TROUBLE IN THE MAKING STAGE
On the hurricane deck of the "Waverly" stood one man, mouth wide open
and eyes a-stare, who couldn't seem to get the meaning of it all. That
man was the leader of the combined band from the winter hotels.
Turning, glancing upward, the lieutenant looked at the leader with a
glance of cool wonder.
"Play, man! Why don't you play? What are you there for?"
Then, all of a sudden, reddening, the band leader rapped his music stand
with his baton, next gave the signal, and the band crashed forth into
the exultant strains of:
"See! The Conquering Hero comes!"
At the third measure the band was all but drowned out by renewed
cheering, that came more uproariously than ever.
Captain Jack Benson had surely chosen a dramatic manner of making his
appearance at Spruce Beach. Ten thousand tongues were set wagging all
at once. When there came a lull, a man's voice on a tug not far from
the gunboat could be heard, asserting loudly:
"Well, that's what submarines are for--to sneak in while you're wiping
a speck of dust from your eye!"
That remark, coming just as the band ceased its strains, was plainly
audible, and brought a laugh from everyone aboard the submarine,
including Eph, who was just climbing, in his bathing suit, up to the
platform deck.
Lieutenant Commander Kimball, hurrying from his cabin, had joined
Lieutenant Featherstone at the rail, the pretty girl slipping away to
join a group of civilians.
"What do you think of us?" called Jacob Farnum, a broad grin of delight
on his face.
"You'll do," admitted Kimball.
"Do you consider yourself sunk?" demanded David Pollard, laughingly.
"Theoretically, yes," assented Lieutenant Commander Kimball. "I wonder
if you could do it as well in war time?"
"Couldn't possibly do anything like it in war time," called back Captain
Jack Benson. "For, sir, you fly the Stars and, Stripes!"
That was a happy speech, delivered at just the right second. It set all
within hearing to cheering again. And then the thousands beyond caught
it up.
"I'll say this much," shouted back Lieutenant Commander Kimball, as soon
as he could make himself heard: "We'd rather have you with us, Mr.
Benson, than against us."
"You'll have your wish, sir, as long as I'm alive," Jack answered,
turning and lifting his hat in simple yet eloquent salute to the Flag
waving at the gunboat's stern.
All this time Hal Hastings stood by the deck wheel, one hand occasionally
straying to the engine room signal buttons, as he kept the "Benson" just
about a hundred feet from the gunboat and nearly abeam.
"Where shall I anchor, sir?" called Captain Jack, presently.
"Better take it about four points off our port bow and at least four
hundred feet away, Mr. Benson," called back the lieutenant commander.
"Four points off port and four hundred feet it is, sir," answered the
young submarine skipper, saluting. Then he gave the order to Hal.
"As soon as you're anchored, I'll send you over a boat to be at your
disposal this afternoon," called Lieutenant Commander Kimball.
"We'll use the boat, sir, to pay you a visit, if you permit," Jack
shouted back.
"By all means come aboard. Then we'll visit you. We're anxious to
see the works of such a wonderful little craft."
Within ten minutes a man-o-war's cutter was alongside, rowed by six
alert-looking young sailors, while a coxswain held the tiller ropes.
Messrs. Farnum and Pollard, Jack and Hal made up the visiting party,
leaving Eph Somers aboard the submarine, with Williamson to help him
at need.
Cordial, indeed, was the reception of the submarine folks aboard the
gunboat. There was a great amount of handshaking to be done.
In the meantime, Eph Somers was having something in the way of trouble
back on the platform deck of the "Benson."
Two small boats, manned by harbor boatmen, and each carrying a few
passengers, had put off from shore, and now ranged alongside.
"How do you do, Captain?" shouted a young man at the bow of one of the
boats.
"Louder!" begged Eph.
"How do you do, Captain?"
"Louder. I'm afraid the captain can't hear you yet," grinned the
carroty-topped submarine boy. "He's over on the gunboat."
"Then who are you?"
"Who? Me?" demanded Eph, innocently. "Oh, I'm only the Secretary
of the Navy."
"All right, Mr. Secretary," laughed the same young man. "We are coming
aboard."
"Aboard of what?" inquired Eph.
"Why, you're submarine boat, of course," came the answer.
"Guess not!" responded Eph, briskly.
"Why, yes; we're newspaper men, and it's business, not fun with us."
The boat containing the speaker lay lightly alongside at this moment.
In another moment the young man in the bow would have clambered up
on deck, but Eph called down to him:
"Hold on! Stay where you are. My orders are to hit any fellow with a
boathook who tries to come up here in the captain's absence."
