"German raider!" the muffled cry ran through the ship.
CHAPTER V
THE GERMAN RAIDERS
As the Dewey settled into the water. Lieutenant McClure and his executive officer peered intently though the periscopes, hoping to catch sight of the unknown craft and speculating on her nationality. The sky was flecked with clouds and there was no convenient moon to aid the submarine sentinel—-an ideal night for a raid! "Little Mack," as the crew had affectionately named their commander, was in a quandary as to whether the approaching vessel was friend or foe.
"We'll lie right here and watch him awhile," he told his executive officer. "Pretty soon he'll be close enough for us to get a line on his silhouette."
It had been an interesting revelation to the Brighton boys soon after their entry into the navy to learn that each ship was equipped with a silhouette book. By means of this it was possible to tell the vessels of one nation from another by the size and formation of their hulls, their smokestacks and general outline. Each officer had to be thoroughly well informed on the contents of the book.
Quietly, stealthily the hidden submarine awaited the approach of her adversary, for it seemed only too certain that the ship that had suddenly come dashing up out of the east was out of Cuxhaven or Wilhelmshaven, and had but a short time before passed under the mighty German guns on Heligoland.
Chief Gunner Mowrey and his crew in the torpedo chamber forward were signaled to "stand by the guns ready for action," which meant in this case the huge firing tubes and the Whitehead torpedoes. Jack and Ted fell into their places, stripped to the waist, and making sure that the reserve torpedoes were ready for any emergency.
By adjusting the headpiece of the ship's microphone to his ears Chief Electrician Sammy Smith kept close tabs on the approaching vessel with the underwater telephone. With the receivers to his hears he could hear plainly the swish of the vessel's propeller blades as she bore down upon the floating submarine. With his reports as a basis for their deductions, the Dewey's officers were able to figure out the position of the mystery ship and to tell accurately the distance between the two vessels.
"Reckon he'll be dead off our bow in a minute or so," observed Cleary as he completed another observation based on Smith's latest report.