TRAPPED IN THE DIVING BELL
Jay Thacker and Dick Monaghan, together with their friend Larry
Seymour, took to the new diving ship of the Bridgeford Salvage Company
like the proverbial ducks to water. Starting with their first trip the
day they reclaimed a binnacle lamp from the deck of the lost submarine
chaser E-70, they showed a ready aptitude for the work at hand and soon
proved themselves adepts.
News of the _Jules Verne's_ accomplishments had been flashed to all
corners of the world and maritime engineers were much interested. Many
of them came to inquire into her merits and were well pleased after an
inspection of the twin craft.
Usually Jay and Dick worked together in the diving chamber. At times
they had little to do except to keep an eye upon things generally.
Upon these occasions they had ample opportunity to discuss their own
personal affairs, and so naturally fell into talk about the new
college year. Both were anxious to make the 'varsity football team for
one thing and they were wondering how many of the old boys would be
back and what the chances would be for turning out a championship team.
The gridiron sport was their favorite.
"Wonder if Bob Greer and Chick Wharton will be back?" speculated Jay,
recalling that it was a great game the pair had won through their
individual efforts in the last game they had played for Brighton just
before enlisting for the war.
"Yes, and I hope Jack Hammond and Ted Wainwright are on hand, too,"
replied Dick, recalling two of his best chums who had enlisted early in
the Navy and gotten into the submarine service.
One day in early August the boys had gone down in the _Nautilus_ to
place a bomb under the deck of a coal barge that had been located that
morning. More than two thousand tons of coal were to be reclaimed and
the boys realized they would come in for a good premium on the job,
which meant a lot to them, in view of their anxiety to get together as
much of a pile as possible before college opened in the fall.
Larry Seymour as usual was in charge of the big centrifugal pump--the
"All Day Sucker," as the crew had termed the old pump with which coal
cargoes were raised.
Everything was working fine. Without a hitch the _Nautilus_ was dropped
in the Sound by the _Jules Verne_ until the access tube lay like the
hypotenuse of a huge right-angled triangle that had the _Jules Verne_
for its upper apex and the bottom of the sea for its base.
Casting about over the deck of the barge, Jay, who was really the
executive officer of the diving chamber with Dick as his assistant,
found a suitable spot for a base of operations. Quickly the aquascope
of the _Nautilus_ was rolled back and the waters of the Sound lapped at
the edges of the trap door.
It was necessary only to make an opening large enough to insert the
time bomb that Jay had brought down from the _Jules Verne_. This was
but the matter of a few seconds' work. While Jay worked at the opening
Dick arranged the mechanism of the time clock. His knowledge of and his
predilection for mechanics made him an expert at this kind of business.
"She's all ready," he told Jay in a few minutes.
"And I'm all ready for you, too, chum," came the reply.
Together they lowered away with their legs through the aquascope until
they stood on the deck of the barge. They were in water up to their
knees, while the rest of their bodies were safe and dry within the
enclosure of the _Nautilus_. Carefully the bomb was inserted and so
held that it would be most likely to rip open a good-sized hole in the
deck when it exploded.
"Let's go, chum," counseled Jay as they completed this final phase of
their immediate task. So saying they crawled back into the _Nautilus_
and while Dick attended closing and making fast again the aquascope,
Jay turned to the telephone to tell Larry they were ready to be raised
again.
"You set that bomb to go off soon, didn't you?" called Jay to his chum,
as he took down the telephone receiver.
"Yep, in seventeen minutes--just at one-thirty sharp," answered Dick.
To which Jay nodded in approval and then turned to the telephone.
"Raise away, Larry; we're all set down here and anxious to get out of
the way."
In the small chamber of the _Nautilus_ both boys could hear the voice
at the other end of the wire when the one holding the receiver kept it
slightly removed from his ear.
"Will take you up in two minutes," came the reply from Larry on the
deck of the _Jules Verne_.
The two minutes went by, but so far as the boys could tell the
_Nautilus_ was not in motion. The depth dial still showed a submergence
of eighty feet, the distance to the deck of the coal barge.
