“Ah! I’ve heard all that before,” Belding said, in some disgust. “I want to see action!”
As it chanced, he saw action on this very cruise. First, however, came the conclusion of the incident that had brought them out of port, chasing a phantom S O S.
A light burning low on the water was spied about ten o’clock. It could be nothing but an open boat, and the Colodia’s prow was turned more directly toward it. The sea was really too rough for a submarine to be awash, yet the Huns had been known to linger in the vicinity of their victims so as to catch the rescuing vessel unaware. A sharp lookout was maintained as the Colodia steamed onward.
The torch in the open boat flared and smoked, while the boat pitched and tossed—seemingly scarcely under command of its crew. There was no sign of any other craft in the vicinity. The signal from the attacked ship having stopped hours before, without much doubt she had sunk.
And but one boat remained!
The destroyer sped down within hailing distance of the open boat, burning signals of her own meanwhile. Getting on the weather quarter of the castaways, the latter were ordered to pull to the Colodia.
The boat held only nineteen survivors of the Newcastle Boy, a collier that had been torpedoed by a submarine. There had been a second boat, and both had been shelled after the collier sank, and the mate, who was in command of these rescued castaways, feared his captain’s boat was utterly lost. Had the sea not been so rough, he said, the Germans would have succeeded in sinking his boat, too.
Whistler was on duty amidships and he overheard much of the report made by the collier’s mate to Lieutenant Commander Lang and the conversation among the officers thereon.
He was particularly impressed by the inquiries the destroyer’s commander made regarding the nature of the attack, the type of U-boat that did the deed, and similar details.
A close track was kept of all these submarine attacks. The methods of certain submarine commanders could usually be traced. These reports were kept by the British Admiralty and were intended, at the end of the war, to assist in identifying U-boat commanders who had committed atrocities. Those men should, in the end, not escape punishment for their horrid crimes.