THE THREE FRIENDS ARE HAULED ABOARD THE U-BOAT
THE THREE FRIENDS ARE HAULED ABOARD THE U-BOAT
As the good ship, which they had so gallantly helped to salve, settled down on the pebbly shore of Ireland, a wreck no doubt, yet with her cargo more or less intact, and, as it proved, easily and successfully salved, Bill and Jim and Larry found themselves prisoners in the submarine, motoring away into the North Sea, bound for a German prison.
"Which all comes of being in a hurry," said Jim, with philosophical calm, as he squatted against the side of the submarine in the narrow hole into which the Germans had pushed himself and Larry and Bill, and sat there with a pool of water increasing about him.
"Hum! Yes!" sniffed Larry, who in some miraculous manner had contrived to salve his peaked hat, and bring it aboard the submarine with him. He, too, sat crouched against the walls, the electric beams from a lamp flooding his head, his attenuated form, his somewhat sloping shoulders and short limbs, and casting a shadow of the man athwart the iron grids which formed the deck, till Larry, pictured in shadow, looked like a horrible demon. As for Bill, dripping with sea water, chilled to the bone, yet as philosophical as either of his companions—for friendship with them had taught him calmness and philosophy if it had taught him nothing else—he lay at full length, breathing heavily, a little depressed, yet, with youthful spirit, already beginning to think of the future.
"Which comes of being in a hurry! Yes, Jim," he agreed. "Only think what it's brought us to—a submarine! and I suppose we're already under the water."
The two friends nodded at him. "You can hear it outside. I felt her going down," said Larry. "Rummy feeling—eh? being right under the sea; running along without anyone being any the wiser. Supposing one of your British torpedo-boat destroyers—T.B.D.'s they call 'em—or one of ours, 'cos, don't yer know, Uncle Sam's already got some of his fleet over this side of the Atlantic, supposing they were to drop a depth-charge on us. Disagreeable—eh?" and Larry looked at Jim and Bill with that wry little smile of his, and shrugged his narrow shoulders; whereat Bill at least burst into laughter.
"You ain't going to frighten me in that way, Larry," he said. "Besides, if it bust this show it might send us clear of her. Of course I know it would be awkward to go to the bottom like a stone, to find yourself boxed in this steel cage, unable to move out, waiting to be suffocated; we won't think of that! Let's think of France, of the fighting there that we're going to take a part in."
"That we mean to take part in," said Jim, with determination. "Wonder if these fellows'll give us something to eat, it was breakfast time at daybreak, and we've had nothing since then."
As if summoned by the speech, the door leadingto the narrow compartment into which they had been thrust opened and a German sailor pushed his head in.
"Come out!" he commanded, and led the way over only a few short feet of deck to the central part of the vessel, where was all the apparatus that controlled her movements.
"Now tell us who you are," demanded the officer who accosted them, and who spoke excellent English. "First—British or American?"
"American," said Larry, pushing himself to the fore and speaking before Bill could get in an answer.
"Good country to come from—you'll never see it again," came the sardonic answer. "But as you're American, and not British, perhaps you'll get off lighter. If you'd been British I'd have pushed you overboard."
Larry looked at the man, contempt written on every feature of his sharp, determined face, Jim's lips curled, only Bill stood staring at the German as if he thought him a monster.
"Well?" demanded the naval officer.
"See here," said Larry, who made himself the spokesman, "this ain't the sort of place for you and I to have a conversation on this matter. If things was reversed, and you was me and I was you, which I'm glad it ain't, but if it was like that, then we might have a pow-wow. Being as it is, few words the better. As for us, if you says you'll push us overboard, we're bound to believeyou. What then—we're Americans—what'll you do?"
"Depends! What was the cargo you had aboard the vessel? What damage was done?"
"Done! How?" asked Larry, curious to learn how much the Commander knew himself.
"By the bomb placed by our agent—a clever trick that!" said the officer; "a clever man Heinrich Hilker! But perhaps you don't know him."
Whereat Larry sniffed harder, but, feeling it wise to make no answer, stood staring round him at the various wheels and quadrants and instruments which filled almost every available inch of the centre of the vessel.
"Well then," demanded the officer, when a minute had passed, "what is your report?"
Larry looked under the peak of his hat into his eyes, regarding every portion of the officer down to his feet, screwed up his lips, smiled that enigmatical smile of his and answered not a word. Then, after a long pause, he tapped the officer on the shoulder.
"See here, Mr. Officer," he said, "you've taken us in what you call fair fighting, and we're prisoners; let it stand at that. You wouldn't expect to give away what had happened in your own case, supposing positions were reversed. Then don't expect it of an American. Play the game, and give us something to eat and drink, for we're well-nigh famished, and something strong would send the blood through us after being chilled in the water."
Maybe the German officer in command of this German submarine was of a type different from those who have commanded the majority of these under-water vessels, and who seem to have stooped to the murder of so many helpless individuals. He looked Larry up and down, stared hard at Jim, and stepped a pace closer to Bill, as if attracted by his youthful appearance and anxious to interrogate him. Then he clapped his hands, gave a sharp order, and saw the trio led back to the compartment in which they had been incarcerated. There a sailor brought them food and steaming coffee, adding to each cup some rum, which helped to warm them wonderfully. A little later he brought them dry clothing and took their wet garments away from the compartment; then, as if anxious to treat them well, he produced blankets and mattresses, upon which Larry and his two friends were soon stretched.
