Hancock Harrie Irving - Dave Darrin and the German Submarines. Or, Making a Clean-up of the Hun Sea Monsters стр 24.

Let go the bomb!

A depth bomb was instantly released over the stern.

By the time that it exploded the speeding destroyer was safely out of the way of any danger from its effects. A huge, thick column of water rose, as if overboiling from a monster pot.

Put about and go back to observe, Darrin directed, nodding to the watch officer.

Even before they were fully about an exultant hurrah came from a lookout forward.

Was she hit, lookout? Dave shouted.

Hit is the right word, sir, came the response. On that spot, at this minute, theres more oil than water.

In another instant Dave also beheld the big, spreading mass of oil. There was no need of investigating further. He turned in search of other enemy craft.

Ten minutes passed without sight of one near enough to engage Darrins attention. It would not be good judgment for the Logan to go hunting in some other crafts territory.

At last, a thousand yards away, a conning tower, with only a stump of a periscope remaining, rose through the waves. Time was, in the war, when a shattered periscope obliged a submarine to choose between rising to the surface and sinking, but later periscopes were so adjusted that they could be shot away without imperilling the safety of the underseas craft. This emerging craft showed also a damaged tower, and the rising had to be of the quickest order.

I hope that chap isnt going to surrender, muttered Dave, as he ordered the Logan headed straight toward the sea monster. It takes too long, in a fight like this, to receive a surrender and remove the prisoners.

In a very few seconds, however, the enemy relieved his apprehensions. Beatty fired two shots, both of which went a few feet wild. In that time the German commander rushed men out to the bow gun. Though her tower was damaged, the craft could still fight on the surface.

One after another eight German sailors leaped out to the deck, throwing their six-inch forward gun into fighting position.

R-r-r-r-rip! Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat! Two machine guns on the Logan were turned loose. One German sailor, then another, was hit, fell and rolled from the wet platform into the sea.

Bang! roared out Lieutenant Beattys gun, but the shot did nothing more than tear away a part of the conning towers top.

Still the machine guns played upon that Hun gun-crew. Three more of the enemy were laid low, two of them rolling overboard into the sea.

A flash leaped from the German gun. A swell, lifting the bow of the submarine at that instant caused the shell to go screaming overhead, so close to the bridge that the three officers there ducked without realizing that they were doing so.

Aiming for the German gun, Beatty sent in a shell that pierced the top of the hull twenty feet ahead of the gun.

Cooler, old chap! Lieutenant Beatty breathlessly adjured himself, and spent perhaps half a second more in the sighting this time.

Just before he fired, the Huns let go with their big piece again. The shell struck the Logans foremast, damaging it, though the mast did not go overboard.

Two sailors on lookout, hit by flying pieces of steel, were hurled into the air. One dropped to the deck, a hopelessly mangled mass of torn flesh; the other seaman was knocked overboard.

Dave turned to look at that wreck of a human being as it struck the water. He knew there was no life in the man, so gave no order for recovering the body.

Down below sailors sprang to lift the dead man, who had dropped there, on to a stretcher. They carried him below, to be buried later.

Beatty did not delay his firing an instant. This time the shell struck at the base of the enemys tower. A fragment of the exploding shell must have hit one of the German gun-crew, for a man fell on his face and rolled overboard. However, that mattered little in the fight, for still Hun reinforcements came through what was left of the conning tower.

I seem able to hit everything but that gun or the water-line, fumed Lieutenant Beatty, enraged with himself.

Hit though the tower had been, and though, also, three or four members of the Hun crew must have been killed in those hits, the steering gear of the submarine was still left and the grim craft was maneuvered in a way to challenge admiration.

Considerate of the feelings of the officer with the forward guns, Darrin had refrained from

giving one order, but now passed the order to the machine gunners to concentrate their fire on the enemy hull at the water line.

The water alongside the submarine began spurting in tiny jets. This sieve-like riddling would presently settle the fight, unless the Hun gunners got in just one shot where it would tell best. The fight, therefore, was not yet won by the destroyer.

Fire! ordered Beatty, in forced calm. Then, all in an instant, that young naval lieutenant threw up his hands.

CHAPTER XI A TRAP AND ITS PREY

Responding to the inrush of water the submarine heeled. And then a strange sight was witnessed. Just as the breathless sailors on the Logan looked for the underseas craft to plunge under the waves she did something very different.