Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/118

 to the south, tore up the sea where the Ribot's shells were splashing.

"The torpedo's started by this time," Gerry Hull said. "Two of 'em, probably, if the Huns had two left."

Others about Ruth on the deck of the Ribot realized that; and the commander of the Starke recognized it too. Ruth saw the leaping form of the destroyer veer suddenly and point straight at the spot in the sea where the U-boat had thrust up its periscope. This presented the narrow beam of the destroyer, instead of its length, for the torpedo's target; but still Ruth held breath as on the Starke came.

Gerry Hull had thrust his wrist from his sleeve and, as they stood waiting, he glanced down again and again to his watch. "Passing—past!" he muttered to himself while he counted the time. "The torpedoes have missed," he announced positively to Ruth at last.

The commander of the Starke evidently thought so too; for the length of his boat began to show again. His guns had ceased firing; and the Ribot's rifles also were silent. The destroyer, veering still farther to the right, was dashing now almost at right angles to its former course.

"They're going to cross the course of the Hun," Gerry Hull explained this also to Ruth, "and give'em an 'ashcan,' I suppose—a depth charge, you know," he added.

"I know," Ruth said. She had read, at least, of the tremendous bombs, filled with the new explosive "T. N. T.," which the U-boat hunters carried and which they dropped with fuse fixed to burst far below the surface. One of these bombs, in size and shape near enough to "ashcans" to win the nickname, was powerful enough