Indeed they slept for hours, worn out with their exertions of the previous night and with the struggle they had waged during the day which had just passed. Nor were their dreams unhappy. They fell asleep mindful of the unfortunate position in which they found themselves, but buoyed up by the memory of their success in helping to beach the vessel and her valuable cargo.
"It ain't as if the Hun had done us in altogether," said Larry just before he dropped asleep. "He was clever, he was, and that Heinrich was about the most cunning scoundrel that the Kaiser could haveemployed. See how he failed, though! Gee! That bomb ought to have blown the front of the ship away, and yet it left her cargo almost undamaged. Reckon, young Bill, your chaps is working like niggers now to get it salved, and—and—we're here."
"And alive and well," said Jim cheerfully.
"And while there's life there's hope. And there's the French front," Bill chimed in in sleepy tones, "that's the next thing to be thought of."
Yet other things soon arose to engage their attention. It was at an early hour on the following morning—though they themselves did not know that the day had broken, for it was quite dark in the interior of the submarine and the electric beams still flooded their compartment—that they knew that the vessel had stopped, and presently felt a breath of cool air as the door of their prison was opened.
"Come up!" a voice called, and obediently they clambered into the conning-tower and so on to the deck of the submarine. She was lying awash, and near her a surface vessel, a trawler by appearance.
"Hope you haven't had an uncomfortable night," grinned the officer in command of the submarine. "I'm transferring you to one of our mine-sweepers. She'll take you to Germany and to prison.Bon voyage!"
A boat pulled alongside and the three dropped into it and were rowed to the trawler, which, assoon as they were aboard, hauled in its anchor and steamed off, leaving the submarine still floating on the surface. Not that Larry and Jim and Bill were able to watch her, for immediately they reached the deck of the vessel they were hustled to a companion-way and forced to go down between decks. Here, when their eyes became accustomed to the darkness, they found themselves in the hold of the vessel with a number of other occupants of the space seated against the bulkheads or against the sides of the trawler.
"Hello, mates!" began Larry, as if to open the ball. "Cheerio!"
A short, heavily-built man came forward at once. "You're British?" he said. "No, American!"
"No, both," said Larry. "I'm American, so's Jim, here. This here is Bill, who's English."
"Submarined?" came the next question.
"Yep. First done in by a German agent and his bomb, then gunned by a submarine. Me and my mates were blown overboard and rescued by a fellow in command of the submarine."
"Rescued! That's unusual! Why?"
Larry shrugged his shoulders. Indeed, neither he nor Jim nor Bill could tell why it was that the submarine commander had taken it into his head to preserve their lives. Too often, alas! men had been left floating helpless on the water after a similar attack, and the submarine, having risen to the surface, and its officers and crew maybe having jeered at them, had motored off and left them totheir fate. It was no wonder then that this burly individual expressed surprise at such a happening.
"And you?" asked Jim after a while.
"Me and these fellows 'long with me belong to the merchant marine, and we've to thank a submarine for being here. It's three nights ago that, without a word of warning, without sight of the submarine, there was a terrific explosion that burst our plates in and swamped our engine-room. The chief engineer and his mates were killed right off, and our skipper was thrown from his bridge into the water. We chaps set to work to lower the boats, but they'd been smashed into matchwood. It so happened that this trawler was steaming some few miles away, and it may be that the same submarine that did you in was the cause of our misfortune. Anyways, we were taken aboard and brought to the trawler, and—and—here we are."
"Waiting to go to a German prison," came a voice from one of the figures seated against the bulkhead.
"Which means wellnigh starvation for the British," said another, whereat there was silence.
"If—starvation if——" began Bill, as though he had suddenly thought of something brilliant.
"If what, young Bill?"
"That is, if we get to a German prison."
"If—we—get—to—a—German—prison!" the burly individual repeated slowly, emphasizing each word in turn. "Now, you don't think—look here,my name's Jack, and I was bos'n aboard our vessel. You spit it out. What's the yarn?"
Larry looked at Bill curiously. In the dim semi-darkness of the hold he could see his face, not clearly, but sufficiently well to realize that his eyes were gleaming.
"Yep, Bill," he said encouragingly, "spit it out! It don't want any tellin' that neither you nor me, nor any of these fellows, wants to go to a German prison, but——"
"Aye, but," said Jim, "how are we to work it not to do so?"
"Depends," said Bill, "only it's got to be done quick, if at all. I'm only guessing, but I reckon we're steaming now for the German coast. There are mine-fields and all sorts of things through which a vessel has to thread her way, and once in those we couldn't easily make our way out again; so the sooner we get to work the better."
"Get to work! How?" demanded Jack.
"Like this. Make a row, shout, attract the attention of the guards, get 'em to come down here, collar one of 'em, take his rifle, fight our way up. I'm not sure, but I had a good look round when we came aboard, and counted only eight men. Two of them were armed, and stood near the companion down which we came, the rest were deck-hands. There will be the captain, too, and a small staff down in the engine-room—they needn't count. If we're going to do it, we shall be through with the business and masters of the ship before theengineers knows what's happened. Then, if we are wise——"
The burly sailor clapped a hand on Bill's shoulder.
