The Cruise of the Dry Dock/Nerve Versus Gunpowder
CHAPTER XVIII
NERVE VERSUS GUNPOWDER
Fifteen minutes later a dozen men were kicking exhaustedly in the water on the port side of the Vulcan, shouting in urgent voices for ropes. A few were already clambering up the bobstays. There was no reply from the utterly terrorized men on the tug, then came the whiz of missiles thrown through the air.
“Hogan! Mulcher! Galton! Ropes! Give us your ladder!” bawled Madden at the top of his authority.
“Is—is that you, Misther Madden?” chattered Hogan.
“Yes, yes, ropes, before we drown!”
“Was that you shootin' at us over there?”
“They were shooting at us! They hit two or three of us! Hurry!”
“And who's all that wid ye? Faith, the wather's alive wid min!”
“We're the crew of th' Vukan!” “Throw down ropes!” “Shut up and throw down ropes, ye bloody Irishman!” howled an angry chorus.
“Th' crew o' th' Vulcan, and thim all dead, these weeks ago! Sure if it's a lot o' ghosts——”
But others of the crew summoned enough courage to fling down aid to their old comrades, and soon the men came crawling up the dark sides of the tug and dropped limply inboard.
The utmost excitement played over the crew of the dock when they identified the former crew of the Vulcan. The air was full of excited questions and tired answers, but presently the word got out. It was “War.” The news passed from mouth to mouth and grew in portentousness. War! Nations were at war! These men had escaped from a German warship!
It was unbelievable. It was stunning. Presently Caradoc shouted out in the darkness for Malone, Mate Malone. The cockney answered.
“Put your firemen at the furnace! Set your engineers to work on the engines. We must have steam up and be away in an hour!”
The two crews fell into silence, and Malone ordered his men below. Some of the dock's crew hurried off with the others to cut down coal in the bunkers. Another gang fell to work; pulling in the sea anchor. But over all their various activities hovered the vast consternation of war.
Caradoc had climbed to the bridge of the Vulcan and stood staring silently at the bulk of the mother ship that was barely discernible through the night. The searchlight had been switched off. Neither ship showed a signal. From below came the muffled sounds of men working at the furnace, and in five or ten minutes a film of smoke trickled out of the Vulcan's great funnel.
Madden climbed up on the bridge beside Caradoc.
“How long before the submarine will be out?” he asked in a low tone.
“Small boats will come first,” replied Smith. “That's why they shunted off the searchlight—to surprise us.”
“Will they try to board us?”
“Certainly. We'll have to defend ourselves with anything we can pick up, sticks, knives, hand spikes—”
At that moment Malone appeared from the other end of the bridge.
“We'll have steam up in an hour,” he announced, glancing up at the funnel.
“An hour?” thought Madden. “That's time enough for us all to be killed.”
Caradoc said to the mate: “Go forward and tell the men to arm themselves, then take position along the rail to repel boarders. Tell them to look sharp for grappling hooks and throw them down.”
“And what will they arm with, sir?”
“Use anything you can find, hand spikes, knives, sticks. They might throw lumps of coal. A cricket player ought to give a good account with a lump of coal.”
“Very well, sir,” grunted Malone and he hurried down on deck.
A few minutes later the men were scurrying around to their positions. One or two men had gone down for a sack of coal, a queer ammunition that might possibly effect something. On the other hand, Leonard knew the attacking force would come armed with mausers, rapid fire guns, grappling hooks, swords. A onesided fight was brewing.
The American looked anxiously at the funnel; a ribbon of black smoke filtered out into the air.
“Madden,” said Caradoc, “they will make the hardest fight around the anchor ports and amidships. Which position do you prefer to defend?”
“I believe I'll take the forecastle.”
“Good, I wish you luck.”
“Same to you.”
As Madden moved down the ladder to the deck, he heard, above the murmur of the busy men, the strong measured beat of a ship's cutter approaching the tug with deliberate swiftness.
There were some good men stationed to defend the forecastle, Hogan, Mulcher, Greer and two or three of the Vulcan's former crew whom Madden did not know. As the American approached in the gloom, two men came up, laden with sacks, and poured out a pile of coal on deck. Every lump was about the size of a baseball.
Hogan recognized Madden in the darkness. He was exuberant now that he had learned his enemies were human beings and not ghouls.
