CHASED BY A SUBMARINE
CHASED BY A SUBMARINE
Wheezing, coughing, shaking in every plate, vomiting into the sky a trail of smoke that extended clear to the eastern horizon, theVulcanshouldered her way at top speed across the mazy lanes of the Sargasso. The tug had come a queer crooked path across that sea, and the lay of her smoke trail down the pearly glow of dawn still marked her tortuous course.
Not a breath of air stirred, but the speed of the vessel sent a breeze whipping over the poop of the steamer where a group of battered men stared fixedly over the long frothing path of the screw. Several of the group wore bandages, two, unable to stand, sat in steamer chairs, all had the pale faces of all-night watchers, but every eye in the crowd scanned with feverish intensity the spangled ocean over which they fled.
The wind snatched at the clothes and bandages of the intent men. Masses of seaweed swept like gray blurs down the sheer of the tug's wake. Just beneath them the propeller rushed with watery thunder.
"Yonder she rises!" cried one of the watchers, pointing at two wireless masts that rose like the fins of a racing shark above the green surface of the Sargasso.
"Yonder she rises!" repeated a voice amidship, and more faintly still came the repetition from the bridge, "Yonder she rises—hard a-port!"
A sudden shift of the rudder shook theVulcanfrom peak to keelson. Next moment the tug was speeding squarely across a seaweed field, and another crook was added to the smoke mark in the sky. TheVulcan'sblunt prow drove through the seaweed at a great rate, while the clammy mass swung back together not sixty yards behind the churning screw.
A strange race had developed between the tug and submarine. When both crafts were on the surface in open water, the submarine had a knot or two advantage of theVulcanand could have picked her up in four or five hours. But early in the night Caradoc had discovered that the powerful screw of the steamer, designed, as it was, to propel vast loads, could make the higher speed across the algae beds.
On the other hand, if the submarine dived to escape the drag of the weed, she again became the faster craft. But, in this instance, when the submarine dived, theVulcanwould immediately take to the open lanes and do more than preserve her distance. These constant shifts and turns explained the ricocheting course that was marked in smoke across the whitening dawn.
The submarine stood well out of water and skimmed along in the pink gleam like a long, slender missile. Its flat deck, wireless masts and conning tower stood etched in black against the morning light. She was consuming a fairish stretch of open water at a high speed.
"She's game for a long chase," observed Hogan, gently shifting a wounded arm in its sling.
Leonard Madden replied without removing his eyes from the rushing boat, "She has to be. All of Germany's naval plans depend on her destroying us."
"It does—and, faith, may Oi ask why?"
"If we get to Antigua and report this to the British admiralty, how long would this Sargasso reshipping arrangement last?"
"Right you are there, Misther Madden," agreed Hogan at once. "We'd woipe 'em out, wouldn't we? We'll make it, too. If we stood off th' little didapper all night, you know we can all day."
Madden considered the fleet little vessel. "No, I rather think she will capture us."
"And how's that?"
"The Sargasso doesn't extend indefinitely. In fact we are nearing the southern limit. Have you taken a look forward?"
"No, I haven't," said Hogan, taking vague alarm at Madden's tone. "What's wrong?"
"I don't see many more big seaweed fields ahead. If she gets us in open water——"
"Why bad luck to it! Bad luck to it, Oi say!" cried Hogan as the wind whistled about him; "running us out o' the bushes loike a swamp rabbit."
Just then the submarine veered off her straight course somewhat to extend her open water run for two or three miles up the edge of the field. A length view showed her to be a delicate looking craft. Her sharp prow cut the water with hardly a ripple, in sharp contrast to theVulcan, which shouldered up a waterfall as she lunged forward.
Suddenly, and rather unexpectedly, the submarine porpoised. There was a swash of foam, and she was gone.
The men on the poop stepped around to the side of the tug and stared anxiously southward. Bits of flotsam mottled the blue expanse, but it really appeared as if the saving drift weed were thinning to nothing. Hogan glanced back over the way he had come.