"You speak soft, sonny," he said; "you just talk gently for a moment. Bless me, but I believe he's got the very idea; and if the idea's any good it's as he says: it's got to be done now. This very moment, as you might say, within half an hour at most, and it's got to be gone through without whimpering. Boys, close round!"
Heads had been lifted in the meanwhile, the figures of men crouching against the bulkheads and against the side of the trawler, crouching despondently it must be admitted, had moved, had straightened themselves, while not a few of their fellow-prisoners had sprung to their feet and come nearer as Bill and his friends discussed the matter.
"Escape!" one of them said. "Why not?"
"Better than going to a German prison; better than being starved. I'd risk a hit," said another, "if I knew that I could get back to England. Besides——"
"Besides what? I'll tell you; besides every man's wanted to get our ships going. What then? What next, young fellow? How's it to be done?"
By then all of them were standing about Bill and his friends, peering at the youth in their midst, and endeavouring to decipher his meaning; their faces thrust forward, their hands on their hips,listening eagerly to every word he and his friends uttered.
As for Bill, he was rather taken off his feet by the sudden interest he had aroused. To be sure, as he came aboard the vessel he had taken a swift glance round, and had noticed what a small crew she appeared to carry. In a swift glance, too, he had taken note of the companion-way, and of the method adopted to close it. There was a door at the top, and against that had been placed a huge bale and a coil of rope, which, seeing that it opened outwards, effectually closed it. But strong men from within could easily push it aside, and—why not?
"There are two ways of doing the trick, I think," he told them, his voice now lowered. "One of them is to feign illness and to shout for help. That may or may not bring one of the guards down amongst us, but it will have the effect also of warning the remainder of the crew. T'other's to creep up, put our shoulders to the door, and heave it open. We'd have to chance a shot from the man on guard, but once we've mastered them we'd be free of the deck, and nineteen of us, as I make our number to be, should be able to overpower them."
"Line up, you men!" came from Jack. "This 'ere business wants in the first place a lusty chap with shoulders that will take no denyin'. It's a case for volunteers. Is any of you for it?"
If any of the guards had peered down into thehold of the trawler just then they would have witnessed a weird performance; they would have seen those eighteen sturdy men, all silent, desperately in earnest, line up, listening to the words of their leader. And as he spoke they would have watched the whole line step forward without a moment's hesitation. All were volunteers.
"So it's like that!" said Jack, and Bill could have sworn he chuckled. "Now, seein' that the companion won't carry every one of you, and one is bound to go first, and have another strong 'un by him, and seein' as I have the broadest shoulders of the lot—why, I go first, as is natural, then Jim Scott comes second, 'cos he's a heavy weight, and if I go down the door won't stand much of a push from him, will it? After that we comes as we can, but I'm goin' to tell each man of you off for special business."
"Hold hard! And what about us, Mister?" came from Larry, who pushed himself forward, automatically putting his hat at an angle as he did so, though the darkness hid the movement. "See here, Mr. Jack, it was one of this here party that fixed the business up. What have we done to be left to the last?"
For answer, the burly figure of the sailor came a little nearer and the two gnarled hands were stretched out, the fingers extended, and, falling upon Larry's attenuated shoulders, passed thence down his arms, down his body, and finally to his legs.
"No offence! You're an American, and everyone knows that Americans are not the boys to hold back, but rather the ones to be right in front," said Jack. "But it's beef that's wanted here, sir, British beef, and me and Jim's got it. I don't say as we ain't got the pluck too, but pluck won't push that door at the top of the companion open. Weight will, beef will—get me?"
Larry did. He had already summed up the business with his quick American wit, and liked the bos'n and his bluff statements, liked the bold way in which he had adopted Bill's ideas. That the other men below fancied the English sailor there was no denying, and if it had not been for the need for secrecy they would have cheered him. Then, too, there was the added need for haste, there were those mine-fields to be thought of, and the fact that every minute carried the trawler, presumably, nearer to some German port.
"Get you? Yep," said Larry. "'Carry on', as they say in the British army."
In deadly silence, feeling their way in the dim darkness of the hold, the imprisoned sailors made their way to the companion, up which Jack crept on all-fours, followed closely by Jim Scott, while the others—Bill, Larry, and Jim foremost amongst them—followed closely.
"You just shove easy and quiet first of all, so as to get a move on," said Jack, "and then out yer comes, every mother's son of yer!"
Leaning his whole weight against the door above,the sailor pushed with gentle force—with force which increased every moment. The wood creaked and bent. To those behind, eager for a successful result, it sounded as though the timbers would crack asunder rather than that the door would open. But no! Wait! In a moment a thin crevice of light showed; it grew broader; it was now a whole inch wide; then two, then three.
Bill, peering between the legs of Jack, who stood above him, could see right through on to the deck of the trawler, and then, with a heave and a hoist, the door was thrown right open.
