Somewhere aft was a steady clanging and they made their way toward it, ducking their heads under the low doors which separated the various compartments.
Directly back of the control room were the huge Diesel engines which propelled the S-18 when it was running on the surface. Bank after bank of cylinders were ranged on each side of the steel runway. Each engine was capable of generating 900 horsepower and the two of them could force the submarine along at fourteen knots an hour on the surface.
Behind the engine room were the electric motors which propelled the craft when it was submerged. There were two of these, developing between them 1,500 horsepower. The underwater speed of the S-18 was rated at eleven knots an hour. In this room was located the master switchboard for the complicated electrical devices on which the life of the submarine depended so much of the time when it was underwater.
They continued their tour of inspection, drawing nearer the sound of the steady hammering. In the next compartment they discovered the cause of the noise. A red-haired youth a little older than Tim was banging away industriously with a hammer at the bent end of a bunk which he had lowered from its place on the wall.
“What’s the matter, Pat?” asked Ford.
The red-haired young man looked up quickly.
“Hello, Mr. Ford. I’ve picked out my bunk and I’m doing what I can to get the dents out of this end.”
“I’m glad it’s nothing more serious. For a while I thought someone was trying to take my submarine apart.”
The young man with the hammer straightened up and looked Tim over with cool, impudent eyes.
“You two might as well get acquainted right now,” said Ford, “for you’re going to see a whole lot of each other in the coming weeks. Tim, I want you to know Pat Reynolds, who next to me will be in actual charge of the operation of the submarine. I consider Pat one of the finest submarine men in the world. He was with Sir Francis Habernicht on his submarine trip under the Arctic ice and it was due solely to Pat’s cool-headedness that they came through alive.”