IN THE THICK OF THE FIGHT
The methods of strategy by which the German Navy, or a large part of it, was tolled out of its impregnable hiding place the Navy boys did not learn till long afterwards. But Phil, at least, half realized that the German High Command believed that the way to shelling the British coast by her great naval guns was at last opened.
The Allied fleet moved on a certain day and at a certain hour, and with the open sea as its destination. It was a calm and utterly peaceful sea through which the Kennebunk sailed with her sister ships.
The high bow of the superdreadnaught crashed through the seething waters. Her lookouts traced the course of each tiny blot upon the distant sea-line.
Suddenly, out of the north, appeared a scout cruiser, her funnels vomiting volumes of dense smoke that flattened down oilily upon the sea in her wake. Her stern guns spat viciously at some craft of low visibility which followed her.
Immediately everybody aboard the Kennebunk forgot the other ships of the squadron. The enemy was in sight, and the work would be cut out for every man aboard the superdreadnaught.
The cruiser came leaping toward the fleet, her signal flags fluttering messages. A gun boomed on the flagship. Bugles shrilled from every deck of the Kennebunk.
Messages were wigwagged from ship to ship. But aboard the Kennebunk there was just one order that interested every one.
"Clear decks for action!"
The divisions responded to the notes of the bugle with a snappiness that delighted the officers on the bridge. As they had gone through the manoeuvres a thousand times in practice, so now they faced the enemy with the same precision.
Ventilators, life-lines, parts of the superstructure and deck woodwork came down and were stowed in their proper place. Boats dropped from their davits, were hurriedly lashed together, their plugs pulled, and left to sink, riding attached to sea anchors formed of their own spars and oars. "Cleared for action!" when reported to the commander meant exactly that! Not a superfluous object in the way of the activities of a fighting crew.
"Battle stations!"
The four friends from Seacove knew exactly where they were to be all through the battle—if they lived. Whistler knew that he was to stand in the corridor of the handling-room for Turret Number Two, until he was called to relieve some wounded or exhausted member of his gun crew. His immediate order was to "stand by."
Every other individual aboard the Kennebunk had his station, from the firemen shoveling tons of coal into the fiery maws of the furnaces to keep the indicator needles of the steam-gages at a certain figure, to the range-finders high up in the fighting-tops, bending over their apparatus.
In the turrets the officers fitted telephone receivers to their heads. The gunners, literally "stripped for action" to their waists, their glistening, supple bodies as alert as panthers, crouched over the enormous guns.
Up from the sea appeared the great fighting machines of the enemy. They could not run away this time. Inveigled into range of the Allied ships, the Hun must fight at last!
A word spoken into a telephone from the conning tower to one of the fighting tops! Then, an instant later, to Turret Number One! A roar that shook the ship and seemed to shake the very heavens, while the flash of the fourteen-inch rifle blinded for a second the spectators!
A cheer rose from all parts of the ship, even before the tops signaled a hit. After that the men fought the ship in silence.
Alone in the corridor, Whistler Morgan felt that it would be easier to be on active duty in this time of stress. Yet he had been taught that his station was quite as important as that of any other man or boy aboard.
Through the half open door of the handling room he heard other men loading powder bags and shells upon the electric ammunition hoist that led to the turret above.
Suddenly the whole ship staggered. A deafening explosion, different from that of the guns, shocked him. An enemy shell had burst aboard the Kennebunk!
"Relief!"
Whistler sprang through the corridor and up to the gun deck. Was the call for him?
He stopped to look at a perspiring gun crew. They worked the gun with the precision of automatons. Wherever the shell had burst it had not interfered with the firing of the huge guns of Number Two Turret.
Another enemy shell burst inboard of the Kennebunk. There was a hail of bits of steel and flying wreckage. Whistler stood squarely on his feet and began to breathe again.
If he was afraid he did not know it!
