The Boy Scouts on a Submarine Part 18

One of the convoys, a destroyer of the latest and finest type, threw a smoke screen between the U-boat and the transport, but the U-boat, evidently under orders to get the transport with its crowds of men at any cost, came to the surface in the midst of the smoke and, using the screen to her own advantage, slipped close to the transport. As she did so there was another clamor of guns from both the convoys. The Colonel could not see the result of the firing. The guns on the transport were aimed at the nearest U-boat which had come so, close to her intended victim. She lay on the surface, and one torpedo and then another shot from her firing tubes. The fire from the transport missed her again.

The torpedoes seemed possessed. Instead of holding the straight line that would have doomed the great s.h.i.+p to certain destruction, they skipped here and there. One of them turned and narrowly missed the U-boat which was now apparently making an effort to submerge. So strangely did the boat act that the gunner hesitated as he was about to give the order to fire.

No other torpedo was sent out, and the submarine kept to the surface, swinging slowly.

"She must be badly crippled," said the Captain to Colonel Bright, who stood beside him on the bridge. He gave the order to an officer to open fire on the boat.

As the men leaped to their guns, a strange thing happened. The hatch on the submarine opened, and a man leaped out to the deck.

He waved a white flag.

"No good!" said the Captain. "That's been done before. I won't risk one of my boat crews over there."

"You can't shoot at a flag of truce," said the Colonel hastily.

"You have to in warfare like this," said the Captain bitterly.

The figure on the U-boat, looking very small in the distance, continued to wave his flag. The Captain nodded to the commander of the gun crew on the nearest turret. The gun leaped into position. At that instant the figure on the reeling submarine whipped a small flag from his pocket and flourished it beside the other. The officers and men on board the transport gasped.

It was an American flag!

Yes, there on a German submarine a solitary figure was waving aloft the Stars and Stripes.

The Captain uttered an exclamation of amazement, and shook his head at the gun crew. Almost at once a couple of motor-boats, filled with armed men, shot from the transport and raced over the rough sea to the rolling sub.

"We will soon know what all this is about," said Captain Greene.

"Come down while I prepare a wireless."

The two Captains and the Colonel went below, while the men crowded the rail and watched the boats, now at the side of the distant submarine. It was a long time before they started back.

The men could see that they were loading the boats with something that looked like rolls of cloth. Finally they returned.

The officers, coming back to the decks, were greeted by volleys of deafening cheers, boots, calls, laughter. Every man who could got near the railing was there. They were packed solidly, looking down at the boats below. Those who could not reach a point of vantage swung up on their companions' shoulders.

Everybody hooted and laughed. Presently there was a break in the line, and four strapping sailors made their way through with a burden which they laid none too gently on the deck. Another and another, and still they came, until at the Captain's feet there was a row of fourteen unconscious figures, wound and strapped with rope until they resembled mummies. Captain Greene bent closely above the figures. Two of them wore the uniform of German officers; but one and all were unconscious, and tightly roped.

"What does this mean?" demanded Captain Greene. He looked up just as a stifled cry came from the Captain of the Firefly. On the other side of him, Colonel Bright staggered and would have fallen, had not a friendly hand steadied him. He as well as the Captain of the Firefly were staring with bulging eyes at the figure that was just emerging from the crowd at the rail. As they stared, apparently unable to speak, another figure joined the first.

Covered with dirt, unkempt, dressed in what seemed to be cast-off fragments of all the uniforms under the sun, the two figures stood looking around with broad grins, on their pale and smudgy faces.

A b.l.o.o.d.y bandage half hid the face of one of them, the other nursed a hand bundled in rough, soiled cloths.

Colonel Bright tried to speak. Words failed him. He gulped feebly, and waved a hand at the apparitions. They stepped forward and wearily saluted.

"Yes, Sir, it's us!" said the scarecrow with the bandage.

Porky and Beany had come back!

CHAPTER XIV

THE TWINS BEGIN THEIR STORY

With scarcely a look at the still trussed-up figures on the deck, Colonel Bright rushed forward, and in a second had the two boys in his arms.

"Please, Colonel, can't we go down to your cabin? I rather guess we are all in." Porky swayed against the Colonel's broad shoulder.

The Colonel beckoned to a couple of his men who were standing near. They dashed forward, and almost carried the exhausted boys down into the Colonel's roomy cabin.

"Not a word now, boys, until we get you comfortable. Are you hungry?"

The boys looked at each other.

"I guess we are starved," Beany managed to pipe in a small voice.

Captain Greene went to the door and gave a quick order. A couple of men got them out of their rags and into fresh pajamas. Then a light meal came in.

Porky heaved a sigh. "I suppose you want to know about it," he said.

The Colonel looked at him.

"No, I don't," he said. "It is enough to get you back. Suppose you try to sleep for awhile."

Porky smiled. "Say, Colonel, that's good of you!" he said. "We are done up a bit, aren't we, Beany?"

Beany did not reply. He was sound asleep, sitting bolt upright on his locker.

"h.e.l.lo there, young fellows," the Colonel said cheerily twelve hours later. "How do you feel after your little nap? Think you could eat a little something?"

"Just try us, sir," said Porky. "Say, Colonel, sir, we have a lot to tell you! May we talk while we eat breakfast?"

"You certainly may," said the Colonel, "but I will have to call Captain Greene. This is his s.h.i.+p, and he has a right to hear anything you have to tell."

Captain Greene came in; the boys did not notice that a shorthand clerk sat just outside the open door.

"Well, in the first place, Colonel, here are your papers. We went back to get them, and we took them with us all in their oil-silk wrapper, but those fellows over there in the submarine tore the oil-silk up. They took the papers, of course, but I got 'em back when we put the bunch to sleep."

"Begin at the beginning, please," said Captain Greene.

"And tell me why you didn't jump when I said, 'Jump,'" demanded the Captain of the Firefly.

"Why, we had to get those papers!" said Porky simply. "I don't think that was insubordination. I knew the Colonel wanted them.

He was so careful of them."

"All right," said the Colonel. "What happened then?"

"Why, the Firefly rolled around for a minute and then she went down. Say, Colonel, were you ever on a sinking s.h.i.+p? We got sucked right in with her. I thought we never would come up. I got out first, and I didn't see Beany, and Gee! I was never so seared in my life. I was just thinking about diving for him when he popped up all out of breath, same as I was. We had to float awhile, we were so used up. Then we happened to look up. We hadn't said a word yet, and there was that submarine. It had come up on the other side of us, between us and where the s.h.i.+p had been. So we couldn't get around to where you must have been in the boats. There was a man on the little top deck place, and he had a boat hook, and first I knew he was sticking for me with that boat hook, just as though I was, somebody's hat lost overboard. He didn't care whether he stuck his old hook into a meat boy or not. I saw he wanted us anyhow; so I said, 'Come on!' to Beany, and swum up the side of the submarine, and clambered onto the little deck, and Beany followed. Mr.

Boy-sticker grunted something at us, and shoved us down the little steep ladder, and there we were in the inside of that submarine!