And then, one morning, Dan broke in on Darrin at the naval club, his eyes gleaming.
“I’ve got my command and my sailing orders!” he shouted, gleefully.
“What ship?” Dave asked, springing up.
“The ‘Prince’!” Dalzell exclaimed, jubilantly.
“Never heard of that craft,” Darrin returned, his eyes opening wide. “She doesn’t sail from this port, does she?”
“No,” and Danny Grin, his mouth wreathed in smiles, named a near-by port.
“When do you take her over?”
“To-morrow.”
“And sail?”
“Same day.”
Darrin gripped his chum’s hand, murmuring:
“I wish you all the success in the world, Danny-boy,” he called, heartily.
“How would you like to go with me?” Dalzell continued, eagerly.
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“About taking you as a passenger,” Dan went on. “You’ll go as my guest, if you favor me to that extent. I spoke to the flag lieutenant about it, and he said that your orders would not be ready for two or three weeks yet, and that you will have plenty of time to sail with me if you so desire, and be back in time for your new detail. Do you want to go?”
“Stop your nonsense, Danny-boy, if you’ll be so good. Of course you know that I want to go with you. But can’t you tell me something about the ‘Prince’?”
“Not a word,” Dan protested.
“Or the kind of work in which your ship is going to engage?”
“Not a word!” Dan Dalzell laughed merrily. “Will you go?”
“Yes; of course, old chum.”
“I thought you would,” Dan continued, “so I took the liberty of obtaining official permission for you to go along with me. Here it is, over the admiral’s signature.”
Dave eagerly scanned the official-looking, typewritten sheet. It was simply a written permission, and gave not the slightest clew to the nature of Dan’s new venture.
“Dan Dalzell, I believe that you’re going to keep me on the guessing rack,” Dave declared.
“You don’t believe anything of the sort,” Dalzell laughed; “you know it.”
“All right, then,” sighed Darrin, good-humoredly, putting away the official envelope in an inner pocket.
“Then you’re going with me?”
“Yes, sir, and right into the jaws of whatever mystery you have arranged for me,” Dave said.
“Mighty glad of it,” cried Danny Grin, gripping his chum’s hand again. “I don’t believe you’ll be sorry either. It’s a humorous adventure on which you and I are going to embark.”
“If there’s any humor to be found in this great, grim war,” Dave retorted, “then it will prove a most welcome relief from the kind of work that has been holding our attention.”
Dave had already cleaned up all matters relating to the transfer of command on the “Logan.” Hence there was nothing to hinder his departure by train at daylight the morning following. For two hours the chums rode, then alighted at a port town so small that its name is never heard on this side of the water.
Within five minutes the two young naval officers, carrying their worn-looking suit-cases, reached the water-front. Dan’s heavier baggage had gone on ahead and Dave carried none beyond what his suit-case contained.
The harbor was a small one. Dave had seen it all ere they reached one of the three small wharves of which the water-front boasted.
“Humph!” he remarked. “So you must wait for your ship to come in?”
“I don’t believe so,” Dalzell returned.
“But there is no warship in this harbor,” Darrin remonstrated. Indeed, the only craft above the size of small boats were a battered old tramp steamer, a former trawler, now a patrol boat, a steam fishing-smack and a schooner.
“All the shipping in this harbor combined wouldn’t make a proper command for a lieutenant-commander in the United States Navy,” Dave observed. “Dan, you’ve been grinning ever since you brought me the veiled news yesterday. It is now about time to unmask and tell me what you’re up to in the way of mischief.”
“That would be to open up the case of the watch and show you the whole works,” Dan retorted, mockingly.
“Then I give it up,” sighed Dave.
In response to a mere hand signal a boat put off from under the quarter of the battered tramp. As it neared the wharf Dave’s wonder grew.
“So that old tramp steamer is going to act as tender, and take you out to your new ship?” Dave inquired, feeling as mystified as he looked. “Have a care, Danny-boy. That tramp won’t keep afloat long enough in an open sea to take you far!”
But Dalzell made no reply. Instead, he walked to the steps that led down to a landing stage, returning the salute of the seaman in the stern of the row-boat. Plainly the tramp could by no possibility be Dan’s “new” ship, for not even a man in the boat-crew wore the uniform of the United States. Though the men showed bright, intelligent faces, their garb was of the most nondescript character worn by seafaring men.
Dan gravely led the way to seats in the stern.
“Shove off!” ordered the coxswain. Then the men gave way at the oars. Dave watched their rowing. To an amateur eye the handling of the oars wasn’t so bad, but it was utterly different from the rowing done by a smart man-o’-wars crew. Dave felt the mystery deepening.
Nor did it grow lighter when the boat was driven in at a rickety side gangway. For, looking up, Dave saw a frowsy-looking lot of heads of men who were lounging at the rail and looking down at the water. The name of this frowsy-looking craft, Darrin discovered, was the “Prince.”
Dave went aboard on what would have been called the quarter-deck on a more pretentious craft. Dan led the way at once into the deckhouse and into a passage-way.
And right here Dave received another jolt. Inside, a clean-cut looking sailor lad, in new, handsome U. S. uniform, saluted smartly, at the same time stepping forward to take both suit-cases.
