CHAPTER III
THE MAN WHO MARKED CHARTS
It was a little before midnight when the "Spitfire" came to anchor in Craven's Bay, after having been piloted to anchorage by a quartermaster's tug that put off from Fort Craven on signal.
"Fine place, if your searchlight is keen enough," yawned Eph, gazing off into the darkness.
Eph and Williamson had slept through the evening, after supper, and were now to take the night watch tricks, the machinist's deck watch beginning at once and lasting until four in the morning.
About an hour after daylight, Eph Somers deserted the deck, except for occasional intervals. After a while the odor of coffee and steak was in the air. Then, snatching up a bugle, Somers sounded the reveille tumultuously through the small cabin of the submarine torpedo boat.
Not long did the other members of the crew take to turn out and dress. They came out into the cabin to find Eph trotting between table and galley, putting things on the table.
"This seems like old times," chuckled Williamson, as he seated himself with the boys.
"Yes; because you don't have to cook," grimaced Eph. "Wait until after breakfast, when you have to clear away and wash dishes!"
"Even so, I have the best of it," laughed the machinist, good-humoredly.
"I have something in my stomach to work on."
"I always do get the tough end of any job, don't I?" grumbled Eph, resignedly, then buried his troubles under a plateful of steak and fried potatoes.
"You hoisted the signal, 'N.D.', yesterday afternoon," laughed Captain Jack, laying down his coffee cup. "If you don't watch out, Eph, I'll hoist the 'N.G.' flag over this table."
"Breakfast no good?" demanded Eph, looking much offended.
"No; 'N.G.' will stand for 'no grouch.'"
Somers joined heartily in the laugh that followed.
Just as they were finishing a really good meal, for which every breakfaster had a royal, salt-water appetite, a steamer's whistle was heard, not far off to port.
"I'll bet that's the Army tug!" muttered Captain Jack, rising hastily from the table. "Tell you what, fellows, we've got to begin to have something like Navy discipline aboard this craft. In that case, we'd have had breakfast over an hour ago."
Jack was off up the steps as though pursued. Eph went after him as soon as that youth with the sun-kissed hair had time to pull on his visored cap and button his blouse. No matter what the need of haste, Somers never appeared on deck looking less natty than a veteran naval officer.
Forward, on the tug, stood a major of engineers, a young lieutenant beside him.
"Good morning, Mr. Benson," hailed Major Woodruff. "We're going to try to come in close enough to put a gang-plank over. Can you take a bow line from us?"
"Yes, sir," Captain Jack saluted the Army officer, and Eph hurried to receive the line.
In less than two minutes Major Woodruff and Lieutenant Kline were on the platform deck of the "Spitfire."
"This is the first one of your craft we've seen," declared the major, as Eph cast off the bow line, and the tug backed water. "Will you show us over?"
This the submarine boys gladly did, as the Army shares with the Navy in the defense of the country.
"You see what you have to do, Kline," said Major Woodruff, presently.
Then the older officer turned to Jack to say:
"Mr. Benson, since Mr. Farnum has been kind enough to place you and the boat at our orders, Kline is going to remain on board, today, during the tests. He will give Mr. Somers whatever orders are necessary in order to make the tests most successful."
"Why not give the orders to me, sir?" Jack asked.
"Why, you see, Mr. Benson," replied the major, "I plan for you to be on shore, out on the neck, to make certain observations regarding the work of your craft. Those observations you will turn in to me."
"Very good, sir. The neck, I take it, is the narrow strip of land that separates this part of the bay from the ocean?"
"Quite right, Mr. Benson."
It was to be observed that the major, like naval officers, addressed Jack by the title of "mister," not "captain." This was because, in the military service, Army and Navy titles are not recognized unless conferred by government appointment or commission. Hence, though young Benson was "captain" to his crew and to civilians, officers of the United Service could address, him only as "mister."
"The neck, Mr. Benson," continued Major Woodruff, "is the land best suited for watching our work from to-day. And now, I will state what the object of to-day's tests is. This morning our tug will be engaged in planting certain submarine mines. Mr. Somers will watch our work of planting. Of course the mines will contain no explosives. You young men have, I understand, solved the problem of leaving a submarine boat while it lies on the bottom? You are also able to enter the submarine again from the surface?"
"Quite right, Major," Jack nodded.
"Then, if Mr. Somers watches the planting of the dummy mines, he will have the same advantage as would the commander of an enemy's submarine in knowing where our mines are planted. We shall plant four of them, this morning, and Mr. Somers, after seeing each mine planted, will mark down its position on a chart of the bay. He will then take the boat outside, enter under water, and, without touching any of our mines, while handling the boat, will see if he can stop close by and cut the connecting wires."
