Lieutenant Parry sprang toward the speaking tube connecting with the
engine room. Already they could feel the tremor as the submarine was
violently backed from whatever it was she had struck.
“Stand by your wheel,” he flung at old Tom, as he jumped.
“Aye, aye, sir,” was the steady reply. The weather-beaten old mariner’s
face might have been a mask carved out of mahogany for all the emotion
it displayed.
“Below at the engines!” bawled Lieutenant Parry down the tube.
“Here, sir,” came up the steady rejoinder from Bowler, and the officer
rejoiced to note that his voice did not tremble or falter.
“Have we struck something, sir?”
“Yes. Stand by for signals,” snapped the officer, dropping the tube.
It was typical of the spirit of the Navy, that after the first shock
of amazement at the utterly unexpected, not a man on board who wore
the uniform betrayed any signs of excitement. The officers gave quick
commands. The men obeyed them without a word. But the two bound
Italians poured out a flood of lamentations and cries.
“Go below and shut those fellows up!” ordered Captain McGill sharply.
“Aye, aye, sir,” responded Herc, with alacrity, dropping below.
Going up to Guiseppi, the red-headed lad flourished his fist under his
nose.
“Do you want this to collide with your yellow features?” he demanded.
“No, no, signor,” wailed the wretch; “but what has happened? Are we
going to drown? Oh, Santa Maria! tell us, for the mercy of heaven!”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen, except that if you don’t shut
up you’ll get busted on the nose,” grunted Herc; “you’ll spend a few
years in jail, anyhow, so I don’t see what it matters to you.”
His threats proved effectual, coupled with his fierce looks, and the
panic-stricken cowards subsided into whimperings and whinings like the
lamentations of whipped curs. This duty attended to, Herc sprang up the
ladder again, alert for orders.
“It’s a derelict, sir,” Ned was saying, as the Dreadnought Boy regained
the conning-tower. “I can make out her masts and the outline of her
hull.”
“That’s right,” approved Captain McGill; “you have sharp eyes, my lad.
It is a derelict.”
“The question is, how badly are we damaged?” put in one of the naval
officers. He spoke in quiet, level tones, though there was not a man in
that conning-tower who did not realize that if any plates were badly
sprung they were in deadly peril. The Lockyer was at least thirty miles
off shore, and submarines carry no boats!
“Better make an investigation, sir,” suggested Lieutenant Parry.
“By all means, Mr. Parry. Send forward to ascertain if any of the
forward plates are sprung.”
“Hum,” exclaimed the officer to himself; “if they are, down we go to
the bottom.”
“Here, Strong,” he went on aloud, “you and Taylor take a lantern. Make
thorough examination of the peak. If you find anything wrong, report at
once.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” cried the boys, and together they vanished.
Procuring a lantern from the engine room, they hastened forward on
their errand.
“Is she badly damaged?” asked Bowler, as they left his domain.
“Don’t know yet, old man,” flung back Ned; “we’re going to see.”
“Well, if she is we’re on the job,” snapped Bowler, a determined look
settling over his face. It would have gone hard with one of his crew
who showed a sign of flinching in that dread moment, but his assistants
were going about their tasks, oiling and feeling bearings, without a
sign but their intense pallor to show the strain under which they were
laboring.
“Good thing we don’t carry a crew of them fellows,” muttered Bowler, as
he glanced disgustedly at the whining, terrified Italians, bound fast
to their stanchions in the cabin.
Through the forward bulkhead the boys hastened. They found the torpedo
room in darkness. This looked bad, for the incandescents in there were
supposed to be kept burning constantly.
“Guess a wire has snapped,” surmised Ned; “that shows that we bumped
that old derelict good and hard.”
The walls of the place were beaded with moisture, condensed from the
warmth within the hull and the chill of the waters without, but there
was no sign of a leak. The floor was removable for such emergencies,
and the lads soon had it torn up. Hither and thither Ned waved his
lantern over the plates, but seemingly, they were all tight. All at
once, Herc gave a startled cry. He pointed to a place where a tiny
stream of water could be seen making its way through.
“So far as I can see, that’s the only leak,” said Ned; “the pumps can
easily take care of that.”
Further examination confirmed this diagnosis. That tiny leak was all
the damage the submarine had sustained.
