Mike Mowrey was in great glee. "Just like a grasshopper begging for mercy on a bass hook," he said jauntily, imitating with a crook of his finger the disappearing periscope. Soon the fleet was off Cape Clear on the southernmost point of the Irish coast and very shortly headed well into the English Channel. Now every few hours the American warships were speaking one or other of the English and French patrol ships. Great was the joy of the boys aboard the _Dewey_ when first they beheld an American destroyer out on the firing line. "Union Jack and French tricolor look pretty good; but none of them makes a fellow's blood tingle like the Stars and Stripes; eh, chum?" queried Jack, as he surveyed an American destroyer dashing along in fine fettle. And Ted heartily agreed. Off Falmouth, the transports, accompanied by three of the American destroyers and two English "limeys "---as the British destroyers are known in the slang of the sea---slipped off silently into the twilight. The American infantry and marines were to be landed "somewhere in France." Jack and Ted viewed the departure with mingled pride and regret. "Reckon they will be in the trenches before long," ventured Ted. "Frisking bean balls at the Fritzes," snapped Bill Witt with a chuckle as he joined his mates. And now the submarine fleet continued on its way into the North Sea. An American destroyer, two English "limeys" and a French vessel of the same type were to escort the Yankee subs the rest of the way. By morning the _Dewey_ had slipped through the Strait of Dover and emerged at last into the North Sea---the field of her future activities! There, in due time, the subs reported to the American admiral. Without any delay they were detailed for duty in the vast arena stretching down the Strait of Dover northward to the Norwegian coast---from Wilhelmshaven to the east coast of England and Scotland. Provisioned and refueled after an inspection and test of her engines, the _Dewey_ lost no time in getting out on the firing line. London papers, brought on board while the Yankee submersible rested in the English naval station at Chatham, told of a daring raid by German light cruisers on the east coast of England only the night before. Eluding the allied patrol ships, the raiders had slipped through the entente lines and bombarded a number of coast towns, escaping finally in a running fight with English cruisers. "That was before we got over here," said Bill Witt with a show of irony as he read the meager dispatch in the London Times. "Wait till we Yanks meet up with the Huns!" An opportunity came shortly. One night, little more than a week after the _Dewey_ had put out into the North Sea, she ran plumb into a huge warship. The little submarine had taken a position about twenty miles directly west of the great German stronghold at Heligoland in a lane likely to be traveled by any outcoming warships.