The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers | Page 2

Where an officer would be justified --even duty
bound -- by navy standards to run away with a bigger and more
valuable vessel, the commander of a destroyer often must close in to
almost certain annihilation."
"Hm-m-m," said Frank slyly. "You are not feeling a bit proud of
yourself, are you?"
"Oh, I'm not talking about myself," said Jack quietly. "I was thinking of
a man like Captain Ames -- and other men of his caliber. However, I've
been pretty close to death myself, and having come as close to a fellow
as death did to me, I believe he'll become discouraged and quit. Yes, sir,
I don't believe I shall ever die afloat."
"Don't be too cock-sure," said Frank dryly. "However, proceed."
"Well," Jack continued, "I followed Captain Ames aboard the Falcon
and we put to sea immediately. It was the following night the, we found
ourselves mixed up in the German mine fields and so close to the
fortress itself that we were in range of the land batteries as well as the
big guns of the German fleet. Our main fleet came far behind us, for the
big ships, of course, would not venture in until we had made sure of the
position of the mines."
"Right," said Frank. "I can see that -"
"Look here," said Jack, "who's telling this story?"
"You are," said Frank hastily. "Go ahead."
"All right, but don't interrupt me. As I said, we'd been searching mines

for the battleships. Better to lose a dozen or two of us little fellows than
one of the dreadnoughts, so we steamed ahead like a fan with nets
spread and a sharp lookout. We lost a few craft by bumping mines, but
we destroyed a lot of the deadly things by firing into the fields and
detonating them.
"We could generally tell when we were getting close to a field, which
at this point was protected by the land batteries, for the batteries would
redouble their fire. Might better have saved their powder and let us run
into the fields and be blown to bits, you will say. Not at all. They would
consider that a waste of good mines. Nobody wants to waste a whole
mine on a poor little torpedo boat destroyer -- and twenty to forty men.
There's no profit in that.
"We were sneaking along slowly, feeling our way and sitting on the
slippery edge of eternity when the batteries opened up.
"'We're getting warmer,' said Ames.
"It was close range work and we were able to reply to the fire of the
land batteries with our little 3-inch beauties, although I don't suppose
we did much good. It makes a fellow feel better, however, as you know,
if he's barking back. It's funny how most men have a dread of dying
without letting the other fellow know why he's there. It doesn't seem so
bad when you're hammering him.
"Anyway, it was part of our business.
"There was a bunch of red buoys anchored along one side where our
chart showed the channel to be, and we supposed that they had been
used by the German destroyers as channel buoys or to mark mine
fields.
"It developed that the Germans had anchored those buoys and got the
range of them so they could have their guns already set for anything
that came near them. Some of our boats were hit by the first fire. It was
a desperate spot.

"We were up near the lead and we had to run fairly well in advance of
the main body. As you know, it often happens that when a vessel is
steaming head-on very fast, it is difficult to hit her. It seems to rattle the
gunners the same as charging infantry does the defenders.
"Shell after shell missed, but there were so many of them falling around
us that we were almost smothered in the spray. We had all been under
fire before, so it didn't have much effect on us, though.
"Then a shell hit us amidships and tore out one of our boilers. I was on
the bridge with Captain Ames at the time.
"'Go below and report,' said Ames, just as calmly as though we were at
maneuvers and one of our piston rods was pounding a little.
"I went down into a cloud of steam and found two men, pretty well
scalded, dragging out the others who had been more badly hurt by the
explosion. There wasn't enough of the water tight compartment left to
shut it off from the rest of the vessel, but we still had one boiler intact.
"I directed the men to carry the wounded above and started back for the
bridge. Just as my feet were on the bottom of the ladder there was