Orders were hastily given. The speed of the boat suddenly changed as though it were a part of the scheme to confuse the Germans, who might even then be observing them by means of their periscope.
But this was not to be the sum total of the destroyer’s programme. There came a sudden burst of firing, and the boys saw the water churned into foam around the spot where a few seconds before that queer tube had been sighted.
Nothing could be seen of the under-sea boat, which had evidently gone down after its custom. Already the destroyer had commenced to circle around the place, and everyone aboard strained his eyesight in order to see whether the first sign of the volley from the small guns had succeeded in its mission.
“Why, how still the water seems to be here,” remarked Amos. “Yet all around us the sea is moving in choppy little waves.”
“There may be a reason for that,” said Jack. “You know that sometimes vessels in distress during a storm at sea have found it worth while to tow a bag of oil after them. It helps to smooth the breaking billows a good deal.”
“But how would oil come here, Jack, because we haven’t thrown any—oh! do you mean it looks as if the submarine had been struck when they sent that volley at the periscope?”
“That’s what I mean, and if you listen to what the men are saying you’ll see they think the same way,” Jack asserted.
“And if the boat was struck it may never come to the surface again, which would make a lot of jackies in the big fleet happy, I guess,” Amos concluded.
The destroyer circled the spot several times, but nothing was seen beyond some bubbles, and the oil on the surface of the sea. If the submarine had been wrecked they would never know it, because it must stay on the bottom of the sea, and the crew be suffocated as time passed. On the other hand, if it had not been seriously injured by now it was far away, and proceeding under the surface, perhaps heading so as to get at one of the battleships.
One of the first things to be done after communications with the shore had been effected would be to let the commander of the fleet know about the presence of a small submarine, so that all extra precautions might be taken against a surprise.