“Take Mr. Darrin to his cabin,” Danny Grin directed, gravely. “Then bring my bag to my quarters.”
In another moment Darrin had seen three more smart-looking jackies. He was then ushered into his cabin, and his bag placed inside the doorway.
“Hm! This cabin doesn’t look as bad as one might expect,” Dave Darrin murmured to himself. “But what can the game be? Danny-boy is certainly carrying on this joke in a mighty mysterious fashion.”
Hanging up the sheepskin coat that he had carried on one arm, Darrin next removed his long uniform overcoat and hung that up also. There came a brisk knock at the door.
“Lieutenant-Commander Dalzell’s compliments, sir, and will you join him, sir?” inquired the messenger at the door.
“Gladly,” assented Darrin, drawing aside the curtain that fell over the doorway and stepping outside.
His conductor led him forward into a large cabin.
Just as he entered Dave’s puzzled glance fell upon several pairs of boots standing in a row near the door. He gasped when he realized that they were high, lace affairs, of a distinctly feminine pattern that were in fashion on Broadway the last time he had seen that famous thoroughfare.
And here, right in front of him, stood Dalzell, earning every letter in his nick-name of Danny Grin.
“I didn’t know that you had ladies aboard, Danny,” Dave remarked, halting and gazing at the shoes.
“Who said we had?”
“But those—” began Darrin, pointing at the footgear that had aroused his wonder.
“Newest thing in service shoes,” laughed Dalzell.
“Have your own way about it,” Dave chuckled.
“It’s a fact, just the same,” Dan retorted. “And say! Are you thoroughly discreet? Can you keep a Service secret?”
“I can hand you a wallop in about a half a second,” Dave Darrin retorted.
“I am answered,” Dan replied, gravely. “Follow me.”
Just at that instant a girlish figure came through from the connecting cabin. Dave couldn’t see her face, which was closely veiled. But from that other cabin came a roar of laughter. Dave Darrin felt like pinching himself to see if he were awake.
“Come on in,” chirped Dalzell. “The water’s fine to-day.”
Taking Dave by the arm he piloted his chum into that next cabin.
And now, indeed, Dave Darrin had reason enough to wonder if he were awake.
For three long tables occupied a good part of the cabin. And on these tables uniformed jackies, their faces all a-grin, were laying dresses, women’s coats and hats as they took them from boxes.
“Looks great, doesn’t it?” demanded Dalzell, in an undertone, after the sailors had stood at attention and had received their orders to “carry on.”
“It would look all right in a dry-goods store,” countered the thoroughly mystified Darrin, “but what does it mean here?”
“Why, that’s the secret,” was Dan’s unsatisfactory answer.
“I give it up,” said Darrin hopelessly.
“Wise old head!” approved Dalzell.
Right here Dave received another jolt. The girl whom he had seen in the first cabin now returned, lifted away the veil, removed hat and wig, and stood revealed, from the shoulders up, a most unmistakable young man with a good-looking but wholly unfeminine face.
“Is this a public masquerade, and are the proceeds to be devoted to the Service?” Dave inquired.
But Dan replied only with a baffling wink.
“Oh, well,” rejoined Darrin, “I can wait if you can. If you’re through with me here, I’m going back to my cabin.”
“Have you no more questions?” Dan inquired mockingly.
“None that are likely to be answered, so I’ll leave you to your amusements.”
“Too bad,” murmured Dalzell to himself after Darrin had vanished, “for now Dave is sulky.”
In this surmise, however, Danny Grin was quite wrong. Darrin merely refused to waste more guesses on a mystery that he could not solve, and had gone off to see what he could make out of the appearance of things.
“It’s one too many for me,” Darrin finally confessed to himself. Removing some of his clothing and his shoes, he lay down on a lounge, drawing a blanket over him.
For such a hulk as the “Prince” looked to be, the steam-heating plant was in excellent order. In the warm air Darrin dozed gently off, though not before the reflection had passed through his mind:
“I might have guessed that the ‘Prince’ was some such looking craft as this. It was named the ‘Prince’ for the same reason that folks always give that same nickname to the mangiest-looking dog in town.”
A little later Dan glanced in past the curtained doorway. Finding his chum asleep he tripped silently away. The anchor must have come up noiselessly and all commands must have been issued in low tones, for when Darrin awoke, rose and glanced out through the porthole he found the craft under way upon the open sea.
By the time that he had drawn on his shoes Darrin heard a rap at the doorway, followed by a messenger’s announcement:
“Luncheon will be served in the wardroom, sir, in fifteen minutes.”
So Darrin completed his toilet, then hailed a messenger and learned where the wardroom was situated on this ship of mystery.
Stepping into the room ahead of time, Dave found only one young ensign, who saluted him.
“This is some strange craft,” observed Darrin.
“Yes, sir,” assented Ensign Stark.
“But suited to her mission, I dare say.”
“Oh, yes, sir; hardly a doubt of that,” smiled the junior officer, but he added no hint of information as to the “Prince’s” mission, and Darrin was much too good an officer to press his question.