Ned hastened to the conning-tower and so reported. Immense relief was
visible on the countenances of all as he told of the results of his
investigation.
“Well, a miss is as good as a mile,” said Captain McGill cheerily; “and
we won’t go to Davy Jones this cruise.”
“I assume your pumps can take care of the leak, Mr. Lockyer?” asked one
of the board.
“Yes, indeed,” said the inventor; “the boat is so constructed that all
leakage is drained to a central well. I’ll pass word to the engine room
to have the centrifugal pump set to work at once.”
“Possibly we can caulk the leak temporarily,” suggested Lieutenant
Parry; “at any rate, there’s no harm in trying.”
“Right you are, Parry,” assented Captain McGill; “you and Mr. Lockyer
go below. Make a thorough examination, and act according to your
judgment.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” rejoined the young officer, saluting, and darting off
on his errand, followed by Mr. Lockyer.
The submarine had been stopped by this time, and she now lay tossing on
the surface of the waters, her engines silent and motionless, except
for the hum of the dynamos. This latter sound suggested an idea to
Captain McGill.
“Strong, do you understand the management of this craft’s searchlight?”
he inquired, turning to Ned.
“Yes, sir,” rejoined Ned; “we learned how to work it as part of our
duty before the Lockyer was launched.”
“Then let’s have some light on this obscure subject,” said the officer.
“I’m anxious to see what it was that came so near to sending us to the
bottom.”
Ned reached up and loosened an attachment at the top of the
conning-tower. Instantly, raised by strong springs, the searchlight,
which differed in pattern from the ordinary kind, sprang out above the
lookout place.
Then the Dreadnought Boy pressed a button. There was a sharp click and
a dazzling, white pencil of radiance swept the dark ocean on which the
Lockyer was rolling. Peering through the lenses, and shading his eyes
with one hand while he worked a small wheel with the other, Ned swept
the ray about till it suddenly fell on an object about two hundred
yards away from them.
“There, sir, there she is,” he exclaimed.
The officers peered through the glass ports of the conning-tower. They
saw the brilliantly illuminated outlines of a large, water-logged
craft, almost level with the water. From her decks three forlorn stumps
of masts stood up as if in mute appeal. She was as sorry a looking
derelict as one would wish to see. The winds and the waves had had
their way with her and left only this battered hulk to drift about the
ocean--a menace to navigation of the most dangerous kind.
“How long has she been adrift, Barnes, do you think?” asked Captain
McGill, turning to an officer who stood beside him.
“Hard to say,” rejoined the other; “perhaps for years. We collided with
a junk once off the Pacific Coast. It had drifted clear across from
China, and from papers found on her, it must have taken her fifteen
years to do it.”
“I guess we have all had our experience with derelicts,” was the
rejoinder; “they are the most dangerous things a seaman has to
encounter.”
“Especially when they are awash, like this hulk,” was Captain Barnes’s
reply.
Lieutenant Parry and Mr. Lockyer returned at this point to report that
an attempt would be made to caulk the leak temporarily till permanent
repairs could be made. For the present, the pump would take care of the
leakage.
The derelict, irradiated by the bright rays of the searchlight, was
pointed out to the two investigators. They regarded it with interest,
not unmixed with graver feelings. A little harder bump against those
water-logged sides and what tragedy of the ocean might not have
resulted?
“Confound you!” exclaimed Mr. Lockyer impulsively, shaking his fist at
the sinister object, as it heaved and rolled in a heavy, sodden way.
“You came near to putting us out of commission. I’d like to send you to
the bottom, where you belong.”
“Come, Lockyer,” laughed Captain McGill; “instead of feeling
revengeful, you ought to offer a vote of thanks. This derelict has not
only shown to us that your boat is as staunch and tough as she is swift
and handy, but she is going to give us another opportunity we were
wishing for.”
“What is that, sir?” asked Lockyer, though he half-guessed the other’s
meaning.
“Why,” responded the naval officer, “fate or luck, or whatever you like
to call it, has thrown this derelict in our path. She is a serious
menace to navigation. A less fortunate ship might strike her and be
sent to the bottom. By the time a regular derelict destroyer could be
notified, she might have drifted off out of ken. Now, however, we have
a chance to rid the ocean of her forever.”
“You mean----,” began Mr. Lockyer.
