The submarine had swung around, and at the same time brought her after gun into action. The submarine swung again bow on. There was no time to dive. She was caught and must fight.
“Torpedo coming, sir!” reported the bow watch, but Darrin had already caught sight, under the searchlight’s glare, of a trail of foam heading straight for the destroyer.
Quick as was the helmsman’s obedience of orders, the “Logan” escaped the torpedo by little more than a hair’s breadth as it rushed on past. Then came a second torpedo. The “Logan,” still driving bow on, save for swerves to avoid torpedoes, escaped the second one by what appeared to breathless watchers to be an even closer margin.
Lieutenant Beatty had taken personal charge of sighting one of the forward guns. He now let fly a shell that tore part of the top of the enemy’s conning tower away.
“That settles him for diving!” cried Darrin, tensely. “Land a shell in the hull and force him to take the dive he doesn’t want!”
Onward came a third rushing torpedo. As the “Logan” swerved to avoid it, a shell from the submarine’s after gun struck and tore away a one-pounder aft on the destroyer, fragments stretching two men on the deck, seriously but not fatally injured. An instant later a shell aimed at the destroyer’s water line forward pierced the hull just below the gun-deck. A fair hit at the water line would have put the “Logan” in a sinking condition, but, owing to the oblique position of the target, the shell, as it struck, glanced off.
“Great work, Mr. Beatty!” shouted Dave hoarsely, as another three-inch shell struck the enemy, this time at the waterline. “Mr. Curtin, half speed ahead!”
As the destroyer began to lose headway and slowly circle the undersea boat, the “Logan’s” crew cheered, this time without rebuke from the bridge. The submarine craft was rapidly filling and sinking.
At a safe distance Darrin watched, for he was humane enough to wish to rescue the German survivors, should there be any. So swift was the sinking of the enemy, however, that there was no time for them to launch and man the collapsible lifeboat that they undoubtedly carried.
Then the seas closed over the hated craft. A few moments later Lieutenant-Commander Darrin gave the order to steam forward slowly, the watch standing by to discover and heave lines to any swimmers there might be afloat. Not a head was seen, however. Three men at the after gun had been observed to jump before the submarine went down, but no trace of them could now be found.