Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet Read online

  CHAPTER II

  DOWN IN A SUBMARINE

  Daylight found them rolling through the suburbs of a great city. Thelong night ride was nearing an end.

  All around them as their train wended its way through the railway yardwere evidences of the unusual activities of war times. Long freighttrains were puffing and chugging on the sidings; the air was black withsmoke, and the tracks filled everywhere with locomotives and movingrolling stock.

  In a few minutes the train slowed down into the railway terminal andthe score or more of "rookies" were soon stretching their legs on theplatform. A detail of blue jackets, spick and span in their nattyuniforms, awaited the party. Jack and Ted stared at the fine lookingescort, thinking what a wonderful thing it would be when they, too,were decked out ready for service in such fine-looking attire.

  They had not long to wait. Breakfast over, the entire party boardedtrolley cars bound for the navy yard. Soon, across the meadows,loomed the fighting tops of battleships, and in the background thegiant antennae of the navy yard's wireless station.

  "Here we are at last, chum!" chortled Ted with a broad grin, as he andJack piled out of the car.

  Passing the armed sentries at the gate, the party of recruits weremarched first to the commandant's office, where their arrival wasofficially reported. After roll call and checking up of the list ofnames, the boys were all marched over to the quartermaster's depot tobe fitted for uniforms. Probably the most impressive moment of themorning to the boys was the ceremony of swearing them intoservice---when they took the oath of allegiance to their country.

  Jack and Ted were anxious to get into their uniforms and were affordedan opportunity very shortly when they were directed aboard the trainingship _Exeter_, where they were to be quartered for a few days untildetailed into service on one of the fighting units in the yard.

  The first few days aboard the _Exeter_ passed rapidly, the time beingso filled with drills that the boys had few idle moments. Theirletters home and to their chums at Brighton contained glowing accountsof the new service into which they had entered.

  After a week of it they were standing one afternoon on the forecastleof the _Exeter_ watching the coaling of a giant dreadnought from anelectric collier when a naval officer, immaculate in white linen andsurrounded by his staff, came aboard. After an exchange of salutesbetween the deck officer of the _Exeter_ and the visiting officer, anda brief chat, the recruits were ordered to fall in. The naval officerin white stepped forward.

  "You boys will be distributed at once among the vessels now in the yardto make up the necessary complement of crews. The department is veryanxious to put some of you aboard the submarine fleet now fitting outhere, and if there are any in the crowd who would prefer service in thesubmarines to any other service you may state your preference."

  Jack and Ted stepped forward immediately. Other boys followed suit.And so it came about that Jack Hammond and Ted Wainwright foundthemselves detailed to the U.S. submarine _Dewey_.

  A young officer approached and introduced himself. "I am ExecutiveOfficer Binns, of the _Dewey_. If you boys are ready we will goright aboard. We expect to go down the bay on some maneuvers thisafternoon and want to get you fellows to your places as quickly aspossible."

  The whole thing was a surprise to Ted and Jack. They had expected tobe kept in the yard a long time, quartered on the training ship. Toget into active service so soon was more than they anticipated.

  Marched across the navy yard they soon came in sight of the _Dewey_---along cigar-shaped castle of steel, sitting low in the water, ridingeasy at the end of a tow line near the drydock. Up on the conningtower a member of the crew was making some adjustment to the periscopecase, while from astern came the hum of motors and the clatter ofmachinery that bespoke action within the engine room below.

  "Looks like a long narrow turtle with a hump on its back, doesn't it?"whispered Jack as he and Ted came alongside.

  They were passed aboard by the sentry and there on the deck welcomedby the officers and members of the _Dewey's_ crew. Turned over to bigBill Witt, one of the crew, they were directed to go below and beassigned to their quarters.

  Down through the hatchway clambered Witt, followed close by Ted andJack, and in another moment they found themselves in the engine room.Electric lights glowed behind wired enclosures. Well aft were themotors and oil engines, around them switchboards and other electricalapparatus---a maze of intricate machinery that filled all the sternspace. The air was hazy and smelled strong of oils and gases. Hugeelectric fans swept the foul air along the passageway and up throughthe hatchways, while other fans placed near the ventilators distributedthe fresh air as it poured into the vessel, drawn by the suction.

