“SURFACE!”
Dinner was not very tempting to Nelson, probably because he still felt
the effects of his adventure of the night before. Besides, he had eaten
nearly a pint of Cookie’s remarkable oatmeal gruel, which had been like
no other gruel Nelson had ever tasted. The meal consisted of beef stew
and potatoes, bread, pudding and tea. While the variety was not great,
there was plenty of everything. During the meal Nelson got better
acquainted with the crew of the _Q-4_. They averaged, he guessed, about
twenty-two years of age, although one or two were apparently no older
than he and several were in the thirties. He very soon learned that,
just as the destroyer men looked down on the men of the battleships
as mollycoddles, so the submarine men viewed the destroyer crews
with pitying contempt. There was a good deal of interest betrayed in
the fortunes of the other subs, one or two of which were very small
boats and, in the opinion of the _Q-4’s_ men, not able to look after
themselves in a storm like the present. There was also much speculation
as to whether the companion boats had “run it out” or dived. Nelson
gathered that each commander had been free to follow his judgment
as to submerging. One or two of the others were known to have left
the surface and communication had been held with one by means of the
submarine telegraph during the morning.
After dinner Martin went on duty in the torpedo compartment, taking
Nelson with him. The latter spent nearly two hours there, busied part
of the time wiping, while Martin went over the mechanism of a torpedo
and delivered a lecture on the missile. Nelson was initiated into the
mysteries of the tiny four-cylinder engine, the automatic steering
device and the depth gear. In fact, by the time Martin had finished
his discourse Nelson could have passed an examination on the subject
of the Bliss-Leavitt torpedo very creditably. Martin informed him that
the nose contained three hundred pounds of TNT or trinitrotoluol, and
after that Nelson treated the business ends of the torpedoes with great
respect, although Martin assured him that until the butterfly nut on
the protruding tip of the firing pin was off there was no danger. This
nut looked like a miniature propeller, having wings that caused it to
turn in the water and so release the locking gear of the firing pin.
A second safety device was a bolt passing from the outside of the war
head to the firing pin to prevent the latter being moved back against
the percussion cap. Behind the war head was the compressed air tank
by which the propeller at the tail was rotated. When Martin remarked
that the air chamber was at the moment charged with 2,250 pounds of
air Nelson began to wonder if the war head was, after all, the more
dangerous part of the thing! He sincerely hoped that the steel wells
were equal to that pressure of over a ton to each square inch! The
balance chamber mechanism was a bit too much for Nelson, although
Martin patiently tried to make him understand the functions of the
gyroscope and the pendulum control. In the end Nelson mastered the
reason for those devices, but he was hazy as to why they performed the
remarkable stunts attributed to them!
Martin stopped lecturing before he became tiresome and the two boys
talked of less technical things, one of them being home. Perhaps it
would be more exact to say that Martin talked about his home and Nelson
listened. Nelson’s home just then had few attractions for him as a
matter for discourse. They became very well acquainted that afternoon,
and by supper time Nelson, for his part, felt as if the acquaintance
was of years’ standing. Possibly there is something in being in a
watertight cylinder a hundred or more feet below the surface of the
Atlantic Ocean that expedites friendship! At all events, the two boys
got along fast, and Nelson, who had never had a real chum of anywhere
near his own age, was quite breathlessly happy. The afternoon flew by
and it was “grub time” again. Nelson’s appetite was fifty per cent
better than at noon. They had “submarine turkey” for supper, a viand
better known to Nelson as canned salmon, and bread and butter and
apple-sauce――also canned――and enough coffee to float the boat. The
big coffee urn was always simmering and always on tap, and the amount
of the beverage that was consumed during twenty-four hours aboard the
_Q-4_ was awe-inspiring. Some of the men seldom passed the galley that
they didn’t stop and pour a cupful of it down their throats. And, or so
Nelson thought, it wasn’t awfully good coffee at that!
By six bells the air in the submarine had become rather foul, and one
noticed it by an increased drowsiness and an irritated condition of
eyes and throat. In the quarters they began to speak of going up,
and it seemed to Nelson that several of the men showed a distinct
uneasiness, while many who should have been in their bunks remained up.
