Chapter III: “clear for Action!”

In August, although the United States was sending across destroyers and chasers as fast as they came from the ways or could be made from craft taken over from private ownership, the Allied patrol fleet in British and French waters was still woefully small for the work it had to perform. It was not until late in the following winter that it reached proportions measurable with its task. With several thousand square miles of sea to be constantly swept for enemy submarines and mines, troopships and freighters to be convoyed and a sharp watch kept on neutral shipping, the patrol fleet had its hands full. As a consequence many tiny boats all too frail for the duty imposed on them did heroic work that summer all the way from the Shetlands down to the Bay of Biscay, and when the history of the war is written some of the biggest feats will be credited to the smallest craft.

An area roughly triangular in shape containing approximately 170,000 square miles of sea was the territory assigned to the United States flotilla under Admiral Sims. This area was plotted into squares and to each square was allotted one or more patrol units whose duty it was to guard the ocean contained within its imaginary sides. At the beginning British and French ships performed fully half of the work there, but as the United States increased her flotilla the Allies withdrew gradually, leaving more and more of the sea to the American light cruisers, destroyers and chasers. But in midsummer the area assigned to one pair of patrol boats was discouragingly large and getting in touch with an enemy submarine was more a matter of luck than good management. The patrols spent usually six days at sea and then returned to port for three. At all times when on duty each patrol was under orders of the flagship of the division, and only special duty put her “on her own.”

Find Black Ball Head, on the southwest coast of Ireland, on your atlas and follow straight south on the line of the tenth degree of longitude for slightly over a hundred miles and you will have reached one corner of that square of tumbling gray-green water assigned to the _944_. A hundred and seventy miles eastward lie the Scilly Islands; beyond, the entrance to the English Channel. Northward, nearing the Irish coast, the ocean bottom rises and in those shallow waters an ordinary gale raises a considerable rumpus. While there are many days when the ocean around “50-10” is as still and calm as an inland lake, there are many, many more when it is a tumbling welter in which a small craft pitches and tosses all ways at once.

For three days the _944_ encountered a choppy sea, with alternate cloud and sunshine and early morning mists. Then the wind died and shifted half-way around the compass, and a smiling ocean, as blue as the Mediterranean and as peaceful as a mill-pond, greeted Dave’s waking eyes. Scrubbing deck that morning was a delight. The chaser merely courtesied to the waves, the sunlight danced on the water, and the southerly breeze, scarcely more than a zephyr, whispered of sunny Spain. Dave, bare of foot, with up-rolled trousers and not over-clean dungaree, dropped his bucket over the side and whistled gayly as he lifted it, full and splashing, above the rail. Being alive on such a morning was a veritable adventure of itself. From the galley came the heartening odor of coffee, an odor that, somehow, on shipboard will follow a hungry sailor from billet-head to taffrail and even up to the crow’s nest. Cleaning deck didn’t take long on the _944_, for there wasn’t much of it, and in a short time Dave was below doing valiant work with knife and fork. For once the mess table was down and usable and morning chow was eaten in quite a Christian manner. One could fill an aluminum cup almost full and not lose half the contents between spigot and mouth. Spirits were high this morning and appetites amazing.

At seven Dave climbed the shrouds and snuggled himself in the gray canvas cylinder above the bridge, relieving a hungry lookout to the joy of coffee, bacon and potatoes. In all directions empty sea rewarded Dave’s attention. The sun was well above the rim of the world and the dancing waves caught its rays and flashed them about like so many tiny mirrors. Small birds sped close to the laughing surface, peep-peeping as they passed, and presently three playful dolphins dashed across the bow, bringing a gasp to Dave’s lips and a spasm to his heart. A dolphin appearing so without warning suggests just one thing, and Dave’s lips were already forming the word “_Torpedo!_” when his second thought whispered “Dolphin!” They kept the chaser company for longer than Dave’s trick in the cage, cork-screwing along without apparent effort, up and down, in and out, keeping their relative places as absolutely as though on exhibition drill. It may be that dolphins have their troubles in private, but to watch them one would never suspect it. No denizen of air or water appears so joyous and care-free.

An hour aloft, during which not so much as a distant smoke smudge marred the oyster-gray sky above the horizon, and Dave slid down again and found Pete and shared a half cake of chocolate in the after-house. Then came gun drill and when the canvas jacket was once more around Betsy Ann’s slender form the forenoon was half gone. Why the stern gun was called Betsy Ann no one seemed to know any more than why the bow gun was called The Colonel. Guns, like dogs, must have their names. Later Dave was curled up in the sun perusing a torn two pages of a month old New York newspaper which fluttered gayly in the breeze that roamed around the corner of the wheel-house. The _944_ was loafing along at twelve knots and her engines hardly more than purred through the open hatch. The splash of waves against the slim bow was soothing and sleepy. So quiet was the scene that when Mallory, radio man, put his head out of the tiny hutch and warbled something about his little gray home in the west Dave jumped alarmedly. Then Mallory’s song ceased abruptly and his shock head disappeared from sight and Dave heard the _spit-spit-spat_ of the sparks again. A few seconds later a slip of paper was borne upward to the bridge and the _944_ sprang into activity.

