Seaman Jordan hesitated, shifted on his feet, glanced down, then hurriedly replied:
"I-I don"t know, sir. I just stopped here a moment. There"s a relief man in my place, sir."
"Return to your station, Jordan!"
"Aye, aye, sir," replied the sailor, saluting, wheeling and walking away.
"And I"ll keep my eye on you," mused Darrin, as he watched the departing sailor. "I may be wrong, but when I first sighted him there was a look on that lad"s face that I didn"t like."
Even before he reached his station Seaman Jordan was quaking inwardly more apprehensively than is usual with a sailor caught in a slight delinquency.
CHAPTER III
QUICK "DOINGS" OVER THE SHOAL
For several days after that Darrin and the "Logan" cruised back and forth over the area a.s.signed for patrol. During these days nothing much happened out of the usual. Then came a forenoon when Darrin received a wireless message, in code, ordering him to report back at once to the commanding officer of the destroyer patrol.
Mid afternoon found the "Logan" fifteen miles off the port of destination.
"Be on the alert every instant," was the order Darrin gave out to officers and men. "There have been several sinkings, the last month, in these waters. We are nearing Fisherman"s Shoal, which is believed to be a favorite bit of ground for submarines that hide on the bottom."
Over Fisherman"s Shoal the water was only about seventy feet in depth-an ideal spot for a lurking, hiding undersea craft.
Five minutes later the bow lookout announced quietly:
"Trail of bubbles ahead, sir."
Leaving Ensign Phelps on the bridge, Dave and Dan darted down and forward.
A less practised eye might have seen nothing worth noting, but to the two young officers the trail ahead was unmistakable, though Darrin quickly brought up his gla.s.s to aid his vision.
"Pa.s.s the word for slow speed, Mr. Dalzell," Dave commanded, quietly.
"We want to keep behind that craft for a moment. Pa.s.s word to Mr. Briggs to stand by ready to drop a depth bomb."
Quietly as the orders were given, they were executed with lightning speed. The destroyer began to move more slowly, keeping well behind the bubble trail. At any instant, however, the "Logan" could be expected to leap forward, dropping the depth bomb at just the right moment. Then would come a m.u.f.fled explosion, and, if the bomb were rightly placed, a broad coating of oil would appear upon the surface.
Dave was now in the very peak of the bow. Watching the bubbly trail he knew that the hidden enemy craft was moving more slowly than the destroyer, and he signalled for bare headway. And now the bubbles were rising as though from a stationary object under the waves.
"Buoy, there!" he ordered, quickly. "Overboard with it."
Slowly the destroyer moved past the spot, but the weighted, bobbing buoy marked the spot plainly.
"Have a diver ready, Mr. Dalzell," Dave called. "Make ready to clear away a launch!"
In the matter of effective speed Darrin"s officers and crew had been trained to the last word. Only a few hundred yards did the "Logan" move indolently along, then lay to.
Soon after that the diver and launch were ready. Dave stepped into the launch to take command himself.
"May I go, too, sir?" asked Dan Dalzell, saluting. "I haven"t seen this done before."
"Clear away a second launch, Mr. Dalzell. The crew will be armed. You will take also a corporal and squad of marines."
That meant the entire marine force aboard the "Logan." Dalzell quickly got his force together, while Darrin gave orders to pull back to where the bobbing buoy lay on the water.
"Ready, diver?" called Dave, as the launch backed water and stopped beside the buoy.
"Aye, aye, sir." The diver"s helmet was fitted into position and the air pump started. The diver signalled that he was ready to go down.
"Men, stand by to help him over the side," Darrin commanded. "Over he goes!"
Hugging a hammer under one arm the diver took hold of the flexible cable ladder as soon as it had been lowered. Sailors paid out the rope, life line and air pipe as the man in diver"s suit vanished under the water.
Down and down went the diver, a step at a time. The buoy had been placed with such exactness that he did not have to step from the ladder to the sandy bottom. Instead, he stepped on to the deck of a great lurking underseas craft.
He must have grinned, that diver, as he knelt on top of the gray hull and hammered briskly, in the International Code, this message to the Germans inside the submarine sh.e.l.l:
"Come up and surrender, or stay where you are and take a bomb! Which do you want?"
Surely he grinned hard, under his diver"s mask, as he noted the time that elapsed. He knew full well that his hammered message had been heard and understood by the trapped Huns. He could well imagine the panic that the receipt of the message had caused the enemy.
"We"ll send you a bomb, then?" the diver rapped on the hull with his hammer. "I"m going up."
To this there came instant response. From the inside came the hammered message:
"Don"t bomb! We"ll rise and surrender!"
Chuckling, undoubtedly, the diver signalled and was hoisted to the surface. The instant that his head showed above water the seaman-diver nodded three times toward Darrin. Then he was hauled into the boat, and the launch pulled away from the spot.
"It took the Huns some time to make up their minds?" queried Dave Darrin smilingly, after the diver"s helmet had been removed.
"They didn"t answer until they got the second signal, sir," replied the diver.
Dalzell"s launch was hovering in the near vicinity, filled with sailors and marines, a rapid-fire one-pounder mounted in the bow.
Both boats were so placed as not to interfere with gun-fire from the "Logan." Officers and men alike understood that the Huns might attempt treachery after their promise to surrender.
Soon the watchers glimpsed a vague outline rising through the water. The top of a conning tower showed above the water, then the rest of it, and last of all the ugly-looking hull rose until the craft lay fully exposed on the surface of the sea.
The critical moment was now at hand. It would be possible for the submarine to torpedo the destroyer; there was grave danger of the attempt being made even though the vengeful Germans knew that in all probability their own lives would pay the penalty.
The hatch in the tower opened and a young German officer stepped out, waving a white handkerchief. He was followed by several members of the crew. It was evident that the enemy had elected to save their lives, and smiles of grim satisfaction lighted the faces of the watchful American jackies.
"Give way, and lay alongside," Dave ordered his c.o.xswain, while signalling Dalzell to keep his launch back for the present.