CHAPTER II

DOWN IN A SUBMARINE

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

All around them as their train wended its way through the railway yard were evidences of the unusual activities of war times. Long freight trains were puffing and chugging on the sidings; the air was black with smoke, and the tracks filled everywhere with locomotives and moving rolling stock.

In a few minutes the train slowed down into the railway terminal and the score or more of "rookies" were soon stretching their legs on the platform. A detail of blue jackets, spick and span in their natty uniforms, awaited the party. Jack and Ted stared at the fine looking escort, 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 boarded trolley cars bound for the navy yard. Soon, across the meadows, loomed the fighting tops of battleships, and in the background the giant antennae of the navy yard's wireless station.

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

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

Jack and Ted were anxious to get into their uniforms and were afforded an opportunity very shortly when they were directed aboard the training ship Exeter, where they were to be quartered for a few days until detailed into service on one of the fighting units in the yard.

The first few days aboard the Exeter passed rapidly, the time being so filled with drills that the boys had few idle moments. Their letters home and to their chums at Brighton contained glowing accounts of the new service into which they had entered.

After a week of it they were standing one afternoon on the forecastle of the Exeter watching the coaling of a giant dreadnought from an electric collier when a naval officer, immaculate in white linen and surrounded by his staff, came aboard. After an exchange of salutes between the deck officer of the Exeter and the visiting officer, and a brief chat, the recruits were ordered to fall in. The naval officer in white stepped forward.

"You boys will be distributed at once among the vessels now in the yard to make up the necessary complement of crews. The department is very anxious to put some of you aboard the submarine fleet now fitting out here, and if there are any in the crowd who would prefer service in the submarines 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 found themselves detailed to the U.S. submarine Dewey.

A young officer approached and introduced himself. "I am Executive Officer Binns, of the Dewey. If you boys are ready we will go right aboard. We expect to go down the bay on some maneuvers this afternoon and want to get you fellows to your places as quickly as possible."

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

Marched across the navy yard they soon came in sight of the Dewey—-a long cigar-shaped castle of steel, sitting low in the water, riding easy at the end of a tow line near the drydock. Up on the conning tower a member of the crew was making some adjustment to the periscope case, while from astern came the hum of motors and the clatter of machinery 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 welcomed by the officers and members of the Dewey's crew. Turned over to big Bill Witt, one of the crew, they were directed to go below and be assigned to their quarters.

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

From the engine room the boys walked forward into the control chamber—-the base of the conning tower—-the very heart and brain of the undersea ship. Here were the many levers controlling the ballast tanks, Witt explaining to the boys that the submarine was submerged and raised again by filling the tanks with water and expelling it again to rise by blowing it out with compressed air. Here also was the depth dial and the indicator bands that showed when the ship was going down or ascending again, the figures being marked off in feet on the dial just like a clock. Here also was the gyro-compass by which the ship was steered when submerged; here also the torpedo control by means of which the torpedoes were discharged in firing. And, yes, here was the periscope—-the great eye of the submarine—-a long tube running up through the conning tower twenty feet above the commander's turret of steel.

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

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

Witt next showed them forward through the officers' quarters and the wireless room into the torpedo compartment. This interested them greatly. On either side of the vessel, chained to the sides of the hull on long runners that led up to the firing tubes, were the massive torpedoes, ready to be pushed forward for insertion in the firing chambers. Chief Gunner Mowrey was working over one of the breech caps and 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 some great "hits" they had made in practice earlier in the morning. Bill Witt showed the boys in turn the bunks that folded out of the sides of the vessel in which the crew slept, the electric stove for cooking food in the ship's tiny galley, the ballast tanks and the storage batteries running along the keel of the vessel underneath the steel flooring.

Climbing up on deck again through the conning tower, the boys found themselves out on top of the projection in what Witt explained was the deck steering station whence the Dewey was navigated when cruising on the surface. Down on the deck the boys inspected the smart-looking four-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 by Zeppelins or aeroplanes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Very shortly the lighthouse that stood on the cape's end marking the harbor entrance had been passed and the Dewey was out on the open sea. Before the boys stretched water—-endless water as far as the eye carried—-to the far thin line where sky and water met. They were lost in contemplation of the wonderful view. But their reveries were suddenly disturbed by a sharp command from Executive Officer Binns:

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

The Dewey was going to dive!