"The propelling engines," he went on, "are inside--for you must remember that a torpedo is a little ship in itself and is not a projectile at all. There are three hundred pounds of trinitrotoluene in this beauty--we"ve done away with the old-fashioned gun-cotton now--and she"s got a range of seven thousand yards--over four miles, Johnny, my boy!
Now, Mr. d.i.c.kson and Mr. Harold d.i.c.kson, you will stay here with Scarlett. It will be your part, when we go into action, to fire these torpedoes. There ought to be six or seven of you to do it. There are only three, and two of you are quite untrained. Scarlett, get to work at once and give these gentlemen a practical drill. Show them exactly what they will have to do and explain the orders that will come from me. Miss out anything superfluous; remember we"ve hardly any time. Just teach them what is absolutely necessary."
"Aye, aye, sir!" said Scarlett, and as we turned back I heard him at once beginning his lecture.
And now we came to the most interesting part of that world of marvels, to the _brain_ of the submarine. Adams stood in the first stage of the conning-tower, his hands upon a little leather-covered steering-wheel.
In front of him was a gyroscopic compa.s.s and a row of speaking-tubes. A light threw a bright radiance upon a framed chart hanging on the wall, marked everywhere with faint purple pencil lines.
Bernard glanced at the compa.s.s and gave the man a few directions. Then we went up a short ladder of half a dozen rungs into the highest chamber of all.
It was perfectly circular. There was just room for two or three people, and the steel roof was two feet above our heads. A great tube came down through the roof and disappeared beneath the open grating of the floor.
It was like the mast of a ship going through the cabin down to the very gar-board strike. There was a row of bra.s.s clock-faces with trembling needles and oddly shaped gauges, in which coloured liquid rose and fell.
The whole ganglion of nerves met here in the cerebellum of the ship, and at a glance its commander knew exactly what she was doing, her speed, her depth below the surface of the water, the pressure--a thousand other things which I am not competent to name. The whimsical idea came to me that it was like lifting up the top of a man"s head and seeing the thoughts which controlled every motion of his body.
There were charts, also, spread upon a semi-circular shelf of mahogany, with dividers, compa.s.ses, and a large magnifying gla.s.s.
Fastened to the wall, just above this shelf, was something that touched me strangely. It was a photograph in a silver frame, the photograph of a young, light-haired girl, and upon it was written in German, "_An meinem lieber Otto_."
Bernard saw it too and sighed. "It"s the skipper"s girl," he said.
"Poor chap! he"ll never see her again in this world! It was an ugly death to die, John!" and his voice had a note of deep feeling in it.
"But it had to be, and Scarlett told me that he didn"t know what hurt him.
"Now," he continued, "I"m going to show you something." He pulled out his watch and then, leaning over to the wall, he snapped over something like the stunted lever of a signal box. Then he pressed a b.u.t.ton and a bell rang somewhere far down below. A hoa.r.s.e voice sounded in our ears from a speaking-tube, and there was a quick, throbbing, pumping sound from the column in the wall.
Looking down, I saw that immediately below us was a circular white table. I put my hand on it and it was painted canvas, dazzlingly white.
"The periscope is going up," my brother said. "It should be light, now--watch!"
There was a click and the lamp in the roof went out. We were in darkness. A slight creaking sound, a movement of my brother"s arm, and there flashed down, in clear light upon the table, a picture of the upper seas.
Forty feet above, the eye of the submarine surveyed the dawn, and in that still box where we stood, we saw it also.
Dawn upon the waters! A tossing grey expanse of waves. It was like the film of a cinematograph, only in colour, and as Bernard turned the wheel, picture after picture glided over the table--the most incredible thing!
Not a sail was in sight. The North Sea was an empty, tossing waste of waters in the cold light of the winter"s dawn.
The dawn of--what?
CHAPTER X
THE SPEAR OF FOAM
"A little fresh air is clearly indicated," said my brother, "and after that, when I"ve attended to another little matter, a good breakfast.
Some of us may be taking our next meal in Fiddlers" Green, which, they say in the Navy, is nine miles to windward of h.e.l.l, though I hope not."
He switched on the light again and went to the side table, where there was a complicated array of wheels and levers, all of which were duplicated in the chamber immediately below and by means of which the Commander, watching the picture of the periscope, could control every movement of the boat with his own hands if necessary.
He pulled a lever and a bell clanged. At once the loud purring of the electric engines ceased.
