The Boy Inventors' Diving Torpedo Boat

It was while congratulations were still being showered on Jack,—for his father denied all credit save for his occasional aid in the construction of the model,—that a peculiar accident occurred.

The wires controlling the machinery of the diving torpedo boat were wound on reels, there being about two hundred feet of wire to each reel. This, of course, made it necessary to restrict the White Shark, Jr., to a limited radius of operations. Suddenly, however, instead of continuing to circle in an orderly way as the model had been doing, it darted off straight across the lake at lightning speed. Before Jack could do anything to stop it, it reached the limit of the wires, snapped them like so much thread, and was off like an arrow over the water.

It was just at this instant that Jupe pulled out in a small rowboat used for fishing—for the lake was kept stocked—from one of the small coves already mentioned. He did not see the White Shark, Jr., dashing across the pond straight at him. The party on shore yelled warnings; but Jupe, who was slightly deaf, did not hear them.

Instead he kept right on rowing.

“Wow! Look out for fireworks in about two seconds!” shouted Tom, who could not control his merriment. The others had to laugh, too.

In the meantime Jupe—supremely unconscious of the fate that was rushing down upon him at express speed—stopped rowing from some impulse and looked about him.

“Gollyumptions!” they heard him yell as he saw the model submarine racing straight at him, “by de trumpet ob Jubel, what kin’ of a fish am dat?”

“It’s a shark!” yelled Tom at the top of his lungs, “the White Shark, Jr.”

“A shark! Fo’ de Lawd! Ah’s a gone coon!” bellowed Jupe in real dismay.

“It’s a submarine!” yelled Tom in return, “get out of its way!”

“It’s bin’ eatin’ beans and hay!” shouted Jupe, “but it’s still hungry, Great Gumptions to Goodness!”

Crash!

The runaway submarine model struck the rowboat full in the side. Jupe, who had risen to his feet, was knocked overboard in a flash by the impact of the blow. But the White Shark, Jr., never stopped going. Shoving the boat before it, it sped on toward the opposite shore.

Jupe came to the surface—fortunately he could swim—and grasped the side of the boat. It was the opposite side to the one the model diving boat had struck, and Jupe could find no explanation for the fact that his craft was moving.

“Clar’ ter goodness!” he yelled, “dat shark mus’ be towin’ me to shore!”

But he clung on till he felt his feet touch ground, and then, yelling for help at the top of his voice, he dashed off into the bushes in an effort to get as far from the shark-haunted lake as possible. It was not until half an hour later that he ventured back, hearing voices near where he had come ashore.

They were those of Mr. Chadwick and his companions. Although the model was almost wrecked in the bow, they could not find words to blame Jupe, so elated were they over the unqualified success the trial had proved. The model was placed in the boat and rowed back to its starting point.

“I can patch it up so that we can use it again,” declared Jack as they carried it ashore and made an examination.

“Marse Chadwick,” begged Jupe, “you gib me a lil’ medicine for my insides. I declar’ I’se plum scared inter a stomach-ache by dat dar shark.”

“I’ve a good mind to give you a good scolding, you rascal,” laughed Mr. Chadwick, “and as for the sort of medicine you want, you won’t get any from me.”

“Not jes’ a teeny drop, Marse Chadwick? Ah sho’ does feel po’ful po’ly.”

“Not a drop, Jupe. Now be off and catch some fish for dinner.”

“And look out you don’t get run over by a whale this time,” chuckled Tom.

“Gollygumption! An ole whale, de daddy uv all de whalesses in de seas, couldn’ hev scared me no wusser dan dat contraption,” declared Jupe as he shuffled off.

It was something like a month after this incident that a group stood in Mr. Dancer’s workshop surveying the original White Shark. The addition of the Archimedian screws on her sides had materially altered her appearance, and made her look more like some sort of fish than ever. A long period of difficult and disheartening work had been concluded but an hour before, and now the finishing touches were complete.

“My! my! Things hev changed since I sailed on the old Ohio!” sighed Silas Hardtack, a grizzled old veteran of the Seven Seas, as the party which consisted of Jack, his father, Tom, and Mr. Dancer, stood regarding their finished work, in which all had had a share, “when I went to sea we’d hev called such do-dads as thet ‘floating tea-kettles.’”