"Sure it'll be a fair field and no favor, sweet Peggy O'Neal!" he hummed nonchalantly under his breath.
At that moment a violent shaking went over theVulcan, and the short boat swung her prow about with tug-like promptness. It was as if the stout little craft had swung around on her heel.
"Faith and would ye shake a man's arrum off!" shouted Hogan at nobody in particular. "And are ye going back to meet the friendly little wasp?"
That was exactly what Caradoc was doing. He had swung theVulcanabout in less than a hundred yard circle and was plowing straight back the way they had come.
The crowd on the poop held their breath at the daring maneuver. Tug and submarine were now rushing at each other full tilt, only one ran under water, the other on the surface. Suppose the submarine should thrust up a periscope for an instant—a cough of the torpedo tube and theVulcanwould be blown to scrap iron.
The men on the poop ran forward, staring with frightened eyes over the gray-green soggy field through which theVulcanripped her way.
It seemed fantastic to think that somewhere under that lifeless weed human beings spun swiftly along, freighted with the most terrific engine of destruction. What strange warfare! Who could have fancied that when savages began to use clubs to maul each other it would end in this diabolical refinement! Weapons, weapons, weapons—the history of man's undying savagery working under new forms of civilization! The war submarine—what a monstrous offspring of genius!
The sun rose like a white-hot ball in the brazen sky and the men held to the rails, mouths open, and stared ahead into the safe open water, expecting every moment for theVulcanto spatter skyward in a volcano of fire and steel.
The boat itself rattled along with that insensibility of mechanism that sometimes astounds an apprehensive man. Twenty minutes later, she turned into the open lane, and was rushing westward again at full steam.
An immense relief spread over the crew. Galton, who stood on the bridge at the wheel beside Caradoc, blew out a long breath and wiped the sweat from his face, Farnol Greer began a windy whistling of "Winona, Sweet Indian Maid." Madden felt as if a weight had been lifted off his brain. Hogan was humming a tune. But all eyes turned anxiously seaward, to see where the submarine would "blow."
Ten minutes later, a distant ripple in the water caught their watchful eyes and the wireless masts popped up, on the opposite side of the great weed field, four or five miles distant.
A spontaneous cheering broke out on theVulcan'sdecks.
"Double crossed! Double crossed!" bellowed Hogan.
"Back track! We put one over! Hurrah for Cap'n Smith!" they shouted above the pounding of the engines.
Everyone but Caradoc wore the fixed exultant grin of the man who outwits his rival. The submarine had been thoroughly outgeneraled. North and west of theVulcanlay the whole Sargasso for an endless chase. The diving boat had lost the great advantage of having the steamer cornered.
As the crew whistled and sang theVulcankicked a frothy course down the long westward lane. To every one's surprise, the submarine did not dive immediately, but straightened herself on the other side of the seaweed field on a course parallel with her quarry.
Madden climbed up on the bridge and found a pair of binoculars in the chart room. He took these outside and trained them on the little vessel. Apparently the submarine intended to remain at the surface for some time, for she had opened her hatches and an officer had come out on the slender deck, and stood looking at theVulcanthrough a telescope.
At the distance, Madden could see the fellow plainly, and even the inky shadow he threw on the deck. The officer perused the tug for several minutes, then allowed his glass to wander around the horizon.
"They've come up for air," observed Caradoc, who had approached his friend from behind. "I believe we'd best stop that. Good air is a luxury with those fellows." He turned to Galton, who was steering. "Swing her into the northwest, my man."
The tug answered to her helm with a quiver, and in twenty minutes more was nosing her way again through the ooze of weed. The German officer calmly completed his survey, folded his telescope, then disappeared down the hatch. A few minutes later the submarine dived and the ocean lay empty in the burning sunshine.
From below came the clanging of Gaskin's gong announcing dinner. It was odd how the little details of life went calmly on even when life itself was threatened with extinction. As Madden went below to his meal, he met Malone who came from below, looking as black as an Ethiopian. The mate had been directing the firing in this extreme necessity.