"If your mines contain no explosive, Major," Eph inquired, "how are you going to be able to tell whether I collide gently with one of your submarine mines?"
"We shall know at once," smiled Major Woodruff. "If you should collide with one, you will cause, a bell to be rung in the camera obscura room over at the fort. The bell that rings will show us which one of the mines you touched against."
The "camera obscura," as used at a modern fort, is in itself a most interesting contrivance. While no elaborate description of it can be attempted here, it will be enough to explain to the reader that, in the camera room, which is darkened, is a large white table covered with white oil-cloth, or other white substance. On this white surface is drawn a plan of the harbor to be defended. The position of each mine sunk under the water's surface is indicated on this map against the white background. Each mine is numbered. Overhead is a revolving shutter, somewhat on the plan of a camera's lens shutter. This shutter, which turns a reflecting lens on the harbor, can be turned in any direction. Any vessel in the harbor can thus be "caught," and its reflection, in miniature, thrown upon the white map surface.
Suppose an enemy's battleship to be entering the harbor. The camera obscura shutter, in being turned about, suddenly throws upon the white screen-map the miniature picture of the hostile battleship. Henceforth the officer in command sees to it that the shutter is so operated as to keep the image of the battleship always upon the white screen map. Thus the course of the battleship is followed—absolutely. At any second the exact position of that battleship in the harbor is known.
Let us suppose that the officer in command at the white, map-covered table finds that the battleship is gradually approaching the position indicated in the harbor as mine number nineteen; as the officer watches the moving image of the battleship, he sees it going closer and closer to the exact spot numbered nineteen or the white map.
"Be ready, Sergeant," calls the officer, warningly, to a non-commissioned officer who stands before a board on the wall on which are several electric push-buttons, each numbered.
"Yes, sir," replies the sergeant.
At this moment the officer sees the image of the battleship passing fairly over the dot on the white map that is numbered nineteen.
"Fire nineteen, Sergeant," calls the Army officer in charge.
The non-commissioned officer quickly presses electric button numbered nineteen. As he does so the electric current is sent flashing, perhaps along four or five miles of insulated wire on the bottom of the harbor. At the other end of that wire is submarine mine number nineteen. In a breathless instant the current traverses the whole length of the wire. The spark has reached the gun-cotton! There is a dull, booming sound; a great column of water shoots up from the surface. In the midst of the commotion the enemy's battleship is rent, and all on board, perhaps killed. The cool, dry-eyed Army officer bending over the white screen-map sees all this scene of horror depicted under the white surface beneath his eyes. He knows that submarine mine number nineteen, planted out there in the harbor, has done its duty in protecting this portion of the coast of the United States.
Here, at Fort Craven, it was desired to find whether an enemy's submarine boat could creep in, below the surface, find the mine, whose location was already known through spies, and effectively cut the firing wire. If this could be done, then, in war-time, it might be that the sergeant at the wall-board would press the button in vain. No explosion would follow. With the current thus cut off, the officer bending over the white screen would not see the miniature reproduction of the destruction of the enemy's battleship.
A submarine torpedo boat, coming into a harbor underneath the surface, is not pictured on the white table under the camera obscura. So it was desired to see whether Eph could come in, knowing the exact locations of each of the four dummy mines, and quickly cut the firing electric wires. If this could be done, the Army would have to revise its method of firing such submarine mines by means of the camera obscura detection.
As Eph listened to the explanation his mind began to revolve plans rapidly whereby he hoped to succeed in cutting the mine wires.
"You will keep sufficiently below the surface, too, Mr. Somers," continued Major Woodruff. "We do not want you so close to the surface of the water that a ripple would show on the camera obscura table. You cannot, of course, rise and use your periscope to see where you are. Even the periscope would betray you."
The "periscope" is a device also of the nature of a camera obscura. In the case of the periscope a narrow metallic tube is thrust above the water and the shutter turned about, reflecting all the scene about on a white-covered table in the boat's cabin.
"I think I can beat you, Major," smiled Eph.
"I certainly hope you can," replied Major Woodruff. "That is what we want to see today. We shall watch closely, too, and see whether any plan can be devised for beating a submarine torpedo boat at its own game."
Lieutenant Kline was to remain on board the "Spitfire," both in order to watch the work and to give Eph any instructions that might be necessary in order to make the tests more conclusive.
"If you will come along with me, then, Mr. Benson," suggested Major Woodruff, "I will put you ashore on the neck. On the way over I will give you your instructions."
