“Easy, when you do all the work,” Darrin signalled back. “Be good enough to find us another mouthful.”
By this time the cannonading on all sides had become incessant. Despite the cloudiness of the night, the day had turned out bright, in a season when bright days do not abound in these waters. On such a day, though the periscope metal is dull, the drops of water adhering to the shaft make it a fairly bright mark.
Wherever a periscope showed, the handlers of more than one gun took a chance at it. Several broad patches of oil marked the graves of Hun submersibles and their crews.
The wake made by a conning tower was sure to lead a destroyer away in pursuit of that same tower. The hydroairplanes followed many of these wakes, in nearly every instance locating the sea monsters for the destroyers.
Besides, the torpedo trails in themselves served to lead the destroyers to many an enemy craft.
“This is the right combination,” Dan muttered to Lieutenant Curtin. “Airship and destroyer combined have an advantage that puts the submersible on the run or out of commission altogether. It takes the credit away from the destroyer too.”
“I don’t care where the credit goes, if the pests are sunk,” Curtin answered. “If we had had these airships yesterday we wouldn’t have lost the ‘Castle City.’”
“But the hydroairplanes do not go so far out as we were sailing yesterday,” Dalzell reminded the watch officer.
“I know it, but I believe that a type could be made that would have no difficulty in crossing the ocean from shore to shore.”
Now the “Logan’s” guns were at it again, with a barking din that made conversation difficult.