But the inventor’s inaction did not last for long. Like the workmen,
he also started to run, but instead of his flight being away from the
shed, it was toward it. The three man-o’-wars-men followed close at his
heels.
As they neared the door a hulking big fellow lurched out, and Mr.
Lockyer seized him eagerly.
“What is it, Gradbarr?” he demanded tremblingly. “What has happened?”
“’Splosion of some sort, sir,” was the hasty rejoinder. “Don’t go in
there,” he exclaimed, as the inventor hastily darted forward once more.
“It’s sure death.”
But what inventor would not dare death itself if there was the barest
chance of saving his brain-child from harm? Shaking off the other’s
detaining grip impatiently, Lockyer entered the shed, followed closely
by Ned and his companions. Curiously enough, however, Gradbarr seemed
inclined to follow, now that he had seen the inventor enter. His first
panic appeared to have been dissipated. As old Tom’s form vanished
within, he turned and followed.
“Got to see they don’t find out too much,” he muttered to himself.
Within the shed was intense gloom, lighted only here and there by
scattered incandescent lights. The work being done was now all within
the hull of the submarine itself, and consequently there was no
necessity for bright illumination without. Cutting down light bills
was one of a score of ways in which Lockyer was trying to eke out his
dwindling fortune.
At first nothing very much seemed to be the matter. The gray and red
painted outlines of the submarine bulked up through the gloom like the
form of some fantastic and puffy fish. She was shaped like a short,
very fat cigar, with a hump on the top where the conning tower, with
its big round glass lenses--like goggle eyes--projected. A ladder was
at her side, and up this Lockyer nimbly skipped, the boys after him.
As they gained the sloping deck, round which a low iron rail ran, a
peculiar odor was noticeable. It was a sickening, pungent sort of
smell, and the boys caught themselves swallowing chokingly as they
inhaled it.
“Jeruso-hos-ophat, there’s bin some adult eggs busted around here!”
gasped old Tom, holding to a hand rail on the conning tower.
“Smells like it,” agreed Ned. “What is it, sir?” he inquired of
Lockyer, who was hesitating in front of the manhole which led down
inside the boat.
“It’s a peculiar kind of gas which I use in starting the engines,”
explained the inventor. “How it has been liberated I cannot imagine,
but it is very volatile and must have caused the explosion we heard.”
“Do you think the boat is damaged?” inquired Herc.
“Impossible to say,” rejoined Lockyer nervously; “the hull seems all
right outside. Wait till I open these ventilators and liberate the
fumes, and we’ll go inside and find out.”
Familiar as the boys were with submarine construction, it was an easy
task for them to aid the inventor in unclamping the deck ventilators.
The gas rushed out in their faces, but they stepped aside and it did
not harm them. All this was watched from the shadows of a corner of the
shed by Gradbarr.
“Looks like I’ve failed, after all,” he muttered, as presently, the gas
having cleared off, the inventor decided it was safe to descend and
they entered the conning tower.
Stealthily as a cat, the machinist crept from his hiding place, and,
ascending the ladder, followed them.
Within the conning tower the lads found themselves upon a steel ladder
with chain hand-rails, much like what they had been accustomed to
on a man-of-war. Descending this with quick, nervous steps, Lockyer
darted for a door opening in the bulkhead at one end of the chamber,
at the foot of the ladder, which was about ten by twenty feet. From
this door slow, lazy curls of smoke were coming. Thanks to the opened
ventilators, however, the interior of the submarine was comparatively
free of gases, and the inventor unhesitatingly passed through the door.
As he did so his foot caught against a soft, yielding object. The next
instant a quick glance downward showed him that he had tripped on
the recumbent form of a boy. In his hand the lad clutched a wrench.
Stooping swiftly, Lockyer picked him up and bore him out into the other
chamber, where, assisted by the boys, he stretched him upon a bench.
Although the lad’s cheeks were ghastly pale, his chest was heaving, and
presently he opened his eyes.
“Thank goodness you are all right, then, Sim!” breathed Mr. Lockyer.
The lad, a slight young chap of about sixteen, with a mop of curly hair
and large, round blue eyes, looked up at him.
“Did I do it, Mr. Lockyer? Did I do it?”
“Do what?” asked the inventor, in the indulgent tone he might have used
to one whose mind was wandering.
“Why, turn off the gas valve. I tried to; but I don’t know if I made
good before everything began to get wavy and it all went dark.”
“I don’t understand you,” said the inventor; “I thought the gas came
from a leak. Do you mean that some one was tampering with the valve?”
“I saw Gradbarr, the new man, slip into the torpedo room, sir, while
no one was looking. He had that wrench with him. I was following him
to tell him that no one was allowed in there without your orders, when
he came running out. I ran in to see if he had done any mischief, but
the explosion came just as I got to the valve. I think I turned it off,
though.”
“You did, Sim!” exclaimed Lockyer, glancing into the steel-walled space
beyond the chamber in which they were assembled. “I can see the valve
is at ‘off.’ My boy, I don’t know how to thank you. If it hadn’t been
for your presence of mind more gas would have escaped and the boat been
blown up.”