"Must have forgotten us," mused Jay as he stepped again to the
telephone.
"Your two minutes are up and we are still waiting, Larry; better hurry
it up."
There was a pause, and then came the voice of Larry from the other end:
"Cap wants to know whether you have set your time bomb and when it is
to go off."
"All set to go off at half-past one--in just a quarter of an hour," was
Jay's rejoinder.
Jay turned from the telephone with the statement to his chum that the
air pump of the _Jules Verne_ was working none too well and that the
chief engineer, with Cap Austin, was trying to find out what was the
matter.
"Well, all I've got to say is they better get it working before very
long or you and I are in danger of being blown up when that bomb goes
off in the coal barge directly underneath us," suggested Dick. He was
not exactly an alarmist; but the situation had possibilities that did
not appear at all inviting.
"You forget there is another way for us to be raised," was Jay's
come-back.
Dick had forgotten for the moment.
"You forget that when the air pump fails the _Nautilus_ is raised by
steel cables. Deckmen wind us up with those huge winches that stand
well forward on the _Jules Verne_ near the hatchway leading to the
access tube."
"Sure enough!" exclaimed Dick. This secondary method had quite escaped
his memory for the present. Reassured, the boys put fear out of their
minds and awaited developments.
Five minutes sped by, and still nothing happened. Going to the
telephone Jay asked again how they were getting along above.
"Gee, pal, I'm sorry, but they don't seem to be making much headway as
yet," came Larry's reply.
As Jay listened he could tell that Captain Austin was talking to
Larry. He could hear him mention the word "bomb."
"Cap says it don't look like as though we could get the pump going in a
hurry, so he is going to take no chances and will haul you up with the
cables," sang out Larry in return.
"All right, let 'er go, for the love of Mike!" yelled Jay.
Time was indeed getting short. In ten minutes more the bomb in the
coal barge would go off. There was nothing else to do. Either the
_Nautilus_ had to be raised at once or the time bomb in the coal barge
had to be disengaged to avert what might prove to be a disaster for
the two Brighton boys. Since the air pump was out of commission it
was impossible for the boys to go out through the air-lock into the
access tube. There was no way to swing back the heavy doors with the
compressed air cut off.
Neither could the ballast tanks under the _Nautilus_ and the access
tube be blown out so long as the air pump on the _Jules Verne_ was out
of commission.
In this extremity the cables were the only means of lifting the
_Nautilus_ out of the depths. The men must be working now, for it was
some job to wind the winches by hand, and progress through the water
would be so much slower than if the diving chamber were "trimmed" in
the regular way.
Jay and Dick were not cowards. They had proved that a number of times
in school and while they served in the Navy abroad during the war. Each
youth had proved his gameness on more than one occasion. So in the
present extremity they were far from flabbergasted at the failure of
the air apparatus on the mother ship just after they had placed a time
bomb in the coal barge. Cool and collected they awaited developments.
Each was a quick-witted lad and could be counted on to make the best of
any situation.
Finally the telephone bell rang. Jay wrenched off the receiver. Larry
was talking like a phonograph in high gear.
"Bad news, fellows. Just as they were winding for the first heavy pull
on the cables the right main cable on the under side of the access
tube snapped clean in two. The whole system of cables is put out of
business. Cap says----"
At this juncture Captain Austin leaped forward and took up the
telephone.
"How much time have you got until your bomb goes off, boys?" he called
down the tube, quietly and without any show of apprehension.
Jay eyed his watch for a second.
"Not more than five minutes," came Jay's even reply.
"There's only one thing to do," the Captain told him in reassuring
tones. "Our pump has gone back on us and the steel cables have parted
on us--a combination of hard luck that would not happen once in a
thousand years. Can you get your bomb back in any way and detach it?"
Jay said they would try, and turned toward his chum. "It's our only
chance now, Dick," he told him.
Together they flung back the aquascope to grapple for the bomb they had
set under the deck of the coal barge. But to their horror and dismay
they found that the tide had swung the _Nautilus_ slightly away from
the opening in the barge--at least three or four feet!