CHAPTER XIX

CAPTURING A U-BOAT

The battle at the wharf was of short duration. Completely surrounded and outnumbered ten to one, the party of isolated Germans threw down their arms and surrendered. From his vantage point behind the conning tower of the captured U-boat Jack kept tabs on the struggle until all firing had ceased and he was sure the Germans had been completely subjugated. The cheering of his rescuers apprised him of the defeat of the enemy. Walking out on the deck of the U-boat, he pulled off his hat and welcomed his deliverers with a lusty yell.

His sudden appearance from behind the conning tower of the U-boat completely nonplussed his friends for a moment. The bluejackets wheeled at the sound of his voice and a dozen rifles were trained on him in an instant.

"Don't fire!" yelled Jack. "I'm Jack Hammond of the U.S.S. Dewey."

For a moment the blue jackets paused—-and then pandemonium broke loose.

"Hurrah, hurrah for Jack Hammond!" they shouted. Hastily a gangplank was thrown out to the captive U-boat and Jack ran ashore only to be surrounded by his fellow-countrymen and fairly lifted off his feet.

"We've heard all about you—-how you escaped from the U-boat and called for help from the German wireless station. Bully for you, Jack Hammond; Uncle Sam can be proud of you," cried a sergeant of marines, who was gripping his hand with a clasp of steel.

Through the crowd of sailors and marines at that moment came a slender lad who elbowed his way forward with the ruthless violence of a fullback determined upon a touchdown. Right and left he tossed the bluejackets until he had fought to the side of the rescued American in the center of the group.

"Jack!" he yelled in delight.

"Ted!" cried the other almost in unison.

Unabashed, the two old Brighton chums embraced each other like two school girls just back for the fall term after summer vacation.

"Gee, chum, I never expected to see you again!" exclaimed Ted as he released his companion from a regular bear hug.

"Nor I you, either," said Jack. "Tell me, what happened to the Dewey?
How did you get out? Where is McClure and all the rest of the crew?
How did you get here?"

Jack was so excited thinking of his old friends he forgot his own part in the stirring incidents of the last few hours, and his own injury, as he insisted on hearing the whole story from his old roommate. "I'll tell you pretty soon; everybody is safe and all O.K.," answered Ted. And then he beheld the blood dripping from Jack's wounded arm.

"Wait a moment; what's wrong here?" he exclaimed, lifting the arm tenderly and disclosing to the view of the excited group of Americans a wound just above the wrist.

"Oh, it's just a scratch on the arm; one of the Boches nipped me while I was out there on the U-boat deck waiting for you fellows to come down through the village," he replied lightly, trying to minimize his injury.

A first-aid kit was produced and the wound hurriedly dressed. It seemed to be but a slight flesh wound. In the midst of the dressing a great shrapnel shell burst just on the other side of the canal and threw some of its fragments into the water just beyond the U-boat. At the same moment was heard the whirr of an airplane motor overhead and very shortly a hand bomb crashed to earth not more than two hundred yards up the canal towpath, exploding with a terrible detonation and tearing up a fearful hole in the ground.

"The German guns are all in action now," said Ted as he watched the airplane circling above the U-boat base.

Jack was soon told of the situation. He had been rescued by a landing party from several warships of the U.S. fleet. Under the cover of their guns, trained upon the German fortifications at Blankenberghe, further up the coast, and another Hun fort further down the coast, the bluejackets and marines had come ashore.

Seaward could be heard the incessant pounding of the American guns, intermingled with the boom-boom of the German artillery in the coast defenses. The German air patrol had flashed warning of the approaching American fleet and given the range to their gunners.

As Ted finished dressing the flesh wound, Jack saw coming toward him a naval officer whose epaulets showed him to be a Lieutenant-Commander of the United States Navy. Jack saluted formally.

"Are you Mr. Jack Hammond of the U.S.S. Dewey?" the officer asked.

Jack replied in the affirmative.

"I am Lieutenant-commander Davis of the U.S.S. Tallahassee," replied the officer. "You are the man we came after, and now that we have found you we must get right out of here as quickly as possible. I should like, however, to congratulate you on your remarkable exploit in getting away from the submarine and signaling so fearlessly for aid. Furthermore, I congratulate you, too, on capturing this U-boat single-handed."

Jack blushed and endeavored to stammer his thanks.

Immediately the American landing party prepared to retire. Deprived of all arms, the German prisoners were turned loose and driven out of the village, with instructions to get away as quickly as possible. After communicating with the American fleet offshore, reporting the rescue of Hammond and receiving instructions to get aboard ship as quickly as possible, Lieutenant-Commander Davis ordered the destruction of the wireless station. Likewise the two huge oil tanks at the canal's edge in which the Germans had stored fuel for their U-boats were fired, along with supply stores and every other thing that might prove of value to the enemy.

Lieutenant-Commander Davis hurried up and asked Jack whether his injury was sufficiently serious to incapacitate him for active service. When Jack replied that he was capable of performing any desired service, the American officer said:

"We shall certainly try and take that U-boat along with us. I am going to detail twenty of my men to the U-boat under command of Lieutenant Bridwell I should like you and Mr. Wainwright to assist Lieutenant Bridwell in getting the U-boat out to sea. We shall retire overland to our boats on the coast and leave you men to bring out the submarine."

Forthwith a crew was made up for the U-boat out of the landing party. Three Germans who still remained cowering within the conning tower of the submarine submitted quietly to capture. Lieutenant Bridwell decided to make the Germans assist in getting the U-boat out to sea.