“That you carry torpedoes, Lockyer, and we were wishing an opportunity
to test them. Here is a chance ready to our hands. What do you think of
it?”
“That it would be a magnificent revenge, sir,” was the prompt rejoinder.
A chorus of laughter and approval went up from the other officers.
After a hasty consultation, it was agreed to gauge the distance and
depth of the derelict, and then, withdrawing to a distance of four
hundred yards, launch one of the Lockyer’s deadly implements at her.
The boys’ eyes fairly shone with excitement, as they heard this.
Torpedo work was very much to their liking.
“Mr. Parry, you will take Boatswain’s Mates Strong and Taylor, and
Bos’un Marlin, and attend to the torpedo launching. Mr. Stark, you will
take the wheel. I will give you the signal when to fire, Mr. Parry.”
Captain McGill gave a nod to show that his orders had been issued.
As Lieutenant Parry, the boys and old Tom vanished, he gave a sharp
order.
“Astern, Mr. Stark.”
The submarine began to glide backward once more.
“Stop her. Now, Mr. Lockyer, keep the searchlight on her while I get
the range.”
With a range-finding instrument the range was soon gauged.
“Now, Mr. Stark, you will drop to a depth of ten feet, if you please.
I think that will be about her draught?” asked Captain McGill, turning
to the other officers. They nodded. In backing from the derelict,
a careful line had been kept, so that as she dropped, her nose was
trained directly amidships on the peril of the seas. Before the
submersion began, of course, the searchlight had been drawn in.
“Like the horns of a snail,” was the way one of the onlookers expressed
it afterward.
In the meantime, down in the torpedo room, some active work had been
going on. By lantern-light, for her electric connections had not
yet been repaired, the boys and Tom Marlin, under Lieutenant Parry’s
direction, had slid one of the big, heavy, fourteen-foot Whiteheads
from its shelf into a sort of conveyor. This carried it to the firing
tube, the inner end of which the officer already had swung open.
“Ram home!” he ordered. The great, cigar-shaped projectile, with its
tiny, fairy-like propellers and bright metal work gleaming wickedly,
was slid into the tube. With a sharp click and snap the water-tight
breach of the tube was at once closed. The torpedo was ready for firing.
Before ramming home, however, the “war head” had been placed in the
implement. This means that the dummy-head had been removed and one
charged with gun-cotton had been substituted for it. Vessels at sea do
not carry war heads on their torpedoes. It would be too dangerous. The
cap, full of disaster-wreaking explosive, is not put in place till they
are to be used.
This done, Lieutenant Parry stood by the inner end of the tube, his
hand on a lever. When this was pulled, it would admit compressed air
to the tube, which would simultaneously open the outer end of the
contrivance and launch the torpedo. At the same time the pressure would
keep the water out of the tube. The boys knew that in the Lockyer type
of boat, besides the compressed air, the torpedo was helped on its way
by a charge of the explosive gas being touched off behind it. This was
effected by the compressed air, on its being turned on, operating a
small firing point, which sparked and instantly exploded the volatile
stuff.
On the top of the torpedo was a small knob. As the torpedo was shot out
of the tube, much as a bullet is shot from a rifle, this knob struck
another projection on the inside of the tube. This set in motion the
compressed-air engines within the torpedo, by which it was driven.
At the same time it ignited an alcohol flame which superheated the
compressed air, giving it added force.
With all in readiness, they waited breathlessly for the signal to come
from above. Lieutenant Parry’s foot tapped nervously, as they stood
in silence. His eyes were fixed on a small incandescent bulb, wired
directly from the conning-tower. It would flash red when all was ready
for him to pull the lever and release the instrument of destruction.
“We’re sinking, sir,” said Ned presently.
The officer merely nodded. The moment was a tense one. There is
something to fire the dullest imagination in the idea, that by a mere
twist of a wrist, one is presently to launch forth one of man’s most
effective engines of devastation.
Only the loud swishing of the water as it rushed into the tanks broke
the silence now. All at once, the downward motion--like the falling
sensation of a slow elevator, ceased.
Suddenly, above the officer’s head, there was a tiny, crimson flash.
It was the signal he had been waiting for.
Instantly his hand gave a backward jerk.
They could feel a slight jar as the torpedo, loaded with two hundred
pounds of explosive, tore from the submarine on her errand of
destruction.
Would she hit the mark?