"But we've got to have a look at your boat, don't you see?" insisted
the newspaper man, though, as Eph carelessly picked up a boathook, the
would-be caller waited prudently in the bow of his boat.
Young Somers was surely in a state of uncertainty. He had strict orders
to allow no one aboard unless he knew them to be United States naval
officers. On the other hand, the auburn-haired boy knew how necessary
it was for the submarine folks to keep on good terms with newspaper
writers if the American people were to be favorably impressed with the
claims of the Pollard boat.
"Now, see here," said Eph, balancing the boathook, "I'm sorry to stand
here making a noise like a crank, but have you any idea at all what
orders mean on shipboard? And I'm under the strictest orders not to
let anyone aboard."
"Get your orders changed, then," proposed another newspaper man,
cheerfully.
"If you'll wait, I'll see if I can," muttered Eph, hopefully.
"Oh, we'll wait."
Williamson's head had appeared in the manhole way.
"Come out on deck, and don't let anyone on board unless we get orders
to that effect," murmured Somers, passing the conning tower. Then,
through a megaphone, the submarine boy hailed the gunboat, asking if it
would be possible for him to talk with Jack Benson. Benson soon
afterward came forward on the "Waverly." Eph explained the situation.
Jack shouted back to allow the visitors on the platform deck, but not
to let any of them into the conning tower, or below.
So Eph turned to the two boatloads of visitors, explaining:
"Perhaps you men can get that all changed if you come out to-morrow, when
the captain is here. But the best I can do to-day is to let you up here
on the platform deck."
"Oh, well," returned the first newspaper man to get up there beside the
boy, "you can tell us, as well as anyone, about your trip down the coast
and the way you slipped in here."
"And also," chimed in another, "you're the young man who came straight
up through the water when she was beneath the surface?"
Eph admitted that he was.
"That's the thing _I_ want to know about," continued the second newspaper
man. "I've heard before about that wonderful trick of leaving a
submerged submarine, and coming to the surface. How is the thing done?"
Eph regarded this questioner with wondering patience, before he replied:
"You want to know so little that I'm sorry I'm deaf in my front teeth and
dumb in my right ear."
"That's on you, Paisley!" chuckled one of the newspaper men.
Then three or four began to ask questions at the same time, which caused
young Somers to wait, then remarked blandly:
"Now, if you'll all kindly talk at once, I'll give you, in a few words,
a straight account of the plain features of our trip down here, including
our run under water. But, if there's any question I don't answer for
you, you'll understand, I hope, that it's because I know it would be
bad manners for me to tell you anything that only officers of the Navy
have a right to know."
"All right, Commodore," nodded one of the newspaper men, good-humoredly.
"You're all right. Go ahead and spin your yarn in your own way."
Thereupon, without telling anything that he had no right to tell, Eph
managed none the less to give his hearers an entertaining account of
the "Benson's" long trip down the coast without stop or help.
"And, unless I'm in a big error, gentlemen, ours is the longest trip
that a submarine boat ever took by itself."
"You're right there, too," nodded one of the newspaper men, who made a
study of naval affairs and records. "And the way this craft came in
this afternoon beat anything, so far as I'm aware, that was ever done
with a submarine."
"That's Captain Jack Benson's specialty," replied Eph Somers, his eyes
twinkling.
"What's his specialty!"
"Doing things with a submarine boat that have never been done before.
Captain Benson is the latest wonder in the submarine line."
"He has a very steady admirer in you, hasn't he?" inquired one of the
newspaper men, laughingly..
"Yes; and the same is true of anyone else who knows him well," declared
Eph, warmly. "Jack Benson is about the best fellow on earth--and one
of the smartest, too, his comrades think."
Thereupon one of the newspaper correspondents began tactfully to draw
out young Somers about the history and past performances of the young
submarine captain. On this subject Somers talked as freely as they
could want.
"It was Benson, too, who discovered the trick of leaving a submarine
boat on the bottom, and coming to the top by himself, wasn't it?"
slyly asked one of the visitors.
"That was his discovery," nodded Eph, promptly.
"What's the principle of the trick?"
Eph's jaws snapped with a slight noise. He remained silent, for a few
moments, before he replied:
"So far, that trick is known only to the Pollard people and a few
officers of the Navy. The fewer that know, the better the chance of
keeping it a secret. Don't you believe me?"
"That's one way of looking at it, perhaps," nodded a reporter. "But
there's another side to that, too, Somers. The United States now own
some of your boats, and the money of the people paid for those boats.
Now, don't you think the people of this country have a right to know
some of the secrets for which they pay good money, and a lot of it?"