Then, turning to the others, who looked rather puzzled, the inventor
rapidly explained.
“The gas is kept in a pressure-tank forward. I filled the tank
recently to test out the engines, but a pipe did not fit, and it was
disconnected. When the pipes were unjointed an open end was, of course,
left in that chamber. It was thus a simple matter, by turning on the
valve, to flood the chamber with gas.”
“But how did it ignite?” asked Ned.
“Evidently, that plumber’s torch overturned near the door, touched it
off,” was the rejoinder. “Great Heavens, if Sim had not done the brave
thing he did, the boat would have been ripped open as if she were made
of tin. Only the fact that the full quantity of gas was not released
saved the boat.”
Herc had picked up the wrench Sim had clasped in his unconscious hand,
and was examining it curiously.
“See, sir,” he said, extending it, “it’s marked T. G.”
“Tom Gradbarr!” exclaimed Mr. Lockyer; “those are his initials.”
“Who is this Gradbarr?” asked Tom; “what kind of er craft is he?”
“Why, he is a singularly capable man, who applied for work here a few
days ago. He came highly recommended, so I put him to work helping the
gang that is cleaning up the hull, for you see, practically all the
work is completed.”
“Would he have had any object in injuring the boat?” asked Ned, for
Sim’s story had naturally aroused all their suspicions.
“None that I know of,” was the rejoinder; “but, still, in work of this
kind it is hard to tell who may seek to damage you.”
“But surely he would have attacked the engines first if he had wished
to disable the craft,” commented Ned, after a moment’s thought.
“Ah! but he could not do that,” said the inventor quickly; “the engine
room is kept locked always. No one but myself has the key. It is there
that most of our secrets are.”
“But the bulkhead door must have been locked, too,” persisted the boy.
“By Jove, so it was, and only Anderson, the foreman, had the key. I’ll
send for him, and find out about this. Of course, to get into the gas
compartment, the man must have had the key.”
“Evidently,” said Ned dryly, “and if I may offer a word of advice, sir,
you will examine this chap Gradbarr before he gets a chance to leave
the yard--hullo! what’s that?”
A rivet had fallen from the ladder above and dropped clattering to
the iron-grated floor behind him. It had been dislodged by Gradbarr’s
foot, but the fellow, who had been listening to every word uttered
below, was too quick to be discovered by Ned’s upward glance. With the
agile movement of a snake, he slipped from the deck and down the ladder
before his presence was even suspected.
“Now we will take a look about us,” said Mr. Lockyer; “feel like
moving, Sim?”
“Oh, I’m all right now, sir,” said the youngster rising, though rather
weakly, to his feet; “say, but that gas does knock a fellow out when it
gets going.”
“Yes, but on board the boat, when she is in commission, there will
be no danger from it,” declared the inventor; “automatic valves to
regulate it safely have been provided for.”
As he spoke he fitted a key to a door in an after bulkhead, similar in
all respects to the forward partition, and led the way into a long, low
room with steel-riveted walls, filled with peculiar-looking machinery.
The boys could make out the forms of cylinders and crankshafts, but
every other device about the place was strange to them.
The engine-room was unlike any other they had ever entered. It
was spotless, and every bit of metal fairly gleamed and shone.
Queer-looking levers and handles were everywhere, and at the farther
end of it were several gauges affixed to another steel bulkhead.
“Behind those gauges are the air-tanks to drive the engines,” explained
the inventor. “Here are the pumps for compressing it. We can carry
a pressure in our tanks of six hundred pounds to the square inch,
which is sufficient to drive the boat at thirty miles an hour on the
surface, and from eight to fifteen under the water. We have triple
propellers, each driven independently. If one breaks down it makes
little difference.”
“Wow!” exclaimed Herc. Ned looked astonished. Old Tom only gasped.
“If you can do all that, sir,” he said, “your craft’s the marvel of the
age.”
“That’s just what I think she is,” said Lockyer with a laugh.
“And these pumps here?” asked Ned, indicating an intricate mass of
machinery painted red and green, and brass-mounted.
“Those are the pumps for regulating the rising and lowering apparatus.
As you, of course, know, below us and in the extreme bow and stern
are tanks which, when we wish to sink, are filled with sea-water. If
we want to rise and float on the surface, we set our compressed air
at work and drive out the water. The empty tanks, of course, supply
sufficient buoyancy to float the boat.”
“And you have no storage batteries or gasolene engine or electric
motors,” gasped Ned.
“No. I think that in the Lockyer boat we have successfully abolished
the storage battery, with its dangerous, metal-corroding fumes, and
the bother of having two sets of engines, the gasolene for the surface
and the electric for under-water work. We have a dynamo, however, to
furnish current for lighting and other purposes.”
“How do you get your air-supply when you are running under water?”
asked Ned, his face beaming with interest.
