CHAPTER VI

RAMMED BY A DESTROYER

It was a critical moment aboard the American submarine. Out of the darkness the destroyer—-speed king of the modern navies—-had emerged just at the moment the Dewey was sending home the shot that laid low the German cruiser.

Dashing along at a speed better than thirty knots an hour, the greyhound of the Teutonic fleet was bearing down hard upon the Yankee. Evidently the lookout on the destroyer had marked the path of the Dewey's torpedo in the dim gray of the night sea, and with his skipper had sent his craft charging full tilt at the American "wasp."

"If they get to us before we submerge we are done for," gasped Lieutenant McClure, as he bellowed orders to Navigating Officer Binns to lower away as fast as the submerging apparatus would permit. Then the quick-witted commander rang the engine room full speed ahead at the same time he threw the helm hard to port in an effort to bring his craft around parallel with the charging destroyer and thus make a smaller target.

Down, down, down sank the Dewey as her valves were opened and the sea surged into the ballast tanks. The periscopes had been well out of water when the destroyer had first been sighted. It was now a race between two cool and cunning naval officers—-the German to hurl his vessel full upon the American submarine and deal it a death blow; the American skipper to outwit and outmaneuver his antagonist by putting the Dewey down where she would be safe from the steel nose of the destroyer.

Although no word was spoken to the crew, they could sense the situation by the sharp commands emanating from the conning tower and the celerity with which the navigating officer and his assistant were working the ballast pumps.

Great beads of perspiration stood out on the forehead of Officer Binns as he stood over the array of levers and gave directions, first to ship ballast in one tank, and then in another, shifting the added weight evenly so as not to disturb the equilibrium of the Dewey and cause her to go hurtling to the bottom, top heavy in either bow or stern.

Nearly two minutes were necessary to get the little undersea craft down far enough to evade the prow of the oncoming destroyer, and even then the conning tower furnished a target that might be crushed by the nose of the enemy ship and precipitate an avalanche of water into the hold—-with disaster for the men assembled at their posts of duty.

"They are right on top of us now," screamed Sammy Smith as he hugged the microphone receivers to his ears.

If the destroyer was going to get the submarine, now was the fatal moment!

The Dewey suddenly lunged like a great tiger leaping from the limb of a tree upon its prey. Responding to a signal from his commander, Chief Engineer Blaine had suddenly shot into the submarine's engines the full power of the electric storage batteries and hurled the Dewey forward with a great burst of speed. There was a slim chance that the swift-moving German warship might be sidestepped by a quick maneuver, and the crafty McClure was leaving no deep-sea trick unturned.

"Nice place for the Fritzes to swing overboard one of those infernal depth bombs," muttered Bill Witt.

A depth bomb! Jack and Ted knew all about the latest device being employed by the warring nations in their campaigns against submarines. Gigantic grenades, they were, carrying deadly and powerful explosives timed to go off at any desired depth. One of them dropped from the deck of the destroyer as it passed over the spot where the Dewey had submerged might blow the diminutive ship to atoms.

With reckless abandon big bluff Bill Witt began to sing:

"It's a long way to Tipperary, It's a long way to go. It's a long way—-"

The song was interrupted by a harsh grating sound—-the crashing of steel against steel—-and then the Dewey shuddered from stem to stern as though it had run suddenly against a stone wall.

Hurled from his feet by the fearful impact Jack sprawled on the steel floor of the torpedo room. Ted, standing close by his chum, clutched at one of the reserve torpedoes hanging in the rack in time to prevent himself falling.

For a moment the Dewey appeared to be going down by the stern, with her bow inclined upward at an angle of forty-five degrees. Above all the din and confusion could be heard the roar of a terrific explosion outside. The little submersible was caught in the convulsion of the sea until it seemed her seams would be rent and her crew engulfed.

From the engine room Chief Engineer Blaine and his men retreated amidships declaring that the submarine had been dealt a powerful blow directly aft the conning tower on her starboard beam.

"Any plates leaking?" asked Lieutenant McClure quietly.

"Not that we can notice, sir," replied Blame. "It appears as though the nose of that Prussian scraped along our deck line abaft the conning tower."

At any moment the steel plates were likely to cave in under the strain and the submarine be inundated.

"Stand by ready for the emergency valve!" shouted Lieutenant McClure.

This was the ship's safety contrivance. The Brighton boys had been wonderfully impressed with it shortly after their first introduction to the "innards" of a submarine.

The safety valve could be set for any desired depth; when the vessel dropped to that depth the ballast tanks were automatically opened and every ounce of water expelled. As a result the submarine would shoot to the surface. The older "submarine salts" called the safety the "tripper."

"If they've punctured us we might as well cut loose and take our chances on the surface," declared Lieutenant McClure to the little group of officers standing with him amidships in the control chamber.