  From the engine room the boys walked forward into the controlchamber---the base of the conning tower---the very heart and brain ofthe undersea ship. Here were the many levers controlling the ballasttanks, Witt explaining to the boys that the submarine was submerged andraised again by filling the tanks with water and expelling it againto rise by blowing it out with compressed air. Here also was the depthdial and the indicator bands that showed when the ship was going downor ascending again, the figures being marked off in feet on the dialjust like a clock. Here also was the gyro-compass by which the shipwas steered when submerged; here also the torpedo control by means ofwhich the torpedoes were discharged in firing. And, yes, here was theperiscope---the great eye of the submarine---a long tube running upthrough the conning tower twenty feet above the commander's turret ofsteel.

  "Something like the folding telescope we have at home to look atpictures," mumbled Jack aside to Ted.

  To the boys' great delight they were allowed to put their eyes to thehood and gaze into the periscope. In turn they "took a peep." Whatthey saw was the forward deck of the _Dewey_, the guns in position,other vessels moored nearby and the blue expanse of water stretchingout into the harbor and on to the open sea. It was rather an excitingmoment for the two "landlubbers."

  Witt next showed them forward through the officers' quarters and thewireless room into the torpedo compartment. This interested themgreatly. On either side of the vessel, chained to the sides of thehull on long runners that led up to the firing tubes, were the massivetorpedoes, ready to be pushed forward for insertion in the firingchambers. Chief Gunner Mowrey was working over one of the breech capsand turned to meet the new recruits.

  "Glad to meet you, mates," was his hearty salutation.

  The boys listened attentively while Mowrey was telling Witt of somegreat "hits" they had made in practice earlier in the morning. BillWitt showed the boys in turn the bunks that folded out of the sidesof the vessel in which the crew slept, the electric stove for cookingfood in the ship's tiny galley, the ballast tanks and the storagebatteries running along the keel of the vessel underneath the steelflooring.

  Climbing up on deck again through the conning tower, the boys foundthemselves out on top of the projection in what Witt explained was thedeck steering station whence the _Dewey_ was navigated when cruisingon the surface. Down on the deck the boys inspected the smart-lookingfour-inch guns with which they later were to become better acquainted,and the trim little anti-aircraft guns to be used in case of attack byZeppelins or aeroplanes.

  "Keep your eyes and ears wide open all the time; remember what you aretold and you'll soon catch on," Witt told them.

  Shortly before noon Lieutenant McClure, commander of the _Dewey_, ayouthful-looking chap who, they learned later, had not been long outof Annapolis, came aboard. It was soon evident that there was somethingdoing, for in a few minutes the propeller blades began to churn thewater, and the exhaust of the engines fluttered at the port-holes.The tow lines ashore were cast off and then very gracefully and almostnoiselessly the _Dewey_ began slipping away from its dock. The head ofthe vessel swung around and pointed out the harbor.

  "We're off, boy!" exclaimed Jack to his chum. They were, indeed. Theboys were standing in front of the conning tower and,
because it wastheir first submarine voyage and they had yet to acquire their sealegs, they kept firm hold on the wire railing that ran the length ofthe deck on either side of the vessel. Commander McClure andExecutive Officer Binns were up on the deck steering station behind asheath of white canvas directing the movement of the ship.

  "This is what I call great!" laughed Ted as the _Dewey_ began to gatherspeed and moved out into the bay.

  Looking seaward the boys beheld the prow of the submarine splitting thewater clean as a knife, the spray dashing in great white sheets overthe anchor chains. From aft came the steady chug-chug of the engines'exhaust, to be drowned out at intervals as the swell of water surgedover the port-holes. They seemed to be afloat on a narrow raftpropelled swiftly through the water by some strong and unseen power.

  "I say, old boy, this beats drilling out on the campus at Brighton withthe school battalion, eh? what?" exclaimed Jack.

  Ted was doing a clog dance on the deck. "I'm just as happy as I canbe," was his gleeful comment.

  Very shortly the lighthouse that stood on the cape's end marking theharbor entrance had been passed and the _Dewey_ was out on the opensea. Before the boys stretched water---endless water as far as theeye carried---to the far thin line where sky and water met. They werelost in contemplation of the wonderful view. But their reveries weresuddenly disturbed by a sharp command from Executive Officer Binns:

  "All hands below---we are going to submerge!"

  The _Dewey_ was going to dive!