"Useless for us to follow them," declared McClure, as he took in the situation. "Might as well stand by this stricken Hun cruiser and pick up some of her floating crew."
"There's a lot of them in the water," said Cleary, as he swung the other periscope to scan the open sea well to the sinking cruiser's stern.
In a few minutes the Dewey ascended and made herself known to the
British "limey." Over the decks of the latter clambered several score
German seamen who had been fished from a watery grave.
A stiff wind had come up out of the southeast and was kicking the sea into rollers with whitecaps. However, the men of the Dewey, armed with life preservers, steadied themselves on the turtle-back deck of their craft, and started the hunt for swimming Germans.
Ted had joined Jack forward, carrying a coil of rope, and they were scanning the sea, when their attention was diverted by the gesticulations of Bill Witt standing well forward. He was pointing off to port.
"Look—-a floating mine!" he shouted. Almost at the same moment Jack spied another mine closer up off the starboard quarter.
In a mine field! The retreating German warships had strewn the sea with the deadly implements of naval warfare, and the Dewey had come up almost on top of a number of the unanchored explosives!
CHAPTER VIII
A RESCUE
"If one of them pill boxes bumps us on the water line it's all day with your Uncle Sam's U-boat Dewey," vouchsafed Bill Witt as he stood surveying the mine field into which they had stumbled.