TORPEDO PRACTICE AT LAST
"Perhaps they're coming to make a row about having so much gun-cotton
stored close to the village," hinted Lieutenant Danvers.
The same thought was in Captain Jack Benson's mind. However, they
were not long to be kept in doubt, for Jacob Farnum had moved hastily
to the outer door.
"Good day, friends!" called the shipbuilder, as he pulled the outer door
open, for he recognized most of the faces of men and women in the crowd.
"What's wrong, friends!"
At the very doorstep the leaders of the crowd halted.
"The 'Mary Bond' isn't in yet, Mr. Farnum," called one of the men.
That was the name of a fishing smack that put out from Dunhaven at
regular intervals through the winter. She carried a Dunhaven captain
and mate, and, altogether, fourteen men and boys.
"When should she have been in!" queried Mr. Farnum. The crowd had
halted, now, and all but their chosen speaker remained silent.
"Yesterday morning, sir," replied the spokesman.
"Do you people fear that harm has come to the 'Mary Bond!" queried the
shipbuilder.
"Why, it must be so, sir. For the smack wasn't due to go out more'n
some forty miles. With the winds we've been having lately she could
come in, any time, within a few hours."
"Perhaps the captain had a poor run of luck," suggested Mr. Farnum. "He
may be staying out longer than usual."
"No, sir, for all the reports that have come in off the sea are of big
catches. The ocean has been swarming with fish these last few days,"
replied the spokesman.
"Then, friends, I take it there's something you want me to do. What is
it?" demanded Jacob Farnum.
"We've come to ask you, sir, if you won't have one of your torpedo boats
put out and look for the 'Mary Bond.' Your boats can go a big distance
in a few hours. We're afraid, Mr. Farnum, that the smack's canvas or
sticks may have suffered in the big blow of yesterday. We're afraid,
too, that the 'Mary Bond' may be drifting about helplessly on the sea,
just for the need of a little aid. We're afraid, sir, that good
Dunhaven men may be in great danger of going to the bottom, and leaving
behind families that--"
The spokesman stopped, a little choke in his voice. As though in answer
sobs came from some of the women.
"Now, now, friends, if that's the trouble, we'll soon know about it,"
promised the shipbuilder, one of the biggest-hearted men living. "One
of our boats is going out for practice. But, if you'll supply a good
sea-going hand or two, the second boat shall go out and sweep the seas
hereabouts, looking for the 'Mary Bond.'"
A cheer went up at once. Mr. Farnum flushed with pleasure. Not above
doing a kind act, he also enjoyed having it appreciated.
"Who'll command the relief boat!" called one of the women. "Jack
Benson?"
"No," replied Mr. Farnum, shaking his head. "Captain Benson must go out
on naval business to-day."
A murmur of disappointment went up from the crowd. Jack Benson was a
young skipper on whose success a Dunhaven crowd would make bets.
"But, see here," proposed the shipbuilder, "I'll go out myself, on the
'Benson,' and take Williamson along with me. Now, you folks find any
local salt-water captain and a couple of good deck hands to go with me."
"When will you start, sir?" asked the spokesman.
"The minute you have my helpers ready. There's Captain Allen among you
now. If he'll go, he's as good a salt-water dog as I want on a cruise
with me. Let him pick two sailors out of the crowd. We can start in
five minutes."
Another cheer went up as Jacob Farnum, leaving the outer door open,
hurried back to his own party. Captain Allen, a retired master of
coasting vessels, had five times as many volunteers in the crowd as he
needed.
"Jack, I'm sorry I can't go with you," sighed Mr. Farnum, as he returned.
"But the call of humanity is too big a one. I'm going to take Williamson
with me. The rest of you go with Lieutenant Danvers and his men. I'll
hope to be able to go with you to-morrow, anyway."
"Isn't there a tug hereabouts that those people could hire?" questioned
the naval officer.
"Oh, yes; there's a small one to the south of here, but her captain
would charge at least fifty dollars a day," replied the shipbuilder,
as he drew on a heavy deck ulster.
"I suppose these people expect you to go out for nothing," hinted
Lieutenant Danvers.
"Oh, yes, of course," nodded the shipbuilder. "But one can't be a
crank, or a miser, when women are red-eyed and weeping from worry over
their missing husbands and sons."
