Dave turned to look at that wreck of a human being as it struck the water. He knew there was no life in the man, so gave no order for recovering the body.
Down below sailors sprang to lift the dead man, who had dropped there, on to a stretcher. They carried him below, to be buried later.
Beatty did not delay his firing an instant. This time the shell struck at the base of the enemy’s tower. A fragment of the exploding shell must have hit one of the German gun-crew, for a man fell on his face and rolled overboard. However, that mattered little in the fight, for still Hun reinforcements came through what was left of the conning tower.
“I seem able to hit everything but that gun or the water-line,” fumed Lieutenant Beatty, enraged with himself.
Hit though the tower had been, and though, also, three or four members of the Hun crew must have been killed in those hits, the steering gear of the submarine was still left and the grim craft was maneuvered in a way to challenge admiration.
Considerate of the feelings of the officer with the forward guns, Darrin had refrained from giving one order, but now passed the order to the machine gunners to concentrate their fire on the enemy hull at the water line.
The water alongside the submarine began spurting in tiny jets. This sieve-like riddling would presently settle the fight, unless the Hun gunners got in just one shot where it would tell best. The fight, therefore, was not yet won by the destroyer.
“Fire!” ordered Beatty, in forced calm. Then, all in an instant, that young naval lieutenant threw up his hands.
[CHAPTER XI—A TRAP AND ITS PREY]
Not that he was hit. Oh, no! Beatty’s last shot had done its work well. In the enemy’s hull, at the water-line, a great, jagged hole had appeared.