck, but he felt pitiably weak and paused to gather strength.
Just then there was an uproar of cheering from the lusty throats of two hundred British bluejackets. It was a mighty chorus of welcome and applause. It thrilled the soul of Lieutenant James Slayback with jubilant vigor. He fairly bolted for the exit to the bridge. Midway between the two British destroyers, a Yankee submarine rode buoyant and unhurt while her hatches flew open and men began to spill out as if they were shot from a gun. They lined the narrow strip of deck, jostling each other, almost falling overboard, and they capered and danced like so many wiry lunatics. Upon the tiny bridge above the conning tower appeared Lieutenant Peter Morton and young Penfield who pounded each other like men bent on manslaughter. They caught sight of their commander, and the chubby navigator bellowed:
"I apologize, sir. It's my turn. Mutiny is a capital offense. I shall put myself in irons at once."
"No hurry, Pete," the skipper shouted back. "Everything all right aboard?"
"It will be as soon as we get a smoke. Penfield wants to test out the motors and loaf about until he can charge his batteries."
The British commander appeared amused as he said to Slayback: "One of the destroyers will stand by. You are quite sure you finished off the Hun?"
"Quite sure, but you may drag him up if you like."
"I shall be delighted. We'll slip a couple of wires under him and have him on top tomorrow morning. Will your boat proceed to port for an overhauling and to give the crew a bit of a rest?"
"Not if we can help it," replied the American sailor. We'll stay with you overnight and then resume our patrol."
"Splendid," was the cordial verdict, and Slayback was greatly pleased.
S-14 was no longer a novice at the grim game of stalking the Hun. She had been tried and she had endured. The commander of this veteran submarine went aboard to congratulate his men. Weary, unwashed, their clothes disreputable, they were heroic in the eyes of Lieutenant Slayback, U.S.N. He told them so, in few words and simple. The boatswain's mate replied for all hands:
"It's all in a lifetime. And there's no drowning this outfit with a skipper like you, sir."
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