CHAPTER XIII
“SURFACE!”
Dinner was not very tempting to Nelson, probably because he still felt the effects of his adventure of the night before. Besides, he had eaten nearly a pint of Cookie’s remarkable oatmeal gruel, which had been like no other gruel Nelson had ever tasted. The meal consisted of beef stew and potatoes, bread, pudding and tea. While the variety was not great, there was plenty of everything. During the meal Nelson got better acquainted with the crew of the Q-4. They averaged, he guessed, about twenty-two years of age, although one or two were apparently no older than he and several were in the thirties. He very soon learned that, just as the destroyer men looked down on the men of the battleships as mollycoddles, so the submarine men viewed the destroyer crews with pitying contempt. There was a good deal of interest betrayed in the fortunes of the other subs, one or two of which were very small boats and, in the opinion of the Q-4’s men, not able to look after themselves in a storm like the present. There was also much speculation as to whether the companion boats had “run it out” or dived. Nelson gathered that each commander had been free to follow his judgment as to submerging. One or two of the others were known to have left the surface and communication had been held with one by means of the submarine telegraph during the morning.
After dinner Martin went on duty in the torpedo compartment, taking Nelson with him. The latter spent nearly two hours there, busied part of the time wiping, while Martin went over the mechanism of a torpedo and delivered a lecture on the missile. Nelson was initiated into the mysteries of the tiny four-cylinder engine, the automatic steering device and the depth gear. In fact, by the time Martin had finished his discourse Nelson could have passed an examination on the subject of the Bliss-Leavitt torpedo very creditably. Martin informed him that the nose contained three hundred pounds of TNT or trinitrotoluol, and after that Nelson treated the business ends of the torpedoes with great respect, although Martin assured him that until the butterfly nut on the protruding tip of the firing pin was off there was no danger. This nut looked like a miniature propeller, having wings that caused it to turn in the water and so release the locking gear of the firing pin. A second safety device was a bolt passing from the outside of the war head to the firing pin to prevent the latter being moved back against the percussion cap. Behind the war head was the compressed air tank by which the propeller at the tail was rotated. When Martin remarked that the air chamber was at the moment charged with 2,250 pounds of air Nelson began to wonder if the war head was, after all, the more dangerous part of the thing! He sincerely hoped that the steel wells were equal to that pressure of over a ton to each square inch! The balance chamber mechanism was a bit too much for Nelson, although Martin patiently tried to make him understand the functions of the gyroscope and the pendulum control. In the end Nelson mastered the reason for those devices, but he was hazy as to why they performed the remarkable stunts attributed to them!
Martin stopped lecturing before he became tiresome and the two boys talked of less technical things, one of them being home. Perhaps it would be more exact to say that Martin talked about his home and Nelson listened. Nelson’s home just then had few attractions for him as a matter for discourse. They became very well acquainted that afternoon, and by supper time Nelson, for his part, felt as if the acquaintance was of years’ standing. Possibly there is something in being in a watertight cylinder a hundred or more feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean that expedites friendship! At all events, the two boys got along fast, and Nelson, who had never had a real chum of anywhere near his own age, was quite breathlessly happy. The afternoon flew by and it was “grub time” again. Nelson’s appetite was fifty per cent better than at noon. They had “submarine turkey” for supper, a viand better known to Nelson as canned salmon, and bread and butter and apple-sauce—also canned—and enough coffee to float the boat. The big coffee urn was always simmering and always on tap, and the amount of the beverage that was consumed during twenty-four hours aboard the Q-4 was awe-inspiring. Some of the men seldom passed the galley that they didn’t stop and pour a cupful of it down their throats. And, or so Nelson thought, it wasn’t awfully good coffee at that!
By six bells the air in the submarine had become rather foul, and one noticed it by an increased drowsiness and an irritated condition of eyes and throat. In the quarters they began to speak of going up, and it seemed to Nelson that several of the men showed a distinct uneasiness, while many who should have been in their bunks remained up. Nelson found his eyes closing several times and had to move about to throw off the sleepiness that was creeping over him. About half an hour later there was a sudden inclination of the submarine as she began to rise. The sensation was a novel one to Nelson and he cast an alarmed look at Martin.
“Going up,” said the latter reassuringly. “Come have a look.”
They went to the door leading to the central station and peered through. But save that the captain was at the motor control and that the other occupants of the shining, white compartment looked more alert, the scene was no different than earlier. A petty officer in front of the depth gauge said distinctly:
“Eighty-five, sir.”
There was silence again. It seemed to Nelson that there was a more perceptible hum from the end of the passage where the motors were. The slant from bow to stern was slight, but you realized it when you walked, and there was a different motion to the boat, less a roll than a queer side sway. The captain moved a lever in front of him gently.
“Sixty, sir!” announced the officer at the gauge.