“That will come later,” he said. “It’s important to see them cast off.”
And that operation came without delay. At a word from the Captain, the executive officer began barking orders to the crew and to the enlisted men who stood at the controls on the bridge. The gangplank was taken away by men on the dock, the electric motors began to turn in the ship far below them, and lines were cast off. Slowly, trembling slightly beneath their feet, the pigboat slid back into the river away from the shore, churning up the water only slightly as it moved.
Then suddenly, with a roar, the Diesels caught hold and white smoke poured from the exhaust vents on the sides of the boat. Stan grinned as he heard them, and March said, “Makes you feel at home to hear them, doesn’t it?”
“Oh—is he a Diesel man?” Sutherland asked.
“He dreams about them,” March replied. “I think he’s going to marry a Diesel some day!”
The pigboat was now in the middle of the river and swinging about to head downstream. On the deck below there remained only a few men of the regular crew needed for duties there. March looked around, feeling the thrill of pleasure that always came when a ship set out. The cool breeze fanned his face, and he looked at the shore slipping by, then the buildings of the city. It seemed only a short while before they were in the choppy open water of the Sound. Here there were almost no other ships, and the waters were deep. Soon they would dive!
Below, he knew, the regular crew were at their stations, with the students looking on—each specialist observing the work he would one day do himself. Engine men were in the crowded engine room, peering eagerly at the huge Diesels which powered the ship on the surface. Scott, the radioman, would be standing beside the regular radioman, and Sallini would be going over supplies and equipment of the regular pharmacist, while keeping his eye out for everything else he could learn, too. Every crew member had his special duties, but every one had to be able to take over the duties of any other in an emergency. That was one of the reasons they all liked submarine work, officers and men alike. They learned so much, in so many different fields, in such a short time!
“Rig ship for diving!” said the Captain quietly, and Sutherland, who served also as diving officer, spoke the order into the interphone on the bridge. Throughout the ship below, March and Stan knew, men had sprung to their stations in every compartment. The cook was “securing” the sink, stove, pots and pans. Men at the huge levers controlling the valves of the ballast tanks tested them. The diving planes were rigged out. Below on the deck, the last of the crew slid down the hatches and made them fast from the inside.
Then the reports began to come back over the phone that all was ready inside the boat. An officer in the control room below heard the different rooms of the submarine check in one by one.
“Torpedo room rigged for diving!”