The two fell in together as they walked to the wash room.
"I daresay those fellows wish they had sunk theVulcanwhen they had her," observed the American.
"They needed 'er theirselves," explained the mate in a matter-of-fact way. "Those German cruisers 'ave captured a whole flotilla of prizes lately, and they needed th' tug to 'andle 'em for 'em."
"And they didn't need theMinnie B?"
"Oh, no, not at all."
"Why didn't they sink her at once?"
"Her cap'n told me she carried more copper than one submarine could reship, so they 'ad to wait for another, as they didn't want to throw no copper away."
Madden nodded. "It was the second submarine I saw on the night she foundered." He began smiling when he thought what a bewildering mystery the vessel had been, and how very simple was the explanation.
By this time Caradoc had joined the two men, hoping to snatch a sandwich and a cup of coffee before he was needed again.
"Have we plenty of coal, mate?"
"Bunkers are 'arf full, sir."
"What's she turning over now?"
"Six, seventy-five to th' minute, sir." There was a pause, then Malone asked, "Is there any 'opes ofthemrunning out o' fuel?"
"Not likely; they make the trip to Hamburg, you know."
They were just turning into the smelly galley, when a startled voice sang out forward:
"Sail ahoy!"
This stopped the trio instantly.
"Where away?" called Caradoc.
"Dead ahead, sor!"
All three turned and went running back updeck. When they regained the bridge, Madden stared in the direction indicated. At first the western horizon looked empty, then along its level line his eye caught two tiny marks against the brilliant sky. As it was too small for his naked eyes, he resorted to the binoculars once more. Caradoc was doing the same thing.
"W'ot is it, sir?" inquired Malone anxiously.
When he had focused his glasses, Madden made out two fighting tops—steel baskets circling steel masts, thrust up menacingly over the slope of the world.
"W'ot is it, sir?" repeated Malone uneasily.
Just then Madden's eye caught the flag at the peak, as it fluttered under the drive of the distant ship. It was the black cross on the white ground, with the dark upper left quarter of the German navy.
Caradoc took down his glass at the same time.
"They've been using the wireless," he stated evenly, "to run us in acul de sac. I might have known German cruisers were close around." He looked steadily at the distant fighting tops, then turned to Galton.
"Steer due north, quartermaster."
After a moment, he said to Malone:
"When you go below, send me up coffee and a biscuit."
THE LONE CHANCE
THE LONE CHANCE
Rushing up the slope of the world in a battle line that covered a wide sector of the southwestern horizon, steamed four German battle cruisers. They were four sea eagles dashing at a little water beetle of a tug—the hammer of Thor swinging forward to crush an insect. The submarine had signaled by wireless the whole German South Atlantic fleet to destroy the tug.
Only in the face of this demonstration did Madden realize that a great German naval stratagem hinged upon the fate of the little English boat. The slow, clumsy littleVulcanwould decide the fate of millions of dollars worth of English shipping. The little vessel was freighted with huge consequences.
At first glimpse of the battle line, theVulcanhad sheered about, and now rushed northward, stringing her black smoke flat behind her. Up from the south, the submarine followed on the surface, although she could not make as good time through the weed as did theVulcan. However, the burden of destroying the English craft had been transferred to the cruisers that came rushing forward at at least twenty-five knots an hour.
As Madden stood on the bridge in the skirling wind, the littleVulcan, the seaweed drifts and the cruisers reminded him of nothing so much as a rabbit flying across cotton rows in front of four greyhounds; only here there were no friendly briar patches or fence corners in which to double or hide. Never had the Sargasso appeared so vast, so empty, so brilliant, so hot.
"Any chance?" he shouted to Caradoc above the rumble of machinery and the whistling of the wind.
"There's always a chance! They might foul in these weeds!" he nodded aft.
"Improbable."
"Lloyds would hardly insure us," admitted the commander dryly.