As the tug came alongside again Jack followed the major over the gang plank to the deck of the other craft.
"Good-bye, Captain Somers," called Jack, laughingly. "Give a fine account of yourself as an enemy of the United States!"
"Oh, you—" began Eph, flaring red, but wisely cutting his speech short.
On the way over to the strip of land known as the "neck" Major Woodruff managed to make his instructions wholly clear to young Benson.
"Now, you know what to watch for, and what observations, to report to me," finished the major of engineers, as the tug came to a stop. A small boat was lowered, and, in this, Captain Jack Benson was put on the desolate shore.
Then the tug went back over by the fort. Jack grew tired of waiting, for it was some two hours ere the tug finally left the ordinance wharf at Fort Craven.
It was warm out there, on the low, sandy cliffs, provided one got into a position sheltered from the ocean winds. So Jack, in the weariness of his waiting, threw himself down in a sheltered hollow.
Finding that the sun shone disagreeably in his eyes, the submarine boy pulled his cap forward over his face.
Then, in the course of a very few minutes, the inevitable happened. Jack
Benson drifted off into sleep.
He awoke with a fearful start, for he had no idea how long he had slept. Yanking out his watch and noting the time, the submarine boy concluded that he had not been asleep more than twenty or thirty minutes.
"But I might just as easily have slept for hours," Benson reproached himself. "Then what a hero I'd have felt. Asleep on post!"
At that moment Jack Benson heard a faraway whistle, across the bay. Showing just the top of his head above a ridge of sand, Captain Jack saw the Army tug just pulling out from the dock across the bay.
But Jack saw something else, too, in that brief instant.
A slim, soldierly-looking man of perhaps thirty, tall and of naturally good carriage, was skulking along in front of the submarine boy, yet hidden from the bay by a sand ridge.
Under one arm the stranger carried a draughtsman's board and a book. A strap over one shoulder held a field-glass case.
"Where in blazes have I seen that chap before?" wondered Captain Jack Benson, staring hard. "For I have seen him—somewhere. I'd declare that under oath."
Figure, carnage and face all strangely haunted the submarine boy, who crouched lower, watching.
"By the great turret gun! He's skulking for a reason!" muttered Benson. "Is he spying on the mine-planting? I wonder? Yes! That must be his work! Long-legs, I'll keep my eyes on you!"
The stranger hastened along for perhaps a quarter of a mile further. Then he threw himself down on the sand, choosing a position in which he could lie flat, his head fairly well hidden behind a low ridge of sand.
Unslinging the field-glass, the stranger brought it to his eyes, closely watching the progress of the tug.
"Ha-ha!" muttered watchful Jack, who had followed, keeping behind another sand ridge. "So, sir!"
The minutes passed, though Jack Benson was so absorbed in watching this long stranger that the boy had but the vaguest notions of the flight of time.
The tug had halted, now. A great crane at the bow swung around, and a submarine mine hung poised in the air. Then, with a rattle of chains not audible at the distance, the mine was slowly lowered until it touched on bottom.
While this was going on, the long-legged stranger, wholly absorbed in his own work, made some observations and some hurried calculations. Then he pulled the drawing-board toward him, jotting down a point.
Jack Benson, standing stealthily, got a good look, for the first time, at the top of that drawing board.
"A chart of the bay, of course," muttered Benson, savagely, between his teeth. "The fellow is marking down the exact position of that mine!"
Still, the submarine boy did nothing to betray his own presence. He watched and wondered. The thought struck him that this long-legged one might be an officer of the Army, on observation duty like the submarine boy himself.
"But that isn't right; I'm sure it isn't," decided young Benson, quickly. "If they fellow were here on honest business, he wouldn't have sneaked out here to get in position. Besides, I have a vague remembrance of this fellow, and I don't connect him with anything honest!"
The Army tug, out on the bay, was now engaged in planting a second mine. Again the slim stranger was all attention. When the crane began to lower the mine, a second mark was made on the chart on the drawing board.
Now, once more, the fellow lay at full length, watching intently off over the bay. At his right hand lay drawing-board, the book and the field-glasses.
"I'll give him a little excitement!" grimaced Jack Benson, stealing softly forward.
Suddenly the boy swooped down upon drawing board, book and glasses, then, with a panting whoop, wheeled and started off on a dead run.
"Here you—stop!" yelled the slim one, hoarse with sudden anger.
Like a flash the stranger was up and in pursuit. As he quickened in the chase this stranger drew a revolver that glinted in the sun.