“Do ye think those Dutchmen will be able to put up a daycent foight, Misther Madden?” he inquired hopefully.
“They have plenty of arms, Hogan.”
“Sure, that'll hilp 'em some. But Oi'm going to knock th' head off the spalpeen that firrust sticks his mug over that rail.”
“Your chance is coming,” said Madden soberly, as he listened to the increasing noise of the oars.
“Now, men,” directed the American, “lie flat down behind the rail and use your sticks and hand pikes to prize off grapnels. They will shoot your hands.”
“Very well, sor,” breathed several voices.
The noise of the oars grew louder until it sounded immediately beneath the defenders. Hogan stood up suddenly, leaned over the rail with a lump of coal in each hand, and threw down viciously. There was a whack as one lump hit the boat, and a grunt as the other struck some man. In return came a terrific crash of rifles, and bullets spattered the iron plates of theVulcan. Fortunately Hogan had flopped down on deck in time.
At that instant, the searchlight of the mother ship swept the Vulcan's deck with startling brilliance. The first volley had perhaps been the signal, and the fight was on.
There came a clanging of grapnels on the rail over the crouching defenders. Madden flung down the one nearest him, but others came flying through the air to take its place. The prostrate men worked busily dislodging the flukes. The fusillade from below prevented their getting on their knees, and they were forced to lie on their backs as they worked at the hooks. It seemed some sort of queer game: the attackers flinging up scaling irons, the defenders flipping them down. Madden had dislodged two or three, when Mulcher cried out for help.
The enemy had succeeded in catching a fluke on the rail, and putting so much weight on it that the cockney could not prize it off. Immediately Hogan and another defender crawled to Mulcher's aid like big lizards. They thrust in sticks and spikes and prized vigorously, while the bullets were drumming on the plates outside.
It stuck and Leonard started to their aid, when a hook in his own territory demanded his attention. Just then a head came up over the rail just above Hogan and Mulcher. The German had turned his automatic on the defenders when Hogan's shillalah caught him on the temple. He reeled backwards, his pistol spitting into the air. He knocked down the whole line of men below him amid crashings, shoutings and splashings in the water below. The moment the weight was off, Mulcher loosed the grapnel and flung it down into the confusion.
The hail of bullets was immediately renewed, and more hooks came flying over. The iron rails rang like a boiler shop, and the steel missiles glanced off whining like enormous mosquitoes. Madden whirled his head for a glance aft.
The same sort of drama was taking place amidship, boarders were climbing over the rail and arms, sticks, and iron spikes snapped out of the inky shadows and smote them. The invaders fired blindly into the darkness that rimmed the deck. As to whether they were killing or maiming Caradoc's crew, Madden could not tell.
One thing, however, he did observe, that aroused an anxious hope in the boy's heart. A heavy column of smoke ascended from the tug's funnel, and a tongue of steam played in its edge.
A frenzy of impatience seized Madden. If the Vulcan could only get under way and escape the fight! Why didn't they start at once! In the vivid light, he saw the steering wheel turning, apparently of its own accord, and he knew that someone was manipulating the hand grips from the bottom side.
From those slight signs of preparation, Madden's attention was suddenly whipped back to his business, by the sight of two figures climbing on over the prow of the Vulcan. These men had no doubt caught a hook in the anchor port and had climbed up without opposition.
The invaders stood clearly limned by the searchlight, trying to pick out a target for their fire, when Madden reached for the coal pile. The American had once been pitcher for his college team, and the lump of coal crashed under the first man's jaw and he dropped backwards as if hit by a piece of shrapnel. The second gunman banged at the shadow where Madden was hid. The bullets sang about the American's ears, when Deschaillon's ostrich-like kick flashed through the light and caught the sailor in the pit of the stomach. The automatic dropped from his hand, and he crimped up like a stuck grubworm.
But while the defenders were occupied with this little flank attack, half a dozen hooks were firmly lodged on the rail, and at least eight men were mounting swiftly. At their head came an officer waving a sword. The firing from below suddenly ceased, lest they hit their own men. In the silence that followed, Madden heard the hiss of rising steam, and from somewhere the tinkle of a bell.
