The Submarine Boys Lightning Cruise | Page 9

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.

CHAPTER III
STRUCK BY A SUBMERGED FOE
"Yep!" agreed Eph Somers, blaster of day-dreams. "But say?"
"Well?" demanded Captain Jack.
"At the same time," muttered Eph, grimly, "I'm glad that scow isn't a
real battleship, with a half a dozen twelve-inch cannon turned on us."
"Humph!" muttered Jack, dryly, "if that scow were an enemy's
battleship, twelve-inch barkers and all, we'd be twenty feet under the
surface, and we'd be out of sight and out of mind."
"Quite right," nodded Lieutenant Danvers. "In a contest of that sort I'd
feel fifty times safer here than on the battleship we were after. Now,
Benson, you've seen the first part of it. We have the other dummy to
fire. The real gunner, on a submarine, is the fellow at the wheel. Do
you want to take the wheel, manoeuvre the boat and give the order for
the next dummy shot?"
"Do I?" uttered Jack Benson. "Just!"
Orders were then given to place the other dummy torpedo in the tube,
and this done, Jack took his place at the wheel, while Eph Somers and
the lieutenant