The Submarine Boys and the Middies | Page 7

Jack corrected him.
"Well, it sounded like a sledge-hammer, anyway," grinned young
Somers. "While I was down below I found that the temperature rose
four degrees."
"Part of that was likely due to the warmth of your body, and the heat of
the breath you gave off," hinted Benson.
"You could have gotten it up to eighty or ninety degrees by turning on
the electric heater far enough," suggested Hal.
"I wanted to see whether it would be warmer in the depths; wanted to
find out how low I could go and be able to do without heat in winter,"
Somers retorted.
"I could have told you that, from my reading, without any experiment,"
retorted Skipper Jack. "Close your conning tower and go down a little
way, and the temperature would gradually rise a few degrees. That's
because of the absence of wind and draft. But, if you could go down
very, very deep without smashing the boat under the water pressure,
you'd find the temperature falling quite a bit."
"Where did you read all that?" inquired Eph, looking both astonished
and sheepish.
"Here," replied Jack, going to a small wall book-case, taking down a
book and turning several pages before he stopped.
"Just my luck," muttered Eph, disconsolately. "Here I've been dull as
ditch-water for an hour, trying to find out something new, and it's all
stated in a book printed--ten years ago," he finished, after rapidly
consulting the title-page.

Jacob Farnum had been no listener to this conversation. Taking the
marine glasses from the conning tower, the shipbuilder was now well
forward on the platform deck, scanning what was visible of the steam
craft to the southward. At last the yard's owner turned around to say:
"I don't believe you young men can have things ship-shape a second
too soon. The craft heading this way has a military mast forward. She
must be the 'Hudson.' If there's anything to be done, hustle!"
Jack and Hal sprang below, to scan their respective departments. Five
minutes later Grant Andrews hailed from the "Pollard," and Eph rowed
over in the shore boat to ferry over the machinists.
Half an hour later Andrews and his men had put in the few needed
touches aboard the newer submarine boat. The sun, meanwhile, had
gone down, showing the hull of a naval vessel some four miles off the
harbor.
Darkness came on quickly, with a clouded sky. As young Benson
stepped on deck Grant Andrews followed him.
"All finished here, Grant?" queried the yard's owner.
"Yes, sir. There's mighty little chance to do anything where Hal
Hastings has charge of the machinery."
"That's our gunboat out there, I think," went on Mr. Farnum, pointing
to where a white masthead light and a red port light were visible, about
a mile away.
"Dunhaven must be on the map, all right, if a strange navigating officer
knows how to come so straight to the place," laughed Jack Benson.
"Oh, you trust a United States naval officer to find any place he has
sailing orders for," returned Jacob Farnum. "I wonder if he'll attempt to
come into this harbor?"
"There's safe anchorage, if he wants to do so," replied Captain Jack.

While Somers was busy putting the foreman and the machinists ashore,
Mr. Farnum, Jack and Hal remained on the platform deck, watching the
approach of the naval vessel, which was now plainly making for
Dunhaven.
Suddenly, a broad beam of glaring white light shot over the water,
resting across the deck of the "Farnum."
"I guess that fellow knows what he wants to know, now," muttered
Benson, blinking after the strong glare had passed.
"There, he has picked up the 'Pollard,' too," announced Hastings. "Now,
that commander must feel sure he has sighted the right place."
"There go the signal lights," cried Captain Jack, suddenly. "Hal, hustle
below and turn on the electric current for the signaling apparatus."
Then Benson watched as, from the yards high up on the gunboat's
signaling mast, colored electric lights glowed forth, twinkling briefly in
turn. This is the modern method of signaling by sea at night.
"He wants to know," said Benson, to Mr. Farnum, as he turned,
"whether there is safe anchorage for a twelve-hundred-ton gunboat of
one hundred and ninety-five feet length."
Reaching the inside of the conning tower at a bound, the young skipper
rapidly manipulated his own electric signaling control. There was a low
mast on the "Farnum's" platform deck, a mast that could be unstepped
almost in an instant when going below surface. So Captain Jack's
counter-query beamed out in colors through the night:
"What's your draught?"
"Under present ballast, seventeen-eight," came the answer from the
gunboat's signal mast.
"Safe anchorage," Captain Jack signaled back.
"Can you meet us with a pilot?" questioned the on-coming gunboat.

"Yes," Captain