CHAPTER VII—ON THE GREY WATERS
For the most part the American destroyers on duty in British and French waters were doing patrol service, scouting over designated areas in quest of enemy submarines, meeting and escorting troop and merchant ships into port, and on occasion, when the S O S calls came, rushing to the aid of torpedoed or of mined craft.
Even during the short experience Philip Morgan and his chums had had on the Colodia, they had often seen the wreckage-littered waters where ships had gone down and men and women had suffered exposure in lifeboats.
The destroyer had roared through the grey seas, in fog and gale and darkness, in answer to the tragic calls for help. Never, since men went down to the sea in ships, had there been such adventure on the waves as in those years of the World War.
For never before had the sharklike submarine abounded nor the airplanes swept overhead, both carrying death and destruction. When the Colodia left port her crew had small surety that they would return. This present night call was a new one for them.
The crew of the supposedly wrecked Zeppelin had been possibly five hours in the sea when the captured Germans told of their comrades’ fate. The British port admiral had communicated with Commander Lang within a few minutes of his hearing the tragic tale.
There was perhaps a particular reason why the order to find the wreck of the Zeppelin and her crew (if they were not drowned) was given to one of the American destroyers instead of to a British patrol boat.
After all, the Yankees could not feel the same degree of bitterness and hatred of the Hun and his works as the British sailor did. The murder of the school children and their teacher was known to every British sailor in the port. To their horror was added personal bitterness. And this order sent the Colodia on a mission of mercy!
“The best I can hope for them,” said Morgan to George Belding, who had been placed in Whistler’s watch and had donned such uniform as the master-at-arms could supply him, “is that they will all be comfortably drowned before we find any trace of the Zep. That maybe is wicked; but it is the way I feel.”
“That would be better than they deserve,” Belding agreed. “Just think what that spy did to me!”
He was still very much disturbed in his mind regarding the loss of his letters and valuable papers.
“Why, you can’t tell, Phil,” said he, “what the Huns might try to do. If they read father’s letters and learned about all that gold——”
“You really mean the Redbird will take out treasure to Bahia?” asked Whistler in great concern.
“Yes. More gold coin than there is any use talking about,” whispered Belding. “Father knew I would be interested in all the details, so he told me.”
“And my sisters and your mother and Lilian going along!” sighed Whistler.
“Nice mess, isn’t it?” groaned the other. “That spy will make use of the information sure!—if he can.”
“When will the Redbird sail?”
“Next month, some time. Of course, I’ll try to send father word about this. But you know what the censor does to a fellow’s letters. And to cable would be worse.”
“Wait a minute!” cried Whistler. “That spy couldn’t benefit very well by the information himself. He’s here in England and your father’s ship will sail from New York, won’t it?”
“I suppose so. From ‘an Atlantic port.’ You know, that’s as near as they would let him tell in a letter. And don’t worry about the Huns not being benefited by the information. They’ll find some way. They have wireless stations along our United States coast. And every U-boat carries a wireless.”
“So do our subs,” Whistler rejoined. “But they are of small radius. The English coast is cleaned out of Hun radio stations.”
“They have ’em on the islands off Ireland and Scotland,” returned Belding. “That spy is some smart chap, Phil. I’m awfully worried. I’ll write father, of course, as clearly as the censorship will allow. But it may be too late. The Redbird may have sailed—or a U-boat may sink the mail ship.”
“You don’t want to lose your courage over it,” advised the Seacove youth. “We mustn’t expect the worst. Of course, with Phoebe and Alice aboard I shall be worried until we hear that they have arrived safely at Bahia.”
“And it takes a long time for a sailing ship to reach that place from our North Atlantic seaports,” responded Belding.
They talked thus in whispers while hanging to a wire stay. The Colodia was running without lights, every inboard lamp carefully screened, although the night was black. Before Whistler and Belding went off watch it had begun to rain, and a fierce, chill wind was blowing. The sea was beginning to kick up, and a sailor had to be a good acrobat to get into his hammock on the destroyer.
