Chapter I: Destroyer “gobs”

On the 17th of September, 1917, word reached the British Admiralty to the effect that the Austrian torpedo boat destroyer _Neusatz_, which had been interned in the neutral port of Huelva, Spain, since shortly after the beginning of the war, had secretly refitted and, on the night of the 15th, slipped out of the harbor. As to her destination nothing was known, but the Admiralty assumed that she would seek to reach one of the German naval bases in the North Sea by keeping well to the westward of the British Isles and north of the Faroes. There was not the least doubt that the port authorities at Huelva had winked at the _Neusatz’s_ escape, for Spain was then strongly pro-German. Orders were broadcasted to all Allied ships and to all agents in neutral ports warning them of the destroyer’s departure from Huelva and instructing ships to watch for and capture her and agents to report any news of her. It was not thought likely that the _Neusatz_ would maintain her character of an Austrian ship during her flight. Rather, the chances were that she would pretend to be Italian or Portuguese. But in any case she must not be allowed to escape, and in consequence there was much activity in various harbors on the 17th of September.

At Queenstown the activity especially concerned the two new American destroyers, _Conklin_ and _Wood_, which had within a few days dropped their anchors off Spike Island at the completion of the voyage from the other side. They were sister ships, numbers two and three of the new _Stockwell_ class, of 1,270 tons displacement, 321 feet in length and capable of steaming 33.60 knots. Their batteries consisted of four 5-inch .50 caliber and two 4-inch .50-caliber rapid-fire guns and they carried four triple 18-inch torpedo tubes. They had four funnels and two masts and were camouflaged with “sun-and-mist” colors, pale yellow clouding to sea-green and pearl-gray, so that even viewed from the waterfront a mile away they were scarcely distinguishable from sea and sky. Had it not been for the grimy lighters snuggled alongside the _Conklin_ that recent graduate from the shipyard might easily have remained undetected in the quivering glare of sunlight.

It was the half-hour after four, and one bell had just tinkled from the many ships, big and little, at anchor, when the _Conklin’s_ winches hummed and the two big anchors came dripping from the mud. From two of the four funnels yellow-brown smoke became visible against the pale blue of the afternoon sky. Two long blasts of a siren pierced the comparative silence and the U. S. S. _Conklin_ moved slowly down the harbor. Many short toots followed her from the _Wood_, and were answered in kind, and on the decks of the two ships caps waved a parting. Between the two forts that make a pretense of guarding the entrance the destroyer slipped, the calm water curving away in two long symmetrical waves from the high, stiff bow. On the bridge, low but set well forward, Captain Gannett and his executive officer, Lieutenant Chapin, stood together at the forward windshield and kept keen watch of the channel.

The “gate” of steel nets was open, but the space was narrow and certain egg-shaped objects were anchored in three depths below the surface to port and starboard, and the commander of a brand-new ship would do ill to collide with one of them! The captain held the grade of commander and was phenomenally old for the destroyer service, having recently passed his thirtieth year! He had changed the gold leaf on his collar for the silver less than a month ago and was still a little conscious of promotion and secretly much concerned with the safety and well-being of his new command. In appearance he was short, stocky, blue-eyed and red-haired and held himself so straight that he seemed to lean backward.

Lieutenant Chapin was a good six years younger, a tall, athletic man with good-looking, regular features, dark complexion and steady brown eyes. They were already calling him “Beauty” on the lower deck. The _Conklin_ carried two other commissioned officers, Lieutenant Penter, Junior Grade, and Ensign Whittemore, Medical Reserve. The first was head of the engineer department and the latter was the medical officer. One hundred and eighteen warrant and petty officers and men completed the ship’s complement.

The _Conklin_ left the lighthouse on Roche’s Point to port and swung her nose toward Old Head. She was rolling a little now, and her high, knife-sharp bow was tossing the waves away in cream-white foam. Kinsale and Clonakilty fell astern and presently Clear Island detached itself from the shore and the _Conklin_ swung more to the west. Fastnet Rock came into sight, a dark, jagged tooth rising nearly a hundred feet straight up from the tumbling waters. The destroyer passed close to it on the seaward side, so close that those on deck could see plainly the form of the man who, from the lower gallery of the great stone tower, ran up the answering pennant to the _Conklin’s_ signal. Strong currents and wicked tides surround the Fastnet Light, while under the water needle points and ridges of rock lurk treacherously. Four and a half miles out to sea, it is the first light that the east-bound mariner raises and the last seen on the westward passage. “Old First and Last” some call it. Its light, sweeping seaward from a height of 159 feet, can be caught twenty miles away on a clear night, and its sky reflection is visible much farther.