At that moment, as if to lend point to the remark, came a sharp clap of thunder off their port bow. Madden whirled quickly. A ball of white smoke, the size of a balloon, drifted up in the air a quarter of a mile distant.
The American stared at the smoke quite wonderstruck, then looked around at the distant ships that had not yet topped the horizon.
"Did they shoot this far?"
"A request to heave to."
"Are you going to do it?"
At the bursting of the shell, the men on deck came walking aft to the superstructure, with the apprehensive gait of men getting under shelter from blasting operations.
Caradoc leaned over the rail of the bridge. "Greer!" he shouted, "go to the flag locker, get out a union jack and show our colors on the peak!"
The men pulled up at this, and half a dozen men, two or three of them crippled, hurried to carry out the order. In a few minutes they came running back on deck with the flag. They tangled the sheets after the manner of landsmen, but finally the red pennant traveled skyward. There was a brief hoarse cheering from the cockneys.
The flag was scarcely at the peak, when above the throb and rumble of the machinery, Madden's ear caught a queer droning noise, and a moment later came a deafening crash about two hundred yards to the starboard. The water beneath it was beaten to a foam, while another balloon of smoke slowly expanded and thinned in the breathless air. A long time after the bursting of the shell, Leonard heard the grumble of the cannon that had fired it."
"Now, lads," shouted Caradoc, "go below and bring up some rockets!"
The men set off with a will, but Madden viewed the situation without any thrill of patriotism to gild a death under the union jack. The cruisers were slowly coming into full view. Through his glasses he could now see their turrets and the black gun ports.
"What's the idea, Smith? You can't fight with rockets?"
"Some English vessel may see us," answered Caradoc shortly.
Madden was still more astonished. "What good would that do?" he called above the wind. "She'd be captured, too."
"Certainly," agreed the Englishman brusquely, "but if she had a wireless, she might report the situation to the Admiralty before they sank us."
Madden removed his binoculars and stared at his friend. "Are you staking your life on as long a chance asthat?"
"My boy," said Smith, in an oddly matured tone, "when the safety of one's country is at stake, one man's life doesn't amount tothat!" he snapped his fingers. "If there's a point to be gained, you accept any chance automatically—or no chance at all."
The American returned no answer, but there flashed into his mind the legend of the Tyrian who beached his galley in order to save the secret of Cornwall. Caradoc's narrative was oddly prophetic of the fate of theVulcan. And Madden wondered with a quirk of grim humor if there were a foreigner aboard that Tyrian's galley, and whathethought about the sacrifice.
There was another jagged report as a shell burst just aft the tug, then a missile of some thousands of pounds shrieked through the air just above the stumpy masts and filled the sky with fire and thunder a hundred yards ahead.
Out of the cabin came the rocket bearers, quite over their fright by now, and acting with the nervous steadiness which acute danger brings. One of the sailors from the regular crew of the tug moved along the rail, mounting the fire signals one after the other for shooting. Immediately behind him came Hogan, using his one good hand to fish matches from his watch pocket and light the fuses.
The first rocket lit with a sputter, for a moment its fiery blowing filled the deck with smoke, then it darted skyward, with a tremendous swis-s-sh! Up, in a long black column it went, into the very heart of the hot brazen sky, then it exploded with a faint pop, and a black head of smoke expanded at a prodigious height. In the midst of the smoke-filled deck, Hogan was applying his match to another. So as the tug plowed forward, tall slender pillars of smoke, crowned with swelling palm-like heads, arose to dizzy heights out of her path.
By this time huge shells were bursting about theVulcanwith crashing monotony. Sometimes the dodging little vessel ran through the pungent gases of the shells that were sent to destroy her. Now and then the giant missiles exploded under water and sent furious waterspouts leaping over her decks. Something touched the top of her steel mainmast and snapped it off as if it were a straw. A few minutes later the crew had cleared the union jack from the wreckage and had it flaunting defiantly from the forepeak.
It was an odd defiance, a tugboat's challenge to a German battle line. The nibbling of a mouse once set a lion free. Here was a mouse endeavoring to net a whole herd of lions.