On hearing the question put that way Eph looked tremendously thoughtful
for a few seconds.
"Why, yes, undoubtedly," admitted the carroty-topped submarine boy.
"I never thought of it that way before."
"Then--"
"See here," interrupted Eph, "it was the Secretary of the Navy, who
on behalf of the people, bought our boats."
"Yes--"
"He acted as the agent of the people," Eph continued.
"Well--"
"Therefore," asserted Eph Somers, with a roguish twinkle in his eyes,
"the Secretary of the Navy is the proper official for you to go to in
search of that information. And you may tell the Secretary--"
"Stop making fun of us," interposed a newspaper man.
"You may tell the Secretary," finished Eph, "that I said I had no
objection to his giving you the information you want."
The newspaper men after gazing briefly at the innocent-looking face of
the carroty-topped one, began to grin.
"Young Somers is all right," declared one of the visitors. "He knows
when to talk, and also when to hold his tongue."
"I never was sized up so straight before," grinned Eph, "since I was
caught stealing grapes behind the Methodist church."
Before the newspaper men departed in their boats they had obtained some
amusing and interesting points for a news "story." Yet not one of them
had gained any inside information as to the closely guarded secrets of
the submarine. Eph, from his very disposition and temperament, made
undoubtedly the best press agent the Pollard Company could have had.
Hal Hastings, while wishing to be obliging, probably would have said
his whole "say" in twenty or thirty words. Jack Benson would have sung
the praises of the Pollard boats readily enough. But it was Eph, alone
of the three, who could give to such an interview the humor and wit that
American newspaper readers enjoy.
One "reporter" in the party that was rowed back to the beach was not
known to his associates. Wherever several newspaper men are gathered
at a point on business it is generally easy for a stranger, not connected
with the press, to push himself into the group. The stranger, in this
instance, had given the name of Norton, claiming to be from an Omaha
paper.
Arrived at the beach, however, "Norton" did not hasten to the telegraph
office. Instead, he hurried to the Hotel Clayton, the largest and most
expensive of the hotels at Spruce Beach.
Entering one of the elevators, Norton stepped off at the third floor.
He stepped briskly down a corridor, stopping before a door and giving
an unusual style of knock.
"Come--in," sounded a drawling voice, and Norton entered.
From a seat by a table, in the center of the large room, rose a man
somewhat past middle age This man was tall, not very stout, with a
sallow face adorned by a mustache and goatee. The man's eyes were
piercing and black. His hair was also black, save where a slight gray
was visible at the temples.
As Norton entered, the man, who rose, threw a cigarette into the fire
place, then reached over, selected another cigarette and lighted it.
The room was thick with the odor of some foreign tobacco.
"Well, Norton?" challenged this stranger, in a low voice.
"I've been aboard the new submarine, Monsieur Lemaire," replied the
young man. "I went with a party of newspaper writers, pretending to be
one of their calling."
"An excellent idea, Norton. And you saw the very boyish officers of
the boat?"
"Only one of them. The other two were paying a call on board the
gunboat. I saw Somers."
"You gathered some idea of how to pump him for the information wanted,
of course?"
"No; I didn't," retorted Norton, scowling. "I learned, very soon, that
Somers is one whom we want to leave out of our count in getting
information?"
"Why so?"
"Well, M. Lemaire, if you meet that young fellow, and try to draw him
out, you'll understand. He can talk longer, and tell less, than any
young fellow I've met. He seems to guess just what you want to know,
and then he carefully tells you something else."
"Ah, well, out of three young men, we shall find one who will tell us all
we need to know," laughed M. Lemaire, gayly. "So it is only a question
of learning which of the three to make the first attempt upon."
"If you want a suggestion--" began Norton.
"By all means, my dear fellow."
"Then turn your batteries of inquisitiveness loose upon Jack Benson,
first of all. He may be easy game. As for the third, Hal Hastings, I
hear that he is a silent fellow, who says little, and generally waits
five minutes, to think his answer over, before he gives it."
"Benson it shall be, then," nodded M. Lemaire. "I shall find it easy
to meet him. And now, good-bye, Norton, until this evening. You will
know what to do then."
After Norton had gone out, closing the door behind him, M. Lemaire
carefully flecked the ash from his cigarette as he murmured to himself:
"Then it shall be Captain Benson whom we first attack! Nor do I believe
I can do better than to enlist the services of Mademoiselle Sara. Ah,
yes! Her eyes are fine--perfect. One looks into her eyes, and trusts
her. Captain Jack Benson, you shall have the pleasure of meeting a most
charming creature!"