A deafening report greeted the coming of Jack and Jim and Bill and his friends through the doorway of the companion which led to their prison. A bullet flicked its path across their faces and buried itself in the bale which had been thrown against the door—then there was a crack. Sailor-like, with an agility of which one would hardly have thought him capable, considering his burliness, Jack had leaped at the German who had fired the shot, and, displaying much science in the manœuvre, undercut him in a manner which astonished not only the marine, but some deck hands standing close beside him. For the German's chin went back, his head was jerked almost from his body, his feet left the deck a moment later, and he measured his length on the steel plates.
It was at that precise instant that Larry seized the falling rifle, and hardly a second later that Bill, coming swiftly after him, launched himself like an arrow in amongst the German deck hands. Jim was there too, following up his strokes, while another party of the sailors had turned sharp rightand were sweeping the deck hands on that side of the vessel. As for the second marine on sentry-go, he was dealt with in the most disagreeable and summary manner—that is, disagreeable to himself—for one of the sailors, bobbing up from the companion like a jack-in-the-box, gripped the muzzle of his rifle as he was in the act of firing it, and, extending his other hand, took the German by the nape of his neck and exerted such pressure that the man first let go his weapon, then shouted, and later screamed with pain.
"And you ain't wanted," cried the sailor, lifting him bodily from his feet at last, "not here! So down yer goes!" And down the German went, falling like a bale down the companion and into the depths below, only at that moment cleared of British prisoners.
There, too, the deck hands were hounded within less than five minutes, leaving only the skipper of the trawler on his bridge above, an officer by his side, and the staff of the engine-room.
"Just you carry on, young Bill," cried Jack, seeing that the decks were cleared, and hearing at that moment a crack from a revolver as the skipper opened fire upon them. "This 'ere was your manœuvre; carry it through!"
Bill swung towards Larry with the thought of giving him an order, only to discover the American already stretched flat upon the deck, sheltering behind the mast, his rifle directed on the bridge. Indeed, almost at that same instant his weaponspoke, and the skipper, who by then had emptied his revolver in the direction of the escaping sailors, lifted his arms with a sudden spasmodic movement and fell back behind the canvas screen which crossed the front of the bridge. There, within a short space of time, appeared the face of the other officer, just peering over the screen, his hands raised above his head, calling loudly that he surrendered.
"Send along a party to the engine-room hatch, and order the men up one by one," cried Bill. "Larry, just get up on the bridge and nab that officer. What's doing, Jack? There's a commotion. That was a gun!"
"A gun!" Jack looked worried for a little while as he peered over the bulwarks of the trawler and looked seaward. "This 'ere trip's come off well, young feller, but it ain't the only fightin' we've got to do this time. That gun-shot came from aboard a sister trawler. You can see her there, steaming up out of the mist. She's heard the shooting. Maybe she thinks there's mutiny aboard, though, knowing there was prisoners here, she guesses what's happened. There's another!" he exclaimed as a sharp report sounded from the direction in which he pointed, while through the mist there loomed the bows of another trawler. "A shot's gone just ahead of us. Next time they'll get our range. Things then won't be very pleasant."
Bill clambered to the bridge and looked eagerly about him in all directions. Right aft he could seea party of the sailors standing about the hatch, which no doubt led to the engine-room, and presently a head appeared. A man was extricated by the scruff of his neck, and was tossed on along the deck to the companion, out of which Bill and his comrades had so recently emerged. There, at an order he had given now some minutes ago, stood two burly British sailors, one of whom was armed with a rifle, while the other had seized an axe from the rack round the mast. On the bridge beside him stood Larry, alert, and as eager as himself. At his feet lay the body of the skipper; and then of a sudden his eye fell upon an object right forward, covered in tarpaulin.
"A gun!" he shouted, and waved eagerly to Jack. "Hi!" he bellowed. "There's a gun for'ard, Jack; see if you've got any men who understand it. There's a locker, too, near at hand, and there will be ammunition in it. Larry, you get along with one of the men and see if you can discover some rifles and ammunition, for we shall have to look for a boarding-party. If not rifles, then get axes, iron bars, shovels if you like from the stoke-hole, anything with which to repel the Germans. Jack, ahoy!" he shouted again, and that worthy, playing up to the young fellow whom he had placed in command, touched his cap and aye-ayed to him.
"Aye, aye, sir," he repeated as he came up on to the bridge, having sent four of his men forward to the gun.
"We have been making a bad mistake," saidBill. "She's still steaming, but now that we're taking the hands away from the engine-room she'll soon come to a stop. Put her about; and Jim, here, will take command of the stoke-hole. Send some men down with him, and let 'em stand over the German boys there."
He hailed the men standing at the opening of the companion which led to the hold.
"Order up those of the engine-room staff who have been passed down, and send them along to their job again. Some of 'em'll understand enough English; and just see that you get 'em!"
In between his orders, punctuating them in fact, came the thuds of the gun aboard the other trawler, which was now clearly visible, though at some distance. Fortunately, too, not yet had her shells reached the vessel, though they ricochetted astern and ahead and passed over her decks, without hitting her. As Jack put a man at the wheel and swung the vessel round, the shots went far astern, though a little later, the trawler turning too, they began to burst within a few feet of her bows, and looked as though presently they would come aboard her. By then, however, the scratch gun-crew, which Jack had sent into the bows of the captured vessel, had thrown off the tarpaulin which covered the gun, and very swiftly (for your British sailor is a man of parts and smart at understanding things of that nature) they had grasped the meaning of the various wheels and levers, and had made themselves familiar with its breech action.
