The Submarine Boys on Duty Part 18

"Wonder how far the bosses are going to run under water?" pondered Eph, sliding into the engine room and seating himself on the cushion opposite Andrews.

"Till they've tried the boat out all they want to under water, I guess,"

ventured Jack.

"I'll slip back, so I can pa.s.s any order that may come," proposed Hal, who, truth to tell, felt an undefinable something that made him too restless to like the idea of sitting down.

As the "Pollard" continued to glide along, almost without perceptible motion at that depth, these members of the crew became somewhat accustomed to the feeling. They began to have a new notion, though, that they would take it all much more easily after they had once seen proof of the new craft's ability to rise.

"Say, I wonder if it would be too fresh of me to ask Mr. Farnum when he means to try the rising stunt?" wondered Eph, aloud.

Grant Andrews looked up with interest, then shook his head.

"Better not," he advised. "We knew what we were coming to, and took all the chances. Now, we'd better keep quiet. Any nervousness might bother Mr. Pollard or Mr. Farnum."

"Well, she's a dandy boat, anyway," declared Eph, a bit jerkily. "So far, she's done everything she's been told to. So I reckon she can rise when the time comes."

"Who's below?" cried Mr. Farnum.

"Hastings, sir," Hal answered.

"Tell the crew we're going to run below the surface until the air becomes noticeably bad. We want to test out the compressed-air devices for purifying the atmosphere."

So Hal stepped forward with the message.

"Don't you think the air begins to smell queer already?" demanded Eph, looking up. "I'm willing to have some compressed air turned on right now."

The others laughed, which was all they could do. Jack Benson, of them all, probably, was getting most rapidly over the first bad touch of "submarine fright." He was now almost as well satisfied as he would have been on the porch of the little hotel at Dunhaven. Only he was anxious to know just how the boat would behave when it became time to rise. That was all.

"How would you feel if we were running along like this, bent on driving a torpedo against the hull of a big battleship?" questioned Eph.

"Curious," Jack answered.

"What about?"

"Wondering if we were going to succeed in the job."

"Put it another way," laughed Grant Andrews, shortly. "How would you feel about being aboard a battleship in wartime, and suspecting that a boat like this was nosing down in the water after you?"

Jack Benson made a little grimace.

"Serious business, this fighting on the ocean, isn't it?" he replied.

"It's stranger to think about than it is to be doing it," replied Andrews, musingly. "I know. I was in the war with Spain."

"How did you feel?" asked Eph, quickly.

"Tired, most of the time," replied Andrews. "Sick some of the time, and hungry the rest."

"But about being scared?" insisted Eph.

"I was kept too busy, generally, to have any time to give to being scared. I was a soldier, and a soldier is a good deal like any other workman. He does his work by habit, and soon gets over thinking much about it."

There was a long pause, broken by Eph, saying:

"I wonder when they're going to let the boat rise?"

"When they're going to try to make it rise, you mean," corrected Jack Benson.

"Same thing, I hope," muttered Eph Somers.

After some minutes more Jacob Farnum stepped down below.

"Why, it looks cozy here at night, doesn't it?" he called.

At sound of his voice the boys stepped out of the engine room into the cabin.

"Mighty comfortable sort of place," continued the yard's owner, looking around him. "We'll have to put in some books, won't we, so you young men can read when you're doing nothing under water?"

"Maybe the time will come when we _can_ read," laughed Hal. "Just now, sir, I'm afraid we're too busy with thinking and wondering."

"I'll confess to being a bit nervous myself," responded Mr. Farnum.

"Somehow, there's something uncanny about rushing through the depths of the ocean in this fashion, not having any idea what danger you may be close by."

"Such as running into the hull of some big liner that draws more than forty feet of water," hinted Jack.

"We're fifty-eight feet below, now," remarked Mr. Farnum. "You didn't guess that, did you? We sank eighteen feet more, on an even keel."

"Gracious! You meant those eighteen feet, didn't you? It wasn't accident?" gasped Eph.

"We meant it," smiled the builder. "But say, the air is getting a bit foul here, isn't it? We'll have to try the compressed air equipment, now."

By an ingenious mechanical contrivance the present air was forced, by compressed air draught, into compartments from which the bad air was expelled through sea-valves. An instant change for the better in the atmosphere was noted.

"That's another thing about this good old new craft of ours that works all right, so far," remarked the builder. "Boys, I'm beginning to have confidence that we're going to see the surface again all right. Hullo, there's Pollard hailing us."

"The air purified all right, didn't it?" called down the inventor.

"Yes; couldn't have been better," declared the builder heartily.

"Then I'm going to make the supreme test," came down from the man at the wheel. "We'll proceed to find out whether we can rise to the surface and stay there."

CHAPTER XII

THE DISCOVERY FROM THE CONNING TOWER