Chapter 20. Darrin Turns The Tables

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_ CHAPTER XX. DARRIN TURNS THE TABLES

Weather the ship master dreads. "Look at that!" Getting the drop on Fritz. Old acquaintances. Dave is angry. The German whine. Not man enough to play the game. "Why do you hate us Germans so?" Ever at Fate's orders.

BOTH commanding officers were asleep when the "Grigsby" and the "Reed" passed each other that morning, the "Grigsby" proceeding on to her station.

Dave would have gone back on the same water route he had hunted over the day before, but the dirigible, which had reached England safely, had not yet been put in shape for further service, and there was at present no other dirigible that could be spared for his service.

Therefore it was a matter of back to the shoals for temporary duty, yet of a kind that was very important.

At ten o'clock he was called, as that was the hour he had named for relieving Lieutenant Fernald.

The executive officer had come into the chart-room to call him, and remained while Darrin performed his hasty toilet.

"What's the weather?" Darrin asked.

"Misty, sir," replied the executive officer. "There's a fine drizzle, mixed with some fog. For the last half hour it has been impossible to see more than six hundred yards. That is why we are running at half speed. We're close to the middle shoal and I was afraid we'd run down one of our own mine-sweepers."

"The kind of weather every ship's master dreads," Dave remarked.

"Yes, sir, and the weather bites you through to the marrow. The temperature isn't very low, but I think you'll find yourself more comfortable if you dress warmly. I found it so cold as to be necessary to wear the sheepskin under my heaviest rain-coat."

In finishing his dressing Darrin bore this suggestion in mind. In a few minutes he stepped out on deck. The weather proved to be as unpleasant as Fernald had asserted, and Dave was glad that he was warmly clad, for the wind, though not strong, was piercing.

"Sighted any mine-sweeper on the shoal?" Dave asked of Ensign Ormsby, the watch officer, as soon as he reached the deck.

"Only on the first shoal, which is in the 'Reed's' station, sir," Mr. Ormsby replied. "Those belonging to our station must be farther north. And we've sighted none out in deeper water. We couldn't in this thick weather, anyway."

"The view is so limited that this doesn't look like a promising day for us," Dave mused aloud, as he gazed around at as much of the water as he could see.

"It really doesn't, sir."

"Better reduce to one-quarter speed. The less speed the less chance there will be of the enemy hearing us."

Accordingly the "Grigsby" rolled along slowly, the splash and ripple of the water along her sides being a soothing accompaniment.

For an hour they proceeded thus, without sighting a ship. They had passed the middle shoal, and were somewhat north of it when the two officers on the bridge observed that the sun was struggling feebly through the clouds and mist. A minute later, as if by magic, it burst out brightly, and the mist began to fade away.

"By Jove, sir, look at that!" almost whispered Ensign Ormsby.

Some seven hundred yards away from them, motionless on the water, her deck fully exposed, lay a submarine.

Neither deck gun was above decks. At least a dozen of the crew stood near the conning tower, and, of all things in the world, fishing.

"Quick work, there!" Dave called through the bridge telephone to the gunners forward. "Let number one gun send a shell over the craft. Don't hit her at the first shot. We'll capture that fellow, if possible!"

So quickly did the shot come that it was the first intimation the German seamen had of enemy presence.

From aloft the signal broke out:

"Don't try to fire a shot, or to turn, or we'll sink you!"

An officer's head popped up through the manhole of the conning tower, then almost as quickly was withdrawn.

As the "Grigsby," obeying her engines, leaped forward, the men behind both forward guns stood ready to fire at the word.

For the submarine crew to bring either gun into place would be the signal for the destroyer to open fire at a range constantly decreasing. Nor could the enemy craft employ her torpedo tubes without turning, which would have been instant signal for Darrin to order his gunners to fire on the submarine.

Through the manhole of the enemy craft leaped a signalman, flags in hand. Using the international code he wigwagged rapidly this message:

"We will make a grace of necessity and surrender."

"That doesn't necessarily mean that they do surrender," Dave 'phoned to the officer in charge of the forward gun division. "If the enemy makes a move to bring a gun into view, or to swing so that a torpedo tube could be used, fire without order and fire to sink!"

The German commander evidently understood that this would be the course of the Yankees, for as the "Grigsby" bore down upon the submarine not a threatening move was visible.

Instead, the Hun crew, unarmed so far as the watchers on the destroyer could see, emerged from the conning tower and moved well up forward.

"Prepare to lower two boats," Dave called, and added instructions for a large crew for each launch. As the "Grigsby" came about and lay to, the launches were lowered. In the bow of each small craft was mounted a machine gun ready for instant action. The double prize crew was permitted to board the submarine without sign of opposition. At the command, German seamen began to file past two petty officers, submitting to search for hidden weapons, then passing on into the launches alongside.

Last of all four officers came through the manhole, preparatory to enduring the same search. When all the prisoners had been taken aboard, the launches started back to the "Grigsby."

Dave Darrin caught sight of the officers, as the launches approached the destroyer, and felt like rubbing his eyes.

"The ober-lieutenant and von Schelling!" he exclaimed with a start. "They haven't recognized me yet. When they do that ober-lieutenant is going to wish that he had voted for going to the bottom of the sea!"

Not, indeed, until the officers came up over the side of the "Grigsby," and found Dave Darrin waiting on the deck, did the quartette of officers discover who their captor was.