A minute or two later two other ensigns entered, and on their heels came Dalzell with a young engineer officer and a surgeon. Dan presented his junior officers to his chum, then explained:
“Usually, of course, on a war craft, the ‘Old Man’ dines in state alone, or with his guests. But the ‘Old Man’s’ dining room is in other use on this cruiser, so we will dine with the juniors so long as they permit it.”
“I suppose the ‘Old Man’s’ dining room has been converted into a cashier’s cage for the Monday bargain sale you are planning,” hinted Darrin.
“Why, yes, Darry; something like that,” grinned Dalzell.
The meal had not proceeded far when Dan leaned toward his chum to whisper:
“By the way, I forgot to say that the rules require that no officer or man of the Navy shall appear outside in uniform. You brought along civilian clothes, I believe.”
“A suit, yes.”
“And I have an old overcoat and cloth cap I can loan you,” Dan added. “I will have them sent to your cabin.”
So, after he had returned to his own quarters, Dave waited, after donning civilian garb, until the promised articles had arrived. Then, putting on the coat and cap, he made his way forward and outside.
Coming out on the spar deck Darrin found plenty of use for his eyes. Forward the “Prince” carried rather high bulwarks. Darrin had noted that in the harbor. But now he saw that which no observer on shore would have had reason to suspect.
In the bulwarks, on either side, were sliding doors or ports, and, behind these, in each instance, mounted on a carriage, was a very capable-looking naval gun.
Besides, on either side, was a machine gun, rigged to a platform that could be raised high enough to make the guns effective, even with the mark not more than a hundred feet from the hull.
“Rubber!” shouted Dalzell, joyously, from the bridge, as Dave strolled slowly forward.
“Some ship, all right,” Darrin called back. He then retraced his steps, making for the bridge, where Dan and Ensign Peters stood, both of them attired like merchantmen officers.
“What do you think of her?” demanded Danny Grin, as his chum took stand beside him.
“You told me it was going to be a humorous adventure,” Dave suggested. “I haven’t yet discovered where the laugh comes in.”
“Oh, we can’t laugh,” quoth Danny Grin, “until we find something to laugh at.”
“Of course,” Dave pursued, his eyes twinkling, “the ‘Prince’ is a good deal of a joke in herself.”
“And those hidden guns are the point to the joke,” Dan retorted. “But wait a few hours, or a few days. Oh, you’ll laugh!”
There was, however, in Dan’s eyes the next moment, a grim look that considerably belied his words.
Dave hadn’t really tried hard to worm the secret from his friend, and now he gave it up altogether, but asked teasingly:
“Are you going to call upon me for any work, beyond saving your scalp when you get into too tight a corner?”
“You’re a guest aboard, without duties,” Dan informed him, then added, seriously:
“But I won’t deny that I realize how valuable your counsel may prove in some sudden emergency.”
Somehow, Darrin found that he tired of being on the bridge of a ship on which he had no duties, no authority. Leaving the bridge, after a few minutes, he descended and roamed the decks, fore and aft. Wherever he encountered sailors outside he found them in the garb of merchantman sailors; below decks they wore the uniform.
The “Prince” was kicking along at about eight knots an hour, and was already out of sight of land. It was when he strolled down into the engine room that Dave was astonished to find engines that were furbished up to the last notch of perfection. Moreover, his practised eye noted that the engines looked as though capable of vastly faster work than they were performing.
“These engines appear to be the best part of the craft,” Darrin remarked to the engineer officer.
“They’re good engines—the best that the British know how to make,” nodded the engineer officer. “But for that matter, they’re not much behind the rest of the boat. She looks worse than she is, sir. The ‘Prince’ is renamed; she was a mighty good-looking craft before the naval camouflage gentlemen took her in hand and made such a tough-looking ship of her.”
From the course Darrin knew that the “Prince” was heading into the submarine zone. Dan was surely hunting trouble, and he had a knack of finding it.
Dave soon found time hanging heavily on his hands. He was glad that he had brought along two novels, and these he read in his cabin. Dinner hour was welcome because it occupied some of the time. At this meal, too, he met Lieutenant Bixby, executive officer, who had been busy elsewhere at luncheon time.
Later in the evening Dan came down from the bridge, visiting his friend in his quarters.
“Darry, I’m in hopes we’ll be able to spring our joke before long,” he cried briskly.
If he had hoped to rouse his chum’s waning curiosity he was disappointed, for Dave only covered a yawn with his left hand and languidly inquired:
“So?”
An hour later, when the chums were still talking, Lieutenant Bixby knocked at the door.
“I wish to report ‘all secure’ sir,” said the executive officer.
“And the ladies—?” queried Dalzell.
“In high spirits, and the best of good humor, sir.”
The two officers returned smiles, but Dave Darrin did not appear to be looking their way.
“Are you going to turn in?” asked Danny Grin, as he rose to depart.
“Before long,” Dave nodded. “But I’ll leave things so that I can turn out fast if I hear your whistle signalling to abandon ship.”
Into Danny Grin’s eyes a mischievous look flashed, but all he said was:
“Good night, chum.”
“Good night, Danny-boy.”
After one of the most refreshing sleeps he had enjoyed since the war began, Dave turned out the next morning, on first waking, with the realization that the “Prince” was still on her way on the high seas, and that there had been no alarm.