Inspection of the ammunition and a trial loading followed, and then a shot which shook the trawler and deafened those on her decks. Not one, but a dozen and more pairs of eyes followed the shot or fixed themselves upon the other vessel. Then a hoarse cheer burst from the men, for a splotch of white suddenly obliterated the bows, there was a blinding flash, and when the smoke had cleared away it was seen that the short bowsprit had been smashed, and that the halyards from it had been cut adrift. What other damage had been done by this lucky shot it would be impossible to say, but it was significant that the trawler sheered off at once, and steered a course which took her farther away rather than nearer to the captured vessel.
"Which just gives us time to get going," came a cool and very cheerful voice at Bill's elbow. "Young chap, you've done mighty well. I ain't goin' to say that me or Jim or any of the other chaps that was down below couldn't have thought out the plan of an escape that you happened on, but it was happening on it just then, at what you might call the psychological moment, that just did it; and since we broke out you've given your orders clear and sharp, and there's been only one bad one, Mister, amongst them."
"Getting the engine-room staff up—eh?" asked Bill.
"Yep," came Larry's short rejoinder. "But that's fixed now: there's Jim down below working like a slave-driver, standing with two other mates,one in the stoke-hole and t'other in the engine-room, and if you'll look at their faces you'll know, and the Germans know too, that they ain't going to stand any sort of humbug. It's a case of shoot the first time a German tries to mix up the engine, or to let steam go, or to do us down in some other dirty manner. Gee! Ain't we seen something of the Germans now? That Heinrich and his shooting of your father, and his bombing of that other ship; and what with Jack's tale, and the hundreds of others that we've heard of, why, don't you ask Jim nor me nor any other American to trust a German. We'll put the handcuffs on 'em first, and then perhaps we'll know they ain't going to do any further damage. But you sent me for arms, young fellow; well now, this here trawler, and probably every other one of 'em, has a sort of magazine, at least I guessed it was that, though I couldn't read the words written on the door—this German language ought to be abolished! But I made free to cut a way in with an axe, and there was rifles and swords and what-not; every one of our men is now armed. Tuck this quick-shooter into your belt, young fellow. It ain't the sort of box-of-tricks that appeals to me, being too easy on its trigger; here's one of my sort—a heavy, cavalry revolver."
Automatically, not thinking at all of what he was doing, yet conscious of the meaning of Larry's words, Bill took the weapon and pushed it into his pocket; meanwhile he peered over the canvas screenwhich lined the front of the bridge, casting his eyes in the direction of the pursuing trawler, then turned in the direction of the gun which some of his own men were handling. Even to him, inexperienced as he was, the thought came that never before had he seen such calmness and such method and order. The gallant fellows, whom Jack had put under his command so suddenly and unexpectedly, were "carrying on" after the traditions of their service. Handy tars that they were, they had no sooner seized upon the ship than they settled down to the manning of her, as if she had been in their care for weeks past. There was no fuss or flurry about those jack tars, though, to be sure, there was haste and hurry, frenzied movement almost, as each man at the gun carried out the task which in every case was self-appointed. One swung her round and sighted her, another opened the breech, the third rammed in the shell-case, and sprang back for yet another, then all moved clear away, the lanyard was pulled, and scarcely had the gun recoiled, and the shell gone hurtling out toward the trawler, than the breech was flung open, while, through the smoke which issued, the man in charge of the ammunition pushed another shell into position. Thus, time and again the gun spoke—twice to every shot fired by the pursuing trawler; and if the gun were strange to these gallant fellows their shooting at any rate was precise enough—too precise in fact for the Germans.
"They are just about getting it about the ears," grinned the man who led the gunners. "How'sthat for a plunk under his bridge, getting her skipper in his stomick or under the belt, which is all fair in this 'ere warfare. What's that?"
"That" was a blinding flash yonder on the deck of the pursuing trawler, a burst of smoke, and then a flame which spouted up from the bridge at which the tar had aimed. But in warfare of this sort retaliation has to be expected, and, almost as the three men raised a cheer, a shell screeched across the deck behind them, struck the mast just in front of the bridge on which Bill and Larry stood, and, bursting as it struck, brought the steel affair down with a crunching roar and a thud across the bulwarks, bending them out of shape and denting the deck, incidentally, too, missing the bridge by less than a foot, tearing away its screen and leaving our two friends as it were stripped naked, staring across an open patch of deck, now littered with the fragments left by the bursting missile.
"Bah!" growled Larry, tilting his hat at a little more of a rakish angle—a habit he had when greatly moved, though, to be sure, nothing else could be seen about him to suggest excitement. As for Bill, young though he was, he stood his ground without wincing.
