Part 19 (2/2)

Pauling, ”and as you say, they _are_ really the ones who should be allowed to have charge of their own apparatus as they have earned the right to it. I'll have to give a little more consideration to the matter before I decide, however. Possibly I may wish to go along also-or I may be asked to, when I put this matter before my superiors. Now here are those figures given by the dying man and the notes made by the boys.”

Unlocking a drawer, Mr. Pauling took out a packet of papers and spread them before Rawlins, while the two boys, now that events had taken a more hopeful and promising turn, laughed and talked excitedly to each other, wildly enthusiastic at the bare possibility of going on the unique search.

For a few minutes Rawlins studied the various sheets intently and silently, comparing the figures which the boys had heard spoken and the ones given by the dying Irishman, and at last he glanced up.

”These numbers of the boys' will need a lot of study,” he declared, ”but these the chap in the hospital gave are dead easy. One of 'em is nineteen and as there's no longitude nineteen in the West Indies, or within two thousand miles of the islands, it must be lat.i.tude, so there we have a clue right out of the box-nineteen north lat.i.tude. Now if we take a map and follow along nineteen we'll know it must be within a few miles of it that we'll locate old Beelzebub. It can't be over sixty miles north of that meridian or the man would have said twenty instead of nineteen, and it can't be south of it or he'd have said eighteen and something. So we can be dead sure the old duck hits the hay somewhere in a sixty-mile belt bounded by meridians nineteen and twenty. Now here are the other two numbers-sixty and seventy-five. You say he sort of lost consciousness between these and you thought he said southwest by south.

Well, sixty might be longitude-the sixtieth meridian is in the West Indies-but he might have meant sixty anything and so, if it _is_ longitude he was getting at, it brings us down to a s.p.a.ce six hundred miles east and west and sixty miles north and south-quite a considerable bit of land and water to search-about 36,000 square miles-but only a little of it's land, so it don't cut such a figure. That'll take in-let's see-some of the Virgins, I think, and a lot of little cays and quite a bit of Santo Domingo, but shucks, that's not such a heap. But I'll admit this seventy-five gets my nanny. It's not minutes-'cause there are only sixty minutes to a degree and it's a dead sure cinch that it's not lat.i.tude or longitude if those other numbers are, and if it's lat.i.tude it would be in the Arctic instead of the Caribbean and if it's longitude it'll knock calculations out for about a thousand miles and will take in all of Santo Domingo and Haiti, a bit of Cuba and most of the Bahamas. Looks as if we might have some jaunt. And I don't get those compa.s.s bearings. However, maybe when they get that sub in and search her we'll find some chart or something. When do you expect--”

At this moment the telephone rang and Mr. Pauling answered.

”Ah, fine!” he exclaimed. ”Expect to be in within an hour! Yes, I'd be glad to. I'm bringing some others with me-Mr. Rawlins and the boys. Yes, queer we were just talking of it. Good.”

”It was the navy yard,” explained Mr. Pauling as he hung up the receiver. ”They say the submarine is coming in now and will be at the yard in half an hour. The Admiral wants me to be on hand to board her as soon as she arrives and I'd like you and the boys to come along.”

”Hurrah!” yelled the two boys. ”Now we'll see what they had on her.”

”And we'll know if she's the right sub,” added Rawlins. ”Though it's dollars to doughnuts that she is-it's not likely there's more than one lost, strayed or stolen sub knocking about in these waters.”

When they reached the Navy Yard the submarine was just being docked and twenty minutes later they were entering her open hatch. The boys had never been within a submarine before and were intensely interested in the machinery, the submerging devices, the air-locks and the torpedo tubes, but their greatest interest was in the radio room. But here, much to their chagrin and disappointment, they found practically nothing.

There were a few wires, some discarded old-fas.h.i.+oned coils, some microphones and receivers and a loop aerial. Everything else had been removed and nothing was left to show what sort of instruments had been used. The boys were about to leave when Tom noticed something half-hidden under a coil of wire, and, curious to see what it might be, pulled it out.

”Gos.h.!.+” he exclaimed as he saw what it was. ”These chaps were using that same single control. This is part of it. Look, Frank, the dial is just the same as the one Mr. Henderson gave us.”

”Gee, that's right!” agreed Frank. ”But then,” he added, ”after all it's not surprising. You know Mr. Henderson said the one he gave us came from a German U-boat.”

”Not a thing in the radio room,” announced Tom, as the boys rejoined Mr.

Pauling. ”Everything's stripped clean, but they used the same sort of tuner that Mr. Henderson gave us. Where's Mr. Rawlins?”

”Somewhere under our feet,” laughed his father. ”He went down to examine the hull. Wants to be sure this is the same boat.”

A few moments later the door to the air-lock was opened and Rawlins appeared.

”I'll say it's the same old sub!” he exclaimed. ”There's a dent in her skin near the stern on the port side. I noticed it before and it's there all right. Found anything up here?”

”No, nothing of any value to us,” replied Mr. Pauling. ”The boys say the radio's been stripped from her and we haven't been able to find a chart or a map or a sc.r.a.p of paper aboard. We found two of those carriers though-the cigar-shaped affairs you saw the divers towing through the water; but they're both empty. If these fellows took anything from the garage they disposed of it before they left the submarine.”

”Were the boats on her when they found her?” asked Rawlins.

”No, no sign of them,” replied the officer who was with them. ”I boarded her first thing, but there was no sign of life aboard and no boats.”

”It's darned funny!” commented Rawlins. ”If these lads took to the boats they did it deliberately and took mighty good care to clean the old sub out before they left. That disposes of the theory that they were compelled to leave. Do you know what the trouble was with her machinery, Commander?”

”Haven't found out yet,” replied the officer. ”We'll have the engineers aboard as soon as Mr. Pauling is through inspection.”

”Didn't see any signs of small boats near where you found her, did you?”

inquired Rawlins.

The officer shook his head.

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