Dave, Pete, and Bob Dill, otherwise The Pickle, leaned against a starboard torpedo tube and looked at the lighthouse with interest. They had never been so close to it before, and perhaps never would be again, for the perils that lie in the neighborhood of Roaring Water Bay are not often courted. “Must have been some job to build that,” observed Bob. “Took them four years, I think. The little round affair on the top of the rock is what’s left of the first light.”

“What happened to it?” asked Dave.

“Oh, they pulled it down when they built the new one, but it was just about ready to come down, anyway. It was an iron affair and the waves played hob with it.”

“The waves!” exclaimed Pete. “Gee, do the waves get up there?”

“So they say. How’d you like to ride one of them, Pete, and come down smack on one of those sharp summit rocks?”

“Must be some waves!” he grunted. “Does the guy that ran up the signal have to stay there all the time?”

“Yes. Want the job?”

“I do not! Gosh, think o’ bein’ up there in a real storm! I’d be scared to death!”

“I read a funny story about a fellow they sent out there to do some work when they were building it,” chuckled Bob. “He was a plumber and they took him out one morning and set him to work. He was to live there till the job was done. During the day it wasn’t bad, because there were other workmen about with him, but when it came night they turned in and went to sleep. That was enough for him. He didn’t sleep a wink, they say, and was scared green, and when morning came he demanded to be put back on shore. They laughed at him and then they tried persuasion, but it didn’t do any good. He was going home, and he was going right off. So, finally, when he simply refused to do another stroke of work, they had to signal the mainland. It was too rough that day for the steamer, but there was the distress signal flying on the rock, and so a lot of huskies jumped into the life-boat and pulled out, taking a doctor along. When they got out there and found what was up they wanted to kill the plumber. However, they bundled him in and took him back, and it wasn’t until he had his two feet set firmly on land that he got his color back.”

“Well, I ain’t blamin’ him much,” said Pete. “I guess I’d a lot rather ‘go over the top’ than take that job.”

There was a faint gleam from the tall tower before it dipped from sight in the twilight, by which time the _Conklin_ was off Mizzen Head and rolling a good thirty degrees. They had no use for the tables at chow that evening, and every one ate as best he could standing, usually holding tightly with one hand to something stable. They passed a pair of British torpedo boats wallowing south-eastward just as darkness closed down and nearly walked into a trawler a few minutes later. Only the latter’s frantic, gruff protests saved her from a tragic fate, the _Conklin_ rushing past her close astern as both ships sheered from course. All night the destroyer hugged the coast, cutting the corner but letting herself in for some rough going. The life-lines were strung along deck and one progressed by a series of hazardous rushes, clinging hard every moment and ducking under the seas that came aboard. Dave had the first watch, from eight till midnight, on deck, and climbed down at eight bells dripping water from head to foot. Sleeping was difficult, for it was his first night at sea on a destroyer and even the tiny _944_ had never in her maddest moment rolled as did the _Conklin_. The destroyer drew but nine feet――a few inches under that, to be exact――and there was twice nine feet above the water line forward, and much weight on the main deck, and in consequence rolling was the ship’s long suit. But it wasn’t until Dave spent his first hour in the foretop lookout cage that he learned what the _Conklin_ was really capable of! But that night, braced in his bunk on the lower deck, just where he got the benefit of noise and stench from the engines, he despaired of sleeping, and it was not until he had rolled and pitched for a good hour that slumber finally visited him. When morning came he found that every muscle in his body ached from the efforts he had made, consciously and unconsciously, to keep in his bunk.

They were out of sight of land at sunrise, dipping along through long, even swells at standard speed. There was a blue sky overhead and a nippy west breeze sang in the stays and aerial. There was gun drill for all crews that morning and Dave and Pete, assigned to No. 2 and 5 guns, respectively, were busy. The Pickle was seeking to qualify as signalman. In the wardroom, at the big table, the officers spent much time poring over charts and evolving theories as to the whereabouts of the _Neusatz_, only they were calling her the _Nuisance_ now. The chance of finding her before she slipped down into the North Sea around the Faroes or the Shetlands looked pretty slim. Once in the North Sea her chance for reaching safety was more than fair, for, while a whole flotilla of patrols and scouts might be watching for her, the fogs were thickening over that stretch of troublous water these fall days and a much bigger ship than the _Neusatz_ might run from the Shetlands to the Frisians, with good luck, and never be sighted. But the Old Man and the Executive and the Junior, and the medical officer, too, when he had a moment from his task of decoding the messages thrust in from the wireless house, pondered and scowled, and planned and kept the _Conklin_ kicking her way northeast.

