The Submarine Boys and the Spies | Page 4

an enemy's ships that might be in that harbor. But
now, sir, you propose that, lest we have accidents, it will be best to rise
to the surface and enter the harbor at Spruce Beach as plainly and
stupidly as though the 'Benson' were some mere lumber schooner."
"I see the thing just the way Jack Benson does," murmured David
Pollard, thrusting his hands down deep in his trousers pockets.
"Oh, well, if I'm voted down, I'll give in," laughed Jacob Farnum. "I
wonder, though, how Hal and Eph feel about this?"
"I don't have to ask them," nodded Captain Jack, confidently.
"Why not?"
"We settled it all, days ago, sir."
"And they both agreed with you?"
"Down to the last jot, Mr. Farnum. They saw the beauty and the
boldness of the plan."
Oh, well, go ahead, then, responded Mr. Farnum, rising and standing
by the cabin table. "Of course, the picturesque and romantic

possibilities of the scheme are plain enough to me. We'll have the
people at Spruce Beach agape with curiosity, then wild with
enthusiasm. And, really, to be sure, we have to arouse the enthusiasm
of the American people over this whole game. That's the surest way of
forcing Congress to spend more money on our boats."
"Where are you going, Jake?" called the inventor, as his partner started
aft.
"To the stateroom, to get a little nap," replied the shipbuilder. "We're
not by any means due at Spruce Beach yet."
"Jake Farnum is surely not a coward," chuckled Mr. Pollard, as the
stateroom door closed. "Nor is he over anxious about any detail in our
little game, or he couldn't go to sleep at this important time. I know I
couldn't get a wink of sleep if I turned in now. I've simply got to sit up,
wide awake, until I see the finish of your bold stroke, Jack Benson."
Captain Jack laughed easily, then glanced at his watch to note the lapse
of time since he had made his last calculation of their whereabouts. It is
one thing to be in the open air, navigating a vessel, but it is quite
another affair to be fifty-odd feet below the surface, calculating all by
the distance covered and the course steered.
"Any deviation in the course, Eph?" Captain Jack called up into the
conning tower.
"Not by as much as a hair's breadth," retorted young Somers, almost
gruffly, for with him, to depart from a given course, was well nigh
equal to a capital crime.
Jack touched a button in the side of the table. Obeying the summons,
quiet Hal Hastings thrust his head out into the cabin.
"Just the same speed, Hal?" the young captain asked.
"Hasn't changed a single revolution per minute," Hastings answered,
briefly.

With his watch on the table before him, and employing the scale rule
and dividers, the young submarine skipper placed a new dot on the
chart.
"Something ought to be happening in three quarters of an hour,"
Benson remarked, with a chuckle, to Mr. Pollard.
Less than half an hour later the young submarine skipper climbed up
into the conning tower beside Eph.
"Same old straight course, eh, lad?" asked Jack quietly.
"You know it," retorted Eph.
"Then we're where we ought to be," responded Jack Benson, bending
forward. With his right hand on the speed control he shut off speed.
"Now, just sit where you are, Eph, until I come up again," advised the
young commander.
"Going to the surface?" demanded Somers, with interest.
"Pretty close," nodded Benson.
Calling Mr. Pollard to his aid, Jack began to operate the machinery that
admitted compressed air to the water tanks, expelling the water
gradually from those same tanks. This was the means by which the
submarine boat rose to the surface. All the time that he was doing this,
Jack Benson kept his keen glance on the submersion gauge. At last he
stopped.
"How is it up there, Eph?" he called, pleasantly.
"Why, of course there's a lot of good daylight filtering down through
the water now," Somers admitted.
Captain Jack went nimbly up the spiral stairway. Now, he had still
another piece of apparatus to call into play. This affair is known to
naval men as the periscope.

In effect, the periscope is a device which in the main is like a pipe; it
can be pushed up through the top of the conning tower, through a
special, water-proof cylinder, until the top of the periscope is a foot, or
less, above the surface of the water.
The top of this instrument is fitted with lenses and mirrors. Down
through the shaft of the periscope are other mirrors, which pass along
any image reflected on the uppermost mirror of all. At the bottom of
the periscope is the last mirror of