Part 4 (2/2)
Had that torpedo contained the fighting service charge of two hundred pounds of gun-cotton it would have shattered and sunk the biggest, staunchest, proudest battleshi+p afloat
”It's uncanny--isn't it?” gasped Jack Benson, feeling an odd shudder run over him
CHAPTER III
STRUCK BY A SUBMERGED FOE
”Yep!” agreed Eph Somers, blaster of day-dreams ”But say?”
”Well?” derilad that scow isn't a real battleshi+p, with a half a dozen twelve-inch cannon turned on us”
”Humph!” muttered Jack, dryly, ”if that scoere an enemy's battleshi+p, twelve-inch barkers and all, we'd be twenty feet under the surface, and we'd be out of sight and out of ht,” nodded Lieutenant Danvers ”In a contest of that sort I'd feel fifty times safer here than on the battleshi+p ere after
Now, Benson, you've seen the first part of it We have the other duunner, on a submarine, is the fellow at the wheel Do you want to take the wheel, ive the order for the next dummy shot?”
”Do I?” uttered Jack Benson ”Just!”
Orders were then given to place the other dummy torpedo in the tube, and this done, Jack took his place at the wheel, while Eph Somers and the lieutenant stood outside At the naval officer's direction Jack Benson came up on the other side of the scow, about three hundred yards aith the nose of the ”Hastings” so pointed that the torpedo duht aht moment Captain Jack passed the order to fire Then he watched the scoith a strange fascination Danvers stood, watch in hand
”Now!” he shouted
Barely two seconds later the second dummy torpedo rose, a few yards back from the side of the scow
”That torpedo struck, full and fair,” nodded Lieutenant Danvers, turning toward the conning tower ”Mr Benson, if you always hit as full and well, you'll be an expert torpedoist”
”Why, it's nothing but holding the nose of your own boat full on the other craft, amidshi+ps, and the torpedo itself does the rest,” uttered the young submarine skipper
”That's it,” nodded Lieutenant Danvers ”But, when you're below the surface, the probleh to use the periscope, and get the bearings of the ene the compass for direction, and the nue of distance traveled”
”That's just the way it is done,” agreed Danvers ”After all, it's just a e distances by the eye alone And now, Mr Benson, if you'll run over yonder, carefully, we'll pick up the duood a shot, with a real torpedo, and sink the scow”
”And, if you don't, sir--?” suilty of poor shooting, and have to try the second loaded torpedo,” replied the naval officer ”If we miss with the second, then we'll have to contrive either to tow the scow, or to sink her somehow If either of the loaded torpedoes fails to explode, we'll have to pick it up, at all hazards If we left a loaded torpedo floating on the surface of the water, here in the paths of coast navigation, it would sink the first shi+p that struck the war-head of the torpedo”
The sea, by this ti down froet a rope around first one dummy torpedo, and then the other Yet at last this was done, and the heavy objects were hoisted aboard and stored below
”Noe'll get off and sink the scow, before dark,”to let me fire the torpedo at her, sir?” deerly
”If you feel sure you can do it,” replied the naval officer ”For that matter, if you fail, there'll be one loaded torpedo left, and I can take the second shot”