The new watch went on deck in rubber boots and slickers, and the gun crews, who were always on duty at sea, day or night, sought such cover as they could find. It was a nasty voyage, and they were not inspired with the thought that they might be able to save the Germans’ lives.
The bearings of the spot where the second Zeppelin had fallen had been given to the port admiral and by him transferred to Commander Lang with precision. It was a long run to this point, the boys knew. The destroyer could not possibly make the point indicated before daybreak.
Yet most of the younger members of the crew, whether it was their call or not, were up in season for five o’clock coffee. The excitement grew as the light became stronger and more could be seen of the gray, tossing sea.
It was a bad lookout for rescuing anybody. To put out a boat in such a sea would be a task that the hardiest of the Colodia’s crew shrank from. Now and then a comber rose over the destroyer’s rail and tried to wash her deck. But the thousand-ton fast steamer escaped most of these “old he waves” as Boatswain Hans Hertig called them.
Hertig was from Seacove, too, and was a particularly good friend of Whistler and his chums. “Seven Knott” was his nickname aboard the Colodia, and the boys had had many adventures afloat and ashore in his company.
“I ain’t got much use for them squareheads,” Hans declared, “and after what they done back there, I dunno as these fellers, what would have done the same had they reached land, should be helped yet.”
“Not much likelihood of our finding them at all,” one of the other men said. “Ten hours in the water now! And the bag of the Zep is bound to fill with water and sink the whole framework. Those Heinies will be kicking about in pretty wet water.”
This was the attitude of most of the crew; yet there was great curiosity among them to see what was left of the Zeppelin that had fallen into the sea. Commander Lang conferred with the navigation officer and his other chiefs. The Colodia had reached the spot indicated in their orders from the port admiral.
Now all they could do was to sweep in circles about the designated place and keep an extra sharp lookout.
In fact, every man who could get on deck was watching the tumbling seas for any sign of wreck or castaway. After all, as the minutes passed and nothing at all was descried where they had expected to find survivors of the Zeppelin, even the roughest members of the crew stopped growling about “the Heinies.”
It was one thing to give vent to the bitterness they felt against the Germans in speech, it was another thing to think of those fourteen or sixteen men struggling for so many hours in the icy water, and finally being drowned so miserably.
The hammock stowers had just stopped down the hammock cloths and the boys had got their mess gear preparatory for breakfast at 7:30 A. M. when there came a hail from the mast. One of the lookouts had descried something in the east. He pointed, and excitedly yelled his directions to the watch officer.
The Colodia’s engines began to speed up. When she went her full thirty-odd knots her hull shook as though she would rattle to pieces. The life of a destroyer in such work as the Colodia had been doing since she was launched, can be only a few months. Commander Lang was already talking to his officers of the time when she would have to be scrapped.
Meanwhile her record would amply repay the Navigation Bureau for building her. There was no doubt of that.
Now she pounded away at top speed for the point where the lookout had seen something afloat on the tumbling seas. All through this trip, not only the destroyer’s commander, but many of the more thoughtful members of the crew, had half suspected a German trick.
It would not be outside of possibility, or probability, for the crew of the Zeppelin brought down ashore to send a rescue ship to sea into a trap arranged with the usual German ruthlessness. It was possible that there had been no second Zeppelin at all, but that the Colodia was steaming at her best pace to a rendezvous with a U-boat prepared to torpedo her.
Tricks quite as vile had been played before by the Hun. Commander Lang, with his binoculars to his eyes, got the spot on the sea that the lookout had observed and kept his glasses trained there. It certainly was not a periscope they saw, yet it might be some wreckage held together for the special purpose of masking a periscope.
The gun crews were at their stations and the men handling the depth bombs were ready on either side, and fore and aft, to drop the deadly explosives if it was found that the Colodia had run into a trap.