COMING UP IN A TIGHT PLACE
"Sulks are no part of real manhood. Your sullen fellow is seldom, or
never, one you can tie to in trouble."
Though at first they felt some spirited resentment against the very
plain suspicions of Lieutenant Commander Mayhew, it was not long before
both the victims of the queer work of the night before began to see
that there was an abundance of reason and good sense in the naval
officer's belief and attitude.
"There's only one thing we can do, Hal," proposed Jack. "That is, to
show Mr. Mayhew, by long-continued good action, that we're just the
sort of fellows our friends believe us to be."
"Mr. Mayhew doesn't know us," Hal assented. "To a stranger our yarn
does have a fishy sound."
"If it weren't for the restriction against our going ashore," hinted
Jack, "we'd certainly hustle to land and find out all we could about
that fellow Curtis since he has been living in Blair's Cove."
"I'm under no promise, or orders, either," bristled Eph, ready to do
battle for his friends. "I can go on shore."
"No, you can't, Eph!" negatived Jack, with decision. "_You_ might be the
very next one to get into a big scrape. Then how would things look for
the whole of us?"
"Humph! I'd have my eyes open," grunted Somers.
"We thought we had ours open," smiled Hal Hastings.
"No one of our crowd will go ashore, unless ordered there by Mr. Mayhew,"
declared Benson, with emphasis. "We're not taking another solitary
chance."
"We've got all we can do to take our present medicine," muttered Hal,
making a wry face.
But they _did_ take it, and, as is always the case, with benefit to
their general sense of discipline. In fact, when ordered aboard the
gunboat, before eight o'clock the next morning, Jack Benson and Hal
Hastings, in their best uniforms, and looking as natty as could be,
appeared quite the ideal of young submarine officers.
Passing scores of cadet midshipmen, they were ushered into Lieutenant
Commander Mayhew's cabin. Doctor McCrea, the gunboat's surgeon, sat
with the commanding officer.
"I was anxious to see how you looked this morning," smiled Mr. Mayhew,
as the two naval officers rose. "How do you feel? Thoroughly
clear-headed and steady?"
"We feel fine, sir," Jack answered.
"They look in the pink of condition," agreed Doctor McCrea.
"If you don't feel wholly up to the mark," urged Mr. Mayhew, "say so.
For, if you put out to-day, it is my intention to take the cadets
through drills below the surface."
Jack's eyes sparkled at the thought. This meant that he and Hal were
to be taken back fully into the confidence of the Navy!
"We're ready, sir--ready at the word of command."
"Very good, then," replied the gunboat's commander. "You will receive
sixteen of our young men on board within an hour. Ensign Trahern will
come with them."
Jack started, flushing.
"Oh, you will be in command of your boat, Mr. Benson," continued Mr.
Mayhew, noting the start and interpreting it correctly. "Mr. Trahem
may make some suggestions, if he thinks them necessary, but you will
command, sir, and you will instruct the midshipmen."
"Thank you, sir."
"That is all, Mr. Benson."
Jack and Hal saluted, turned and left the cabin.
"That's not as bad as it might be, is it?" queried Hastings, as soon as
they were back on board the "Farnum."
"We're on probation," smiled Jack. "It's all we can expect, I suppose."
In due time the section of naval cadets came on board. Mr. Mayhew was
also thoughtful enough to send a naval machinist to take the place of
Sam Truax in the engine room. Thus Hal had two men to look after the
motors and other machinery under his direction, leaving Eph at Jack's
more personal orders.
"The lieutenant commander sends you word, with his compliments," reported
Ensign Trahern, "that, after leaving the bay, the formation will be as
usual. The signal to halt and be ready for the tour of instruction
will be given when we are about ten miles off the coast, due East."
"Mr. Trahern, will it not be a good idea to have the midshipmen manage
the deck wheel and engine room signals, each in turn, on the way out
and back?" inquired the young submarine skipper.
"Excellent, I should say," nodded the ensign. "But that is as you
direct, Mr. Benson. I am not here to interfere with your acting in full
charge of the instruction tour."
Six of the cadets, of the engineer division, being below in the engine
room, there were but ten on the platform deck. Jack selected one of
the latter, ordering him to the deck wheel.
"You will take charge, Mr. Surles," instructed Jack. "Assume all the
responsibilities of the officer of the deck."
When the starting order came from the gunboat, just before the "Hudson"
glided ahead in the lead, Mr. Surles gave the order to cast loose
from moorings. The engine room bell jangled; Surles, for the first
time in his life, was watch officer of a submarine torpedo boat.
As they left the bay behind, the young man gave up his temporary post
to a comrade. In all, five of the midshipmen commanded, briefly,
before the laying-to signal was given out at sea.
Hal Hastings now appeared on deck, gravely saluting.
"Captain Benson," he stated, "I have inspected all the submerging
machinery, the tanks, the compressed air apparatus, and all, and find
everything in good order. We can go below the surface at any moment."
Two or three of the naval cadets smiled broadly at hearing the title
bestowed on a boy younger than many of themselves.
"No levity, gentlemen," broke in Ensign Trahern, rather sternly. "Mr.
Benson is captain to his own chief engineer."
Jack waited until he saw the signal flags break out at the foretop of
the "Hudson." It was an inquiry as to whether he was prepared for
diving.
"Yes," signaled back the "Farnum's" flags.
"Dive at will, but keep to a due east or west course. Be careful to
avoid collision with the sister craft," came the next order from the
parent boat.
"All below!" ordered Benson, crisply.