The cruisers did not overhaul the little vessel as rapidly as Madden had anticipated. TheVulcanskurried through the seaweed fields, dodging this way and that in order to take advantage of every lane of open water, but the unwieldy battleships could not accept small advantages, and were forced to plow straight ahead, through weed or wave as it came.
Thus the cruisers still fired at extreme range, and the tug escaped destruction as a gnat might jiggle between raindrops and survive a summer's shower.
Amid steady crashes, Madden awaited stoically for the shot that would erase theVulcanfrom the face of the sea. There came another splintering shock; the upper half of the foremast made a curious jump, and came down with its rigging and plunged overboard in the rushing water. The obstruction instantly choked down the tug's speed. Every man in the crew seized axe, saw, anything, and rushed forward in a fury of impatience, hacking, chopping, sawing, working through the wreckage and cutting the ropes with jackknives, in an effort to clear the tug of debris. After an intolerable while, the last ratlines snapped like pistol shots, the whizzing end of a rope struck a sailor and laid him out as if clubbed, then the foremast fell away and theVulcanrushed forward again.
"Look ahead, Madden!" shouted Caradoc in the uproar. "We've got to run among thicker fields than these!"
By this time the tug's rockets were spent and the German cruisers were rushing down a line of gigantic smoke-palms that were planted by the little vessel.
"You might as well surrender," called the American coolly. "You won't find a merchantman if you go in thicker fields—you know that."
"Surrender!" bawled Smith. "Do you think they shall have this tug to haul their prizes? Let 'em sink us, and then pick us up in boats! Look ahead!"
The American turned his binoculars obediently and scanned the west and north. His eyes traversed skein after skein of the brilliant colorful patternings, but he was unable to find a very closely netted region. He was about to announce his discovery to Caradoc when his lense focussed on another grim menace almost dead ahead.
He stared at it with a curious dropping of hopes that he had not suspected were in his breast.
What he saw was another fighting top. That pertinacious submarine had apparently surrounded the elusiveVulcanwith German fighting ships.
Leonard removed his field glasses and stood for a full minute filled with a keen frustration. The splitting din about him roared on uninterruptedly, and yet somehow he had been hoping theVulcanwould escape.
"What do you make of it?" bawled Smith, who had been watching the submarine, which was once more drawing dangerously close.
"We can't go in this direction, Smith!" shouted Leonard hopelessly. "There are more ships in that direction."
"Warships?" demanded Caradoc swinging his spyglass around.
"Yes, fighting tops!"
Both lads focused in the new direction.
"Those Germans do everything thoroughly," shouted Leonard, "even to sinking a tug!"
But instead of despairing, Caradoc, after a single glance, rushed over to the speaking tube to the boilers. He blew the whistle shrilly, then folded it back and screamed down.
"Malone! Malone! Malone!"
"Very well, sir!" came back the muffled voice through the pipe.
"Give her all steam possible! Blow her up! Speed her, man, speed her!"
"Very well, sir!" returned the same voice.
"Caradoc! Caradoc! Are you insane!" bawled Leonard. "Do you imagine you can outrun two squadrons of German cruisers?"
"German cruisers! That's England's line of battle, Madden! England! Old England! God let me get to them and tell 'em what I know, then I don't care what happens!"
THE BATTLE
THE BATTLE
"Th' signal book! Get the signal book!" bawled Greer amid the uproar.
"W'ere is it?"
"In the flag locker! Chuck the flags out, too! Scatter 'em out!"
"W'ot you want to signal?"
"Submarine—tell 'em to look out for submarines!"
Hogan, who held the volume in the crook of his bandaged arm, licked his thumb and jabbed through the leaves in distracted attention. "There aren't no code letters for submarine!" he cried at last—"not in here!"
"No," shouted Black, theVulcan'sformer captain, "that's an old code—wasn't any submarines then!"
"Spell it out!" commanded Caradoc from the bridge. "Sharp about it!"