There was a suspicion of moisture in Mr. Farnum's own eyes as he snatched
up a cap, bidding his own party a hasty good-bye ere he ran from the
office.
"There goes a good-natured man," laughed Lieutenant Danvers.
"A big-hearted one, you mean, sir," corrected Captain Jack Benson.
"He's a man with a heart bigger than any torpedo craft he could possibly
build and launch."
"I wish him all luck," said the naval officer, heartily. "And that
crowd, and also the poor seafaring men that put out in the like of the
'Mary Bond.'"
The crowd had gone from the office building, now, following Mr. Farnum
and his volunteers down to the little harbor. Jack, his chums and the
naval party slowly followed down to the water front.
Little time did the shipbuilder lose in getting under way. A rousing
cheer ascended when the grim little "Benson" slipped her moorings and
turned her nose out toward the sea.
"Your pipe-hungry machinist went on that craft, didn't he!" asked the
naval officer, as the crowd began to turn back from the beach.
"Yes," nodded Captain Jack. "So there's nothing at all to prevent our
getting the 'Hastings' out on the wave as soon as you like."
"I'm going to send my men up to the hotel, first, for a jolly big feed,"
proposed Lieutenant Danvers. "They've been on the rail, eating on the
jump, and now they'll appreciate a good square meal."
"Suppose we all go up to the hotel for luncheon!" proposed Captain Jack.
"Then how about having torpedoes aboard when we return?"
"How many real torpedoes will you want for to-day, Mr. Danvers?" Benson
inquired.
"Two, besides the dummies, will be plenty."
"Then I'll run over to Mr. Partridge, the superintendent of the yard,
and he'll have a foreman and a gang attend to it," suggested the young
submarine skipper.
Accordingly, this was done. Then the party slated for the afternoon
cruise went over to the hotel. By the time that they came back from
the midday meal the two service torpedoes were aboard the "Hastings"
and the target was in readiness to be towed out to sea.
This "target" was not a handsome-looking affair. It was an old scow,
some thirty feet long and broad of beam, that had once been used, up
the coast, in sea-wall construction work. Mr. Farnum had bought it a
short time before and it now lay at anchor, near the beach, ready to
be towed out to sea for its last service to mankind. The scow was
heavily laden with rock, this being intended to sink the craft's keel
as far as was advisable. The old scow had now something more than four
feet draught, with less than two feet of freeboard.
Two of the workmen, in an old whaleboat, waited to row the party out to
the "Hastings." Jack was soon able to welcome Lieutenant Danvers on
board the submarine.
"You can look around all you want, Ewald and Biffens," suggested Mr.
Danvers, "and see if you can find any great differences between this
craft and the 'Pollard' and the 'Farnum.'"
The two sailors, accordingly, made themselves wholly at home in the
interior of the submarine.
"Both men have put in tours of duty on the first two boats turned out
by your company," explained the officer. "They know all about the two
Pollard boats that the Navy bought."
"Then they won't find very much that is different on board the
'Hastings,'" Jack replied. "All that is new here is in the way of a few
more up-to-date little mechanisms and devices. A man used to running
the old 'Pollard' would really be wholly at home here."
A few minutes, only, were allowed for inspection of the newest submarine
of the lot. By this time the workmen in the small boat had made fast a
towing hawser between the bow of the old scow and the stern towing bitts
of the "Hastings."
"Use my men all you need to, in casting off, or in boat handling
generally," requested Lieutenant Danvers. Jack therefore ordered Ewald
and Biffens forward on the upper hull to cast loose from moorings. Hal
stood the trick in the engine-room, while Jack himself sat at the wheel
in the tower.
In another minute, despite her rather heavy tow, the "Hastings" was
nosing briskly out of the harbor. The gasoline engines this little
craft were of a "heavy service" pattern, which adapted the submarine
to the work of towing at need.
"How far out do you want to go, sir!" asked Captain Jack, as the Navy
lieutenant took a seat beside him in the tower, after Eph and the
sailors had gone below.
"We want to be sure to be well out of the path of coastwise vessels,"
replied Danvers. "That's the main thing, you know. We can't take any
risk of sinking a merchantman while we're having our fun."
"With this tow, then, it will be three o'clock before we get out where
we really ought to be, sir."
"That will give us at least two hours of good daylight," nodded Mr.