“That sleep must have cleared up my wits,” mused Darrin, as he turned water into the stand-bowl. “I think I begin to see the object of this voyage by the seemingly crippled old ‘Prince.’”
Whether he had solved the mystery remained to be seen. At that moment the ship’s hoarse steam whistle began the first of a series of long blasts.
“Abandon ship, eh?” thought Darrin, springing to complete his toilet.
In his civilian attire he hastened down the passage-way and up to the spar deck. And here, as he would also have seen had he looked aft, a remarkable scene was being enacted.
At the first sound of the whistle, which had now begun its wailing anew, the crew had sprung to clear the boats for launching.
“Will I be in the way on the bridge?” Dave called up.
“Come right up,” Dan nodded.
Darrin was beside his friend in a jiffy.
“Over there,” said Dalzell, nodding.
Off to starboard about a mile distant, a German submarine lay rolling. In the morning light the tower stood out against the horizon, magnified in size. The submersible’s deck also showed, with sailors standing by the forward and after guns.
“We’ll get a shell in a moment,” spoke Dalzell, calmly, as the second sounding of the whistle signal ended.
Though the “Prince” carried wireless apparatus for installing at need, no sign of it was visible in the form of aerials and connections, so the first shell was aimed not at the foremast, but at the single broad, tall smoke-stack. It missed by only a foot and went screaming to port.
For the third time the “Prince’s” whistle sounded, “Abandon ship.” Members of the crew sprang up into two of the boats. A few men who looked like civilian passengers hastily followed. Then a feminine bevy raced out on deck.
“I thought so,” said Darrin, nodding comprehendingly. “Dan, you’ve everything here but the children.”
Those who had already entered the boats now turned to help the wearers of skirts. The two boats were swung out. After that, a third boat, similarly loaded, was also swung out on the davits. Blocks and falls creaked as the boats and their human freight were lowered.
Fortunately, the sea was not rough. All of the boats reached the water safely and rowed away.
From the submarine a puff of smoke at the muzzle of the after gun announced the rushing departure of another shell. This missile struck the water barely fifty feet in advance of one of the boats, but disappeared without doing any harm.
“At their old, dirty tricks of terrorizing and murdering passengers in the small boats!” muttered Dan Dalzell, savagely. “And yet, at one time, there were Americans who wondered why we entered this war!”
For a fourth time the “Prince’s” whistle began its serial wail. Now, however—clever ruse!—the whistle’s sound was feebler, the jets of white steam smaller and fainter. It looked as though the boilers had been emptied of steam.
“Heinie von dem Sub has concluded that we’re a dead proposition,” chuckled Dalzell, as the submarine, instead of firing other shots at once, moved in closer. On she came, this dirty, gray pest of the sea, until she was within three hundred yards.
“Abandon completely before we sink you!” was the message signalled from the enemy. “Your captain and chief engineer must come aboard us with all ship’s instruments and papers.”
“Shake out the signal, ‘Your message understood,’” shouted Dan from the bridge.
After a moment the flags composing the signal were started toward the “Prince’s” foremast head.
As Darrin turned from watching the submarine he beheld naval gunners, this time in uniform, and with Ensign Peters in charge, taking the range carefully.
At some signal that Darrin did not catch, a whistle sounded shrilly. Now, from the deckhouse below a detachment of Uncle Sam’s jackies in uniform dashed out.
“Open ports!” called Ensign Peters, as some of the men sprang to the guns.
All in a jiffy the sliding doors in the bulwarks were shoved back and gun muzzles were run out. Crisply the orders issued. Within a few seconds the first gun spoke, and right after it the other two.
One of the shots struck the submarine’s hull aft, ripping off several plates.
“Hurrah!” yelled Dalzell. “Now, let’s see ’em try to dive. But fire fast and straight, before the Huns take it out of our people in the small boats!”
One shot the enemy fired, aimed at one of the “Prince’s” guns. Over the top of the bulwarks it went, missing them by only a few feet.
That was a game at which two could play. Ensign Peters aimed a gun at the base of the submersible’s forward gun. A cheer of joy went up forward on the tramp steamer when it was seen that a hit had been registered as aimed. The enemy now had only his stern gun, and he swung quickly to bring it to bear.
Ensign Peters now aimed at the base of the stern gun. But he missed it, for, a second before, one of the other guns in the “Prince’s” battery had struck the submarine just below the water line.
“Good enough!” roared Dalzell in trumpet tones. “Now, let’s see the rascal fight!”
Evidently in reply to signal or command all the sailors on the enemy craft ran to the conning tower and vanished inside.
“Called to see if they can repair the leak and submerge!” guessed Dalzell, and passing his conjecture down to the gunners on the spar deck below. “Make submerging a cinch for them!”
Three more shots barked out, almost together. One went a shade wild, one hit the upper hull, but the third was planted just below the water-line.
“Good-bye!” called Dan, derisively.
Then the “Prince’s” steam whistle, with a sufficiently good head of steam this time, sent the recall to the small boats, which immediately put about.
The submarine was sinking fast. Eight or ten men managed to get through the tower to the deck just before the pest sank out of sight.