The men worked in a clutter of buntings, assembling the flags in nervous haste. Black laid out the nine letters and the crew hurriedly hooked them together. Ten minutes later, they strung the signal between the two splintered masts with a queer drunken gala effect.
TheVulcanwas no longer the German squadron's sole target. Down on the Teuton battle line thundered five English cruisers, filling the north with rolling smoke, their turrets spangled with cannon flashes, prows shearing white walls of foam.
The sky above theVulcanwas filled with the drone of hurtling shells. They sounded as thick as swarming bees. The cannon fire of the approaching English ships mounted to a ragged roar. When the on-coming line was less than five miles distant, Caradoc shouted an order to Galton and the little tug swung around broadside on, displaying her warning signal like a billboard. Through the battle smoke, Madden saw an answering flag go up on the nearest ship. A cheer broke out from the crew at this recognition of their work.
"They'll pass it around among the fleet by wireless!" shouted Caradoc in Madden's ear.
"Do you know that ship, Smith?" called Madden excitedly.
"ThePanther—held a commission on her once."
"Is it possible?" Madden peered at her through his glasses with renewed scrutiny.
They were so close now that the American could pick out the crew of range finders working in the fighting tops; he could glimpse the huge guns in the forward turrets as they flashed and roared amid shrouds of smokeless powder haze. Madden realized he was seeing what every landsman dreams of seeing: a naval battle. For some inscrutable reason, Caradoc had headed theVulcanclear around and now faced the enemy, like a rat terrier amid a battle of mastiffs.
Madden turned aft as the tug swung around to follow the fortunes of thePanther. He could see German shells exploding now and then on her decks; sometimes they would strike the sea and send up typhoons of water and weed. As he gazed a small-calibre gun was struck, and there was nothing but a ragged smoking hole where the port had been. An instant later, the mizzen top was shrouded in an emerald flame, and when the smoke cleared, only a jagged stump of iron thrust skyward. The crew of range finders had been wiped out in an instant. Several hours later, Leonard learned that the whole German gunfire had been focussed for several minutes on thePanther.
But now that gray, smoke-wreathed cruiser rushed on indomitably, flanked by her thundering consorts. The half-naked men on thePanther'sdecks looked curiously small in their huge rushing fortress. German shells battered her decks amid spangling green flames but could not stop her. As she overtook theVulcan, the concussion of cannon fire and bursting shells grew so terrific it ceased to be noise. It resolved itself into blows, terrific air movements that smote Madden all over. It pounded his ear drums with physical blows; it tore at the bridge of his nose, jarred his teeth, sent shooting pains through his head, for he was not wise enough to stuff his ears with cotton and hold his mouth open. It shook the pit of his stomach and nauseated him. It was a sound cyclone. Added to this the sickening acrid smell of niter explosives filled the atmosphere.
On came thePantherthrough the green foam of German fire, mingling the mighty vibrations of her engines, the hiss of leaping walls of water, tempests of cannon fire and vindictive shriek of leaping shells.
Caradoc leaned over to Madden and yelled something at the top of his voice. Madden shook his head as a signal that he could not hear. Smith repeated so loudly that his long face grew red with the strain. It was impossible to catch a word. Besides, Leonard's ears ached as if the drums were ruptured.
Caradoc caught up a speaking trumpet and held it to his friend's ear.
"Don't look at thePanther!" cried a drowned voice. "Watch ahead for the submarine!"
The submarine! Sure enough, there was the submarine, silent stiletto, waiting beneath the sea to stab this fiery monster. Madden's heart leaped into his throat. Was it possible so slight an antagonist could engulf the battle cruiser?
The American turned and stared ahead over the shell-beaten sea with all his eyes. The littleVulcanwas now racing along some half-mile in front of the English battle line, her warning signal still stretched between her splintered masts. She rushed at top speed, vibrating under the stress of her engines. Five or six miles ahead the German squadron had turned and was flying southward before the superior English force. Flashes of fire and dull thunder still belched from their after turrets.