Danvers. "Of course you know this coast well enough to pick your way
back after dark?"
"I'd run the craft five times the distance, under water, and hit the
harbor without thought of an accident," spoke young Benson, seriously,
and with no thought of boasting.
"Jove, my young friend, if you can do a thing like that, you're a
genius at the work," muttered Danvers, after a swift, side glance at
Skipper Jack.
"I've done as much before," laughed Jack. "Either of my friends could
do it, for that matter."
"Then you're veritable young kings of the deep!" declared Lieutenant
Danvers, heartily.
"Oh, we're not wonders," smiled Jack, goodhumoredly; then added, more
seriously, "If we really do anything worth while, my friends and I,
we're to be regarded simply as the products of constant practice."
"You're modest enough about it," agreed Danvers.
Presently, the naval officer himself took a hand at managing the
submarine. Jack, knowing that the boat was in fine professional hands,
slipped unconcernedly below, to chat with Hal Hastings, who sat doggedly
by his engines.
"What's the matter? What makes you look so solemn, old fellow?" asked
the young submarine skipper, when he caught sight of his chum's solemn
face.
"Oh, you'd laugh, if I told you," smiled Hal.
"Seeing omens of ill again!" persisted young Benson.
"I suppose," sighed Hal, "well, I have a sort of premonition."
"Pre--premo--" stuttered Captain Jack, holding comically to the port
side of his jaw. "Oh, pshaw! Call it a plain United States 'hunch.'
What's the tip the spooks are giving anyway, Hal?"
Hastings smiled again, though he went on:
"Oh, it's just a queer sort of notion I have that something is going to
happen to us this afternoon."
"Right-o," drawled Jack. "You don't have to shove off from that, Hal.
Something is going to happen to us. This afternoon we're going to have
the first drill in the actual firing of submarine torpedoes."
"Oh, I know that," Hastings admitted, quickly. "But what I see ahead,
or feel as though I see, is some kind of disaster. Now, you'll think
I'm a sailor-croaker, won't you, Jack?"
"Disaster?" repeated Jack, slowly. "Well, to be sure, we've the outfit
on board for a disaster, if we wanted one. Two real torpedoes that hold,
between them, four hundred pounds of gun-cotton--or danger-calico, as
Williamson would call it. But cheer up, old fellow. There's no danger,
after all. Williamson and his pipe are on the other boat."
"Oh, of course nothing is really going to happen," laughed Hal. "It is
just the feeling that is over me. That's all."
It was fully three o'clock by the time Lieutenant Danvers decided they
were far enough out to sea, and far enough from any craft in those
waters. Not a stick or a stack of another vessel showed within ten
miles of them. The scow was accordingly cast loose and allowed to
drift.
Captain Jack was at the tower wheel again, as Eph and the two sailors
returned from setting the scow loose.
"We've got to be sure to record one good hit against that old barge of
stone," muttered Lieutenant Danvers, who stood beside the youthful
submarine commander. "The sea is roughening, and I doubt if we could
pick up that scow in tow again. We've got to destroy her, or she'd be
a fearful menace to navigation, drifting about in the night in the path
of incoming vessels."
"Oh, I guess you'll get rid of her easily enough," spoke Jack,
confidently. "You're a professional at this business, sir."
"So are the two men with me," nodded the officer. "By the way, Ewald
can just as well come on deck and take the wheel, if you want him to do
so. Then you can go below and see all that we do with a torpedo."
"Now, that's what I call a great idea," cried Benson, enthusiastically.
"I want to know just how a torpedo is handled at the time of firing."
"It's the only thing you have left to learn about this business,"
smiled the naval officer. Then he passed the word for Ewald. When that
it sailor had taken the wheel, the naval officer and the young submarine
skipper went below.
"We'll swing in one of the dummy torpedoes, first, of course," announced
Mr. Danvers.
One of the dummies was, therefore, hauled forward on a truck, then
forced on into the torpedo tube. Jack watched, intently, this part of
the business.
The torpedo itself was a cigar-shaped affair, with a propeller at the
after end. This propeller was set in motion by means of an engine in
the after part of the torpedo, the engine being so constructed that it
was set in operation at the moment the torpedo left the tube and entered
the ocean outside. The propeller was fitted with apparatus that would
drive the torpedo in a straight line.