"And ain't doing half bad," Jack the bos'n told the men he was then taking along the deck to clear away the wreck of the mast. "I've had me weather eye on him as you might say. I seed or rather heard from his voice when he came below and joined us that that young chap had got somethinggood about him. Mind, I don't say as the Americans along with him ain't just as good, better you might say, seeing as they are older and has a right then to expect to be; but the youngster's sharp, smart, and has lots of go, besides being cool-headed. Cut this stuff adrift! Chuck it overboard; it's only hampering us, and if another shell comes in the splinters might do us damage."
His words were almost prophetic; for hardly a minute later an enemy shell burst inboard, and its shattering roar half-stunned Jack and his men and Bill and Larry; yet by some miraculous chance not one of them was severely hurt, though certainly shaken.
As to elsewhere—if the men at the gun, Jack and his deck hands, and Bill and Larry, were "carrying on", to use an expression beloved both of sailors and of soldiers, what of the men down below? Jack told the tale some five minutes later.
"If you'll believe me, sir," he said, clambering up on to the bridge and touching his cap for all the world as though Bill were a full-blooded skipper, "if you'll believe me, young feller, there's Jim, your chum, and his mates, working those Germans at the boilers as if they were slaves. Not a-drivin' of 'em—oh, no! Only encouragin' of 'em like. You see, now that the tables are turned, and there's Jim and Charlie Pipkin and Joe Bent and two others—boys as I know of well—a-standing over the Germans with rifles, instead of the Germans a-standin' over them as they was a little while ago,the Hun's sort of lost all his spirit. If it had been the other way about, from what I seed of 'em—those chaps what talks about 'Kultur' and raves about the Kaiser—they'd have pushed the muzzle of a rifle under your ear, and they'd have made you move slippy. But, bless you, it only wants a look from that there chap Jim; and as for Charlie, when he just cocks his eye across one o' them Huns, the chap shrivels—fairly shrivels."
Jack burst into a roar of laughter which was hardly suppressed even by the scream and flick of a shell which crossed the trawler a little in front of them. He held his sides and bent back till his stout body formed an arc, and then set to work mopping his eyes, which were streaming. "It's a fair turn about, this," he said.
Larry cocked an eye at him in return, just as Charlie down below was described as doing to the Germans in the engine-room.
"It was. Yep," he lisped; "only—eh? Look over yonder!"
Jack looked, Bill looked, and in spite of himself blanched just a trifle. As for Jack, the colour surged to his bearded face and he gripped the rail.
"Oh! Ah! I——" he spluttered.
There was good reason, too, for his exclamations, for the mist which had been hanging over the sea when this brilliant little action opened, and which, as it were, had clouded the scene for a while and indeed had assisted Bill and his friends not a little,was now whisked aside by a fresh breeze which had got up in the meanwhile and was now rippling the surface of a sea of dull green colour on which the rays of the sun were reflected in every direction. Looking towards the German coast there was a haze, though no mist. The bright sun rays and the glittering reflection from thousands of ripples seemed to have cast up there an opaque haze, out of which the pursuing trawler emerged every now and again, a curtain which was rent asunder every odd minute by her gun, when a splash of flame, followed by a cloud of smoke, filled in the gap and then subsided and was replaced by the opacity.
Towards the ocean, however, one could see a long distance, and there, but a dot yet, though visible to all eyes, was a low-lying, queer-shaped vessel—one of the greyhounds of the ocean, about whose bows foamed a white crest of water and from whose deck streamed black billowy clouds of smoke which formed, as it were, a huge screen behind her, against which her smoke-stacks and the crest of white stood out silhouetted sharply. It was a torpedo-boat destroyer.
"Huh!" grunted Larry.
"Hum!" coughed Bill, shielding his eyes.
Jack gripped the rails again and burst into bitter anger.
"And after all what we've done!" he blustered. "After we've been took at sea and clapped into the hold here like so many dogs—though I admitwe might have been left to drown. After we've broke our way out and fixed things up in fine trim, and have got almost clear away safe from the trawler yonder, which ain't worth countin', to see that—that—image!"
Larry produced his beloved cigar, or rather the bedraggled end of one. He always seemed to carry one in his pocket. It went to his mouth, was pushed home into the favourite position, then two hands groped in his pockets for a sodden matchbox. Quite naturally he attempted to strike a light, lifted the damp match to the cigar, and threw it to the deck the next instant.
"How'd you know?" he asked suddenly. "She might be British."
"B—B—British?" shouted Jack. "British! By gum! she might, and in that case——"
"She ain't," Bill ejaculated. "I'll swear we've got the best of her in this position. We can see her clearly, standing out in the sun's rays. Look aft at the trawler. One minute she's gone in the haze, the next minute she comes up. So you can count that the ship yonder, or the men aboard her, ain't yet seen us, but they've heard the guns and are coming along to see what's happened."
"In which case," said Larry, looking aside at Bill, while Jack too turned to the young fellow.
"In which case," said Bill. "Well, there's nothing else for it; we keep straight on. If that's a German torpedo-boat destroyer it's bad luck; if it's British, well, it's British."