It was an empty ocean they sailed that day, and a big whale disporting himself in the distance was the only object to bring a flicker of interest to the lookouts. Toward midnight, though, a darkened cargo steamer answered their questions and slipped southward into the gloom. She would have made a fine target, as Pete pointed out, and it seemed too bad to let her go without a shot, he thought. The fact that, as Dave pointed out, being Danish made her a neutral had no effect on Pete. He was much in love with that No. 5 gun and wanted to see what she could really do. Besides, he complained, Denmark wasn’t really neutral, she just played at it.

Life on a destroyer was a good deal different from what either Dave or Pete had fancied it. It was exciting, even when no excitement offered, for the _Conklin_ had a fine, hearty way of throwing herself through the seas at anywhere from fourteen to thirty-three knots that always promised developments. The men aboard were in nearly every case picked “gobs,” and a fine, clear-eyed, upstanding lot they were. Most of them had seen several years’ service, some on destroyers, some on the larger ships, and not one that Dave ever found was willing to go back to the “high decks.” The destroyer service is hard and it’s dangerous, but perhaps those very facts make it attractive. At all events, it is a fact that your destroyer gob looks with contempt on dreadnoughts and cruisers and considers submarine work no better than child’s play. It took Dave many days to get fairly accustomed to being continually on the lurch. Moving about meant letting go of one thing to clutch another, and sleep when the _Conklin_ was “rolling fifty” was a fine art to be attained only by hard experience. But he liked it, and so did Pete and The Pickle. Even being seasick――and they each had a bout of that during the first two days at sea――didn’t greatly dampen their enthusiasm. The _Conklin_ was seldom dry above deck forward of her second funnel, for she had a contemptuous way of slamming her bows under and spilling the waves far back along the fo’c’sle break. Even the bridge was wet in any save the smoothest seas, and the new winter clothing that had been issued before leaving port was something to glory in. Three hundred miles off the Hebrides in late September is a coolish part of the globe, and the apparel that made them look like Arctic explorers was never too warm for night watch on deck.

The wireless rained messages into the ward room and the decoding officer used up many a pencil those three days. But the best news that reached them was no news. From the fact that the _Neusatz_ was not reported either captured or sighted it was evident that she was still at large and, it was fair to assume, as much the _Conklin’s_ game as any one’s.

They began a series of east-and-west jaunts that took them a hundred miles or so back and forth south of fifty-seven. Once they went so far east that they heard heavy guns and had visions of a battle until listening told them of target practice. Now and then a scouting patrol passed and exchanged signals, but a gray destroyer in a hurry, with three funnels, which was what every eye searched the horizon for, failed to show up. The _Neusatz_, it seemed, had vanished utterly. In the small fo’c’sle, two decks under, where, by the light of battle lanterns set close to the deck, the off-duty men played cards during first watch, and, safe from eavesdropping, spoke their minds concerning the officers, a theory was born. It was Nicky, QM2C, who evolved it somewhat painfully under his auburn thatch as follows:

“What that _Nuisance_ has done is this, to my way o’ thinkin’, fellers. She’s gone a-raidin’.”

“Raiding!” scoffed Mullins, first class fireman. “How long could she stay at sea with only enough oil to last her three or four days? And ain’t she an oldish tub, never doing much better than twenty? What sort of a raider would she make?”

“She wouldn’t need oil for more’n four days,” answered Nicky. “She’s likely in the Bay of Biscay, putting in when she likes to one o’ them Spanish ports and gettin’ all the fuel she needs.”

“Ain’t Spain nootral?” demanded Mullins.

“In your eye! The Hun subs have been dodgin’ in and out o’ the Spanish harbors for months, and every one knows it. They goes in at night and gets oil and mail and anything they like and slips out afore mornin’. What’s to prevent the _Nuisance_ doin’ the same, hey?”

“There’s something in that,” observed Craigthorp, master at arms, third class, looking up from his cards. “If the _Nuisance_ has such small oil tanks and can stay at sea only four days, where is she? Unless some one’s got her and hasn’t reported. Or she’s gone down. If she left Huelva on the fifteenth she must have run out of oil two days ago.”

“She could store oil in barrels,” suggested some one else. “She’d have to, anyway, to make the trip they say she’s making.”

“She’s raidin’ in the Bay of Biscay,” reiterated Nicky convincedly, “an’ some day you’ll find I’m right.”

“You better climb topside and tip off the Old Man,” jeered Mullins. “Maybe he’d like to know so’s he could beat it back down to Biscay. Anyway, you oughtn’t to keep valuable information like that to yourself. It ain’t fair to the Navy! Say, look here, you goat, a raider’d have about as much chance in those waters as――as you’ll have of goin’ to heaven. Why, there’s a chaser down there for every ten miles o’ sea.”

“All right. You wait.”

Not being able to do anything else in the matter, they waited. And twelve hours later the mystery was solved.