had “worked,” the men of the watch returned to their usual stations, while those off duty returned to their “watch below.” Darrin, however, was shaking an hour later. He had dropped the usual method of defense for once and had tried a trick by which he might have lost his craft. As commander he knew that he had discretionary powers, but at the same time he realized that he had taken a desperate chance.
“Oh, stop that, now!” urged Danny Grin. “If you had steamed straight at the submarine you would have taken even bigger chances of losing the ‘Logan.’ Even had she given up the fight and dived, there wasn’t light enough for you to follow by any trail of bubbles the enemy might have left. The answer, David, little giant, is that the submarine is now at the bottom, and every Hun aboard is now a dead man. In this war the commander who wins victories is the only one who counts.”
Through that day Dave and Dan slept, alternately, only an hour or two at a time. All they sighted were three cargo steamers, two headed toward Liverpool and one returning to “an American port.”
At nine o’clock in the evening Darrin, after another hour’s nap, softly parted the curtains of the chart-room door and peered out. He saw a young sailor standing just back of the open doorway of the radio room. Slight as it was there was a something in the sailor’s attitude of listening that Darrin did not quite like. He stepped out on the deck.
Sighting him, the sailor saluted.
“Jordan!” called Dave, even before his hand reached his visor cap in acknowledgment of the salute.
“Yes, sir!” answered the seaman, coming to attention.
“You belong to this watch?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your station is with the stern watch?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then what are you doing forward?”
“I left my station, by permission, to go below, sir.”
“Have you been below?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then why are you loitering here?”
Seaman Jordan hesitated, shifted on his feet, glanced down, then hurriedly replied:
“I – I don’t know, sir. I just stopped here a moment. There’s a relief man in my place, sir.”
“Return to your station, Jordan!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied the sailor, saluting, wheeling and walking away.
“And I’ll keep my eye on you,” mused Darrin, as he watched the departing sailor. “I may be wrong, but when I first sighted him there was a look on that lad’s face that I didn’t like.”
Even before he reached his station Seaman Jordan was quaking inwardly more apprehensively than is usual with a sailor caught in a slight delinquency.
CHAPTER III – QUICK “DOINGS” OVER THE SHOAL
For several days after that Darrin and the “Logan” cruised back and forth over the area assigned for patrol. During these days nothing much happened out of the usual. Then came a forenoon when Darrin received a wireless message, in code, ordering him to report back at once to the commanding officer of the destroyer patrol.
Mid afternoon found the “Logan” fifteen miles off the port of destination.
“Be on the alert every instant,” was the order Darrin gave out to officers and men. “There have been several sinkings, the last month, in these waters. We are nearing Fisherman’s Shoal, which is believed to be a favorite bit of ground for submarines that hide on the bottom.”
Over Fisherman’s Shoal the water was only about seventy feet in depth – an ideal spot for a lurking, hiding undersea craft.
Five minutes later the bow lookout announced quietly:
“Trail of bubbles ahead, sir.”
Leaving Ensign Phelps on the bridge, Dave and Dan darted down and forward.
A less practised eye might have seen nothing worth noting, but to the two young officers the trail ahead was unmistakable, though Darrin quickly brought up his glass to aid his vision.
“Pass the word for slow speed, Mr. Dalzell,” Dave commanded, quietly. “We want to keep behind that craft for a moment. Pass word to Mr. Briggs to stand by ready to drop a depth bomb.”
Quietly as the orders were given, they were executed with lightning speed. The destroyer began to move more slowly, keeping well behind the bubble trail. At any instant, however, the “Logan” could be expected to leap forward, dropping the depth bomb at just the right moment. Then would come a muffled explosion, and, if the bomb were rightly placed, a broad coating of oil would appear upon the surface.
Dave was now in the very peak of the bow. Watching the bubbly trail he knew that the hidden enemy craft was moving more slowly than the destroyer, and he signalled for bare headway. And now the bubbles were rising as though from a stationary object under the waves.
“Buoy, there!” he ordered, quickly. “Overboard with it.”
Slowly the destroyer moved past the spot, but the weighted, bobbing buoy marked the spot plainly.
“Have a diver ready, Mr. Dalzell,” Dave called. “Make ready to clear away a launch!”
In the matter of effective speed Darrin’s officers and crew had been trained to the last word. Only a few hundred yards did the “Logan” move indolently along, then lay to.
Soon after that the diver and launch were ready. Dave stepped into the launch to take command himself.
“May I go, too, sir?” asked Dan Dalzell, saluting. “I haven’t seen this done before.”
“Clear away a second launch, Mr. Dalzell. The crew will be armed. You will take also a corporal and squad of marines.”
That meant the entire marine force aboard the “Logan.” Dalzell quickly got his force together, while Darrin gave orders to pull back to where the bobbing buoy lay on the water.
“Ready, diver?” called Dave, as the launch backed water and stopped beside the buoy.
“Aye, aye, sir.” The diver’s helmet was fitted into position and the air pump started. The diver signalled that he was ready to go down.
“Men, stand by to help him over the side,” Darrin commanded. “Over he goes!”
Hugging a hammer under one arm the diver took hold of the flexible cable ladder as soon as it had been lowered. Sailors paid out the rope, life line and air pipe as the man in diver’s suit vanished under the water.
Down and down went the diver, a step at a time. The buoy had been placed with such exactness that he did not have to step from the ladder to the sandy bottom. Instead, he stepped on to the deck of a great lurking underseas craft.
He must have grinned, that diver, as he knelt on top of the gray hull and hammered briskly, in the International Code, this message to the Germans inside the submarine shell:
“Come