There was no need for further argument after that, for it was quite clear to all three of them, and indeed to the deck hands down below, and to those standing over the staff in the engine-room, to whom the news soon filtered, that liberty so recently won might already be on the point of being torn from them; and if it were, what sort of treatment might they expect from the Germans? What indeed? It was no wonder, then, that their spirits sank to zero when, perhaps a quarter of an hour later, the torpedo-boat destroyer having drawn much nearer, a gun spoke from her deck and a shot sailed over them. Meanwhile, too, the pursuing trawler had kept up her fire, so that Bill and his friends were now attacked from two quarters. It looked like hopeless failure; and yet, wait.
"What's that?" demanded Bill, pointing to sea eastward. "Another ship—eh? Another torpedo-boat destroyer! A Ger——."
"German?" shouted Jack. "You can skin me if that ain't a British torpedo-boat destroyer! You can hoist me to the top of the first yard-arm you comes across if that there boat ain't British from the cap of its mast down to its keel! Only, will she come up in time? that's the puzzle."
It was a point which might well bother him and Bill and the others, for, undoubtedly, if this second torpedo-boat destroyer was part of the British fleet, the German had a long start of her. That gun now opening upon the trawler might well destroy her, and the crew who had won their liberty, longbefore the British boat came up. It was a moment for quick decision and swift action.
"Swing her round! Shove her in the opposite direction! Keep her going as hard as you can," shouted Bill. "Jack, send a message down to the engine-room staff to stoke hard, all they can. We must knock every ounce of speed out of the trawler."
They turned, and, as it were, dived into the haze rising from the water, and as the engine staff laboured down below, and "whacked"—to use a nautical expression—the utmost speed out of the boat, a bow wave rose in front of the trawler. Behind came the other trawler, farther aft the German pursuing boat, and still farther astern, and from a different quarter, what everyone hoped was a rescuing British vessel.
Long minutes passed before the end of the affair came, and before the fate of Bill and Jim and Larry and the rest of them was settled. Not that all the participators in this alarming and exciting adventure realized the length of time or found the seconds hang heavy upon them. These fled indeed faster almost than the thudding screw of the trawler pushed that vessel through the water. For every half-minute brought some new event, everyone was working to his utmost, and at every turn the position wore a different complexion.
"It's a time when every man has to work hard, to go all out," said Jack, as, dripping with perspiration, he clambered to the bridge to report to Bill. "You can believe me, young sir, but I've just come up from that there engine-room again, and, my! how them Germans do work to escape from their own people!"
The very mention of it tickled him so much that, in spite of their precarious position, this honest, burly sailor burst into uproarious laughter. Indeed,he might well do so, for the picture down below in the engine-room would have exercised the same influence on anyone of British nationality and blessed with a sense of humour. In amongst the eddying clouds of steam, with the thud and thump of the pistons and the deafening whirr of machinery filling the air, stood Jim on one of the engine-room gangways, gripping the rails and looking over into the smoke-clouds down below, peering now in this direction and then in that, fixing his eye upon some German "greaser"—just fixing his eye on him for a moment—and then swinging round to stare in another direction. No need to show the revolver, which he now wore strapped round his waist, no need to shout a peremptory order, no need to point, to gesticulate, to shake a fist. Those "greasers" knew. They cast glances askance at the young American now and again, and, seeing his square jaw, his determined appearance, flung themselves upon the task of keeping the engines going, well knowing all the time that they were steaming away from their own people.
From the stoke-hold, near at hand, from which now emerged bigger, whiter clouds of steam and smoke, came the clank of spades upon the steel decks, and the scrape as fuel was shovelled up and thrown into the furnaces. There, in what appeared to be an inferno of smoke and flashing beams of light as furnace doors were opened, amidst fiercest heat and sweat and incessant movement, stood two of the recently escaped Britishsailors, nonchalant, erect, one hand gripping the muzzle of a rifle and the other akimbo, resting upon their hips. They, too, glanced now here, now there, noting every movement of every man under their charge, but never moved. The glance alone was sufficient.
"They're keepin' them at work as if they was willin' slaves," Jack roared, mopping the perspiration from his streaming forehead, "and you'd hardly believe me, sir, but when I comes up on deck—and glad to get there too, for it's hot down below—I finds our deck hands a-fallin' in and makin' all ready to repel boarders. It looks like the good old days, and if only the Germans do get up, why, repel boarders it will be!"
Bill took a glance around him; not that he had not done so on many an occasion, and had seen all that was going on, but his chief attention was now engaged with the pursuing trawler and with the torpedo-boat destroyers, and with conjecturing where the next shell would fall and what chance he and his men stood of escape from the double danger behind.
"I'm beginning to think," he had just told Larry, "that the German destroyer will soon have her attention fully occupied by the other one—that is, supposing she's British; so if we can escape the shells she's firing at us now we shall have merely the trawler to deal with. She's drawing nearer, I'm sure. Perhaps her engines are bigger and stronger than those in this vessel; in any case weshall soon see. I don't fear her nearly as much as I do the destroyer."
Larry, from the view Bill and Jack obtained of him, cared very little as to what might happen. With his hat tilted forward in the most approved manner, sucking at his cigar again, he peered in the most nonchalant manner over the rail at the pursuing trawler, and hardly lifted his eyes as her gun spoke and repeated the shot—hardly even deigned to turn his head to watch where the missiles went, though when one sailed close over the bridge he cocked his eye overhead, gave a shrug, and whistled.