"Put one of our men over each of the chaps and tell them to shoot at the first sign of any funny business," was Bridwell's order to Jack. It was found that the U-boat's fuel tanks had been but recently replenished—-in fact, the submarine bad been fitted for another cruise and was all ready to put to sea.

Jack found himself acting as executive officer to Lieutenant Bridwell in the operation of the submersible. Her oil engines were easily set in motion and her steering apparatus; was not unlike that of the Dewey, so the task of navigating the captured prize out to sea seemed not a difficult one.

Lieutenant Bridwell summoned one of the German prisoners before him.

"You understand English?" he asked.

"Yes," answered the captive Teuton.

"Then listen to me," went on the American commander. "Either you assist us to get out to sea or forfeit your life. I don't mean by that that we will kill you. The channel out to sea is probably mined and netted. If we explode a mine or run into a net and get stranded you die with the rest of us. Which will it be?"

The German signified his willingness to assist. He knew the channel very well, he continued, and would do his part. And then the most surprising thing happened. Of his own free will the captive told how he and his two companions aboard the U-boat had been pressed into the submarine service against their will. They had not desired to embark with one of the undersea fleet, but had been compelled to enlist in the service.

Many of the Germans were in open revolt against U-boat service, said the Teuton, because of the great number of submersibles being sunk by the allied navies. Only the previous week a revolt had occurred in the fleet at Cuxhaven, an admiral and a naval commander had been thrown overboard and a number of U-boats were lying inactive at their bases because of the inability to ship crews.

When the American lad had driven them inside the U-boat at the approach of the victorious landing party, continued the loquacious prisoner, they had decided at first to cripple the U-boat. But after talking it over they had decided that it would be better to fall into the hands of the Americans than to lose their lives by sinking the U-boat.

And now they were willing to assist their captors in getting safely out to sea.

Lieutenant Bridwell smilingly accepted the offer, but with a knowing wink to Jack which meant that the latter was to keep close watch over the talkative and seemingly docile German.

Now the evacuation of the U-boat base was under way. Having razed the place completely, Lieutenant-commander Davis was directing the retreat of his men over the sand dunes to their waiting boats on the beach front a mile or so off. German airplanes were making valiant efforts to wipe out the American landing party, but were so hard pressed by the heavy fire from the American battleships at sea that their aim was inaccurate.

The U-boat got under way with Lieutenant Bridwell, Jack, and the German pilot in the conning tower. Ted was dividing his time between the engine room and the control chamber, where the other two Germans were stationed under strong guard.

Moving very slowly, the U-boat was headed down the canal and very soon emerged into the bay that Jack had found in his exploration of the coast. In full view now was the American fleet from which the landing party had been set ashore—-the battleship Tallahassee, the cruisers Detroit and Raleigh, the destroyer Farragut and the submarine Dewey. The Tallahassee was lying broadside of the coast with all her monster fourteen-inch guns ready for action.

Soon the U-boat had wormed its way safely out into the open sea and was skimming along under the heavy fire of the fleet that was being directed against the German coast fortifications. As the U-boat, with the Stars and Stripes flaunting astern, moved outward, the fleet got under way.

Notwithstanding the heavy German fire from the coast defenses the American ships got safely away virtually unscarred in the battle. Fifteen miles out at sea the captured German U-boat came up with the Dewey. Jack had a joyous reunion with "Little Mack," Cleary and Binns, Bill Witt, Mike Mowrey and all his other friends aboard the reclaimed American submarine. And then he heard the complete story of his rescue.

No sooner had the Dewey appeared upon the, surface, following the successful consummation of Ted Wainwright's plan, than she had sighted the destroyer Farragut. The latter had heard Jack's call for help from the German wireless station ashore and had come dashing to the rescue. At first the commander of the Farragut had considered the whole thing a ruse on the part of the Germans to lure an American ship to its doom within range of the powerful coast guns; but the continued silence of the wireless station after that first frantic call for help had convinced the destroyer's commander that the message was genuine.

Along the way, while still attempting to speak the wireless operator ashore, the Farragut had picked up the battleship Tallahassee and enlisted its aid. The latter had summoned the Detroit and the Raleigh. It was while the Farragut was searching for some trace of the sunken Dewey that the escaped submarine had suddenly shot to the surface within a half mile of the destroyer.

When the Tallahassee, the Detroit and the Raleigh had come up, there had been a conference and then the landing party had been resolved upon. Two hundred and fifty bluejackets and marines had successfully accomplished the landing and after a brief search had spotted the wireless station and the U-boat village. The German submarine base, it was noted, was located along the banks of a canal leading into the coast town of Blankenberghe—-a waterway the Germans: had opened up after their occupation of Belgium.

Jack Hammond got a rousing reception. The story of his escape from the Dewey and his bold adventure in the German wireless station had become known and he was roundly cheered. When it was seen that the Americans had brought back with them a huge German U-boat there was great jubilation.

The captain of the Tallahassee, who was the ranking officer of the assembled fleet, decided that the Farragut should tow the captured U-boat to the American naval base on the English coast, while the Dewey also was to return to the same port for thorough inspection and repairs. A number of her crew were in bad shape from the long confinement in the stranded sub.

"Your men need a bit of play after their hazardous experience," was the message flashed to the Dewey from the Tallahassee's commander as he bade "Little Mack" and his men Godspeed.

And so, after an uneventful run across the North Sea, the Dewey came back to England, bringing as her prize a monster U-boat of the latest design, complete in every detail and ready for service under the Stars and Stripes.

And with her came Jack Hammond—-a new American naval hero, whose deeds had fitted him for rank among the immortal list.