The Submarine Boys and the Middies Part 1

The Submarine Boys and the Middies.

by Victor G. Durham.

CHAPTER I: THE PRIZE DETAIL

"The United States Government doesn't appear very anxious to claim its property, does it, sir?" asked Captain Jack Benson.

The speaker was a boy of sixteen, attired in a uniform much after the pattern commonly worn by yacht captains. The insignia of naval rank were conspicuously absent.

"Now, that I've had the good luck to sell the 'Pollard' to the Navy,"

responded Jacob Farnum, princ.i.p.al owner of the s.h.i.+pbuilding yard, "I'm not disposed to grumble if the Government prefers to store its property here for a while."

Yet the young s.h.i.+pbuilder-he was a man in his early thirties, who had inherited this s.h.i.+pbuilding business from his father-allowed his eyes to twinkle in a way that suggested there was something else behind his words.

Jack Benson saw that twinkle, but he did not ask questions. If the s.h.i.+pbuilder knew more than he was prepared to tell, it was not for his young captain to ask for information that was not volunteered.

The second boy present, also in uniform, Hal Hastings by name, had not spoken in five minutes. That was like Hal. _He_ was the engineer of the submarine torpedo boat, "Pollard." Jack was captain of the same craft, and could do all the talking.

Jacob Farnum sat back, sideways, at his rolltop desk. On top of the desk lay stacked a voluminous though neat pile of papers, letters, telegrams and memoranda that some rival builders of submarine torpedo boats might have been willing to pay much for the privilege of examining. For, at the present moment, there was fierce compet.i.tion in the air between rival American builders of submarine fighting craft designed for the United States Navy. Even foreign builders and inventors were clamoring for recognition. Yet just now the reorganized Pollard Submarine Boat Company stood at the top of the line. It had made the last sale to the United States Navy Department.

At this moment, out in the little harbor that was a part of the s.h.i.+pyard, the "Pollard" rode gently at anchor. She was the first submarine torpedo boat built at this yard, after the designs of David Pollard, the inventor, a close personal friend of Jacob Farnum.

Moreover, the second boat, named the "Farnum," had just been launched and put in commission, ready at an hour's notice to take the sea in search of floating enemies of the United States.

"The United States will take its boat one of these days, Captain," Mr.

Farnum continued, after lighting a cigar. "By the way, did Dave tell you the name we are thinking of for the third boat, now on the stocks?"

"Dave" was Mr. Pollard, the inventor of the Pollard Submarine boat.

"No, sir," Captain Jack replied.

"We have thought," resumed Mr. Farnum, quietly, after blowing out a ring of smoke, "of calling the third boat, now building, the 'Benson.'"

"The-the-what, sir?" stammered Jack, flus.h.i.+ng and rising.

"Now, don't get excited, lad," laughed the s.h.i.+pbuilder.

"But-but-naming a boat for the United States Navy after me, sir-"

Captain Jack's face flushed crimson.

"Of course, if you object-" smiled Mr. Farnum, then paused.

"Object? You know I don't, sir. But I am afraid the idea is going to my head," laughed Jack, his face still flushed. "The very idea of there being in the United States Navy a fine and capable craft named after me-"

"Oh, if the Navy folks object," laughed Farnum, "then they'll change the name quickly enough. You understand, lad, the names we give to our boats last only until the craft are sold. The Navy people can change those names if they please."

"It will be a handsome compliment to me, Mr. Farnum. More handsome than deserved, I fear."

"Deserved, well enough," retorted the s.h.i.+pbuilder. "Dave Pollard and I are well enough satisfied that, if it hadn't been for you youngsters, and the superb way in which you handled our first boat, Dave and I would still be sitting on the anxious bench in the ante-rooms of the Navy Department at Was.h.i.+ngton."

"Well, I don't deserve to have a boat named after me any more than Hal does, or Eph Somers."

"Give us time, won't you, Captain?" pleaded Jacob Farnum, his face straight, but his eyes laughing. "We expect to build at least five boats.