Leonard tried to confine his attention to the adjacent waters in careful search for the diving boat's periscope, but the terrific spectacle across the smoky spangled sea gripped his eyes beyond his control.
The ship on the eastern wing of the Teuton line was in flames. The fire burst out of the gun deck ports, lapping up over the boat decks in long red curling tongues. Her cannon fire had ceased, and from what Leonard could see, he thought the English ships had quit firing at her. She still fled southward, however. Smoke began to roll out of her turrets, and her crew came swarming out on her deck like a disturbed ant's nest. Through his glasses, Madden saw them hunched against the fire, working to launch a boat, when of a sudden there was a blinding flare; a huge cloud of smoke leaped from the sea, and after four or five minutes, a thunder heavily audible even amid the roar of battle rumbled in Madden's ears. It was the solemn note of a battleship destroyed by its own magazines. When the smoke cleared away there was left nothing save tossing waves and bits of flotsam here and there.
The horror of the tragedy was lost for Leonard in another, more appalling scene. The right central battleship had lost control of her steering gear, and now she ran wildly amuck in the fleeing line like a drunken giant of steel.
Through accident, or by the last shift of seamanship, she veered about broadside on, her huge guns still belching defiance. In crazy flight, she barely missed one of her own squadron, then rounded back in a great circle for the English line. No doubt her crew did not try to stop her, hoping that her unguided charge might work some damage to the enemy.
On she came, against the focussed storm of English cannon, her prow, forward turrets, bridge, masts, fairly disintegrated under a bastinado of twelve and fourteen-inch shells. Yet it seemed as if she would survive it all and ram some English cruiser, when a cloud of steam broke out of her hold. A lucky shot had exploded her boilers. Her wild charge ceased instantly, but her sub-calibre guns still chattered defiance at the crushing odds. Giant shells were now pounding her at point-blank range. At some stroke of a cruiser to the right of thePanther, the German ship heeled heavily on her starboard side.
Through his glasses, Madden could see the sailors still struggling to work the guns, though scores of them were wiped from the deck at every English shell. Amid clouds of smoke the black cross of the German battle flag fluttered undaunted.
In a few minutes the enemy listed until her guns were at such a high angle they could no longer be trained against the enemy. Her forward turret was completely blown away. Bursting shells kept a constant glare around her. Her boiler and furnace rendered her hold untenable, for her crew came out of the smoke and formed orderly platoons on her crippled deck. Shells swept gaps through their files, but they closed again in regular formation, standing oddly erect on the tip-tilted deck. There was not a gun they could man, not a blow could they strike, yet the men stood firm in the steel cyclone sweeping across their shattered deck. Then Madden turned his lens on a group a little to one side of the main formation, and his eye caught the gleam of silver horns, the rise and fall of a drummer's arm, the fierce beating of a director with a baton. It was the ship's musicians. The band was playing, the men were chanting the battle hymn of the empire; out of the heart of the foundering cruiser, out of the souls of the passing warriors rose triumphantly, "Die Wacht am Rhein."
Sudden tears filled the eyes of the American and dimmed the splendid sight. He turned impulsively to his friend.
"Caradoc! My God!" he screamed in his ear, "why don't they quit firing!"
"Their flag is still flying—no doubt the halyards are shot away!"
Even while Smith screamed, a sudden and startling attack was launched from thePanther'srapid fire and machine guns. They sounded a shrill treble amid the profound shaking bass of the giant cannon. The boys looked sharply about to see the object of this abrupt attack, when they suddenly heard the shrill whistling of steel all about their ears.
With the utmost horror, Madden saw every tiny port spouting continuous flame in his direction. Steel frothed the sea all around theVulcan. Missiles struck the little tug and glanced off with sharp musical twangs. The crew of the little boat, who swarmed on deck, wonderstruck at the battle of the giants, suddenly darted to cover with wild yells.
"They're crazy! They're daft!" screamed Madden. "Shooting at us! What's the matter with 'em?"
