The U-boat hunters Part 17

Is there any romance in the navy nowadays? Who can answer for all?

Probably as much now as ever there was. Why should subst.i.tuting smoke-pipes for spars, and propellers for sails, kill the thing that thrills us? I've seen men washing down decks of a tropic morning, and, ninety miles inland, old Orizaba showing his white head above the clouds; and some of those men thought it was slow work and others thought it was great.

On a scout cruiser to African ports, or a thousand miles up a Chinese river on a gunboat, among the South Sea Islands on a light cruiser, some men return with dumb lips and others can keep you awake till morning with the tales of what they've seen.

A nineteen-year-old big-gun pointer sits atop of his bicycle saddle, and the enemy fleet is swinging into range. Will it be like shooting clay pipes in a gallery or will a warmer wave go rolling through his veins as he presses the b.u.t.ton?

Romance! Is it something always dead and gone, or something a man carries around with him?

Whatever it is, the navy is there to try it out, and no danger of starving while we try it.

THE SEA BABIES

Submarines have been cutting a large figure in this war. There is probably a general curiosity to know how they are operated. I know I was curious to know, and, _Collier's_ having secured me permission from the Electric Boat Company, I went over to Cape Cod to take in a trial trip or two of some boats they were building for the British Government.

There was one all ready for sea.

Long and narrow, and modelled like a stretched-out egg she was, with one end of the egg running to a point by way of a stern, and the other flattened to an up-and-down wedge-like bow. A heavy black line marked her run.

Below her run she was tinted to the pale green of insh.o.r.e waters, and to a grayish blue above. Everything above her deck, which was only a raised fore-and-aft platform for the crew to walk on, with countless little round scupper-holes in its sides--above the deck her conning-tower, and above that again her periscope casing--all were blue-gray.

The feeling of the morning was of heavy wind and rain or snow to come; and a hard, cold breath of the sea and a taste of the rain were already on us as we crossed the plank from the mother ship to the deck of the "sub" and, one after the other, fitted ourselves into the main hatchway and wiggled down into her.

Our submarine, from the inside, was an amazing collection of engines, tanks, gauges, tubes, pipes, valves, wheels, torpedoes, tube heads, electric registers, electric lights, and whatnot. A flat steel floor ran from the forward end to the engine-room aft. Between the floor and the arched deck overhead were three heavy steel bulkheads with heavy steel doors. A narrow iron skeleton ladder led up to her conning-tower; small steel rungs bolted to the casing showed the way to a square after-deck hatch.

When all the others of us were below, the captain came squeezing down from the conning-tower hatch and took his position at the periscope.

To the captain's left stood a man whose job it was to hold the sub to the depth of water desired. This was the diving-rudder man, a most expert one, we were told, who had been known to hold a submerged sub at full speed to within six inches of one depth for two miles at a stretch.

A thin bra.s.s scale and a curved tube of colored water with an air bubble in it helped out the diving-rudder man's calculations. The least deviation of the sub's course from the horizontal and these two instruments, lit up by electric lamps, showed it at once. There was a big dial, with a long green hand, which also marked the depth of the sub; but that was an insensitive and rather slow-acting gauge--all right for the crew to look at from half the length of the sub, but not fine or quick enough for the diving-rudder man.

He was the busy man while we were under water. The others could now and again grab a moment of relaxation from their tenseness, but while the sub was moving the diving-rudder man never took his eyes off the little bra.s.s scale with the electric light playing on it. Stop and consider that our sub had only to get a downward inclination of ever so little while running hooked-up under water, and in no time she would be below her lowest safety depth of 200 feet, where the pressure is 7 tons to every square foot of her hull. And should she collapse there would be no preliminary small leak by way of warning. She would go as an egg-sh.e.l.l goes when you crush it in your palm. Plack!--like that--and it would be all over. Above this same middle compartment, the smallest and most crowded of all, up through the grilled s.p.a.ces of a steel grating, we could see the wide feet and boot-legs of the man who held the ship to her compa.s.s course; and for a wheel, we knew, he was holding a little metal lever about as long and thick as his middle finger, with a little black ball about as big as the ball of his thumb on the end of it.

