"I"ll say this much," shouted back Lieutenant Commander Kimball, as soon as he could make himself heard: "We"d rather have you with us, Mr.
Benson, than against us."
"You"ll have your wish, sir, as long as I"m alive," Jack answered, turning and lifting his hat in simple yet eloquent salute to the Flag waving at the gunboat"s stern.
All this time Hal Hastings stood by the deck wheel, one hand occasionally straying to the engine room signal b.u.t.tons, as he kept the "Benson" just about a hundred feet from the gunboat and nearly abeam.
"Where shall I anchor, sir?" called Captain Jack, presently.
"Better take it about four points off our port bow and at least four hundred feet away, Mr. Benson," called back the lieutenant commander.
"Four points off port and four hundred feet it is, sir," answered the young submarine skipper, saluting. Then he gave the order to Hal.
"As soon as you"re anch.o.r.ed, I"ll send you over a boat to be at your disposal this afternoon," called Lieutenant Commander Kimball.
"We"ll use the boat, sir, to pay you a visit, if you permit," Jack shouted back.
"By all means come aboard. Then we"ll visit you. We"re anxious to see the works of such a wonderful little craft."
Within ten minutes a man-o-war"s cutter was alongside, rowed by six alert-looking young sailors, while a c.o.xswain held the tiller ropes.
Messrs. Farnum and Pollard, Jack and Hal made up the visiting party, leaving Eph Somers aboard the submarine, with Williamson to help him at need.
Cordial, indeed, was the reception of the submarine folks aboard the gunboat. There was a great amount of handshaking to be done.
In the meantime, Eph Somers was having something in the way of trouble back on the platform deck of the "Benson."
Two small boats, manned by harbor boatmen, and each carrying a few pa.s.sengers, had put off from sh.o.r.e, and now ranged alongside.
"How do you do, Captain?" shouted a young man at the bow of one of the boats.
"Louder!" begged Eph.
"How do you do, Captain?"
"Louder. I"m afraid the captain can"t hear you yet," grinned the carroty-topped submarine boy. "He"s over on the gunboat."
"Then who are you?"
"Who? Me?" demanded Eph, innocently. "Oh, I"m only the Secretary of the Navy."
"All right, Mr. Secretary," laughed the same young man. "We are coming aboard."
"Aboard of what?" inquired Eph.
"Why, you"re submarine boat, of course," came the answer.
"Guess not!" responded Eph, briskly.
"Why, yes; we"re newspaper men, and it"s business, not fun with us."
The boat containing the speaker lay lightly alongside at this moment.
In another moment the young man in the bow would have clambered up on deck, but Eph called down to him:
"Hold on! Stay where you are. My orders are to hit any fellow with a boathook who tries to come up here in the captain"s absence."
"But we"ve got to have a look at your boat, don"t you see?" insisted the newspaper man, though, as Eph carelessly picked up a boathook, the would-be caller waited prudently in the bow of his boat.
Young Somers was surely in a state of uncertainty. He had strict orders to allow no one aboard unless he knew them to be United States naval officers. On the other hand, the auburn-haired boy knew how necessary it was for the submarine folks to keep on good terms with newspaper writers if the American people were to be favorably impressed with the claims of the Pollard boat.
"Now, see here," said Eph, balancing the boathook, "I"m sorry to stand here making a noise like a crank, but have you any idea at all what orders mean on shipboard? And I"m under the strictest orders not to let anyone aboard."
"Get your orders changed, then," proposed another newspaper man, cheerfully.
"If you"ll wait, I"ll see if I can," muttered Eph, hopefully.
"Oh, we"ll wait."
Williamson"s head had appeared in the manhole way.
"Come out on deck, and don"t let anyone on board unless we get orders to that effect," murmured Somers, pa.s.sing the conning tower. Then, through a megaphone, the submarine boy hailed the gunboat, asking if it would be possible for him to talk with Jack Benson. Benson soon afterward came forward on the "Waverly." Eph explained the situation.
Jack shouted back to allow the visitors on the platform deck, but not to let any of them into the conning tower, or below.
So Eph turned to the two boatloads of visitors, explaining:
"Perhaps you men can get that all changed if you come out to-morrow, when the captain is here. But the best I can do to-day is to let you up here on the platform deck."
"Oh, well," returned the first newspaper man to get up there beside the boy, "you can tell us, as well as anyone, about your trip down the coast and the way you slipped in here."
"And also," chimed in another, "you"re the young man who came straight up through the water when she was beneath the surface?"
Eph admitted that he was.
"That"s the thing _I_ want to know about," continued the second newspaper man. "I"ve heard before about that wonderful trick of leaving a submerged submarine, and coming to the surface. How is the thing done?"
Eph regarded this questioner with wondering patience, before he replied:
"You want to know so little that I"m sorry I"m deaf in my front teeth and dumb in my right ear."
"That"s on you, Paisley!" chuckled one of the newspaper men.
Then three or four began to ask questions at the same time, which caused young Somers to wait, then remarked blandly:
"Now, if you"ll all kindly talk at once, I"ll give you, in a few words, a straight account of the plain features of our trip down here, including our run under water. But, if there"s any question I don"t answer for you, you"ll understand, I hope, that it"s because I know it would be bad manners for me to tell you anything that only officers of the Navy have a right to know."
"All right, Commodore," nodded one of the newspaper men, good-humoredly.
"You"re all right. Go ahead and spin your yarn in your own way."
Thereupon, without telling anything that he had no right to tell, Eph managed none the less to give his hearers an entertaining account of the "Benson"s" long trip down the coast without stop or help.