“Some of those men are swimming,” Dan shouted. “Stand by with lines! We’ll give them a chance! More than they’d do for us, though!”
Several of the German swimmers sank at once. Perhaps they preferred to drown, fearing the tortures that their home papers declared were meted out to submarine sailors by officers of the Allied Powers.
Two enemy seamen, however, were found afloat as the “Prince” drew closer and lay to. Lines were cast to them, both catching hold. The swimmers were then hauled aboard. Dan Dalzell went down to the spar deck in order to question them.
Both were loutishly stupid in appearance, and plainly were badly scared as well. Their ragged, oil-stained uniforms gave them the opposite of smart appearance.
“Do you men speak English?” Dan demanded, eyeing the pair as the deck watch arraigned them before him.
The duller-looking of the pair shook his head, but the other replied:
“I speak id somedimes, a liddle.”
“What craft was that you came from?” Dalzell queried.
“The U 193.”
“How many ships have you sunk?”
“I vas not by der ship before dis cruise,” replied the German.
“How long had you been out this time?”
“Zwelf (twelve) days.”
“How many ships did you sink on this cruise?”
“You vas der first vun,” said the man, dully.
“I think we’ll survive our misfortune,” smiled Dalzell, grimly. “How many submarines have you served on?”
“None, in dis var,” was the answer.
“And you won’t serve in any more during this war,” rejoined Dan. “Don’t you fellows feel like criminals, firing on women and children, and committing wilful and useless murder all over the high seas?”
“Vat?” demanded the fellow, stupidly. “Vat?”
Dan had to repeat the question in two or three different forms before it sank in.
“Chermany got to vin by der var,” replied the seaman, with a shrug of his broad shoulders.
“Why don’t you win, then, by fair fighting?”
“Chermany got to vin der var,” the fellow replied, stolidly. “Der vay, it makes noddings.”
By which he meant that Germany must win, but that the means by which she won did not matter.
“Why must Germany win?” Dan demanded impatiently.
“Because Chermany is Chermany; because she is der ruler of der vorld,” came back the ready answer.
“If Germany is really the ruler of the world, she’ll have to prove it, and take a century of hard fighting to do it,” Dan clicked. “Has it ever struck you, my man, that Germany is the bad-dog nation of the world?”
“Chermany is der fine, der great nation of der vorld,” insisted the prisoner, stubbornly.
“Wouldn’t a fine nation act like a fine nation?” demanded Dalzell. “Wouldn’t it respect the rights of other peoples? Wouldn’t Germany, if a fine nation, fight according to the rules of honor and decency, and not like pirates?”
Again it required repetitions, in other words, to drive the query home.
“Chermany is Chermany,” declared the stolid fellow. “Chermany must vin der var because Chermany must rule. It is right dot der Chermans should tell der rest of der vorld vat is. Vat Chermany must do to vin it is right for her to do, but vat you Amerigans do is wrong. You are only pigs, und you help der pigs of English. You are all pigs, und Chermany shall punish you good for vat you do!”
“When?” asked Dan, derisively.
“Negst year! You vait, you see! Den der var vill over be, und der Amerigans on deir knees shall be!”
“The war end next year?” Dan derided. “Not unless Germany has been whipped soundly by that time.”
“Chermany cannot be vip’,” insisted the prisoner. “Chermany, she alvays fight! Blenty in dis var. Den, ven der var stop, she begin get ready again, she get ready again to fight der negst var. Chermany cannot be vip’, but Ameriga shall down mit her knees go, und Chermany shall says vords dot Ameriga does not like to hear. You vait, you see! Chermany is der von real fighting gountry of der vorld. Not all der rest of der vorld can vip her! It cannot be done. Chermany over all!”
“And that’s the whole story, from a German point of view,” Dave muttered in an undertone. “This fellow looks stupid, but his leaders are just about as stupid. Isn’t it a waste of time to talk with him, Danny?”
“I’m afraid it is,” Dalzell nodded. “But this is the first chance I have had to get a German’s real view of the war. This fellow is too stupid to conceal anything, so he has told me the truth as he sees it. Yet, as you say, Dave, it’s the whole story, and he cannot tell me any more than he has told if I should question him from now until midnight.”
Then, to a petty officer:
“Take these fellows below and lock them in the brig. Place a guard over them. See that they have the usual ship ration, and see that sufficient fresh water is offered them at all times. It’s warm in the brig, so they can take off their clothes until the garments are dry.”
Stolidly the pair marched along, out of sight and hearing.
“‘Chermany over all! Chermany must rule der vorld,’” Dan mimicked. “We’ve got their number, David, little giant. Uncle Sam and his international friends will have to kill, cripple or lock up most of the men of Germany before we can hope to knock the foolishness out of their heads.”
“Which we’ll proceed to do so thoroughly,” quoth Dave Darrin, “that, hereafter, not even a German head will be capable of holding such foolishness as they now talk!”
With her boats secure, and all hands, including the recent “lady passengers,” on board once more without loss, the battered-looking “Prince” turned on her way.
All that day she sailed, yet found no submarine confiding enough to rise and take a chance at her shabby-looking hull.