“When the submarine is afloat you will see that alongside her periscope
she will carry another pipe. This is of sufficient length to allow
us to run twenty feet under water and still suck in air. Like the
periscope pipe, this air-tube will telescope up, folding down inside
the submarine. When we are too far below to use this device, we run on
air already compressed in reserve tanks. We can carry enough for five
hours of running without renewing it. In case the pressure is not high
enough, we expand it,--heating it by electric radiators.”
“And your fresh air?”
“Still compressed air,” laughed the inventor. “We drive out the old
foul atmosphere through specially devised valves, the fresh air taking
the place of it.”
“Then the only time you have to utilize the gas is in starting your
engine?” asked Ned.
“That’s the only time,” smiled the inventor. “It enters the cylinders
just as gasolene does in a gasolene motor, and is ignited or exploded
by an electric spark. This gives the impetus to the engines, and then
the gas is cut off and the compressed air turned on.”
The boys looked dazed. The Lockyer seemed to be in truth a wonderful
vessel. But as yet she had not entered the water. Even making due
allowances for an inventor’s enthusiasm, it began to appear to the
boys, however, as if they were on board a craft that would make
history in time to come.
“Now forward,” said Mr. Lockyer, leading the way through the cabin to
the room in which the explosion of the released gas had occurred, “we
have the torpedo room. Two tubes for launching two Whitehead torpedoes
are provided. Compressed air is used here, too, you see. But a charge
of gas is exploded in the tube to fire the torpedoes.”
He indicated a maze of complicated pipes and valves leading to the rear
of the torpedo tubes. Steel racks lined the sides of the place, which
was in the extreme bow of the craft and, therefore, shaped like a cone.
These supports were for the torpedoes. Resting places for ten--five on
each side--had been provided.
Many other features there were about the craft which it would only
become wearisome to catalogue here. They will be introduced as occasion
arises and fully explained. As they emerged from the torpedo room, a
heavy-set man in workman’s clothes, with a foot rule in one hand and
a wrench in the other, came forward, advancing through the door in the
bulkhead. As it so happened, Ned was in front and the newcomer rudely
shoved him aside on his way through the door.
“Get out o’ my way,” he growled. “Don’t you see I’m in a hurry? Where’s
Mr. Lockyer?”
“Here I am, Anderson,” rejoined the inventor, stepping forward. He had
just completed a careful examination of the room in which the explosion
of gas had occurred. This investigation confirmed his first decision
that little damage had been done to the craft, thanks to young Sim’s
plucky work.
But as Mr. Lockyer’s gaze lit on Anderson an angry expression came into
his eyes, replacing his look of satisfaction at the discovery that no
damage had been done.
“Ah, I want to speak to you, Anderson,” he said, with a sarcastic
intonation in his voice; “but when last I saw you, you were in too much
of a hurry to stop. You and your men were all running for dear life,
leaving this lad here unconscious in the gas-filled torpedo room.”
“I wasn’t running away,” muttered Anderson. “I was looking for you, and
I----”
“Well, never mind about that now, Anderson,” intercepted Mr. Lockyer
crisply. “I daresay it was as you say. Fortunately, no damage was done.
But that is not thanks to you. I am disappointed in you, Anderson. I
made you foreman here, hoping that you would prove as capable as my
estimation of you. Instead I find that you gave a newcomer the key to
the torpedo room when you know it was against my strict orders for any
one to enter it till the break in the pipe had been adjusted.”
“I gave that man the key so as he could take a look at the pipe,”
explained Anderson. “He said he thought he knew how repairs could be
made on it.”
“It makes no difference, it was against my orders,” snapped Mr.
Lockyer. “You could have asked me first had you wished to do such a
thing. Then, too, the door of the gun-cotton shed was left open. How
did that happen?”
“I dunno,” grumbled Anderson. “I suppose you’ll blame that on me, too.”
“If you are yard foreman, you certainly were responsible for it,” was
the rejoinder.
Some of the other panic-stricken workmen had returned now and stood
clustered on the steel ladder and about the foot of it, listening
curiously. Apparently their presence made Anderson anxious to assert
his independence for he burst out in an insolent voice:
“I guess I know more about my business than any crack-brained
inventor. I’m not going to be talked to that way, either, Mr. Lockyer.
Understand?”
“I understand that you can walk to the office and get your pay,
Anderson,” was the prompt retort. “The sooner you do so, the better
it will suit me. You have been getting more and more impudent and
shiftless every day. This insolence is the last straw. You are
discharged.”
Anderson grew pale for a minute under the black grime on his face. But
he quickly recovered himself, and his eyes blazed with fury. He took a
step forward and shook his fist under Lockyer’s nose.
“Fire me if you want to,” he grated out; “but it will be the sorriest
day’s work you ever did. I know a whole lot about your old submarine
tea-kettle that you wouldn’t want told outside. I’ve held my tongue
hitherto, but I shan’t now. You’ll see.”
“That will do, Anderson,” said Mr. Lockyer, turning away. “This has
gone far enough. Men, you can knock off for the rest of the day. By
to-morrow I will have a new foreman for you. Come, gentlemen, we have
about exhausted the possibilities of the submarine for this afternoon.”