To the right of the foot of the conning-tower ladder stood the ballast-tank man; and when the captain from the foot of his periscope gave the word--after first looking forward, aft, and to each side of him to see that all hands were at their proper stations--it was the ballast-tank man who went violently at once into action. He grabbed a big valve and gave it a twist; grabbed another and gave it a twist; and another, and one more; and, standing near by, we could hear--or thought we could--the in-rush of great waters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: In the engine-room of a submarine. The Diesel engines, driven by crude petroleum, propel the ship on the surface. Electric motors supply the power when running submerged.]

A man got to wondering then what would happen if this chap got his valves mixed. But a look around showed every lever and every valve, everything marked with its own name and number. Nothing was left unmarked--in deep-cut black lettering on bra.s.s plates generally, but here and there colored-light signs, too. After another look at the multiplicity of them, almost any man would agree that it is a good scheme.

But to get back: the tank man has done his part and our sub is sinking.

There is no unusual feeling to inform a man she is sinking. Only for the starting of the engines, the diving-rudder man getting busy, and the wide-faced gauge's long green finger beginning to walk around, a man who didn't know could easily believe that the sub was still tied up alongside her supply-ship. But the long green finger is walking, and marking 5 feet, 10 feet, 11, 12, as it walks. At 16 feet the finger oscillates and stops, and to that depth our diving-rudder man holds her while she speeds on for a mile or so.

That first little dash is by way of warming her up. The officer for whose government this submarine was built is aboard. He now asks for a torpedo demonstration. So two 1,500-pound dummy torpedoes are got ready, the breeches to two of the four forward tubes opened, the torpedoes slipped in, the breeches closed. The bow caps are then opened.

The captain, during all this time, has never left the periscope, which--to have it explained and over with--is no more than a long telescope set on end, with a reflecting mirror top and bottom. From the lower end of the periscope project two bra.s.s arms, by means of which the skipper now swings the periscope all the way around. In this way he is able to look at any quarter of the sea he pleases.

Running at the depth we were then, the periscope showing about six feet out of water, the captain at the periscope was, of course, the only man who could see anything outside of her.

The captain gave the needful preliminary orders; and at the proper time, sighting through the periscope as he did so, he pressed the b.u.t.ton of a little arrangement which he held, half concealed, in the palm of his hand. There was a soft explosion, a sort of woof!--and a torpedo was on the way to a hypothetical enemy, with only the captain able to see that it reached its mark.

As the torpedo left the sub the rudder man gave her a "down" rudder, which was to offset the tendency of the sub to shoot her nose to the surface; when the torpedo had gone the tank man turned on the air-pressure, which blew out what water had entered the torpedo chamber.

By and by the other torpedo was fired.

One reason for this trial run was to prove that she could run so many miles an hour under water by the power of her storage-batteries alone.

And soon she went at that. And no mild racket inside her then; for a sub's engine power and s.p.a.ce are out of all proportion to her tonnage.

Not to decrease the noise, the man to whom the trial meant most was standing by with a stop-watch, and every half-minute or so he would yell at the top of his lungs, "Go!" or "Hold!" to the engineer, who was imprisoned in a narrow alleyway with engines to right and to left and below him. The engineer would look at a register and yell back at the manager, who would then set some figures in a book and rush over to the man who was reckoning up the decreasing or increasing amperes or kilowatts or whatever they were of her storage-batteries, and set down more figures; and if the boss had to yell his head off to make himself heard, be sure that the others had to yell even louder. Only on trial trips, probably, where tests have to be proved, does all this yelling happen; but the total effect was to make a sh.o.r.e-goer feel, not as if he were in a ship under water, but rather in a subway section under construction, or some overdriven corner of some sort of night-working machine-shop, or some other homelike place ash.o.r.e. The bright electric lights helped out the machine-shop illusion.

For a time during the run the diving-rudder man had his troubles keeping her on a level, whereupon the skipper--an easy-going man ordinarily--jerked his head away from his periscope and had a peek for the reason. Through the forward bulkhead door he spied the torpedo man, who, feeling pleased, perhaps, at the successful execution of his part of the programme, was fox-trotting fore and aft for himself in his section of the ship. "Would you mind picking out one spot and staying on it?" asked the skipper, at which the torpedo man took his camp-stool, picked out his one spot, and planted himself on it, and piously read the stock-market quotations of a week-old newspaper for the rest of the run.