“Of course there is one big chance you have to take,” said Darry, at dinner in the ward-room that night, “and that is the danger that a submarine will think this old hulk worthy of sinking by means of a torpedo.”
“No sub will shoot a torpedo at us,” rejoined Dalzell, “if she once gets a look at us. A torpedo costs a small fortune, while a shell or two cost nothing by comparison. The idea in sending out a trap-craft like the ‘Prince’ is that no German naval officer would think of throwing away a torpedo on her.”
“Of course,” Dave admitted, “the greatest danger is that a German shell, fired above water, will cripple you and put you out of business.”
“It’s a sporting chance, to be sure,” Dan admitted.
“If your engines were stopped by a shell, and you couldn’t maneuver for position, and therefore couldn’t use your guns, and a German submarine crew took you prisoners, the sight of your guns would insure that all hands on board would die painful but sure deaths.”
“It’s that sporting element of risk that makes the game so pleasant,” Dan retorted.
His junior officers chuckled.
“I’m glad you all take it the way you do,” was Dave’s cordial rejoinder. “It adds a lot to your chances of success.”
“And just what do you think our chances are?” Dan pressed home. At this the junior officers listened eagerly, for Darrin’s sound judgment was fast becoming a tradition in the Navy.
“Your chances,” Dave declared, “are that you probably will sink several submarines. Then, one of these days, you’ll either get the unlooked-for torpedo, or else you’ll meet a master in strategy or gunfire, and you’ll go to the bottom—and another bright plan will be given up by the Allies. But I hope you’ll do a huge lot of damage before the probable end comes.”
That night the “Prince” prowled the seas, and when Darrin awoke in the morning she was headed toward her home port, that time might not be wasted to the westward of the locality where German submarines were likely to operate against merchantmen.
Nor had Dave taken more than one look overboard before he discovered that the “Prince” now lay much lower in the water.
“Our water ballast tanks are filled,” Dan explained. “That gives us the appearance of being heavily loaded, as with American wheat, for instance.”
“Soldiers, wheat and ammunition are the things the Germans most enjoy sending to the bottom,” Dave nodded. “Really, it is too bad that this seeming old tub doesn’t look good enough to carry troops.”
“Oh, I think that even as a cargo tramp we’ll draw the fire of any submarine whose commander gets a glimpse of us,” Dan replied.
Within ten minutes after he had said it a submarine rose, fifteen hundred yards away, and, without firing, signalled to the “Prince” to lie to.
Almost instantly “Abandon ship” shrieked from the steam whistle, and the early performance of the day before was gone through with. After the boats had started away, bearing sailors and men and “women” passengers, the submarine came up closer.
All in a jiffy the ports were opened and all three shells from the starboard battery landed in the enemy hull. There was no fight after that, the submersible sinking before any of the crew could get clear to save themselves.
“Do you begin to see the joke?” demanded Danny Grin, grimly. “Are you prepared to join in the laugh at the Germans?”
“If the ‘Prince’ continues her good work for a fortnight,” smiled Dave Darrin, “the ocean will be a lot safer place for American troopships.”
“I’m beginning to feel,” Dan remarked, “that I can highly endorse the intelligence of those who sent me out on this errand.”
“The errand is a good one, anyway,” Darrin laughed, teasingly.
The rest of the day passed without other incident than the appearance of two destroyers, one British and one American. Each of these war craft signalled to ask if convoy were desired, to which Dan signalled a courteous, “No, thank you.”
“Won’t those chaps feel sold when they learn, if they ever do, what kind of an outfit they wanted to protect?” Dan chuckled.
Just before dawn, next morning, Dalzell was roused from a nap and called to the bridge.
“Gun-fire dead ahead, sir,” reported Ensign Stark. “Don’t you make out the flashes, sir?”
“Yes,” nodded Dalzell, after he had taken and used the proffered glass. “Some one is catching it, but is the victim a steamship, or is it a submarine that some destroyer has overhauled? Oh, for just sixty seconds I’d like to have our wireless rigged!”
Ensign Stark had already ordered the speed increased, and so reported, but Danny Grin, as he heard the firing, seized the engine-room telephone and ordered all speed possible crowded on.
Thus he swept along, without lights, until within a mile of the bright-red flashes, which he could now see without the aid of a glass.
At this point speed was reduced to eight knots and the “Prince” moved along more moderately.
“What is it ahead?” asked Dave Darrin, who had just turned out and come briskly up to the bridge.
“It’s a one-sided fight,” Dan answered, “but I don’t know the kind of craft. Undoubtedly one is a submarine. She can’t have been very seriously hit, either, or the firing would be ended.”
“You have a searchlight?”
“Yes, but with the strictest orders not to use it except to save ship and crew,” was Dan’s answer.
Soon after, despite the darkness, the chums were able to make out a steamship ahead, heeled well over to port. And the flashes of a gun were so close to the water as to indicate that a submarine was firing, even before its outlines could be made out.
“The cowardly hounds!” blazed Dave, indignantly. “They’ve got that ship sinking, and all they’re doing is terrorizing the poor wretches aboard by slow, systematic murder!”
