DOWN IN A SUBMARINE
Daylight found them rolling through the suburbs of a great city. The
long night ride was nearing an end.
All around them as their train wended its way through the railway yard
were evidences of the unusual activities of war times. Long freight
trains were puffing and chugging on the sidings; the air was black with
smoke, and the tracks filled everywhere with locomotives and moving
rolling stock.
In a few minutes the train slowed down into the railway terminal and
the score or more of "rookies" were soon stretching their legs on the
platform. A detail of blue jackets, spick and span in their natty
uniforms, awaited the party. Jack and Ted stared at the fine looking
escort, thinking what a wonderful thing it would be when they, too,
were decked out ready for service in such fine-looking attire.
They had not long to wait. Breakfast over, the entire party boarded
trolley cars bound for the navy yard. Soon, across the meadows,
loomed the fighting tops of battleships, and in the background the
giant antennae of the navy yard's wireless station.
"Here we are at last, chum!" chortled Ted with a broad grin, as he and
Jack piled out of the car.
Passing the armed sentries at the gate, the party of recruits were
marched first to the commandant's office, where their arrival was
officially reported. After roll call and checking up of the list of
names, the boys were all marched over to the quartermaster's depot to
be fitted for uniforms. Probably the most impressive moment of the
morning to the boys was the ceremony of swearing them into
service---when they took the oath of allegiance to their country.
Jack and Ted were anxious to get into their uniforms and were afforded
an opportunity very shortly when they were directed aboard the training
ship _Exeter_, where they were to be quartered for a few days until
detailed into service on one of the fighting units in the yard.
The first few days aboard the _Exeter_ passed rapidly, the time being
so filled with drills that the boys had few idle moments. Their
letters home and to their chums at Brighton contained glowing accounts
of the new service into which they had entered.
After a week of it they were standing one afternoon on the forecastle
of the _Exeter_ watching the coaling of a giant dreadnought from an
electric collier when a naval officer, immaculate in white linen and
surrounded by his staff, came aboard. After an exchange of salutes
between the deck officer of the _Exeter_ and the visiting officer, and
a brief chat, the recruits were ordered to fall in. The naval officer
in white stepped forward.
"You boys will be distributed at once among the vessels now in the yard
to make up the necessary complement of crews. The department is very
anxious to put some of you aboard the submarine fleet now fitting out
here, and if there are any in the crowd who would prefer service in the
submarines to any other service you may state your preference."
Jack and Ted stepped forward immediately. Other boys followed suit.
And so it came about that Jack Hammond and Ted Wainwright found
themselves detailed to the U.S. submarine _Dewey_.
A young officer approached and introduced himself. "I am Executive
Officer Binns, of the _Dewey_. If you boys are ready we will go
right aboard. We expect to go down the bay on some maneuvers this
afternoon and want to get you fellows to your places as quickly as
possible."
The whole thing was a surprise to Ted and Jack. They had expected to
be kept in the yard a long time, quartered on the training ship. To
get into active service so soon was more than they anticipated.
Marched across the navy yard they soon came in sight of the _Dewey_---a
long cigar-shaped castle of steel, sitting low in the water, riding
easy at the end of a tow line near the drydock. Up on the conning
tower a member of the crew was making some adjustment to the periscope
case, while from astern came the hum of motors and the clatter of
machinery that bespoke action within the engine room below.
"Looks like a long narrow turtle with a hump on its back, doesn't it?"
whispered Jack as he and Ted came alongside.
They were passed aboard by the sentry and there on the deck welcomed
by the officers and members of the _Dewey's_ crew. Turned over to big
Bill Witt, one of the crew, they were directed to go below and be
assigned to their quarters.
Down through the hatchway clambered Witt, followed close by Ted and
Jack, and in another moment they found themselves in the engine room.
Electric lights glowed behind wired enclosures. Well aft were the
motors and oil engines, around them switchboards and other electrical
apparatus---a maze of intricate machinery that filled all the stern
space. The air was hazy and smelled strong of oils and gases. Huge
electric fans swept the foul air along the passageway and up through
the hatchways, while other fans placed near the ventilators distributed
the fresh air as it poured into the vessel, drawn by the suction.
