Dave Darrin and the German Submarines
H. Irving Hancock
eBook
(, May 14, 1919)
CHAPTER I—ON THE SEA PATROL“Anything sighted?” called Lieutenant-Commander Dave Darrin as he stepped briskly from the little chart-room back of the wheel-house and turned his face toward the bridge.“Nothing, sir, all afternoon,” responded Lieutenant Dan Dalzell from the bridge.Dave ran lightly up the steps, returning, as he reached the bridge, the salutes of Dalzell, executive officer, and of Ensign Phelps, officer of the deck.“It’s been a dull afternoon, then?” queried Darrin, his eyes viewing the sea, whose waters rose and fell in gentle swells.No land was in sight from the bridge of the United States torpedo boat destroyer, “John J. Logan,” which was moving at cruising speed westerly from the coast of Ireland. The course lay through the “Danger Zone” created by the presence of unknown numbers of hidden German submarines.For a winter day the weather had been warm. Forward the two men of the bow watch and the crews of the rapid-fire guns had removed their coats and had left them below.Though there was neither enemy nor friendly craft in sight, Darrin noted with swift if silent approval that there was no evidence of lax watch. At port and starboard, amidships, there were men on watch, as also at the stern. Members of gun-crews lounged close to their stations, to which additional men could be summoned in a flash. Aft, also, two men stood by the device from which it might be necessary, at any instant, to drop a depth bomb.Trained down to the last point of condition by constant work, these officers and men of the torpedo boat destroyer made one think of hard, lean hunting dogs, which, in human guise, they really were. Not only had toil brought this about but sleep was something of a luxury aboard the “Logan.” On a cruise these men of Admiral Speare’s fleet of destroyers slept with their clothes on, the same rule applying to the officers.Dave Darrin had slept in the chart-room for three hours this afternoon, following eighteen hours of duty on deck.“Any wireless messages worth reading?” was Darrin’s next question.“None intended for us, sir, and none others of startling nature, sir,” replied Ensign Phelps, handing his superior a loose-leaf note-book. “I think you saw the last one, sir, and since that came in there were none important enough to be filed.”Dave read the uppermost message, nodded, then handed back the book.For the next ten minutes Darrin scanned through his glasses, the surface of the sea in all directions.“I’d like to bag an enemy before supper,” he sighed.