The Submarine Boys Lightning Cruise | Page 7

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