Then the destroyer and her prize entered the port. Darrin brought his craft to anchorage, while the captured submarine was anchored not far away. The German prisoners were taken ashore under guard and turned over to the British authorities.
Ober-Lieutenant von Bechtold, under the charge of being a spy, was marched away under a special guard.
And then Dave made haste to present himself, with the half-destroyed sheet of paper in his pocket, before the flag lieutenant of Vice Admiral Speare.
[CHAPTER V—DAVE TALKS OUT IN COUNCIL]
There was much joy aboard a squadron of six more destroyers, just arrived from Uncle Sam’s country, when, on steaming into port, they heard the news of the capture.
So far as Dave was concerned the document that he had discovered, mutilated as it was, had supplied hints that filled the British Admiralty and the American naval commander with deep apprehension.
Both Darrin and Dalzell were present in the crowded council room on board the vice admiral’s flagship. There were other American naval officers, as well as a few American Army staff officers present. Their faces displayed anxiety.
“It is too bad,” one of the American army staff officers declared, after scanning the damaged sheet under a magnifying glass, “that so much of this is obliterated. Of course, Mr. Darrin, we know that you acted promptly and that you did all in your power, and at considerable risk, to preserve this document. From the disconnected sentences that we can decipher, it would seem that at least sixty of the enemy’s submarines are to concentrate in near-by waters. It is also plain that their mission is to destroy the convoy escort and sink the troopships that are nearing these waters—troopships that convey the entire One Hundred and Seventeenth Division of the United States Army.”
“It would be a frightful disaster, if it came to pass,” boomed the deep tones of a British naval officer.
“It shall not come to pass!” declared an American naval officer.