Nelson found his eyes closing several times and had to move about to
throw off the sleepiness that was creeping over him. About half an hour
later there was a sudden inclination of the submarine as she began to
rise. The sensation was a novel one to Nelson and he cast an alarmed
look at Martin.
“Going up,” said the latter reassuringly. “Come have a look.”
They went to the door leading to the central station and peered
through. But save that the captain was at the motor control and that
the other occupants of the shining, white compartment looked more
alert, the scene was no different than earlier. A petty officer in
front of the depth gauge said distinctly:
“Eighty-five, sir.”
There was silence again. It seemed to Nelson that there was a more
perceptible hum from the end of the passage where the motors were.
The slant from bow to stern was slight, but you realized it when you
walked, and there was a different motion to the boat, less a roll than
a queer side sway. The captain moved a lever in front of him gently.
“Sixty, sir!” announced the officer at the gauge.
“Hold her at fifty,” said the captain.
“Ay-y-y, sir!”
The men at the diving rudder controls moved imperceptibly.
“Fifty-seven! Fifty-five! Fifty-three!”
The captain swung the lever again. The sensation of climbing upward
passed and the submarine rode on an even keel, the men at the wheels
turning them slowly, their eyes on the indicators. The _Q-4_ was in
less quiet water now, for she swung sidewise and dipped fore and aft.
The first officer spoke across the compartment.
“Still at it up there.”
The captain nodded, peered at the gyroscopic compass and turned about.
“We’ll give her another three hours, I think. Pass the word for all
hands off watch to bunk in and get some sleep.”
Nelson climbed into his bunk, after removing boots and jacket, which
was as much as any of the others took off, and did his best to get to
sleep. But, although he couldn’t keep his eyes open save by an effort,
sleep was elusive. He finally fell into a sort of doze during which he
was more than half aware of movement and sound about him and of the
unquiet swinging of the boat. He felt much as he had felt once several
years before when a dentist had given him gas to extract a tooth, sort
of half here and half there, as he expressed it to himself. He dreamed
ridiculous things, although he would have declared afterwards that he
had not been enough asleep to dream. One vivid nightmare, in which he
was astride a torpedo and shooting along the surface of the water at
something like a mile a minute making straight for the towering side
of the biggest dreadnought that human imagination had ever visioned,
brought him awake with a yelp of terror.
“’Tain’t so,” said a sleepy voice from across the passage.
The clock in the central station said _ting-ting, ting-ting, ting!_
Relieved to find that it really wasn’t so, Nelson settled his head
in the crook of his arm again and again closed his eyes. But just as
drowsiness was stealing back he heard from beyond the door the short
command: “Rise!”
It didn’t refer to him, of course, but he obeyed it, curiosity getting
the better of sleepiness. There was a sound of rushing air and water
as the tanks were blown. He tumbled out of the bunk and stole to the
door, doing the last few steps uphill as the submarine began its climb
toward the surface. He was sensible of increased speed. There was a new
man at the depth gauge, a gunner’s mate, and he was calling off the
depths in a gruff voice:
“Forty!... Thirty!... Twenty!...”
Every instant the boat rolled more and more and Nelson clutched the
side of the bulkhead to keep his feet.
“Raise Number Two periscope!”
“Ten!... Five!”
“Surface!”
Instantly a terrific jar and clatter broke forth as the Diesels took up
the task. The submarine wallowed and plunged and quivered. The sudden
change from silence to pandemonium was nerve-shattering and appalling.
Nelson could hear the seas thunder down on the steel deck and rush off,
leaving the submarine staggering. The air already reeked of oil. The
first officer hurried up the ladder to the conning tower, followed by
a seaman. The captain, who had been peering into the eye-piece of the
periscope, swinging it to all points of the compass, turned away.
“Conning tower hatch,” he ordered.
A response came from above, and an instant later Nelson felt the
refreshing air that blew down into the foul depths. The first officer
descended again, a precarious proceeding with the little craft trying
her best to turn upside down.
“Wind about forty, I think, and a bad sea. I could see nothing up
there.”