Ensign Trahern waited until the last of the cadets had filed below, then
followed them. Last of all came Jack Benson, after having lowered the
short signal mast and made other preparations. Now he stepped inside
the conning tower, swiftly making all fast. Then he called Midshipman
Surles up the stairway to the tower wheel.
"Do you think you can head due east, and keep to that course under water,
Mr. Surles?" asked the young submarine instructor.
"Yes, sir."
"Take the wheel, then. I will send two more men up here to observe
with you."
Stepping down to the cabin floor, Jack chose two more midshipmen,
ordering them up into the tower.
"The rest of you will crowd about me, as I handle the submerging
machinery," called Jack, raising his voice somewhat. "Ask any
questions you wish, at appropriate times."
"I thought, sir," spoke up one of the middies, "that you controlled
the diving apparatus from the conning tower."
"It can be done there, when the officer in charge of the boat is up
there," Jack answered. "The diving, and the rising, may be controlled
at this point in the cabin. Mr. Hastings, give us eight miles ahead
from the electric motors."
"Yes, sir," came the word from Hal.
"Pass the word to Mr. Surles to keep to the course," added Benson.
Under the impetus from the electric motors, which were used when going
under water, the propeller shafts began to throb.
"We're going down, now, gentlemen," called Jack. "Observe the shifting
record on the depth gauge, as we go lower and lower. Also, look out
for your footing, for we dive on an inclined plane. Now--here we go!"
The next instant they shot below, going down at so deep an angle that
it made many of the middies reach for new footing.
"The gauge registers sixty feet below," announced Jack Benson, in a
tone to be heard above the murmurs of some of the young men. "Now--!"
In another moment, by the quick flooding of some of the compartments
astern, the young skipper brought the boat on an even keel.
"Someone ask the men up in the tower how far they can see through the
water," proposed Jack.
"Can't see a blessed thing," came down the answer. "Except for the
binnacle light over the compass we might think ourselves at the bottom
of a sea of ink."
"That's one of the peculiarities of submarine boating," explained Jack
Benson. "A good many land-lubbers imagine we use powerful searchlights
to find our way under water, but a light powerful enough to show us
twenty feet ahead of our own bow hasn't yet been made by man. So, when
you dive beneath the surface, you simply have to go it blind. As a
result, you take your bearings and guess your distance before you dive.
That guess is all you have to go upon in judging where to come up to
strike at an enemy's hull. But that guess can be made with splendid
accuracy when you understand your work well enough."
After having finished the prescribed distance under water, Captain Jack
turned on the compressed air to expel the water gradually from the
compartments. So easily was this done that there was no real
sensation of rising. Suddenly the conning tower appeared above water.
There was a quick rush upward for the platform deck. None of these
middies ever having been below before, in a submarine boat, several of
them had been on tenterhooks of anxiety. Not one of them, however,
by word or gesture had betrayed the fact.
Two minutes later the "Pollard" emerged from the water, several hundred
yards away. Those on the deck of the "Farnum" had a splendid view of
the other boat's emerging performance.
Now, other sections of cadets were transferred from the gunboat to
the two submarines, and the trips below surface proceeded.
The last section of all to go aboard the "Farnum" had just finished
their first experience under water, when the gunboat signaled:
"'Farnum,' take a half-hour's run below the surface, then come back
above surface."
"That will be a longer experience than I have yet had for one time,"
remarked Mr. Trahern, with a smile, as he interpreted the signal to
Captain Jack.
"We have run for hours below, with safety, sir," Benson answered.
Two minutes later the section of middies that had just come up from a
brief trip under water were below again.
"I think you'll find, gentlemen, that it will seem like the longest half
hour you can remember," announced young Captain Benson. "My friends
and I have spent many long hours under the surface, though we have
never yet gotten over the terrible monotony of such a trip.
Twenty-four hours under, I think, would make a lunatic of the bravest
or the most stolid man."
As they ran along, in the silence and the darkness, the young midshipmen
began to look curiously at one another.
"Did you misunderstand the time, Mr. Benson?" asked one of the
midshipmen, at last. "It's surely more than a half hour since we made
the last dive."
"Almost twelve minutes," Jack corrected, quietly.
"Whew-ew-ew!" whistled several of the naval cadets. Not one of them
was a coward, yet, in their experience, the thought that they had put
in barely more than a third of the ordered time under water made some
of them fidget.
"Say, this gives us some idea how long a whole hour would be," remarked
one of the midshipmen.
"Stop that man from talking," jibed another severely.
Jack had most of the time clear for instruction, after that, as few of
the young men cared to talk. But at last another ventured to inquire:
"How much of the time is gone?"
"Nineteen minutes," Benson answered, after a look at his watch.
"O-o-o-oh!" The response came in a chorus that sounded like a protest.
Then passed what seemed like an eternity of seconds. All the time the
electric motors ran, almost noiselessly. The slight tremor imparted
to the craft by the propeller shafts seemed like an ominous rumbling.
Jack's voice had ceased. No one felt like talking. From time to time
Skipper Jack glanced at his watch; his face, expressionless, gave no
clue to the eagerly watching naval cadets. But at last young
Benson's hand reached toward the compressed air apparatus.
"A-a-a-ah!" It was meant for a cheer, but it sounded more like a groan.
Up above, in the tower, the midshipman bending over the compass,
suddenly realized that daylight was filtering down through the water.
In another instant the midshipman glanced up to find the tower above
the surface.
Yet Cadet Midshipman Osgoodby gasped as though he had intended to
scream instead. For, right ahead, her great bows looming up in the
path of the little submarine, was a big liner, coming straight toward
them!