The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet

ght the little craft got under way, wi

me," confided Jack to his chum, as the

Ted. "I only hope we are going ove

ook it for granted they now were on their way to Europe to join the great American fleet and battle with the Imperial German Navy for t

t had sized up, the situation one evening when he and the Brighton recruits had been

is time and were always together in their leisure moments. Temperamental Jean Cartier, the smiling little Frenchman who had shipped aboard the

ion and stood to his post of duty grimly conscious of the serious business upon whic

Brighton, was stirred out

way over under our own power, or

read in the papers early in the war of a bunch of submarines put together in the St. Lawrence River going a

es small enough to be carried on the decks of huge liners had been able to cross the Atlantic alone and unaided. They had been still further amazed by the feats

vers of the American fleet. The sea was calm and the Dewey cruised on the surface, with her hatches open. The boys were able to s

iscern many other warships all about them. Far to port, strung out in single file about a half mile apart, were three huge liners that they took to be troopships. Deployed around them were dest

. When they climbed up through the forward hatch again after breakfast it wa

ers and learned that he was to report to the Vice-Admiral in the North Sea. Word had been passed around to the ship's officers and they in turn were

ard the Dewey. While it was generally known that the German high seas fleet was bottled up in the Kiel Canal, there was always a chance of running into a stray raider. But

of regiments of marines and several detachments of U.S. Regulars bound for France. Because the

war zone when, late one afternoon, there came a sharp c

o points off

ailed in the same gun crew, had just come on duty at the forward gun.

h dense black clouds of smoke under forced draft that the boys divined instantly as

den transports the Dewey drew away in

and the crew scrambled down through the hatches. In a few minutes, driving a

w heard a shout fro

t McClure, as he stood with his

ead at the smoke curtain. P

, in response to the guidance o

om the rear. To all intents, the German commander had not yet noted the approaching American submersible. He was going a

on deck, carrying shells for their guns. Jack and Ted followed Mike Mowrey on deck and dropped into

iscope," ordered

wey's range-finder, and apparently yet unconscious of the proximity of th

der McClure had jumped up on the conning tower and was hugging

ed. "Elevate just a little more

n crew leape

g to submerge!" yelled the young lieutenant

"crack" that boded ill for any luckless human who m

McClure an instant later as he peere

he crest of the sea as though wiped out comp

; you ripped off that

th an air o

out a message of good cheer to the American fleet. It was only too evident that the enemy U-boat h

s?" chattered Bill Witt joyously. "If they just let us loos

y was in g

bass hook," he said jauntily, imitating with a

glish Channel. Now every few hours the American warships were speaking one or other of the English and French patrol sh

w's blood tingle like the Stars and Stripes; eh, chum?" queried Jack, as he surv

tish destroyers are known in the slang of the sea--slipped off silently into the twilight. The American infantry an

in the trenches befor

tzes," snapped Bill Witt with a

and a French vessel of the same type were to escort the Yankee subs the rest of the way. By morning the Dewey h

were detailed for duty in the vast arena stretching down the Strait of Dover northward

nkee submersible rested in the English naval station at Chatham, told of a daring raid by German light cruisers on the east coast of England only the night before. Eluding

a show of irony as he read the meager dispatch in the

ea, she ran plumb into a huge warship. The little submarine had taken a position about twenty miles directly

message from the wireless room. The Dewey was floating in twenty feet of water with only her periscopes, protruding

rew was sound

he muffled cry ran