But the submarine’s most dangerous projectiles, the auto-torpedoes, could not be successfully used. As the destroyer swept past, the Germans sent one of these sharklike things full at her. But the Colodia darted between the submarine and the flaming ship, and the projectile passed her stern, landing full against the side of the Western Star.
The reverberating crash of the explosion was enough to wreck one’s eardrums, so near was it. But all the time the destroyer was giving the crippled submarine broadside after broadside of guns; the upperworks of the German craft were fast becoming a twisted mass of wreckage!
Again and again the Americans’ guns swept the fated submarine. But the latter was a spitfire. Behind armored fortresses her men fired her guns with a rapidity that could but arouse the admiration of the boys on the Colodia.
“Got to hand it to the Heinies!” yelled somebody. “They have bulldog pluck.”
“Put a shell where it will do some good, boys!” begged one of the officers. “We haven’t landed a hit in her ‘innards’—and that is where the shells tell.”
“My goodness!” gasped Whistler, working beside Al Torrance on one of the forward guns, “that shell told something—believe me!”
The shot he meant seemed to have exploded under the deck of the submarine. Yards upon yards of the armorplate was lifted and splintered as a baseball might splinter a window.
The destroyer was rounding the submarine at top speed. Volley after volley was poured into the rocking German craft. One shell wiped out a deck gun and all the Germans manning it. The slaughter was terrible.
And yet her remaining guns were worked with precision—with desperate precision. She could not hold the range as the Americans did, but her crew showed courage as well as perfect training. The position of the submarine was hopeless, yet they fought on.
Sweat was pouring into Phil Morgan’s eyes as he worked with his crew members over the hot gun. The sun was scorching, anyway; it was the very hottest place he and Al Torrance had ever got into, counting the big fight when they were with the Kennebunk, and all!