Caradoc, also, seemed to share the madness. He suddenly spun his wheel to the left, veered in a sharp circle, and dashed straight toward the course of thePantherinto the thickest of the hail. Leonard stood beside him, frozen stiff, when straight ahead, he suddenly saw a periscope show for an instant, then disappear in a little swirl of water. The submarine had come into the action.
The tug rushed straight through the bullet-rumpled water to the point where the metal fin had disappeared, like a terrier dashing at a rathole.
With the disappearance of the submarine's "eye," the fusillade ceased abruptly. The great cannon were firing more slowly now and there came short intervals of comparative silence in the battle.
From the bridge Caradoc bellowed fiercely at his men: "Spread around the rail—keep a sharp lookout for the submarine!" The crew came back with a will now that they learned the bombardment had not been intended for them.
In the meantime the tiny David had put the great Goliath to flight. ThePantherwas endeavoring to save herself. She veered out of the thundering battle line and zigzagged easterly, in full flight from any enemy that she could almost drop down one of her smokestacks.
And the littleVulcanswung about in an effort to keep up with her principal. On she rushed, shaking and puffing like a locomotive, her bright flags flying the submarine warning, as if the speeding giant ahead of her were likely to forget it.
Suddenly Hogan bawled out: "By th' port! By th' port, sir! There she rises!"
Another shrill storm from the giant showed that the gunners aboard thePantheralso saw the periscope.
Again theVulcandashed at the diving terror as it disappeared and the cruiser swung clear around in a northerly tack. Her commander was trying to outguess the man under the sea.
A strange game of blind-man's-buff the three dissimilar crafts were playing. Caradoc assumed the submarine pilot would guess that thePantherhad fled north, and he sent the tug spitting along a course that would lie between the cruiser and her enemy. ThePantherwas forced to repass theVulcanin the new maneuver. The giant and pygmy were flying along at top speed, fairly abreast, scarcely five hundred yards apart.
Leonard took his eyes off the starboard sea a moment to look at the lion which this mouse was trying to nibble free, when suddenly, not thirty yards on theinsideof the tug popped up the periscope.
The American rushed to the wheel, jerked it to the starboard. "Yonder! Yonder!" he bellowed in Caradoc's ear, pointing.
The Battle.
The Battle.
Again the guns shrilled forth; a steel sleet wailed about theVulcan. Into the teeth of this blast, the tug circled and lunged.
With fascinated eyes, Madden watched the periscope cut a swirling circle on the midst of the beaten water and straighten on thePanther.
Now the metal eye was directly under their swaying starboard. A moment they sped side by side, toward the imperiled cruiser. Madden could almost have touched the wireless masts. A whine of bullets ripped one of their lifeboats like a saw and sputtered through the superstructure.
The periscope, which thrust six or seven feet out of water, disappeared under the swell of theVulcan'shull. Suddenly the tug swung her blunt beak around with the sidelong blow of an angry swine. Madden went flying to the right rail of the bridge to stare down at the imminent tragedy.
A dim shadowy bulk was hurtling through the blue water. Suddenly, just as the tug's prow swung athwart her course, the submarine lined up straight with thePanther. A great belching of bubbles wallowed up through the turbulent sea as a sign that the torpedo was launched.
A heart-stopping moment, in which the diving boat, the darting shadow of the torpedo, the blocking prow of theVulcanwas clear.
A titanic upheaval of water; volcanic fires leaping out of the heart of the deep; a roar so absolutely appalling that it reduced the battle to a whisper!
The prow of theVulcanreared up and bent back over the main deck. In the same instant, out of the cauldron sea, an enormous cigar-shaped object was flung end-over-end, as a child flings a spindle. There was one flashing glimpse of conning tower, smashed plates. Then a clap of surging air that seemed as solid as oak picked Madden up as if he had been thistledown. He felt himself whirling through space. Somehow, he caught a glimpse of a string of signals that had been blown from the wrecked masts of the shatteredVulcan. Then he felt a stinging blow of water as he hit the sea.
The submarine had destroyed both herself and the tug with her first torpedo.