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Submarine Boys on Duty

<h2 id="id00213" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER III</h2> <h5 id="id00214">JOSH OWEN STARTS TROUBLE</h5> "Knock off!" As the deafening din of hammers lessened David Pollard shouted that order through a megaphone. Confined in a limited space, inside that bull of steel, the clatter, which outdoors would have been barely noticed, was something infernal in volume and sharpness. Human ear-drums could not stand it for any very great length of time. By this time Jack Benson and Hal Hastings had had a good chance to see exactly what the interior of a submarine torpedo boat was like. A level floor extended throughout the entire length of the "Pollard." Below this floor, reached by hatchways, were various small compartments for storage. Under the level of this floor, too, were the "water tanks." These were tanks that, when the craft lay or moved on the surface of the ocean, were to contain only air. Whenever it was desired to sink the torpedo boat, valves operated from the central room of the boat could be opened so that the water tanks would fill, and the weight of the water would sink the boat. In diving, the forward tanks could be filled first, and then, when the desired depth was reached, the other tanks could be filled entirely, or partly, in such a way as to control depth and position. With the boat below the surface, and the commander wishing to return to the surface, compressed air could be forced into the water tanks, expelling all the water in them, or a part of the water, if preferred. The valves would then operate to keep more water from entering. On the surface the "Pollard" was intended to be run by a powerful six-cylinder gasoline engine. When below the surface the boat was to be propelled by electric power supplied from storage batteries. Below the waves the gasoline engine could not be used, as such an engine consumes air and also creates bad vapors. On the morning when our two young friends went to work the electrical engine was fully installed, and had been tested. The gasoline engine was in place, but the fittings had yet to be finished. In the course of this latter work the necessary connections were to be made between gasoline engine and dynamo. The many strong-walled receivers for compressed air had been placed, and were now being more securely fitted and connected by the workmen. The final work on the compressed air apparatus was yet to be done by a special crew of workmen who were soon to come down from New York. A powerful, compact plant for compressing air was a part of this outfit. Right up in the bow of the "Pollard" was the tube through which a Whitehead torpedo, fourteen feet in length, could be started on its destructive journey by means of compressed air force. One torpedo was to be carried in the tube, six others in special lockers on either side. Back of the torpedo room was the rather cramped engine room in which were the gasoline and electric motors, other machinery and work-benches. Then came the central cabin, some twenty feet long and about ten feet wide. Here was a table, while the seats at the side could be arranged also as berths. Out of the cabin, aft, led a narrow passageway. Off this, on either side, were a narrow galley, cupboards, ice-box and toilet room. Nearer the stern were two compact state-rooms, one intended for two "line" or "deck" officers, the other for two engineer officers. There were other features about the "Pollard" that will be described as need arises. For more than an hour the entire gang had been at work, though Joshua Owen had seen to it that Jack and Hal had nothing more to do than lift or hold heavy articles, fetch tools, etc. Still both boys stood this good-humoredly, paying strict attention to orders. David Pollard, watching them at times, and guessing how they might feel under such treatment, found his good opinion of the two newcomers still rising. Stopping their work, when the order came, the workmen lighted their pipes. Jack and Hal, not liking the clouds of tobacco smoke, ran up the spiral staircase to the manhole, stepping, out upon the platform. As they did so they encountered a man of about thirty years of age who had just reached the platform deck from the shed flooring. "Hullo, what are you two doing here?" questioned the new arrival, looking the boys over keenly. "Are you Mr. Farnum?" asked Benson. "Yes. Well?" "Mr. Pollard put us to work here, Mr. Farnum." "Oh! That's all right, then," replied the owner of the yard, amiably, and entered the conning tower. "Tumble down here, you two lazy young roustabouts!" sounded Owen's voice a few minutes later. "We seem to have made a hit with our foreman, don't we?" chuckled Jack to his chum. "Mr. Owen," Pollard