“S O S,” explained Briggs, straight from the wardroom. “American cargo boat fighting off a sub over there.” He waved an arm westward. “We’re going to have a look-see, Kid. Down on your marrow-bones and pray we get there before the fun’s over!”

“How far away is she?” asked Dave eagerly.

“A hundred and something. I didn’t get that. There she roars!”

Briggs listened approvingly to the increasing hum of the engines and cocked an eye funnel-ward. The smoke was coming heavier now, blacker and greasier. The _944_ was swinging about and the waves were spraying the forward deck. Eighteen knots――nineteen knots――and the chaser was off on her mission of rescue. In the wireless hutch Mallory had ticked off an answer:

“With you in five hours. Don’t surrender.”

Twenty minutes later the _Agawam_ spoke again: “Please hurry. Enemy has range. Shells falling alongside. Course E N E.”

“It’s dollars to collar-studs,” observed Kennedy fretfully, “that some one else will get there first. Rotten luck, I say, to raise your first sub a hundred and fifteen miles away.”

“It isn’t our first,” denied Farrel, shellman.

“First since we’ve been on patrol, I mean. Stands to reason there’s patrols nearer than we are. We’ll fetch up a couple of hours too late.”

“And a good thing, too,” offered another. “A swell chance we’ve got with these three-inch pistols against the five-point-nines the Huns have! They can knock us into a cocked hat twenty minutes before we get the range.”

“Don’t worry,” said Kennedy. “They don’t all have those 15 centimeter guns. Only the big ‘fishes.’ Anyway we can outshoot ’em. Just give me a sight of a Fritz and I’ll bet a month’s pay that old Betsy Ann’ll have something to say to ’em!”

Mallory’s inquiry, “What’s the good word?”, flashed into the air shortly after eight bells, brought no answer, and gloom descended on ward room and fo’c’sle. There was but one explanation, which was that the _Agawam_ had been very thoroughly “strafed” by the submarine. But there might be small boats to seek and, in any case, the _944’s_ duty was to hike along at her best speed, which was twenty-three ordinarily, but to-day, in a calm sea, was nearly a mile better. Chow was eaten rather perfunctorily and was interrupted with much discussion. None of them all was very hopeful. All agreed that it was a wild-goose chase they were on, with mighty little hope of even glimpsing the goose, and yet, when at shortly after 2 o’clock the foretop lookout called down: “Smoke dead ahead!” dejection was forgotten. They flocked to points of vantage, atop the boats, onto the railing, anywhere to lift their vision over the curve of the sea. But for long minutes only the man in the cage saw what he babbled of. “Black smoke, sir!” ... “Making east, north-east!” ... “Might be fire, sir! A lot of it!” The lieutenant poised impatient glasses to his eyes and waited. Then the cloud became visible from the deck, and――

“Large steamer, sir, afire for’ard!” shouted the lookout.

“Can you see the enemy?” called the Old Man.

“No, sir, not visible.” Then, after a long minute: “Enemy spotted, sir! Can see the flash of her gun about half a mile south of the steamer.”

“Clear for action!” called the lieutenant.

Up rose the fleeing steamer above the horizon, smoke clouds pouring back for leagues against the sky; masts, then funnels and, at last, long, dark hull. Glasses showed her plainly now. Through the brown haze of smoke pinkish flashes showed at times. The _Agawam_ was still fighting bravely as she fled. Six miles lay between now. The Old Man looked despairingly at the telltale trail of smoke that flattened out from the _944’s_ funnel. No hope of low visibility with that advertisement above them! Below decks the engines raved and roared and a flood of hot, oil-laden air issued gustily from the engine room hatch and poisoned the deck. On the bridge the officers stood silent, eyes glued to binoculars, legs astraddle, one hand on the rail with knuckles showing white. Dave, lugging cartridge cases back to Betsy Ann, silently prayed for the impossible. Kennedy was muttering as he swung the gun around until its length almost paralleled the chaser’s rail. The shell was in and the breech closed, but the lucky beggars for’ard would get the first chance. Four depth charges trudged out on the trucks, cards to be left in case the callers arrived too late.

“Bow gun,” was the call. “Ready down there?”

“Ready, sir!”

Into the voice tube then: “After gun. Are you ready?”

“Ready, sir!”

Silence and suspense. The distance was four miles now, but rapidly lessening. The submarine was showing flashes as her deck guns spat, the steamer fluttering signals and running her best of fourteen miles. Brown smoke was oozing from the forward hold or thereabouts and writhing back and down to hang in long, streaming clouds above the sunlit sea. Three miles! Then two! And the enemy paying as yet no heed to the interloper charging straight toward her. And now barely a mile intervened. Chaser, steamer and submarine made the three points of a triangle. The lookout warned: “They’re sighting on us, sir!” Far ahead a column of water splashed in the sunlight.

The Old Man raised his straining hand from the rail beside him and lowered his glasses.

“Commence firing,” he said.