While this hour run--full speed, submerged--was in progress, a tickling in our throats set most of us to coughing. A naval constructor of note, who was also a shark on chemistry, explained how this coughing was not caused by the chill in the air, but by the particles of sulphuric acid thrown off by the action of the storage-batteries. These little particles, it seems, went travelling about in the air seeking a home--some place, any place where they could tuck in out of the way; but all the air homes being already occupied by other tenants--the usual ingredients or components of the air--they could find no place to b.u.t.t in; and so they went around and about till innocent people like ourselves made a home for them by breathing them in out of the way. After which explanation--yelled above all the other noises--these sulphuric hoboes caused less suspicion and discomfort. It was good to hear that what we were swallowing was not the chlorine of a hundred stories of fiction.

The sub had now to prove her diving qualities. So tanks were blown out and up she went to the surface again; and there, while she was resting like a bird on the water, ballast-tanks were suddenly filled and down she went. Down, down, down she went--the long green finger on the broad-faced gauge walking around at a fine clip. Dropping so--on an even keel, by the way--she gave out no sense of action such as a man gets on an aeroplane.

Flying around in the air, you see what's doing every second. If anything happens, you know you will see it coming, and--perhaps--going: your eyes, ears, brains, and nerves prove things to you.

But action in a submarine lies largely in a man's imagination, unless he be the periscope man; and even there, when she is completely submerged, he sees no more than the others. However, a man did not need to have too much imagination to think of a few things as he looked at the long green finger walking around: 30 feet, 40 feet, 50 feet--This particular observer had no idea she could drop so fast; and as she dropped, he could not help wondering how deep the ocean was around there--this in case anything happened. Sixty feet, 70 feet--she was gathering great speed by then, but at 82 feet she stopped--a pleasant thing to see. And then, maybe to show it was no accident, she did it all over again. Did we feel any difficulty in breathing during all this? We did not, nor during the three to four hours we were under that morning. And let a man listen to these submarine enthusiasts telling how they can live three or four weeks on their compressed air, if they have to, without coming to the surface! Only give them food enough, of course. And coffee--they have an electric range to make the coffee. As it happened, they made coffee for us--not that day, but next morning going home. It was good coffee. The 82-foot-drop stunts were done with each of the crew at his station, ready at any instant to check her.

To meet the further requirements our sub had to rise to the top, fill her tanks, let herself go, and then, by an automatic safety device, fetch up all by herself. So the tank man applied the air-pressure, blew his tanks free of all water, closed his outer valves and brought her up.

She was now stretched out on the surface--not quite motionless, for the first of the breeze predicted the night before was on and we could feel that she was rolling a little. A peek through the periscope while she was up disclosed further evidence of the breeze--tossing white crests, two coasters hustling for harbor under short sail, an inbound fisherman with reefed mainsail making great leaps for home. Looking through the periscope so, it was easy enough to understand the feeling of power which might well come to the master of a submarine in war time. The sub can be lying there--in dark or bright water will make no difference; on such a day no eye is going to discern the white bone of the moving periscope; and he can be standing there, with a quick peek now and then to see what is going on above him; and by and by she can come swinging along majestically in her arrogance and power--the greatest battleship afloat, with guns to level a great city, or the biggest and speediest ship ever built--and he can be there and when he gets good and ready--Woof! she's gone. War-ship or liner, she's gone and all aboard gone with her; and the submarine skipper can go along about his business of getting the next one.

However, the automatic device was set for action at the required depth and the word given.

In this same middle compartment--the operating compartment of the ship--was a man with the spiritual face of one who keeps lonely, intense vigils. He sat on a camp-stool, and his business seemed to be not ever to let his rapt gaze wander from several rows of gauges which were screwed to the bulkhead before him. Since I first stepped down into the sub I had spotted him, and had been wondering if his ascetic look was born with him or was a development of his job--whatever his job might be. Now I learned what his job was. He was the man who stood by the automatic safety devices. If anything happened to the regular gadgets and it was life or death to get her at once to the surface, he was the man who pressed a b.u.t.ton, or moved a switch, or in some highly mechanical way applied the mysterious power which would get her safe to the surface.

The skipper gave the word, the main ballast lad opened his outer valves, and down she started. We knew this, as always, by the moving green finger on the wide-faced gauge. Downward she kept on going, and to a man not too long shipmates with the creature she certainly did seem to be going down in a hurry. She was nearing the appointed depth; she made the appointed depth, and--went on by. "What's this!" said one observer to himself, and directed an interested eye toward the saint-like lad on the camp-stool.