Suddenly out of the shadows, the whole force of the defenders leaped at the Germans and attacked them as they strode over the rail. There was a clattering of revolvers, a thwacking of sticks and iron pins, and the smashing of thrown coal.
Then the combatants grappled hand to hand on the rail of the tug, swinging eerily in and out like wrestlers, a strange sight in the beating searchlight.
Madden closed with the officer, and by good fortune caught his right wrist, so the fellow could not shorten his sword and stab him. The American kept trying to twist the German's arm and make him drop his blade, but the fellow had thrust his left hand under Madden's arm pit and reached up and caught him about the forehead. The result was a back half nelson, and put Madden's neck under a terrific strain.
In return he choked his adversary, but Madden's mastoid muscles slowly gave way before the German's punishing hold. His head bent back, while he clung desperately to the sword hand and crushed in the fellow's gullet. There was a roaring in Madden's ears that was not from the fighting men. His neck and back slowly curved backward under the strain. Had it not been for the menace of the sword, he could have wriggled out with a wrestler's shift, but if he loosed the right hand… Madden wondered if he could fall backwards and still maintain his hold on the sword. If he could ever get down without being stunned by his fall, his strangle hold would give him an immediate advantage. He swung backwards, but the fellow did not go with him, but began a furious struggle to loose his weapon. Madden clung grimly. His whole body dripped with sweat, as he held away the sword and tried to choke the fat neck of his antagonist. He shoved the fellow's throat with all his power, trying to break the nelson, but the pressure jammed his own head back till a hot pain streaked through the base of his skull.
At that moment a tremor ran through the tug, and there came a chough-choughing in her stack. Immediately followed a great shouting and a frantic pelting of grapnels from the sea below. Madden knew that the Vulcan had at last got under steam, and would probably escape. This came to him dimly as his left hand, which had been struggling to fend off the sword, gradually lost its grip on the German's sweaty slippery wrist.
Along up and down the rail, he knew that the men battled with varying results. Came dimly to his roaring ears shouts, groans and blows. In another minute the sword would split his ribs.
A breeze sprang up. The Vulcan was gathering headway.
He was bracing his last efforts against the force that was bending him double, when a long-legged figure rushed from amidship, seized the swordsman around the waist, and with a mighty heave, flung the fellow upward and outward into the sea, falling end over end—a grotesque gyrating figure in the searchlight, still waving his sword.
“Down! Down! Everybody!” yelled Caradoc, as he waded up the rail, overthrowing the last of the boarders.
Madden and the defenders fell prone on the deck, and it was not too soon. The moment the boarding party was definitely repulsed, there broke out a crashing volley from the long boat, and their bullets played a ringing tattoo over the ironwork. Then the tug drew steadily away from their assailants.
The searchlight played over the steamer for several minutes in order to afford a target for the small boats, but the crew lay close, only trusting an eye over the sheer strake now and then for a glimpse of the enemy. Up on the bridge, Leonard could see the steering wheel still turning of its own accord this way and that as the Vulcan gathered speed.
Presently the searchlight was switched off, leaving the deck in utter darkness. The cutters had given up the chase. Leonard sat up on deck and wriggled his sore neck this way and that. He could see nothing now save the stream of sparks that leaped out of the funnel and flowed aft into the black sea.
“Men!” cried Caradoc's voice, “is anyone hurt?”
“A few of us 'ave 'oles punched in us, sor!” came a reply.
“All the wounded will report to Captain Black in the main cabin!” called Smith.
There was a shuffling of feet on deck, as the men passed aft through the darkness.
At that moment, out of the mother ship there flared another bright light that wavered about the horizon for a moment and finally settled on the Vulcan. The wounded men dodged below the rail again, but no bullets came.
This light was not stationary. It crept down through the inky sea toward the fugitives and grew larger and brighter in their eyes.
“W'ot is that?” cried several apprehensive voices.
Caradoc stood erect by the rail, watching this new development.
“Malone,” he called to the man hidden on the bridge, “what speed can this boat make?”
“Hi've got as 'igh as eighteen knots out of 'er, sir.”
“Signal 'full speed ahead' and call down to the firemen for all the steam we can carry.”
“Very well, sir.”
Caradoc looked at the light for a minute or two longer and then remarked to Madden.
“They couldn't have repaired that submarine for several hours longer. They must have had two.”