a degree and it’s a dead sure cinch that it’s not latitude or longitude if those other numbers are, and if it’s latitude it would be in the Arctic instead of the Caribbean and if it’s longitude it’ll knock calculations out for about a thousand miles and will take in all of Santo Domingo and Haiti, a bit of Cuba and most of the Bahamas. Looks as if we might have some jaunt. And I don’t get those compass bearings. However, maybe when they get that sub in and search her we’ll find some chart or something. When do you expect——”
At this moment the telephone rang and Mr. Pauling answered.
“Ah, fine!” he exclaimed. “Expect to be in within an hour! Yes, I’d be glad to. I’m bringing some others with me—Mr. Rawlins and the boys. Yes, queer we were just talking of it. Good.”
“It was the navy yard,” explained Mr. Pauling as he hung up the receiver. “They say the submarine is coming in now and will be at the yard in half an hour. The Admiral wants me to be on hand to board her as soon as she arrives and I’d like you and the boys to come along.”
“Hurrah!” yelled the two boys. “Now we’ll see what they had on her.”
“And we’ll know if she’s the right sub,” added Rawlins. “Though it’s dollars to doughnuts that she is—it’s not likely there’s more than one lost, strayed or stolen sub knocking about in these waters.”
When they reached the Navy Yard the submarine was just being docked and twenty minutes later they were entering her open hatch. The boys had never been within a submarine before and were intensely interested in the machinery, the submerging devices, the air-locks and the torpedo tubes, but their greatest interest was in the radio room. But here, much to their chagrin and disappointment, they found practically nothing. There were a few wires, some discarded old-fashioned coils, some microphones and receivers and a loop aërial. Everything else had been removed and nothing was left to show what sort of instruments had been used. The boys were about to leave when Tom noticed something half-hidden under a coil of wire, and, curious to see what it might be, pulled it out.
“Gosh!” he exclaimed as he saw what it was. “These chaps were using that same single control. This is part of it. Look, Frank, the dial is just the same as the one Mr. Henderson gave us.”
“Gee, that’s right!” agreed Frank. “But then,” he added, “after all it’s not surprising. You know Mr. Henderson said the one he gave us came from a German U-boat.”
“Not a thing in the radio room,” announced Tom, as the boys rejoined Mr. Pauling. “Everything’s stripped clean, but they used the same sort of tuner that Mr. Henderson gave us. Where’s Mr. Rawlins?”