How a submarine crew takes orders.
Meanwhile, some seventy feet below, the Z-3 manœuvred, killing time. The phonograph had been hushed, and every man was ready at his post. The prospect of a go with the enemy had brought with it a keen thrill of anticipation. Now, a submarine crew is a well-trained machine. There are no shouted orders. If a submarine captain wants to send his boat under quickly, he simply touches the button of a Klaxon; the horn gives a demoniac yell throughout the ship, and each man does what he ought to do at once. Such a performance is called a "crash dive."
"I'd like to see him come up so near that we could ram him," said the captain, gazing almost directly into the sun. "Find out what she's making."
Getting up speed.
The engineer lieutenant stooped to a voice-tube that almost swallowed up his face, and yelled a question to the engine-room. An answer came, quite unheard by the others.
"Twenty-four, sir," said the engineer lieutenant.
"Get her up to twenty-six."
The engineer cried again through the voice-tube. The wake of the vessel roared like a mill-race, the white foam tumbling rosily in the setting sun.
Seventy feet below the surface.
Seventy feet below, Captain Bill was arranging the last little details with the second in command.