"The torpedo looks like a miniature submarine, doesn't it?" muttered
young Benson.
"It surely does," nodded the naval officer. "And, since the torpedo has
to travel under water, what better model could have been chosen? Now,
the engines in these dummy torpedoes can be set for two, four, six or
eight hundred yards, and the torpedo, once it enters the water, travels
forward, in a straight line until the engine gives out. That is, the
torpedo travels ahead if it doesn't hit something. So, in actual war
conditions, we would always get nearer to the object than the distance
for which the engine is set to run. The speed of a torpedo like this,
under water, is a good deal better than thirty miles an hour, but the
distance the torpedo can go is naturally short. That is a direct
consequence of its speed. Now, Mr. Benson, would you like to know how
to fire the torpedo, since it is already in the tube?"
"Certainly, sir," nodded Jack. And then he continued as if reciting a
lesson: "Just give that firing lever at the back of the after port a
quick shove to the right and downward. That releases the charge of
compressed air and forces the torpedo out. At the same instant the
forward port opens, so that the torpedo can be shot out into the water.
The compressed air also serves to keep the sea water from rushing in
through the torpedo tube. When the lever is swung up and back again
that closes the forward port, and it is then safe to open this after
port."
"You've committed that to memory," laughed the naval lieutenant.
"Oh, we've often talked this over, all three of us," smiled Jack.
"Then, since you understand this part so well, Benson," proposed Mr.
Danvers, "perhaps you'd like to go forward, on deck, and see when this
dummy torpedo is fired?"
"I surely would," agreed the submarine boy "And Eph can just as well
come with me."
The two submarine boys, therefore, hastened above, out on the platform
deck, and then further forward on the upper hull, until they lay out
along the nose of the "Hastings."
Danvers reached Ewald's side in the tower, while Biffens waited below,
at the lever, for the firing signal.
The "Hastings" was now drifting, rather aimlessly, something more than
four hundred yards away from the scow. As the sea was roughening all
the while, the two submarine boys out forward were having a hard time
of it. Added to that, icy spray was falling over them.
Lieutenant Danvers quickly rang for speed and then brought the submarine
boat within about three hundred yards of the scow, and at a position that
pointed the nose of the "Hastings" at the middle of the scow's hull, the
line of fire making a right angle with the scow.
"Get ready to watch, out there!" warned the naval officer.
"Now, Eph," glowed Jack, "we're going to see the thing we've so often
dreamed about! We'll see that dummy torpedo leap forth, like a real
one. For a little way, at least, we ought to see the track of the
torpedo."
"Feel like betting the dummy will bit the scow?" questioned young Somers,
half doubtfully.
"Of course it will," retorted Jack Benson, scornfully, "with naval
experts on the job!"
Lieutenant Danvers gave the firing signal.
In the silence that followed, the two submarine boys hanging over the
nose of the boat heard just a muffled click below. Then--
"There it goes!" shouted Jack Benson, with all the glee in the world.
Down beneath them, under the nose of the "Hastings" an object shot into
brief view. First the war-head, then the middle, then the tail and
propeller of a fourteen-foot Whitehead torpedo swept away from them,
two or three feet below the surface of the waves. A line of bubbles
came to the surface, showing that the torpedo was headed, straight and
clean, for the stone-laden scow over on the ocean. Then the torpedo,
still under water, passed out of their range of view.
"Hurrah!" yelled Jack Benson, leaping to his feet with all the glee and
fervor of the enthusiast. "Hurrah!"
"Hurrah!" bellowed Eph Somers, for the glory of the game had gotten into
his blood, too. Both submarine boys capered up and down on the
platform deck.
But Lieutenant Danvers sat with left hand on the conning tower steering
wheel, his watch in his right hand. He was counting the seconds.
"Look out for the signal," called the naval officer, coolly. "When I
tell you, then look out for what happens over at the scow. Er--now!"
They were too far away to hear the impact, but the two submarine boys
saw a slight commotion in the waters under the scow's rail. Then the
dummy torpedo bounded back, rising and floating on the surface--spent!
Had that torpedo contained the fighting service charge of two hundred
pounds of gun-cotton it would have shattered and sunk the biggest,
staunchest, proudest battleship afloat.
"It's uncanny--isn't it?" gasped Jack Benson, feeling an odd shudder
run over him.