If we didn't, this yard never would have been fitted for the present work, and you three boys, who've done so handsomely by us, wouldn't each own, as you now do, ten shares of stock in this company. Never fear; there'll be a 'Hastings' and a 'Somers' added to our fleet one of these days-even though some of our boats have to be sold to foreign governments."

"If a boat named the 'Hastings' were sold to some foreign government,"

laughed Jack Benson, "Hal, here, wouldn't say much about it. But call a boat named the 'Somers,' after Eph, and then sell it, say, to the Germans or the j.a.panese, and all of Eph's American gorge would come to the surface. I'll wager he'd scheme to sink any submarine torpedo boat, named after him, that was sold to go under a foreign flag."

"I hope we'll never have to sell any of our boats to foreign governments,"

replied Jacob Farnum, earnestly. "And we won't either, if the United States Government will give us half a show."

"That's just the trouble," grumbled Hal Hastings, breaking into the talk, at last. "Confound it, why don't the people of this country run their government more than they do? Four-fifths of the inventors who get up great things that would put the United States on top, and keep us there, have to go abroad to find a market for their inventions! If I could invent a cannon to-day that would give all the power on earth to the nation owning it, would the American Government buy it from me? No, sir! I'd have to sell the cannon to England, Germany or j.a.pan-or else starve while Congress was talking of doing something about it in the next session. Mr.

Farnum, you have the finest, and the only real submarine torpedo boat.

Yet, if you want to go on building and selling these craft, you'll have to dispose of most of them abroad."

"I hope not," responded the s.h.i.+pbuilder, solemnly.

Having said his say, Hal subsided. He was likely not to speak again for an hour. As a cla.s.s, engineers, having to listen much to noisy machinery, are themselves silent.

It was well along in the afternoon, a little past the middle of October.

For our three young friends, Jack, Hal and Eph, things were dull just at the present moment. They were drawing their salaries from the Pollard company, yet of late there had been little for them to do.

Yet the three submarine boys knew that big things were in the air. David Pollard was away, presumably on important business. Jacob Farnum was not much given to speaking of plans until he had put them through to the finish. Some big deal was at present "on" with the Government. That much the submarine boys knew by intuition. They felt, therefore, that, at any moment, they were likely to be called into action-to be called upon for big things.

As Jack and Hal sat in the office, silent, while Jacob Farnum turned to his desk to scan one of the papers lying there, the door opened. A boy burst in, waving a yellow envelope.

"Operator said to hustle this wire to you," shouted the boy, panting a bit. "Said it might be big news for Farnum. So I ran all the way."

Jacob Farnum took the yellow envelope, opening it and glancing hastily through the contents.

"It _is_ pretty good news," a.s.sented the s.h.i.+pbuilder, a smile wreathing his face. "This is for you, messenger."

"This" proved to be a folded dollar bill. The messenger took the money eagerly, then demanded, more respectfully:

"Any answer, sir?"

"Not at this moment, thank you," replied Mr. Farnum. "That is all; you may go, boy."

Plainly the boy who had brought the telegram was disappointed over not getting some inkling of the secret. All Dunhaven, in fact, was wildly agog over any news that affected the Farnum yard. For, though the torpedo boat building industry was now known under the Pollard name, after the inventor of these boats, the yard itself still went under the Farnum name that young Farnum had inherited from his father.

While Jacob Farnum is reading the despatch carefully, for a better understanding, let us speak for a moment of Captain Jack Benson and his youthful comrades and chums.

Readers of the first volume in this series, "The Submarine Boys on Duty,"

remember how Jack Benson and Hal Hastings strayed into the little seaport town of Dunhaven one hot summer day, and how they learned that it was here that the then unknown but much-talked-about Pollard submarine was being built. Both Jack and Hal had been well trained in machine shops; they had spent much time aboard salt water power craft, and so felt a wild desire to work at the Farnum yard, and to make a study of submarine craft in general.

How they succeeded in getting their start in the Farnum yard, every reader of the preceding volumes knows; how, too, Eph Somers, a native of Dunhaven, managed to "cheek" his way aboard the craft after she had been launched, and how he had always since managed to remain there.