"It's the miss that don't matter," he told Bill. "If she was plugging them things into us all the time a chap might get nervy and unsettled, but, as it is, this is playing. Seems to me, young Bill, that you'll soon be having to give other orders. You see, as things are, we're steaming away dead ahead of the trawler, and our gun, perched up there in the bows, ain't able to rake her, while she, with her gun in the same position, can fire at us all the time, and with no fear of return shelling. Now supposin' that destroyer there, what's German, does happen to give over because the other happens to be British, what's to prevent us turning round and going full ahead at the trawler, or steaming off at an angle, as you might say? Gee! Then we could pound her with our own weapon. D'you get me, young fellow?"
Bill did—Jack too, for the matter of that; for hesmacked the American so violently on the back that Larry began to cough and looked at the burly sailor with some amount of indignation.
"You ain't got no call to do that, Jack," he spluttered. "No forcible argument of that sort ain't needed. Just say what you think of the suggestion."
"Think!" the burly sailor shouted. "Why, you couldn't have suggested anything that would ha' pleased me and the men we've got aboard better. If that there destroyer does get fully engaged by t'other—and it's too good a thing to think of—then what's to prevent us going head on for the trawler? Ain't we entitled to have our own action? What's to prevent us making her a prize, same as she'll try to make of us? Just you think what the boys back in Dover town 'ud think if we came sailing in with this 'ere boat, and another with a prize crew aboard her. They wouldn't half shout, would they?"
Even the phlegmatic Larry was forced to show some signs of enthusiasm. The very fact that this experienced sailor took up his idea so enthusiastically and approved of it was encouraging, and then who could escape the infection shed all around by the jovial enthusiastic Jack? The picture of the trawler steaming into Dover, a port to which Larry had never yet sailed, but which he could well imagine, the picture of the ship entering docks, the sides of which were lined with cheering soldiers and sailors and civilians, while behind her camethat other trawler, no longer firing her gun, but a captive with a prize crew steering her in—— Well, Larry could picture that, and at the thought grinned widely.
But as yet there was the destroyer to be thought of. Not that she was doing much harm to the trawler up to this moment, for the other trawler immediately in pursuit of our friends was steering a course which placed her across the line of fire from the destroyer, which, still at some considerable distance, was unable to get a clear field of fire. As a matter of fact her captain hesitated from fear of injuring the pursuing vessel. But a few minutes more would give a clear field of vision, and aboard the destroyer all was in readiness to open upon Bill and his friends. Under such a bombardment no doubt their vessel would have been rapidly blown to pieces.
"I'd best just get along and see what sort of boats we're carrying," said Jack, when he and his two companions had stared at the two destroyers for a few minutes. "That there German is gettin' into position to put a broadside into us, and, if that comes off, this vessel will sink inside five minutes. We may want to be off without stopping to think about it. Best get things ready then, so as to leave her."
He went off down the steps leading from the bridge and mustered the deck hands about him. Every one of the men was now armed with a weapon of some description. Some had rifles,others revolvers, while not a few carried boarding-axes. They trapesed off along the deck to where a couple of boats swung out from the davits, and having assured themselves that both were in readiness to be launched, and as yet undamaged, certain of them dived below in search of food and water to provision them. In the midst of their search they were recalled to the deck by Jack, who descended a few steps down the companion and bellowed at them.
"Hi, lads, you come above again!" he yelled. "We're goin' to put ourselves on board the trawler. I wants every man that's got a rifle to come over here and take up a position; the chaps as has axes only'll lie down behind the bulwarks. When the time comes, every one of you goes over on to the other boat. Now, I tell you, we're goin' to take her!"
The men crowded round him yelling like maniacs. These whilom prisoners, so depressed but a short time before, who had given themselves up to the thought of long incarceration in a German prison, were now filled with the highest spirits. They mustered on the deck brandishing their weapons, took up places which Jack assigned to them, and then, casting their eyes first at Bill and Larry on the bridge above, and then over the side at the trawler, they yelled themselves hoarse once more as they saw that their own vessel had turned about and was heading direct for their pursuer.
The man at the wheel, too, had caught something of their excitement, though he sat there impassive, steering the vessel with care and judgment, making ready to fling her alongside the other. As for the German trawler, great movement could be observed on her decks; men were rushing to and fro, while a figure on the bridge was gesticulating violently, though the words he shouted could not be heard. In any case, the gun in her bows, which had fired only a little while before, had ceased abruptly as Bill gave the order to swing his vessel round, and its crew had scuttled along the deck to join their comrades.
Not so the three who manned the gun aboard the ship on which our heroes were sailing. They waited only for their trawler to swing round, when they laid their gun on the other vessel, and then in rapid succession poured in shots, some of which screamed over her deck, while others holed her above the water, or crashed their way through her bulwarks scattering splinters along her decks. Indeed, it was the fire of these enthusiastic fellows which mainly beat down the resistance of the Germans. A lucky shot took away a portion of the bridge and killed the skipper, a splinter at the same time tearing the wheel from the hands of the man who steered the trawler and wrecking it. She swung off her course at once, while Bill's ship, conned by that impassive steersman before mentioned, swung round in a circle and headed so as to come alongside her.