Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 133, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 June 1916 — One That Was Left [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

One That Was Left

By RONALD JONES

(Copyright, 1916, by W. G. Chapman.) The airship signaled, and the torpedo boat following flew like a bird that skims the surface of the water. Capable of forty knots an hour, she reached the, ocean immediately beneath the aeroplane within three minutes. Ab she ran she saw the little rippling wave thrown back by the submarine. But the airship observer saw the sheath of the periscope beneath him. He was seen. He dropped a bomb. It splashed into the waves, and, silently the ripple of the periscope vanished. The submarine went under. She dived to a depth of a hundred feet, but, high above her, under the surface of the water the aeroplane could see the shadow of tie great fish as she made her way northward. It signaled again. Meanwhile the wireless upon the torpedo boat had been calling, and swiftly a haze of smoke on the horizon developed first into a black wisp, then into the wireless prong, and then into the hull of a second torpedo boat. Swiftly it drew up and the two followed the aeroplane, now fluttering in the distance like a wounded bird. As the two torpedo boats raced side by side a sailor threw a rope from one deck to the other. Here sailors caught it, and soon there followed thicker ropes, then coils of wire, which were wound about a winch and slowly unfastened. Finally the net was dropped over the side and thp two boats steamed together, keeping it between them. The captain of each torpedo boat was a young man. Each of them had

a sweetheart; each was thinking, even then, of his approaching marriage. The commander of the submarine was thinking, in his peril, of the home that he was never likely to see again, and of the aged mother who prayed for him every day before the crucifix in her room. The observing officer of the aeroplane had a dozen sweethearts, and he expected to have a dozen more if he lived through the war. He did not intend to marry any of them. The boats steamed on, guided by the aeroplane, which was drawing nearer. The submarine, beneath, did not know whether it was visible or not; it did not know of the net that was following If, and it turned and made toward its own coast. This gave the torpedo boats their opportunity. At a signal from the airship they dropped the net and reversed engines. The submarine, feeling its blind way along the bottom of the sea, found itself suddenly impeded. The commanderknew what that meant. He strove to rise, but the steel coils fastened themselves about him. His nose, tilting upward at an angle, rose to near the surface. He shut off his electric engines, intending to use the petrol ones for surface driving. But he could not quite reach the surface, and the periscope, tilted backward, allowed no glimpse of anything except the far horizon. Across the glass the image of the aeroplane kept flitting to and fro, like a swooping gull. The bow of the submarine was pointing in th£ direction of one of the torpedo boats. He issued an order, find two of his crew ran to the torpedo station. They drew a torpedo from the slings and thrust it into the chamber. At the same instant a bomb from the aeroplane grazed the side of the ves~sel and threw a cloud of water over it. The oxygen hissed, the torpedo started, and the submarine rocked from the recoil like a tree in a gale. An instant later the missile, directed blindly, found its billet. With a frantic roar the first torpedo boat blew up. Fifty sailors were instantly struggling in the water.. The steel net went down with the ship, and the submarine, partly'freed, reached the surface. The commander rah to the turret i_ ' (

and, opening the breech of the little gun she carried, thrust tn a shell. The layer at his side fired. The shell hissed through the air and found lodgment in the second torpedo boat. Instantly a gun on the torpedo boat answerod —and missed. Down went the submarine, freeing herself from the clinging net, and started beneath the water, her periscope swishing through the waves. The aeroplane circled above her, and the torpedo boat, having lowered a small craft to pick up the struggling sailors of the wrecked ship, started on the pursuit again. The sailors were mostly rescued, except the captain. He had stayed on the bridge to the end. His body had gone down in the wreckage. As the torpedo boat raced through the water in the wake of the periscope she fired again and again. Three shells fell short, three went too far. The seventh shell struck the periscope fairly and tore it away. The submarine’s eye was gone. She was blind. Instantly she rose, with a brief delay while changing engines. In that delay the torpedo boat was upon her. The eighth shell pierced the thin hull like paper. It made two gaping holes, one on either side. The submarine was doomed.

The commander, at the gun, adjusted his sights, allowing for the list of the sinking ship, and fired. The shell burst in the engine room of the torpedo boat, disabling her. She drifted helplessly upon, the water. The submarine was going down by the stern. The commander called through the tube to the men in the torpedo room. One more torpedo was left of the store which had been brought from port. The commander, at the wheel, worked frantically to bring the bow in line with the disabled torpedo boat five hundred yards away. If he could get that line before his vessel sank, the torpedo boat waa doomed. Upon tlie bridge of the torpedo boat the captain waited. He could not move his vessel, which drifted aimlessly upon the tide. He could swing her from side to side by working the wheel; he tried to keep her bow on to the submarine, so as to present the smallest possible target. The two ships watched each other, and the aeroplane, above, watched both. She had one bomb left. She circled lower and lower, describing narrowing circles above the sinking submarine. At last she dropped her bomb.

It crashed through the turret, killing one man. That was the commander. It tore a hole through the bottom of the submarine, which went down instantly, carrying her living freight to the bed of the ocean. But in that moment the torpedo, sent fairly home, blew the torpedo boat to atoms. g She disappeared, and only a few pieces of wreckage remained to show where she had been. Here and there a sailor clung, but the captain was gone, to join his fellow captain, under the sea. The aeroplane, left alone, turned and flew leisurely homeward. There was nothing that could be done. An old woman in a German town, prayed before a crucifix: “God, bring my sailor son home to me.” Two girls in English villages wept for the perils of their sweethearts upon the sea. The observer of the aeroplane, who had nobody to weep for him, was thinking of his week’s promised leave in London. «

He Dropped a Bomb.