As soon as the tumult quieted down, the chasers put out their tubes and listened. For twenty minutes not a sound issued from the scene of all this activity. Then a propeller was heard faintly turning or attempting to turn. The noise this time was not the kind which indicated an effort to steal away furtively; it conveyed rather the impression of difficulty and strain. There was a slight grating and squeaking such as might have been made by damaged machinery. This noise lasted for a few seconds and then ceased. Presently it started up again and then once more it stopped. The submarine was making a little progress, but fitfully; she would go a few yards and then pause. A slight wake now appeared upon the surface, such as a submerged U-boat usually left when the water was calm; the listeners at the tube were pleased to note that the location of this disturbance coincided precisely with their "fix," and thus, in a way, confirmed their calculations. One of the subchasers promptly ran ahead and began to drop depth charges on this wake. There was not the slightest doubt that the surface boat was now directly on top of the submarine. After one of the depth charges was dropped, a black cylindrical object, about thirty inches long, suddenly rose from the depths and jumped sixty feet into the air; just what this unexpected visitant was no one seems to know, but that it came from the hunted submarine was clear.
Under such distressing conditions the U-boat had only a single chance of saving itself; when the water was sufficiently shallow—not deeper than three hundred feet—it could safely sink to the bottom and "play dead," hoping that the chasers, with their accursed listening devices, would tire of the vigil and return to port. A submarine, if in very good condition, could remain silently on the bottom for two or three days. The listeners on the chaser tubes presently heard sounds which suggested that their enemy was perhaps resorting to this manœuvre. But there were other noises which indicated that possibly this sinking to the bottom was not voluntary. The listeners clearly heard a scraping and a straining as though the boat was making terrific attempts to rise. There was a lumbering noise, such as might be made by a heavy object trying to drag its hulk along the muddy bottom; this was followed by silence, showing that the wounded vessel could advance only a few yards. A terrible tragedy was clearly beginning down there in the slime of the ocean floor; a boat, with twenty-five or thirty human beings on board, was hopelessly caught, with nothing in sight except the most lingering death. The listeners on the chasers could follow events almost as clearly as though the inside of the U-boat could be seen; for every motion the vessel made, every effort that the crew put forth to rescue itself from this living hell, was registered on the delicate wires which reached the ears of the men on the surface.
Suddenly sharp metallic sounds came up on the wires. They were clearly made by hammers beating on the steel body of the U-boat.
"They are trying to make repairs," the listeners reported.
If our subchasers had had any more depth charges, they would have promptly put these wretches out of their misery, but they had expended all their ammunition. Darkness was now closing in; our men saw that their vigil was to be a long one; they sent two chasers to Penzance, to get a new supply of bombs, and also sent a radio call for a destroyer. The spot where the submarine had bottomed was marked by a buoy; lanterns were hung out on this buoy; and two units of chasers, six boats in all, prepared to stand guard. At any moment, of course, the struggling U-boat might come to the surface, and it was necessary to have forces near by to fight or to accept surrender. All night long the chasers stood by; now and then the listeners reported scraping and straining noises from below, but these grew fainter and fainter, seeming almost to register the despair which must be seizing the hearts of the imprisoned Germans.
At three o'clock in the morning a British destroyer arrived and presently the two chasers returned from Penzance with more ammunition. Meanwhile, the weather had thickened, a fog had fallen, the lights on the buoy had gone out, and the buoy itself had been pulled under by the tide. The watching subchasers were tossed about by the weather, and lost the precise bearing of the sunken submarine. When daylight returned and the weather calmed down the chasers again put over their tubes and attempted to "fix" the U-boat. They listened for hours without hearing a sound; but about five o'clock in the afternoon a sharp piercing noise came ringing over the wires. It was a sound that made the listeners' blood run cold.
Only one thing in the world could make a sound like that. It was the crack of a revolver. The first report had hardly stilled when another shot was heard; and then there were more in rapid succession. The listeners on two different chasers heard these pistol cracks and counted them; the reports which these two men independently made agreed in every detail. In all, twenty-five shots came from the bottom of the sea. As there were from twenty-five to thirty men in a submarine crew the meaning was all too evident. The larger part of officers and men, finding themselves shut tightly in their coffin of steel, had resorted to that escape which was not uncommonly availed of by German submarine crews in this hideous war. Nearly all of them had committed suicide.
V
Meanwhile, our subchaser detachment at Corfu was performing excellent service. In these southern waters Captain C. P. Nelson commanded two squadrons, comprising thirty-six vessels. Indeed, the American navy possessed few officers more energetic, more efficient, more lovable, or more personally engaging than Captain Nelson. The mere fact that he was known among his brother officers as "Juggy Nelson" gives some notion of the affection which his personality inspired. This nickname did not indicate, as might at first be suspected, that Captain Nelson possessed qualities which flew in the face of the prohibitory regulations of our navy: it was intended, I think, as a description of the physical man. For Captain Nelson's rotund figure, jocund countenance, and always buoyant spirits were priceless assets to our naval forces at Corfu. Living conditions there were not of the best; disease was rampant among the Serbians, Greeks, and Albanians who made up the civil population; there were few opportunities for entertainment or relaxation; it was, therefore, a happy chance that the commander was a man whose very presence radiated an atmosphere of geniality and enthusiasm. His conversational powers for many years had made him a man of mark; his story-telling abilities had long delighted naval officers and statesmen at Washington; no other selection for commander could have been made that would have met with more whole-hearted approval from the college boys and other high-type civilians who so largely made up our forces in these flotillas. At Corfu, indeed, Captain Nelson quickly became a popular favourite; his mind was always actively forming plans for the discomfiture of the German and Austrian submarines; and all our Allies were as much impressed with his energy as were our own men. For Captain Nelson was more than a humorist and entertainer: he was pre-eminently a sailor of the saltiest type, and he had a real barbaric joy in a fight. Even in his official communications to his officers and men he invariably referred to the enemy as the "Hun"; the slogan on which he insisted as the guiding principle of his flotilla was "get the Hun before he has a chance to get us." He had the supreme gift of firing his subordinates with the same spirit that possessed himself; and the vigilance, the constant activity, and the courage of the subchasers' crews admirably supplemented the sailor-like qualities of the man who commanded them.
I have already referred to the sea-going abilities of the subchasers; but the feat accomplished by those that made the trip to Corfu was the most admirable of all. These thirty-six boats, little more than motor launches in size, sailed from New London to Greece—a distance of 6,000 miles; and, a day or two after their arrival, they began work on the Otranto barrage. Of course they could not have made this trip without the assistance of vessels to supply them with gasolene, make the necessary routine repairs, care for the sick and those suffering from the inevitable minor accidents; and it is greatly to the credit of the naval officers who commanded the escorting vessels that they shepherded these flotillas across the ocean with practically no losses. On their way through the Straits of Gibraltar they made an attack on a submarine which so impressed Admiral Niblack that he immediately wired London headquarters for a squadron to be permanently based on that port.