“I’ll get them as soon as I have light enough for a gunner’s sight,” muttered Dan Dalzell. Calling a boatswain’s mate under the bridge, he directed him to hoist a Norwegian flag at the stern, and to bend and hoist the signal:
“We wish to save crew and passengers.”
“And that’s the truth, too, though perhaps not all of it,” snorted Dalzell, all of whose fighting blood had been aroused by the cowardly proceeding going on ahead.
In hoisting the Norwegian flag he was wholly within his rights as a naval commander. Under international law a naval commander is entitled to hoist any neutral or belligerent flag, including even that of the enemy, in order to maneuver into fighting position. But, before he can fire a shot, the commander must hoist the flag that he actually sails under.
In this instance Dan would give the “Prince” the assumed character of a neutral merchant ship that desired to play a humane part. No real Norwegian skipper would have been likely to take such a chance, as it would only have invited the destruction of his craft.
Dawn came quickly now. With the first streaks Dan ran up the signal and sailed daringly in. The submarine, which lay ahead, had ceased firing. The doomed ship took the plunge and vanished, but in three boats and on six rafts a frightened lot of men and women were seeking to get away from Death.
“Lie to and abandon ship!” signalled the German commander, as soon as the presence of the “Prince” was made out.
But Dan, with the range, took the bull boldly by the horns. Opening ports in a jiffy, and with gun crews at quarters on both starboard and port, he gave the firing order.
“Give ’em ‘Chermany over all,’ and put it all over them!” commanded Danny Grin savagely.
Three shells left the starboard battery before the astounded German commander had realized that it was a fighting craft that menaced him.
Two of the shells flew over, striking the water beyond, but the third crashed through the plates of the conning tower, exploding inside and blowing off part of the top of the tower.
No sooner had the guns been fired than Dalzell changed the course to bring the port battery into play.
“Give ’em ‘Chermany over all’ all over again!” roared Danny Grin’s voice. “Oh, it’s a great game, don’d it?”
A laugh rose from below, but that laugh was drowned by the joint crash of all the guns of the port battery. Another shell entered the submarine’s tower, and two struck the hull, inflicting more deadly damage.
And now a machine gun began to play over the hull of the sea monster, sending such a storm of bullets that one had to admire the courage—or was it despair?—of a German officer who dared the leaden tempest and sprang from the tower with a white flag, signalling surrender.
“Cease firing!” roared Dalzell through a megaphone. “But load and stand by ready for some German brand of treachery.”
Undoubtedly the German officer knew that he stood under the muzzles of loaded guns. His face white and set, he signalled his offer to surrender.
“We’ll accept you as prisoners if you act honestly,” was signalled back by Dan’s order. “But we’ll blow you into the air if you try to play a single trick on us.”
Acting under further orders a collapsible boat was put over the side of the submarine. The captain, the second-in-command and the engineer officer came over to the “Prince” on the first trip, two men returning with the boat to bring other prisoners. In the meantime the rafts and boats from the sunken ship were turning back to the rescuer.
Barely more than half of the Germans had been gotten clear of the submarine when that unlucky craft foundered. Two survivors were picked up from the sea, but the rest went down into the great salt-water grave.
“Periscope on the port quarter!” rang a lookout’s hail.
Dalzell rushed to the port end of the bridge, glass to his eyes.
Yes, there was the tell-tale tube above water, some eight hundred yards away, the sun shining on the water drops that clung to it.
“Periscope on the starboard quarter!”
Dan performed a sprint to the starboard end of the bridge, to find the news only too true, though the periscope vanished within a second or two after he had sighted it.
“’Ware torpedo, on port quarter!”
Moving like a jumping-jack, Dan’s right hand reached for the lever of the engine-room telegraph. Half-speed ahead! Full speed!
“’Ware torpedo on starboard quarter!”
There was no time to observe the torpedo wake traveling toward the “Prince.” Dalzell’s orders were based on what he had seen of the locations of the two periscopes.
A sharp, oblique turn to starboard, then a further turn just as the propellers began to kick at full speed.
Both torpedoes passed astern, their courses crossing. The maneuver brought the tramp around so that the starboard battery could now be trained on the submersible to the southward.
Her commander, taking desperate chances, rose to the surface to open with his forward gun.
Fatal mistake! Only one gun barked from the “Prince’s” starboard battery, tearing a hole in the Hun’s hull. And now Dalzell completed the turn to give his full attention to the remaining submarine. She, commanded by a more cautious man, had vanished.
Not for long, however, for a line on the water revealed the wake made by the conning tower as she headed straight for the “Prince.”
Again Dan’s orders rapped out. The seeming tramp steamer, developing a speed that could not have been looked for, maneuvered so as to run, bow-on, at the submersible.
The craft to the southward was sinking, but the one to the northward was coming straight. A light streak on the water shot out in advance of her while the “Prince” was making her turn. Seeing that he was bound to miss, the Hun commander let loose with his other tube. The “Prince” completed her maneuver, and now showed only her bow to the enemy, her hull standing away in a straight line between the courses of the two torpedoes, which dashed on by her and were lost in the distance.
As the craft were rapidly nearing each other, Dan, by the aid of his marine glass, located exactly the beginning, or nearer end, of the conning tower’s wake.