But it was only for a few feet. The indicator slacked up, fluttered, stopped dead. And then--without the husky tank boy to lift a finger--we heard the rumph-h and rumbling of the valve-seats as the sea-water was driven out of her ballast-tanks; and then up she started. Soon there she was--did it all by herself--atop of the water. And the face of the young fellow of the automatic devices was like the face of the devout missionary who has just put something over on the heathen.

Later, when you express the feeling of almost holy comfort which these little automatic safety devices give you, the manager--the same with the stop-watch and the note-book--says, "Puh! Look here," and sits down and details--drawing good working plans of them on a pad while he talks--three different ways by which a submarine crew can beat the game should any evil happen to the ordinary and regular means of getting to the surface.

She has a turn at porpoising then; that is from a moderate depth the diving-rudder man shoots her near enough to the surface for the captain to have a look through the periscope--a long-enough look to plot the enemy on a chart, but not long enough to give that enemy much of a chance to pick him up; and then under again. And then up for another peek; and quickly under again, the captain at the periscope taking each time a fresh bearing of the enemy, who is supposed to be at some distance and steaming at good speed. After two or three such quick sights, changing course after each sight, it will be time to discharge a torpedo or two at her. And--the layman may note it--with expert men at the periscope and diving-rudder, a porpoising sub can sight, discharge her torpedo, and dive--all within five seconds.

Steaming back to harbor after our trial run that day, we caught the first rip of the gale which the gummed-over moon and the low barometer had forecast the night before. It was too rough to tie her up to the supply-ship, so the sub was anch.o.r.ed--they carry anchors too--a short distance away, with three men left on her for an anchor watch, the idea being to take them off later for a hot meal. But after the rest of us were safe and warm and well fed aboard the mother ship, the increasing winds came bowling over the increasing seas, and the crew of the sub had to wait.

At intervals we could hear them emitting beseeching, doleful, disgusted moans and shrieks and howls from her air-whistle. But it was too rough for any little choo-choo boat to be battling around. It was 9.30 that night before they could safely be taken off. They were a moderately good-natured lot; but that was the blear-eyed trouble with making sub trial trips with bad weather coming on--a man never knew about his regular meals.

The supply-ship was quite a little inst.i.tution herself. Approaching her from sh.o.r.e the night before, her lights beneath the dull moon and thin, drifting clouds had loomed up like a dancing-hall across the lonesome harbor waters. When we got aboard, we found her the relic of what had once been a fine block of a three-masted coaster; but moored forward and aft she was now, as if for all time, and no longer showing stout spars and weather-beaten canvas--nothing but two floors of white-painted boarding above her old bulwarks.

She was a boarding-place, a sort of club, for the crew and attendants, as well as a supply station for the submarines which in these New England waters were being tried out for one of the warring Powers.

Voices and cigar-smoke as we stepped aboard, and more or less quiet breathing, with partly closed and open living and sleeping rooms, denoted that men were discussing, arguing, sleeping, and otherwise pa.s.sing a normal evening. Looking farther, we saw that down in the insides of her--where formerly she stowed n.o.ble freights of coal or lumber or, sometimes, hay and ice--were now a boiler and engine room, and a good, big repair-shop.

This night, while the gale came howling and the sea rolling and the solid rain sweeping against the sober old sides of our supply-ship--on this night, the finest kind to be sitting in a warm cabin, we sat and, while the smoke rolled high, aired our views of the real things in the world; and the most real thing in the world just then being a submarine, we got this:

"Danger? Of course, there's some danger. So is there danger in bank-fishing, in log-jamming down in Maine, in mining deep down, and in aeroplaning.

"You want to get a sub right. A sub is a ship modelled different from most ships, of course, and built stronger to stand pressure, but only a ship, after all, with special tanks in her. She's on top of the water and wants to go down. Good. She fills her tanks and down she goes. She's down and wants to come up. All right. She empties her tanks and up she comes. She's got to. She couldn't stay down with her tanks empty if she wanted to--not unless she blew a hole in her side, or left her hatches open.

"Of course if her tanks don't work right! But we showed you three different ways to-day how she can beat that game. And anyway, no matter what happens, unless you're cruising deep, it's only a few feet to the top. Not like a crazy aeroplane a thousand feet up in the air! Something happens in an aeroplane, and where are you? With a busted stay or bamboo strut and you a mile in the air, where are you? Volplane? Maybe. But if you didn't--down you'd come atumbling like a hoop out of the clouds.