“Nor I,” replied the captain. He picked up the mouthpiece of a voice
tube. “Collins? Try to get the flagship, please. Stiles, code our
position and ask for orders. Report that we’re recharging batteries and
shall submerge again in about four hours.”
Nelson pulled his boots on with difficulty, rocking about on the bunk,
and had just succeeded when Martin climbed down from above like a
monkey, yawning and blinking, to subside at Nelson’s side.
“We’re up, aren’t we?” he inquired sleepily. “Fine little sea on, I
must say. We’ll have four or five hours of this now while they make
juice. Oh, gee, why did I ever leave home?” He yawned dismally. “This
thing of being a bloomin’ hero isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, Nep.
Listen to that! Sometimes I wish this old sardine can had a double
hull! Wouldn’t you think those seas meant to come right on in and sit
in your lap? Well, no more sleep while we’re dancing around up here,
that’s sure and certain! Say, wouldn’t it be a bully night to get a
torpedo square under the conning tower?”
“Would a torpedo run straight in such a sea?” asked Nelson practically.
“Search me! I suppose not, though. Still, if a U-boat came close enough
and aimed at our broadside――_Bang!_ Good night, everybody!”
“But there aren’t any U-boats way over here, are there?”
“Probably not, though we aren’t so far out of the zone after all. If
you could always tell where those sneaking critters kept themselves
everything would be easy. They’ve got a cute way of being where you
don’t expect them, Nep. Thank goodness, we’re getting air in here at
last. It was sort of fierce when I went by-low.”
“Are they recharging the batteries now?” asked Nelson.
“Suppose so. They’d better be if they aren’t, because first thing
anyone knows one of these little ripples will bust in a few plates and
we’ll be exceedingly wet! Let’s go through and get some coffee.”
Martin didn’t trouble to pull his boots on, but shuffled, staggering
along, to the forward quarters. Most of the men off duty were already
there, which, since a submarine operating on the surface requires but
few men to handle her, means that the forward battery compartment was
crowded from bulkhead to bulkhead. Nelson and Martin plumped in amongst
them, stumbling over a confusion of legs, and subsided on the edge of
a bunk whose occupant, sprawled fully dressed therein, only grunted
as they collided with his ribs. Two or three of the men were singing,
although their voices were scarcely to be heard above the roar of the
engines and riot of the seas, and the cook, looking rather sleepy,
leaned against the stove and strummed imaginary music from a sauce-pan.
“When I first went to sea my father said to me,
‘Jack, keep away from the Submarinery.’
Bottled up tight and sick all night,
I know now that _Dad was right_!”
“Aw, cut it!” begged a miserable voice from an upper bunk.
“Hello, Tim! What cheer?” cried a facetious youth below. There was no
reply to the challenge.
“We’ll all be like that if we stay up here much longer,” grumbled a
tall youth with an incipient mustache and a smear of grease across one
cheek. “Say, where are we, anyhow, fellows? How much further is it to
where we get off?”
“About fifteen hundred miles,” answered someone consolingly. “Or it was
before we got blown all over the shop. Bet you we aren’t any nearer
Ireland than we were this time yesterday!”
“Thought we were going to Queenstown,” said another.
“So we are, you chump. Where do you think Queenstown is?”
“France, of course! Isn’t it?”
There was a laugh at that, and he was informed that unless Ireland
had had another Big Wind Queenstown was still across the Channel
from France. Nelson began to feel squirmy after awhile and, seeing
that Martin was half-asleep, propped up against the bunk frame, he
unobtrusively picked his way through the crowd, aware of surreptitious
smiles, and made his way back to his bunk, narrowly missing a collision
with the junior lieutenant on the way.
The next few hours were most unhappy ones for Nelson. He was just sick
enough to be miserable, and for a long time his efforts to get to sleep
were vain. He finally fell into a restless slumber, however, from which
he was later awakened by a swirling and rushing of water beneath him,
followed after a minute by a gurgling sound that proclaimed the main
tanks filled. He waited for the engines to stop their racket, but,
waiting, he fell asleep again, and when he next awoke the silence was
for a moment quite startling.
“Down again,” he murmured comfortably. “Fine! Nice and quiet!”
Then he really and truly went to sleep.