Bernard pulled over another and larger lever with both hands. I suddenly felt myself slipping backwards, until I fetched up against the wall of the conning-tower, narrowly missing the opening to the steersman"s chamber.
"By Jove! I forgot to tell you," said Bernard. "You see, I"ve stopped the electric engines and jammed over the horizontal rudders. We"re slanting up to the surface--look!"
Immediately in front of me and a little above my head, I now saw round portholes filled with amazingly thick, toughened gla.s.s. These had been quite black and had escaped my notice before. Now, as I watched, they grew a little lighter. Click! and the lamp went out. The portholes were grey now, grey melting into green, which grew brighter and brighter until it turned into a froth of soda-water, and then there was nothing but white sky. There was a slight jerk and the floor seemed to right itself.
"We"re just awash now, but we"ll get above water."
Again the ring of a bell, an order through a speaking-tube. After that came a clang of machinery and an extraordinary bubbling, choking noise, like a giant drinking.
"Just blown out the water tanks, old soul. Feel her lift? Now her whale-back is above water and we"ll go and say good-morning to the sun, which I perceive is very kindly beginning to show himself. But before that ..."
He shouted another order and there came a deafening din from below.
Bang! Bang! Bang! till the whole steel hull quivered.
"That is the surface engine starting. It"ll be all right in a minute,"
and even as he spoke, the noise subsided into a regular throb. It was for all the world like a motor car starting on bottom speed and then slipping into top gear.
Scarlett came hurrying up into the conning-tower and he and my brother unlocked the sliding hatch. In a minute we had emerged into the keen air of the morning. How fresh and sweet it seemed to me it is impossible to say. The sun was rising. The bitter cold of the marshes had gone. The small waves were flecked with gold as we stood upon the wet steel plates and drank in the air as if it had been wine.
"An ideal day for a submarine action!" Bernard said, rubbing his hands.
"There"s just enough ripple on the surface to make us difficult to detect, and yet it is smooth enough to give me a clear view. This boat is beautifully trimmed, she doesn"t roll a bit. I"ll send those boys up in a minute or two, but meanwhile I"ve got to play a bit of bluff. A lot depends on it."
I nodded. It was not my place to ask questions.
"You see," he went on, "of course the German battleship expects us. I know exactly the spot in the North Sea where we are supposed to pick her up some time after lunch--provided, of course, that the Germans have carried out their plans successfully and our scouts really have been decoyed away. It is part of a huge scheme.
"Well, a.s.suming that their own plans are successful, they will be on the look-out for us and they"ll send us a wireless message when we"re within close range. This will be some prearranged signal, a single letter repeated a certain number of times or something of that sort, so that any of our ships picking it up would not know what it meant. We"ve got a wireless mast on board which can be shoved up at will and there"s a complete installation in a little room down below next to the cook"s galley. Unfortunately there is not one of us who knows anything about wireless. Bosustow is a capable electrician and could control the machinery, but he can"t understand the signals. Therefore, when we sight the _Friesland_--and I want to get as near her as possible so as to make no mistakes--we must signal with flags.
"I"ve got their signal book and in it is a special code made for this occasion. The flags are in the flag locker all right, but I don"t understand a word of German and none of us here do, so I"m going to put the fear of G.o.d into our friend, Karl of the Portsmouth Royal. A lot depends on that.
"Just skip down, young John, and tell Scarlett to bring him up here."
"Aye, aye, sir!" I said--it came to me quite naturally, I didn"t think about it--and I climbed down into the interior of the submarine.
Scarlett was standing by the starboard torpedo tube, while the d.i.c.kson brothers, with their backs turned to me, were chuckling delightedly. I heard a fragment of the conversation.
"... and so, sir, I ses to the gal, Molly her name was, they used to call her the belle of South-sea pier, "Molly," I ses, "you"re a little bit of all right, but ...""
I cut short that anecdote. My pedagogic instincts awoke and I forgot that the d.i.c.ksons were now brevet officers of the King.
A sharp order did it. The two lads turned away and began to be ostentatiously busy, while Scarlett, his face did not belie his name at that moment, pattered along the grating, caught hold of the ex-German waiter with unnecessary roughness, and kicked him towards the ladder of the conning-tower.
I went up first, and when Karl emerged he stood to attention with a very pale face, though I did not miss a quick glance round the horizon. My brother was looking down upon a shining magazine pistol in his hand.
Then he raised his head and his voice grated like a file.