was saying to the foreman, as the boys rejoined the crew below, "we can't stand the ringing of hammers all the time, so, for the next job, I think you'd better fit some of the feed pipes connecting the gasoline tanks with the motor." "All right, sir," replied Josh Owen, briefly. He turned to order Jaggers and O'brien to bring forward one of the longer pieces of feed pipe. This the foreman helped to fit in place. "Mr. Pollard," reported Owen, soon, "this pipe is a small botch on the part of the contractor." "What's wrong" asked the inventor, quickly, springing forward and bending over to examine. "The pipe is about a half inch too long," replied Owen. "But one of the superintendent's men over at the machine shop can cut it to fit?" asked the inventor, looking uneasy. "Oh, he can cut it all right, but there's the new thread to be cut, too," explained the foreman, pointing. "I'm sorry, sir, but if you want a good job, without any danger of botch, you'll have to wire the contractors to rush a new pipe, cut exactly to the specifications." "But that will delay us at least forty-eight hours, and the launching date is so near at hand," protested the inventor. "You'd better put your launching off two days, Mr. Pollard, than take any chances of having a bad connection in your fuel feed pipes," argued the foreman. "Confound such luck!" growled Pollard, turning away. "Well, come over to the office with me, and we'll wire a kick and a prayer to the contractors." Just as he turned, the inventor barely failed to overhear something that Jack muttered in an aside to Hal. "What's that you're saying, Benson?" demanded David Pollard. "Oh, nothing much, sir," replied Jack, quickly. "I'm not foreman here, nor much of anything, for that matter." "Were you expressing an opinion about this pipe business?" "Ye-es, sir." "You agree with me that the pipe can be cut properly at the machine shop of this yard?" insisted the inventor. It was strange to ask such a question of a boy helper, but David Pollard, facing a delay in the launching of his craft, was ready to jump at any hope. Jack Benson hesitated. "I want a reply," persisted Mr. Pollard. "Why, yes," Jack admitted. "I don't want to be forward, but I feel pretty sure the pipe can be measured both for its own length and the length it ought to be. If there's a good metal saw over at the machine shop, and a thread cutter, this pipe ought to be ready for safe fitting in half an hour." "That's the way it looks to me, too," broke in Mr. Farnum. "Send the pipe over, anyway, with the proper measurements, and Partridge can tell you what's what." "I won't make the measurements. I won't have anything to do with it, or be responsible for a botched job," snarled the foreman. "You don't have to, then," replied Farnum, taking a spring steel tape from his pocket. "Benson, you seem to have a clear-headed idea of what you're talking about. Take the measurements. This tape has been standardized." It was not a matter of great difficulty. Jack, with his chum's aid, soon had the measurements taken. "Since you youngsters know so much about it," growled Joshua Owen, "you two can carry the pipe over to the machine shop." Other workmen sprang to help in passing the pipe up through the manhole and down over the side of the hull. When Jack and Hal got the pipe up on their shoulders they staggered a bit under its weight. But they were game, and started away with it. "That's a shame," growled Mike O'brien. "Boss, leave me go 'an be helpin' the b'yes with that load." "Go ahead," nodded Mr. Farnum. O'brien went nimbly down the ladder, placing one of his own sturdy shoulders under the forward end of the pipe, while Benson got back with Hal Hastings at the other end. In about three-quarters of an hour the trio were back, with the pipe cut to the right length, and with a new screw-thread cut at the shortened end. "Now, you can demonstrate your own work, Benson," laughed Mr. Farnum. "Fit the pipe yourself, and call on the men for what help you want." At that, Joshua Owen folded his arms as he stepped back scowling. Yet when the crew, under Jack's direction, had finished fitting the pipe in place, not even this angered foreman dared say that it was not fitted properly. The next work called for fitting some pipe-joints, and in this a red lead cement was used. One of these joint-makings fell to Benson and Hal. "Here's yer cement," muttered the scowling Dan Jaggers, passing a rough ball of the stuff to young Benson. "Is this the best you have?" asked Jack, eyeing the cement with disfavor. "Yes," growled Dan, "and it's plenty good enough." "I'd call it too dry," replied Jack, quietly. "Are you bossing this job all the way through?" demanded Joshua Owen, angrily, stepping forward. "Mr. Farnum, Mr. Pollard, if these boys