“She may submerge and come up astern of you!” muttered Dave Darrin.
“We’ll see!” ground out Dalzell, between his teeth, still holding the glass to his eyes.
There was no question of getting the range, for the two craft were lessening the distance, altering it, every second that passed.
Still Dan headed on, knowing that the enemy could submerge and change her course at greater depth.
“I’ve got only one chance in a million to get that rascal!” Dalzell growled to his chum.
“And apparently the enemy has all the other chances in the million—but it’s a great game!” cried Dave Darrin.
Dan held on steadily, his motto “Win or sink!”
Suddenly the Hun craft, as indicated by the trail of bubbles in her wake, made an oblique turn, going off to Dan’s port. But Dan kept on, shouting down to the spar deck:
“Stand by the port guns! Not a shot unless ordered!”
A moment or two and the submersible, as indicated by the bubbles on the water, had turned head-on again coming close to the surface. She was now in position to deliver two torpedoes.
It was the moment for which Dan had waited.
“Let go with all three guns, port battery!” he yelled. “Rapid fire.”
Three jets of smoke and flame shot out from as many muzzles. The gun crews rushed to reload.
“One hit!” shouted Dan. “Again!”
“Two hits—and she’s done for!” yelled Dan, joyously, as he scanned the water. “Good work, men!”
The hits had been made by guess, except for the guidance of the wake, while the submarine ran barely submerged. Even Dalzell’s report of hits had been based on appearances. But now the “Prince,” plowing on her way, steamed into a patch of oil-strewn water and out of it again.
“I’ll be satisfied if there is no more fighting in this day’s work,” Dan confessed, mopping the icy perspiration from his forehead.
“Danny-boy, you’ve done a big enough day’s work to satisfy the greediest of fighters!” cried Dave, gripping his chum’s hand.
“Now we’ll look after the prisoners, and pick up the survivors from the wrecked steamship,” proposed Dan.
Then, as he glanced out forward, where a small, sullen German mob stood scowling under guard of armed sailors, he added:
“In view of what we’ve seen to-day I’m sorry we have so many prisoners.”
“Dan, that’s not humane,” rebuked Dave.
“I don’t feel humane,” Dan admitted, simply. “What I’ve seen to-day has made my blood hot. I’d be willing to let go, with both batteries, at the whole German people.”
“Thank goodness you can’t do it,” laughed Darrin. “You’ll cool down soon, Danny.”
Putting back, Dan ran the “Prince” toward the boats and rafts from the sunken steamship. While overhauling them he went down from the bridge and approached the German prisoners.
“Who was the commander of this outfit?” Dalzell inquired, in English, of course.
“I was, and am,” replied a scowling German officer.
“Your name?”
“Sparnheim!”
“Then, Sparnheim, all I have to say to you is that you may have been commander, but now you’ll take orders, instead of giving them. Do you feel any shame for what you did to that steamship?”
“I don’t,” was the frowning answer. “I attacked enemies of Germany and of the Kaiser!”
“What did the women in the boats yonder do to Germany, or the Kaiser?” Dan demanded.
“They sailed the sea, at least,” retorted Sparnheim.
“Is that a crime?”
“But the German government had warned all passengers from the sea!”
“Under the impression that the German government owned the sea?” Dalzell demanded, ironically. “To-day’s work, so soon after light and sunrise, must have shown you that others have something to do with the control of the sea. Three of your accursed submarines have gone to the bottom.”
“Yes, through your treachery!” hissed the German officer.
“Treachery?” Dan asked, with a hard smile.
“Yes; you hoisted a flag that does not belong to you.”
“We fired under our own flag. That is a right recognized by the nations.”
“It was treachery, just the same,” insisted the German. “You were afraid of us, so you took a cowardly advantage.”
“Treachery! Cowardly advantage!” Dalzell repeated, in disgust. “We destroyed your craft. But did you not try to destroy ours? Cowardly advantage? Of what use would submarines be to your people if you scorned taking cowardly advantage? Sparnheim, you are paid as a German officer?”
“To be sure,” admitted the other.
“Then you are making your living as an assassin—as a cowardly murderer. And the nation that employs you is no better than you are, but a partner in your crimes.”
“It is not true! We are not murderers, not criminals!” raged the prisoner. “We fight that Germany may live!”
“If she must live by such cowardly work as is done by her submarines, then she does not deserve to live,” Dan retorted. “I am not going to take advantage of your helplessness. I regard you as a man with a lost soul, and to that extent I am sorry for you. I wanted your view of your crimes, and could not forbear to express my own opinions. We know each other’s views, and do not need to talk further.”
The “Prince” had lain to again, for now she had overtaken the first of the boats from the foundered steamship. A gangway had been lowered and the men and women who had taken to the small boats were now coming up over the side.
“Which animal among them commanded the craft that sunk our ship?” demanded a woman hoarsely, as she eyed the sullen Germans. Dan pointed out Sparnheim.
“You killed several men and two women and a baby!” cried the woman, pointing an accusing finger at the quivering Sparnheim. “The baby was mine! One of the men that you murdered was my husband! May you never know another moment of happiness!”