CHAPTER XIII

THE LURKING PERIL

The shipping of the men had been carried through so smoothly and swiftly, and everything had moved with such clockwork precision, that before the sun fairly rose the giant steamer was out of sight of land. And any spy who might have been lurking at any point on the coast would have had his trouble for his pains.

The night had been a broken one, but the army boys were so excited that no one cared for the loss of sleep. Here at last was action. Now they were fairly launched on the great adventure. Every mile that the great ship traversed was bringing them nearer to the scene of actual fighting, the roar of the cannon, the shriek of shells, the hand to hand conflict with the enemy.

"It must make the Huns sore," laughed Frank, "to think that one of their own great ships is carrying us over the ocean to fight the men who built it."

"Sort of poetic justice, eh?" grinned Billy Waldon.

"They felt they had the goods on us when they smashed the machinery," said Bart. "They figured it would take at least a year before we could get the ships in shape again, and yet its only five months since they scrapped the engines and here they're pounding along as good as new."

"It's not the first mistake the Kaiser's made," agreed Frank. "What was it that fellow Von Papen called us?--idiotic Yankees."

"We weren't so idiotic after all, that we didn't get on to his game and send him and his pals packing," said Tom.

"There goes the call for breakfast," cried Billy, as the bugle rang out its welcome summons. "This sea view is great but we'll have plenty of time to enjoy that. Me for the mess and we'll have to get in line quick or with this crowd we won't have a Chinaman's chance."

"Billy wants to eat while he can," grinned Bart, as they plunged along in his wake. "He's afraid he'll be seasick, later on."

"Not on your life," flung back Billy. "You can't get seasick on this ship. She's so big she rides half a dozen waves at once and she's as steady as a church."

Although the great ship was unchanged as regards the external appearance, a complete transformation had been effected inside. When it had first been built, it had been fitted out and decorated with princely magnificence but now all the costly and beautiful fittings had been ruthlessly torn out. It was like a great, hollow cavern from stern to stern. Everything had been sacrificed to the need for space. Cots and hammocks by the thousands took up every available inch that was not absolutely needed for other purposes.

It was a gigantic, floating hotel and apart from the crew, who themselves ran into the hundreds, it carried many thousands of Uncle Sam's fighting men.

"A U-boat would certainly make a ten-strike if it sent a torpedo into this craft," remarked Frank, as, after breakfast, the three friends secured a point of vantage on the upper deck.

"He'd get the iron cross from the Kaiser, sure enough," replied Billy. "It's so big a target that he could hardly miss it if he took a pot shot at it."

"I don't think there's much danger," said Frank, as he glanced at the guns with their trained crews that guarded the liner fore and aft. "If a U-boat attacked us she'd be the more likely of the two to get sunk. These guns out-range anything that a submarine carries."

"To say nothing of the convoys," put in Bart. "It's all right to attack an unarmed merchant ship but it's a different thing when United States destroyers are on the job."

"Where are they?" said Billy, looking about over the broad expanse which showed no trace of any other vessel.

"They'll meet us when we get further out," said Frank. "There will be no danger for a day or two yet. The U-boats are hugging the English coast pretty tight."

"I don't think we ought to reckon too much on that," said Billy. "You know, a U-boat did cross the ocean a year or so ago and sank five ships right off Nantucket. That's coming too close home for comfort."

"One swallow doesn't make a summer," replied Frank. "At that time we were neutral and after the U-boat once slipped past the British fleet there was nothing to stop it before it got to the American coast. But you bet it would be no cinch to do it now, with the United States navy on the job."

The next two days were fair and the sea smooth. The great liner reeled off the miles with tremendous speed. As Billy had prophesied, the ship was so steady that there was very little sea-sickness and there was so much to be seen and done under these novel conditions that every waking hour was filled with interest.

Two days later they picked up their convoy and all felt a very comforting sense of security in the presence of the destroyers with their business-like air and wicked looking guns.

They kept pace with the liner, within easy reaching distance, occasionally exchanging signals, and keeping sleepless watch day and night over the huge transport.

"The finest navy in the world!" cried Frank, with enthusiasm, as his kindling eyes rested on these "bulldogs of the sea." "That's one branch of the service where Uncle Sam has never fallen down. Man for man, gun for gun, and ship for ship, there's nothing in the world can beat them. Just watch them clean out that U-boat nest when they once get over there in force."

"They'll do to them what Decatur did to the Barbary pirates years ago," said Bart. "Every other nation was paying tribute to them, but that idea didn't make a hit with us and we went in and wiped them off the face of the earth--or rather the face of the water. And what we did once, we can do again."

Frank's eyes had been idly roaming over the sea while they were talking, but suddenly his gaze became fixed and he started to his feet.

"Did you see that, fellows?" he demanded, sharply.

"Where?" asked Billy

"I didn't see anything," said Bart.

"It looked like a flash of light on the water," explained Frank. "There it is again. Great Scott, it's a periscope!"

Almost as he spoke, the forward guns on the liner roared their challenge, followed by the deeper bass of the guns from the nearest destroyer.

In an instant there was great excitement, though without the slightest trace of panic. The ship swung around in response to a bell from the bridge and began to zigzag in a bewildering fashion.

Then a great white furrow appeared in the sea and along that whitening lane came hissing a monster torpedo. Nearer and nearer it came with lightning speed straight toward the vessel.

Had the liner kept its course the torpedo would have struck it amidships. As it was, it passed just back of the stern, missing it by not more than a dozen feet.

The destroyers came racing like mad toward the spot from which the torpedo had been launched. No trace of the submarine was visible but the destroyers circled round and round the spot, dropping their deadly depth bombs in the hope of striking their unseen foe.

Thousands of pairs of eyes watched for the result, while in their excitement their owners almost forgot to breathe.

Minutes passed and then a mighty cheer went up. For on the waters appeared a gradually widening smudge of oil on which floated bits of wreckage that told their own story.

The U-boat had fired its last torpedo. One of the depth bombs had sought it out in its invisible lair, battered in its sides, wrenched open its seams and sent its pirate crew to their last account. For that one boat, at least, the Kaiser's admirals would watch in vain.

"We got it!" yelled Billy Waldon exultingly.

"They can't always get away with it!" cried Bart, jubilantly.

"What did I tell you about our navy?" crowed Frank. "They can't put one over on Uncle Sam!"