“All right,” O’Shay conceded. “Attack on the surface.”
“Reduce to half speed!” Condon ordered. The motor stopped straining, and the boat stopped shaking. He watched through the periscope, controlling their drift with skillful twists of the horizontal and vertical rudders. “Prepare to surface.”
“What’s that noise?”
The Royal Navy veterans exchanged puzzled glances.
“Is something wrong with the motor?” asked O’Shay.
“No, no, no. It’s in the water.”
The crew stood still, ears cocked to a strange, high-pitched whine that grew louder and shriller by the second.
“A ship?”
Condon spun the periscope, searching the river. The engineer voiced what his shipmates were thinking.
“It doesn’t sound like any ship I ever heard.”
“Down!” Condon shouted. “Take her down.”
“WHERE DID HE GO?” Lowell Falconer gasped. To Isaac Bell’s astonishment, the bloodied Navy captain had dragged himself topside, where Bell was driving Dyname toward the Brooklyn Bridge at thirty knots.
“Dead ahead,” said Isaac Bell. He had one hand on the steam lever, the other gripped the helm. “Is that tourniquet doing its job?” he asked, not taking his eyes from the river.
“I’d be dead if it weren’t,” Falconer snapped through gritted teeth. He was white from loss of blood, and Bell doubted he would be conscious much longer. The effort to climb the few steps to the bridge must have been herculean. “Who’s in the engine room?” Falconer asked.
“Uncle Darbee claims he was coal stoker on the Staten Island Ferry, and assistant engineer when the regular fellow got drunk.”
“Dyname burns oil.”
“He figured that out when he couldn’t find a shovel. We’ve got plenty of steam.”
“I don’t see the Holland.”
“It’s gone up and down. I saw the periscope a moment ago. There!”
The stubby conning tower broke the surface. The hull itself emerged briefly and rolled back under.
“Tide’s battering him,” muttered Falconer. “It’s ebbing under a full moon.”
“Good,” said Bell. “We need all the help we can get.”
Dyname streaked through the patch of roiled water. The submarine was nowhere to be seen. Falconer tugged at Bell’s sleeve, whispering urgently, “He’s some sort of A-Class Royal Navy Holland-triple our tonnage. Look out, if he surfaces. He’ll be faster on his main engine.” With that warning, the captain slid unconscious to the deck. Bell throttled back and turned the speeding yacht around until it was pointing upstream again. He was several hundred yards beyond the Brooklyn Bridge now, scanning the water in the failing light.
A ferryboat pulled abruptly from its Pine Street Pier, cut off a big Bronx-bound Pennsylvania Railroad ferry, and raced up the East River. Their wakes combined to render vast stretches of water too choppy for Bell to distinguish the periscope from breaking seas. He drove into the chop and circled. Suddenly he saw it far ahead. It had trailed behind the ferries, masked by them, and was pulling abreast of the navy yard.
The Holland submarine burst from the water, revealing her conning tower and the full hundred feet of her hull. Blue smoke spewed. Gasoline exhaust, Bell realized, from her powerful main engine. On the surface now, she was a full-fledged torpedo boat, quick and nimble.
But vulnerable.
Bell shoved the steam lever forward, seizing this precious chance to ram her. But even as the steel yacht gathered speed, the long Holland heeled into a tight turn and pointed straight at Dyname. Her bow reared. Bell saw the dark maw of an open bow tube. From it leaped a Mark 14 Wheeler torpedo.
55
THE TORPEDO SUBMERGED.
Isaac Bell could only guess whether to steer left or right. He could not see the torpedo bearing down on him underwater. Nor whether it was veering left or right. Whatever wake it trailed was erased by the heavy chop. Dyname was one hundred feet long and ten feet wide. The instant he turned, he would present a bigger target broadside. If he guessed wrong, the TNT warhead would blow the yacht to pieces. O’Shay would submerge to reload at leisure and continue his attack.