Not a man dissented. They were content to abide by the word of their chieftain. It was some relief to know that the nose of the destroyer had not crashed through the skin of the submarine; but, from the concussion astern and Chief Engineer Blaine's report, it was very evident that the Dewey had been struck a glancing blow. Deep-sea pressure against a weakened plate could have but one inevitable sequel—-the rending of the ship's hull.

"They have gone completely over us," came the announcement from the wireless room.

Hardly had the electrician concluded the report before the Dewey was rocked by another submarine detonation—-the explosion of a second depth bomb. This time it was farther from the hiding vessel; however, the ship was shaken until every electric light blinked in its socket.

"I hope they soon get done with their Fourth of July celebration," remarked Bill Witt by way of a bit of subsea repartee.

"That's the way they blow holes in their schweitzer cheese," ventured
Mike Mowrey with a chuckle.

It was decided to submerge a little deeper and then leisurely inspect the interior hull aft. An observation with the microphones disclosed the fact that the destroyer was moving out into the North Sea.

"Guess they think they got us that time," suggested Lieutenant McClure to his executive officer.

"Was rather a close call, come to think of it," smiled Cleary.

The latter went aft with Chief Engineer Blaine for the hull inspection and returned in a few moments to say that, so far as could be observed from the interior, she had not been dealt a severe blow. The executive officer ventured the opinion that the keel of the destroyer had brushed along the aft deck, thus accounting for the fact that the submarine had suddenly been tilted downward at the stern.

"We'll not dare submerge too deep," said Lieutenant McClure. "Pressure against our hull increases, you know, at the rate of four and a quarter pounds to the square inch for every ten feet we submerge. It may be our plates were weakened by that collision. We'll go down to one hundred feet and lie there until these ships get out of the way."

The depth dial showed eighty feet. More water, accordingly, was shipped and the Dewey slipped away to the desired depth, when the intake of ballast ceased and the tiny vessel floated alone in the sea. Determined to take no more chances with the Kaiser's navy until he had ascertained the true condition of his own vessel, Lieutenant McClure decided to lie-to here in safety.

When the raiders had departed he would ascend and make a more detailed external inspection of the hull.

It was half-past two. Jean Cartier superintended the distribution of hot coffee and light "chow" and the crew made themselves comfortable in their submarine home.

Half an hour later, when it had been determined by the telephones that the German ships had moved on westward, the Dewey began again to ascend the depths.

Early dawn was streaking the sky with tints of orange gray when at last the submarine poked its periscopes above the waves. Not a ship was in sight; there was not a trace of the battle cruiser that the Dewey had sent to her doom during the earlier hours of the night.

"Didn't have a chance, did they?" Ted said to his churn in contemplation of the fate of the German warship.

Jack felt different about it.

"Sure they had a chance," he answered.

"They would have gotten us if we hadn't landed them first."

"Do the other fellow as you know he would do you," Jack philosophized.

As the Dewey emerged again on the surface with her deck and super-structure exposed, the ship's wireless aerials were run up and she prepared to get in touch with the United States fleet. Jack crept into the wireless room that he might better understand what was going on. Lately he had been learning the wireless code and familiarizing himself with the operation of the radio under the kindly instruction of Sammy Smith.

"You never know when knowledge of these things is going to stand you in good stead," remarked Jack when he had applied to Sammy for "a bit in electricity."

Once more the hatches were opened and the crew swarmed out to stretch their limbs and get a breath of fresh air again. Lieutenant McClure hastened to examine the deck of the Dewey to ascertain whether any damage had been done in the collision with the destroyer.

Yes, there was a slight dent—-a broad scar—-running obliquely across the deck plates just aft the conning tower within a few inches of the engine room hatch. The damage, however, appeared to be slight.

"Narrow escape," the lieutenant pondered.

"Zip! zip!" the wireless was sputtering as Sammy Smith flung a code message into space in quest of other members of the allied navies. Several times he shot out the call and then closed his key to await a reply.

Finally it came—-a radio from an American warship far out of sight over the horizon.

"Take this radio to Lieutenant McClure," said Sammy, as he typed it with the wireless receiver still to his ears, and wheeled to hand it to Jack. The latter took the flimsy sheet and bounded up the aft hatch to where his commander stood examining the hull.

"American and English cruisers and destroyers in running fight with German raiding squadron. Give us your position. U.S.S. Salem," the message ran.

At once the Dewey's latitude and longitude were rattled off to the Salem. In reply came another radio from the scout cruiser, giving the position of the raiding fleet and the pursuers, with this direction:

"Close in from your position. German fleet in full retreat headed
E.N.E. across North Sea. You may be able to intercept them!"