are to have charge of this work, I may as well stop." "What's the matter?" asked Mr. Farnum, coining forward. "This younker is grumbling about the red lead cement," snapped the irate foreman. "What's the complaint, Benson?" asked the boatyard owner. "No complaint, Mr. Farnum," Jack answered, quickly. "Only, I've got to make the joint fast with red lead cement, and it seemed to me that this stuff is too dry. If I use it, it won't fill out smoothly enough. It's dry and crumbly, and I'm afraid the joint would be very defective." "Nothing of the sort!" snapped Joshua Owen. "Boy, you've no business trying to do a man's work, anyway. Give me that cement, and I'll make the joint fast myself." "All right," nodded Benson, stepping back. He started to pass the chunk of cement to the foreman, but Mr. Farnum quickly took it from him, then cast a look upward. Asa Partridge, the yard superintendent, a man past fifty, stood on the platform deck, looking down through the open manhole. "Come down here, Mr. Partridge," hailed the yard's owner, while Joshua Owen's scowl became deeper than ever. "Mr. Partridge, Benson says this cement is too dry to make a joint tight with. Owen says it isn't. Who wins the bet?" the owner finished, laughingly. Asa Partridge, a man of long experience in steam-fitting, took the chunk of cement, examining it carefully, then picked it to pieces before he rejoined dryly: "Why, the boy wins, of course. Any apprentice ought to know that cement as dry as this stuff can't make a tight joint." "Isn't there some better cement than this around?" called out Mr. Farnum. "If there isn't," volunteered the superintendent, "I can send you over plenty. But the use of such stuff as that would leave some joints loose, and make a breakdown of the boat's machinery certain." "You see, Owen," spoke the yard's owner, quietly, turning to the foreman, "you're letting your dislike for these boys spoil your value here as foreman." "I've stood all I'm going to stand here," shouted Joshua Owen, in a tempest of rage, as he snatched off his apron. "You're letting these boys run the job—" "Nothing of the sort," broke in Farnum, icily. "They haven't tried to run anything. But any workman is entitled to complain when he's expected to perform impossibilities with poor material." "There ye go, upholding 'em again," roared the foreman. "I'm through. I've quit!" "I don't know as that's a bad idea, either, Owen," replied Mr. Farnum, in the same cool voice. "When you don't care how you botch a job it's time for you to walk out. You can call at the office this afternoon, and Mr. Partridge will give you your pay." Joshua Owen glared, amazedly, at his employer. Then, seeing that his threat had been taken at par, and that he was really through here, the infuriated man wheeled like a flash, leaping at Jack Benson from behind and striking the boy to the floor. But Grant Andrews, O'brien and others leaped at him and pulled him away. Jacob Farnum pointed up the spiral staircase, as Jack Benson leaped to his feet, hardly hurt at all. "You can't get out of here too quickly, Owen!" warned the owner. "If you linger, I'll have you helped out of this boat! Grant Andrews, you're foreman here from now on." "First of all, see that that fellow gets out of here in double-quick time." "Come along, Dan!" called Owen, hoarsely to his nephew, as he started up the stairway. "Yes, run along, Danny," added Farnum, mockingly. "You're no better than your uncle!" After the pair had departed it took all hands at least five minutes to cool down from their indignation. Then they resumed work, and all went smoothly under the quiet, just, alert new foreman, Grant Andrews. That afternoon, as Jack crossed the yard, going on an errand from Mr. Pollard to the office, he encountered Josh Owen and his nephew. The pair had just collected their pay from the superintendent. They were talking together, in low, ugly tones, when they caught sight of the boy. Though Benson saw them in season to avoid coming close to them, he neither dodged the pair nor courted a meeting. He would have passed without speaking, but Joshua Owen seized the boy by one arm. "I s'pose ye feel me and you had trouble, and you got the best of it?" leered the former foreman, then scowled. "But listen to me, younker. Ye're going to run into trouble, and quicker than ye think, at that. That old cigar shaped death-trap won't float—not for long, anyway. All I'm hoping is that ye'll go in for bein' one of the crew of that submarine boat. Then I'll be even with a lot of ye all at the same time!" With which enigmatic prophecy Joshua Owen let go of the boy's arm, and tramped heavily away, followed by his precious nephew. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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