Dave Darrin After the Mine Layers; Or, Hitting the Enemy a Hard Naval BlowHancock, H. Irving (Harrie Irving)
History
Dave Darrin After the Mine Layers; Or, Hitting the Enemy a Hard Naval Blow
Hancock, H. Irving (Harrie Irving)
Mines (Military explosives) -- Juvenile fiction; United States. Navy -- Juvenile fiction
Every mine-sweeper carried a radio outfit for sending messages. Each
craft was also supplied with the mast-head "blinkers" for flashing night
signals. When the craft signalled to, however, was near enough, colored
lights operated from the deck were used instead, that the messages might
not be sent far enough into the night to be picked up by skulking enemy
craft.
"It looks like a night of tame sport, sir," said Fernald, just before he
went below for a nap.
"It has been quiet so far," Darrin agreed. "But the most striking thing
in naval service is that whatever starts comes without warning. We might
have a whole week as quiet as to-night has been, and then run into
twenty-four hours of work that would give both of us gray hair."
An hour after Fernald went below Dave had a steamer chair brought to the
bridge, also a rug. The chair was placed where a canvas wind-shield would
protect the sitter from the keen edge of the wind.
"I'm going to doze right here, Mr. Ormsby," Dave explained to the ensign
who was on bridge watch. "I'm to be called the instant anything turns
up."
Accustomed to such sleeps Darrin had barely closed his eyes when he was
off in the Land o' Nod. Some time afterwards the sharp orders of Ensign
Andrews, new officer of the bridge watch, caused Darrin to open his eyes,
cast aside the rug and spring to his feet all in the same instant.
"Torpedo coming on our starboard bow, sir," reported Mr. Andrews, turning
and finding his chief at his post.
At that instant the "Grigsby" gave a sharp turn to port and sprang ahead
under quickened speed.
Bump! Swift as the discovery had been made, quickly as the saving orders
had been given, the oncoming torpedo bumped the hull of the "Grigsby"
with a crash audible to those within a hundred feet of the point of
impact. But it did not strike full on, the contact being only glancing,
like that of a boat going alongside a landing stage. The watchers from
the bridge saw the torpedo's wake as the deflected projectile continued
on its harmless way.
"We couldn't have had a much narrower squeak than that!" Dave ejaculated.
"Andrews, I congratulate you."
"I'm naturally interested in saving the ship, sir, and my own skin as
well," replied Ensign Andrews with a grin.
Dave, not having taken his eyes from the faint streak on the water,
called for highest speed and a complete turn. Then, ordering the rays of
the searchlight to play over the water, Darrin sent the "Grigsby" racing,
bow-on, toward the spot from which he judged the torpedo to have been
launched. In the meantime Dalzell's "Reed" had turned her prow in the
same general direction, steaming slowly after the "Grigsby."
"The Hun can't be located," Dave confessed, a few minutes later. "That
chap is like most of the other Hun submarine commanders. He'll launch a
torpedo by stealth, but as soon as he knows the destroyer is after him he
hunts depth and runs away."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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