One of his mates fell back from position. It was not Torry, as Whistler immediately saw. The man's shoulder dripped blood from a raking wound. Had it been Torry, Phil knew he would still have stepped forward, just as he was doing, and have calmly taken the place of the wounded man.
"Keep it up, boys!" grinned the wounded one. "I'll be back soon's the doc gives this the once over."
The work went on. Shell, powder, breech! Ready all! A moment while the captain's finger trembled on the trigger button. Then the hiss of air as the breech swung open, yawning for another charge.
The thousand-pound shell, hurtling through the smoke-filled air, found the vitals of the Kennebunk's immediate enemy. It scarcely shocked Whistler when he peered out to see that vast mountain of steel burst open amidships. She sank in seconds, and the Kennebunk steamed on to attack a second monster of the deep.
The battle continued. Moments seemed longer than minutes; minutes dragged by like hours. The wonder of it all was that so much damage could be done in so short a time.
Ships that had cost months of labor to build settled and disappeared beneath the surface in a few minutes. And their crews? Best not talk about them.
History will relate in detail and with exactness, the story of this fight. The superdreadnaught, so shortly off the ways, endured her baptism of fire, coming through the battle scarred but victorious. Alone she sank two of the enemy.
Her own casualty list was small. But it was some hours after the battle before Philip Morgan made sure that his three friends were safe. Repairs and other necessary work took up the attention of the crew until long past nightfall, although the battle itself had lasted just under two hours.
Then Phil found Al first, for they had fought in the same turret. They went to look for the younger boys, and came across an agile little chap with his head done up in bandages, working with a deck-washing crew aft of Turret Number Three, which had been wrecked by a Hun shell.
"It's Ikey!" shouted Torry. "What's the matter with your head, Ikey?"
"Don't say a word," said Ikey, shaking his bandaged head. "The doc used all the gauze he had left aboard after binding those up that was really hurt."
"But you've got some kind of a wound, haven't you?" demanded Whistler.
"Oi, oi! I ought to have, eh? But it's only that boil I had coming on the back of my neck. You remember? Somehow the head got knocked off of it and it was bleeding. So the doc grabbed me and bandaged me like this," he added in a much disgusted tone.
It was Michael Donahue who proudly showed himself later with his arm in a sling. He had actually got a piece of shell through the flesh below his elbow. The others were inclined to scorn his wound as they did Ikey's boil.
"That'll do for you fellers," said Frenchy proudly. "By St. Patrick's piper that played the last snake out of Ireland! I've shed me blood for Uncle Sam! That is something you garbies haven't done. And, oh, goodness! Ain't I hungry—just!"
Because of the repairs necessary to the Kennebunk she was ordered home; but to the delight of the four Navy boys they, with Hertig and Mr. MacMasters, were not to go with her.
The Colodia was now one of the destroyer fleet chasing German submarines in the Bay of Biscay. They were ordered to meet the destroyer at a certain English port and would rejoin their old comrades and continue their training under Lieutenant Commander Lang.
Much as they disliked leaving their comrades on the superdreadnaught, active service, and of a new kind, was ahead of them, as will be related in the next volume of this "Navy Boys Series."
"We can't kick," declared Torry. "We got into the Navy to work, not to loaf. We've seen a good deal of service, and of several different kinds. But there is always something new to learn."
"Sure!" agreed Ikey. "I've wrote my papa and mama that although I ain't an admiral yet, I'll be something or other before I get home."
"True for you!" exclaimed Frenchy. "But just what you'll be is hard telling, Ikey. Even that old witch of the island couldn't foretell your finish, I bet."
"That reminds me," said Whistler. "Mr. MacMasters told me he read in an American paper that he just got hold of that they have arrested Franz Linder, the spy. He will be tried for blowing up the Elmvale dam. And I guess we had something to do to getting evidence that will convict him. The ensign says we will have to give our testimony about the infernal machine before Captain Trevor before the superdreadnaught leaves this port for home."
"Say!" said Torry with energy, "hasn't this been a great old cruise?"
And his three mates emphatically agreed.