Through the conning tower hatch of the submarine emerged a sailor, holding high a brilliant flare that looked like a small searchlight. “What’s your number, lads?” he hailed.
“Four of us, sir,” weakly responded Jimmy.
The sailor stepped out on the slippery deck of the boat, that alternately rose and fell in the swell of the sea.
“Whereaway?” questioned the sailor.
“To the bottom of the sea, if you don’t give us a lift,” replied Jimmy.
The sailor turned to the hatch, sent a call below, and two more jaunty tars sprang through the opening.
One of the last comers was just a youngster in years, but evidently qualified for his dangerous calling.
“By the ghost of Bloomsbury Park,” he exclaimed, when extending a helping hand to Jimmy, and when the latter’s face showed in the shine of the flare, “if it isn’t Stetson!”
“I’ll be blowed if it isn’t Ned!” Jimmy had joined familiar company, it seemed.
[153]
“Seven hands ’round, Jimmy,” cried the young sailor, “did you drop from the clouds?”
“No,” said Jimmy, wringing the water from his cap, “I came by the boiler route to help celebrate your birthday.”
In the meantime, Jimmy’s fellow swimmers had been assisted to the deck, and were practicing again the art of drawing a long breath.
All of the wet ones had begun to shiver, for the wind had a sharp edge to it.
“Bring them below”—this command from the conning tower, by a fourth sailor, who appeared to speak with authority.
Glad of the chance to get under cover, the chilly explosion survivors followed the officer below the hatch, and immensely enjoyed the warmth of the snug quarters.
“You’ll find this isn’t much of a passenger boat, my lads; it fits too tight to suit most people.” This remark from the officer showing the way.
“It felt mighty good to us when we couldn’t find the bottom of the sea with our feet.”
Billy’s happy disposition was again working.
It was Jimmy’s hour, this business of being inside of a submarine. Our Aviator Boys might be princes of the air, but down here Jimmy Stetson was the ace, and all the other cards. He could not give Henri any points that would puzzle about the gasoline engine that furnished the power when[154] the craft was running on the surface, and, perhaps, not a great deal that was new about the electric motor that propelled the boat when under the water, but to all of the visiting boys, except Jimmy, there was much of mystery about the way the vessel was raised and lowered.
How, when the ballast tanks are full, they sink the hull of the submarine until only the periscope and top of the conning tower are visible, and, when empty, the whole of the conning tower, superstructure, and a portion of the hull ride above the water.
How hydroplanes—short, broad fins—tilt the nose of the vessel so that the propeller can drive the craft down fifty or sixty feet.
Jimmy knew all about it, and the sailors let him have all the pleasure of telling it to his wondering companions.
The guarded screw propeller aft and outside, the vertical steering rudders behind it, the air flasks which supply the crew with air when the vessel is submerged, the torpedo equipment—all the details thereof were reeled off by the Dover boy with great gusto.
Ned Belton, with whom Jimmy had trained for submarine service in London, laughingly nominated his friend, there and then, for head talker ............