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Follow second destroyer on port line, came the signal from the leading destroyer to the Logan. After taking position meet any emergency according to best judgment.
So the Logan raced along to the north of the fleet, then made a swift, curving sweep and moved into the assigned position.
From the decks of the nearest transports, soldiers, as they returned from their meal, blithely waved their caps again. Cheering was forbidden, as such noise would drown out orders that might be given for the handling of the ship. But those Of Daves jackies who could, waved back good-humoredly.
For some minutes after taking position, Darrin found himself running along with the troopship Cumberland, and the distance between them was but a few hundred yards.
Dave had turned to watch the movements of the destroyer ahead in the line when he heard a starboard lookout call:
Torpedo coming, sir, on the port beam!
Like a flash Darrin wheeled to behold the oncoming trail.
Lieutenant Curtin, now on the bridge watch, gave quartermaster and engine-room swift orders, while Ensign Phelps signalled the Cumberland.
Like a racehorse in full career, the Logan bounded forward and made a sharp turn to port. At the same time the Cumberland obliqued sharply to starboard.
On came the torpedo. The soldiers on the troopship deck watched its course with fascinated eyes.
The Logan, having swerved enough only to clear the deadly missile, now darted in again, her nose striking what was left of the torpedo trail. On she dashed, gun and bomb crews grimly waiting, every man on duty alert on the destroyers decks.
Cutting
the wind the Logan raced on her way, her bow throwing up a huge volume of water. Dave, on the bridge, saw his staunch little fighting craft near the starting end of the tell-tale torpedo trail. And there on the water, moving eastward and at right angles with the direction of the path, was an ill-defined, bulky something which, from the destroyers bridge, looked like a submerged shadow.
Quickly rasping out a change in the course, Dave saw the Logan overtake that shadow in a matter of seconds. The shadow was much less distinct now, for the sea pest was submerging to greater depth.
It was Darrin himself who seized the handle of the bridge telegraph.
Answering the signal sent by Dave to the engine room, the Logan made a magnificent leap forward just as the destroyers bow reached the point over the tail of the shadow.
Let go the depth bomb! he roared. The signal was passed to the bomb crew to let go!
Over went the bomb. The Logan still leaped forward.
Then, astern of the rushing craft, came a muffled roar. A great mass of water shot up into the air, like a compressed geyser. Before the column of water had had time to subside big bubbles of air came up in myriads and burst on the surface.
The instant after the explosion of the depth bomb, the Logan turned on the shortest axis possible, her propellers slowing down somewhat.
The Cumberland is still afloat and not hit, thank Heaven! Darrin uttered fervently.
Only the troopships quick turn to starboard had saved her. The torpedo had sped past by less than five feet from her rudder.
Another turn, and Dave came up with the scene of the explosion. Oh, cheerful sight! The water was mottled with great patches of oil. More cheering still, sundered bits of wooden fittings from a submarine floated on the water. Two dead bodies also drifted on the swells; the remaining Huns on the shattered craft must have gone down with the sea pest.
Not bad work, Mr. Curtin, Dave remarked, calmly, as the destroyer once more moved into her place in the escort line.
May we have as good luck every time, came the fervent response of the watch officer.
Word of the bomb hit had been signalled along the line. It was hard indeed that the soldiers were not allowed to cheer!
But had the mornings work really begun?
CHAPTER IX WHEN THE ENEMY SCORED
However, there was no attack in the next hour. The fleet continued on its way only as swiftly as the slowest transport could move, for it is an axiom at sea that the speed of a fleet is the speed of its slowest ship.
Suddenly Dave recalled to mind the prisoner, Jordan, locked in the brig below.
Corporal, he called down, as that noncommissioned officer of marines passed across the deck, in case we are hit and are sinking, make it your duty to remember Jordan, in the brig. Turn him loose before we abandon ship if the days work comes to that.
Humph! Pete was saying to his soldier comrades forward on one of the leading transports. The Germans must be hard up when they can send only one sub to tackle a fleet like this.
I dont care if the Huns send fifty or a hundred of their pests, broke in another soldier. The subs have no show. Did you see that destroyer? Scoot! Pouf! Hm! Wheres that submarine now? I tell you, fellows, after all, submarines are good only for sinking unarmed schooners.
Still, theyve sunk more than a few armed steamers, argued a comrade.
If they did, maintained the former speaker, warmly, then it was because the lookouts and gunners were asleep. You wait! If we meet a dozen of these Hun submarines to-day youll find that they wont get any of our ships.