"_You?_" gasped the ober-lieutenant! "Impossible!"

"Yes; you didn't expect to see me again, did you?"

"I--I--I thought you were----"

The German checked himself.

"You thought you had sent me to the bottom of the sea," Dave went on. "It wasn't your fault that you didn't, but you missed your guess."

Dave then gave the order for housing the prisoners below.

"Are you sending the officers to the same place of detention that you are sending my men?" demanded the ober-lieutenant, a spark of assertiveness in his manner.

"Unfortunately, I am obliged to do so," Dave answered. "I am aware that German officers consider themselves to be of a brand of clay much superior to that used in making their men."

"But we officers are gentlemen!" retorted the ober-lieutenant, drawing himself up stiffly.

"It's a point that might be argued," returned Darrin, lightly. "Yet there is no other course, for we have no detention space apart from the main one on board, so it is the only place that we can use for confining German officers--and gentlemen."

"May I request the privilege of a few words with you before you send me below?" requested the ober-lieutenant, unbending a trifle.

"Certainly," Dave assured him, and the guard that was marshaling the prisoners below permitted the recent German commander to step out of the line.

"I will see you in my chart-room," said Dave. Lieutenant Fernald, who had been standing by, caught Dave's signal and entered with his chief.

Once inside Ober-Lieutenant Dreiner turned and gazed at Fernald.

"I had expected a private interview, Herr Darrin," he said, rather stiffly.

"Lieutenant Fernald is my executive officer, and nothing goes on board with which he is not familiar," Darrin replied. "Have a seat, Herr Ober-Lieutenant."

"And must I speak before--before your subordinate?" asked the German, as he dropped into the chair that had been indicated.

"If you speak at all," Darrin answered.

"But will Herr Fernald keep inviolate what I have to say?"

"In that," Darrin promised, "he will be governed by circumstances."

Dreiner hesitated for a few seconds before he began:

"I--I--er--I have to refer to an incident that followed our last words together on a former occasion."

"You mean, of course, the time, when you assembled on the deck of your craft four prisoners, of whom I was one, then closed your manhole and submerged, leaving us floundering in the water, and, as you expected, to die by drowning?"

"I have not admitted that any such thing took place," Herr Dreiner cried, hastily, with a side glance at Lieutenant Fernald.

"It will make no difference, Herr Dreiner, whether you admit or deny that inhuman attempt to murder four helpless prisoners," Dave rejoined. "It so happened that all four of us kept alive until rescued, and we are all four ready, at any time, to appear against you. So there is no use in evasion."

"Then you intend to bring the charge against me?" asked Dreiner, in a voice husky with either emotion or dread.

"I can make neither promises nor threats as to that," Darrin countered.

"The stern British military courts would sentence me to death on that charge."

"Probably," Dave agreed.

"And I have a very particular reason for wanting to live," Dreiner went on.

"Yes?"

"I have eight young children at home, and their sole dependence is on what I earn," the German continued. "I do not mind dying, for myself, but in that event what will become of my poor little children?"

"You Germans fill me with disgust!" Dave Darrin exclaimed, rising, as though to terminate the interview. "It seems to be a rule with you fellows, when you find yourselves facing death, to whine about the children you must leave behind to starve. Before you set out to murder me in an especially brutal manner, did you take the trouble to ask me whether _I_ had any children who would starve? Did you ask Mr. and Mrs. Launce whether they had children that were not provided for? And what about that honest old sea-dog, Captain Kennor? Did you pause to inquire whether he was leaving hungry children behind? For that matter, have any of you wild beasts on German submarines ever worried yourselves about the families you orphaned by your inhuman crimes at sea? Even in the case of the 'Lusitania,' did _that_ submarine commander ask himself, or any one else, what would happen to the women and children who were pitched into the sea? You are wild to murder innocent, harmless people belonging to an enemy nation, yet when you yourselves are brought face to face with death you are all alike. You whine! You beg! Dreiner, you are not man enough to play the game! Your appeal in the name of your eight children, who, for that matter, may not even exist, falls on deaf ears when you address me. I hope that you will be summoned before a British court and that you may be sentenced to pay the full penalty for your crimes!"

Dreiner's face went ashen-gray as he staggered to his feet. Probably he really was concerned for the fate of his children, but his was not the sort of record that invited pity.

"I will not detain you here," Dave finished coldly. "If I did, I might be tempted to abuse a prisoner, and that is something no American fighting man can really do. Orderly!"

As the orderly stepped in, saluting, Dreiner tried a last appeal:

"Why do you hate us Germans so?" he whined. "I know that you do not hate me especially, but that you hate all of our race!"

"Why do we hate you?" Darrin echoed. "The reason is that, from all we hear, fellows like yourself appear to be fair samples of the German officer, on land and afloat. If that does not answer your question fully, I can think of other reasons to give you. I would rather not, for it brings me perilously close to the offense of abusing a prisoner, and that I do not wish to do. Orderly, call two men and instruct them to take Ober-Lieutenant Dreiner below to join the other prisoners."

As the German stepped past the Yankee commander he glared into Dave's face, hissing:

"To-day it is your chance to humiliate and condemn a German. It may not be long ere your turn comes, and a German officer tells you what your end is to be!"

"I am ever at Fate's orders," Darrin answered, with a bow. _

Read next: Chapter 21. On A Mission Of Great Trust

Read previous: Chapter 19. The Good Work Goes On

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