“Oi! oi! Ain’t it so?” murmured Ikey. “And that Alice Morgan such a pretty girl! I hope that Redbird gets to Bahia safe.”
“As far as we can hear,” said Whistler cheerfully, “there are neither submarines nor raiders now in the Western Atlantic. They seem to have been chased out, boys.”
This supposition, however, did not prove to be founded on fact; for on the very next occasion that the Colodia was in the French port, Brest, there was much excitement regarding a new German raider reported to have got out of Zeebrugge and run to the southward, doing damage on small craft along the French coast. This was before the British Captain Carpenter with the Vindictive bottled up that outlet of German ships.
Some denied that it was a raider at all, but a big, new submarine that was built with upperworks to look like a steam carrier when she was on the surface. However, she had a name, it being the Sea Pigeon, instead of a letter and number. The whole fleet of destroyers was soon on the lookout for this strange vessel, and the American commanders offered liberal rewards to the owners of the sharp eyes who first spotted the new Hun terror of the seas.
The Colodia went to sea to meet a new convoy from America, “all set” as the boys said, to make a killing if they ran across the Sea Pigeon.
“Well, we got the Graf von Posen,” Ikey Rosenmeyer said, with cheerful optimism, “so why not this here Pigeon ship? We’re the boys that bring home the bacon, aren’t we?”
“Aw, Ikey!” groaned Frenchy Donahue. “Can’t you ever forget you were brought up in a delicatessen shop? ‘Bring home the bacon,’ indade!”
CHAPTER XII—WIRELESS WHISPERS
On duty with the morning watch, just after sick call at half past eight, Phil Morgan and George Belding met right abaft the radio station. There was half an hour or so before the divisions would be piped to fall in for muster and inspection, and the two friends could chat a little.
“Well, the folks are on the sea, as we are, Phil, if the Redbird sailed as per schedule,” Belding said.