From the engine room the boys walked forward into the control
chamber---the base of the conning tower---the very heart and brain of
the undersea ship. Here were the many levers controlling the ballast
tanks, Witt explaining to the boys that the submarine was submerged and
raised again by filling the tanks with water and expelling it again
to rise by blowing it out with compressed air. Here also was the depth
dial and the indicator bands that showed when the ship was going down
or ascending again, the figures being marked off in feet on the dial
just like a clock. Here also was the gyro-compass by which the ship
was steered when submerged; here also the torpedo control by means of
which the torpedoes were discharged in firing. And, yes, here was the
periscope---the great eye of the submarine---a long tube running up
through the conning tower twenty feet above the commander's turret of
steel.
"Something like the folding telescope we have at home to look at
pictures," mumbled Jack aside to Ted.
To the boys' great delight they were allowed to put their eyes to the
hood and gaze into the periscope. In turn they "took a peep." What
they saw was the forward deck of the _Dewey_, the guns in position,
other vessels moored nearby and the blue expanse of water stretching
out into the harbor and on to the open sea. It was rather an exciting
moment for the two "landlubbers."
Witt next showed them forward through the officers' quarters and the
wireless room into the torpedo compartment. This interested them
greatly. On either side of the vessel, chained to the sides of the
hull on long runners that led up to the firing tubes, were the massive
torpedoes, ready to be pushed forward for insertion in the firing
chambers. Chief Gunner Mowrey was working over one of the breech caps
and turned to meet the new recruits.
"Glad to meet you, mates," was his hearty salutation.
The boys listened attentively while Mowrey was telling Witt of some
great "hits" they had made in practice earlier in the morning. Bill
Witt showed the boys in turn the bunks that folded out of the sides
of the vessel in which the crew slept, the electric stove for cooking
food in the ship's tiny galley, the ballast tanks and the storage
batteries running along the keel of the vessel underneath the steel
flooring.
Climbing up on deck again through the conning tower, the boys found
themselves out on top of the projection in what Witt explained was the
deck steering station whence the _Dewey_ was navigated when cruising
on the surface. Down on the deck the boys inspected the smart-looking
four-inch guns with which they later were to become better acquainted,
and the trim little anti-aircraft guns to be used in case of attack by
Zeppelins or aeroplanes.
"Keep your eyes and ears wide open all the time; remember what you are
told and you'll soon catch on," Witt told them.
Shortly before noon Lieutenant McClure, commander of the _Dewey_, a
youthful-looking chap who, they learned later, had not been long out
of Annapolis, came aboard. It was soon evident that there was something
doing, for in a few minutes the propeller blades began to churn the
water, and the exhaust of the engines fluttered at the port-holes.
The tow lines ashore were cast off and then very gracefully and almost
noiselessly the _Dewey_ began slipping away from its dock. The head of
the vessel swung around and pointed out the harbor.
"We're off, boy!" exclaimed Jack to his chum. They were, indeed. The
boys were standing in front of the conning tower and, because it was
their first submarine voyage and they had yet to acquire their sea
legs, they kept firm hold on the wire railing that ran the length of
the deck on either side of the vessel. Commander McClure and
Executive Officer Binns were up on the deck steering station behind a
sheath of white canvas directing the movement of the ship.
"This is what I call great!" laughed Ted as the _Dewey_ began to gather
speed and moved out into the bay.
Looking seaward the boys beheld the prow of the submarine splitting the
water clean as a knife, the spray dashing in great white sheets over
the anchor chains. From aft came the steady chug-chug of the engines'
exhaust, to be drowned out at intervals as the swell of water surged
over the port-holes. They seemed to be afloat on a narrow raft
propelled swiftly through the water by some strong and unseen power.
"I say, old boy, this beats drilling out on the campus at Brighton with
the school battalion, eh? what?" exclaimed Jack.
Ted was doing a clog dance on the deck. "I'm just as happy as I can
be," was his gleeful comment.
Very shortly the lighthouse that stood on the cape's end marking the
harbor entrance had been passed and the _Dewey_ was out on the open
sea. Before the boys stretched water---endless water as far as the
eye carried---to the far thin line where sky and water met. They were
lost in contemplation of the wonderful view. But their reveries were
suddenly disturbed by a sharp command from Executive Officer Binns:
"All hands below---we are going to submerge!"
The _Dewey_ was going to dive!