“And a few years from now, submarines and fast cruisers driven by crude oil engines in place of cumbrous machinery will be the backbone of the navy,” prophesied Mr. Chadwick.

Old Silas has already been mentioned as Mr. Dancer’s assistant and factotum. He had a great habit of perpetually recalling the way things were done when he “sailed on the old Ohio.” In fact, if one believed all that he attributed to the craft of his youth, there never was such another ship.

“Well, now that our work is done, I’m anxious to try if the White Shark, Sr., works as well as her Junior type,” said Mr. Chadwick. “Are you ready for a test, Dancer?”

“There are some last adjustments to the machinery that I want the boys’ help on,” was the response, “and then I think everything will be in readiness for the supreme test.”

His face paled as he spoke and he clenched and unclenched his hands nervously. A few short hours would prove now if he had squandered his fortune and his time or actually produced the most efficient type of submarine known.

As for the boys, they were half crazy with excitement. As they looked at the odd craft before them, it was hard for them to realize that in it they were, within a short time, to make a test that might be of the most dangerous order.

For not one of the party had any assurance, except their faith in their handiwork, that, once submerged, the White Shark would rise again. It was not a cheerful thought to dwell upon—this suspicion that danger of the gravest sort, a death at the bottom of the sea, might lie before them.

But in the last hours of work on the machinery all such thoughts were forgotten. Every bit of machinery was gone over, lubricated, and adjusted. The screws were worked from a geared shaft, which ran across the ship and was connected with the motors by powerful gearing. Levers at the right and left of the engine room controlled the pitch of the screws. In general appearance the engine room was but little changed, except in small details, from its condition when we last saw it.

Then came the moment when everything was declared ready down to the last detail.

“The White Shark is now as perfect as human hands can make her,” declared Mr. Dancer with—for him—a rare touch of oratory.

At five-thirty in the evening, an hour when the sun was declining to the horizon, for the time was in early fall, the last of the party that was to make the adventurous trip was on board. The group gathered on the curved upper deck consisted of the inventor himself, Mr. Chadwick, Silas Hardtack, the two boys, and Jupe.

For an instant before the time came for the final plunge, they stood in silence. Then each went to the place assigned to him previously. Jack and Tom went to the engine room and Mr. Dancer to the steersman’s place, while Mr. Chadwick, Silas, and Jupe remained on deck to attend to the last details of the momentous start.

The great doors which barred the opening of the construction shed had been opened, the “ways” were greased to facilitate the White Shark’s slide to the water, and the last ropes that held the craft in place were wound round the stern “bitts” on the after deck.

“Ready?” hailed Mr. Chadwick through the open panel.

“Ready!” came back from the steersman’s seat, booming through the mouth of the deck speaking-tube, which opened just below the panel.

Jupe, his ebony arms bared, stood above the retaining ropes, axe in hand. By his side stood Silas Hardtack.

Mr. Chadwick’s hand dropped—the preconcerted signal.

“Now, my hearty!” yelled Silas, slapping Jupe on the back. The darky’s axe fell and the ropes parted like pack thread.

For one molecule of time there ensued a breathless pause. Then came a start and a trembling throughout the structure of the wonderful diving craft.

But this was only for the space of a breath. The next instant the slide toward the water began. At the same time, Silas reverently broke out on a stern flagstaff the splendid emblem of Old Glory.

“Whee, Jack, we’re off!” exclaimed Tom below in the engine room, oil can in hand.

“Yes, off on an unknown voyage,” softly whispered Jack, his hand on the starting lever, awaiting with keen intensity the signal to start the engines on which so much depended.

Mr. Chadwick’s watch told off just ten seconds between the start of the White Shark and the instant she struck the water in a cloud of foam. Holding on to the rail with both hands, the party on deck barely escaped being hurled off at the violence of the impact.

“Whoopee! She’s afloat!” bellowed Silas Hardtack as soon as he caught his breath.

“Gollyumption, I hope she stays that way!” responded Jupe, his eyes rolling in his ebony countenance.

The sea was as calm as a mill pond. Far off on the horizon lay the smoke of a steamer. But except for that, the expanse of water before them was as solitary as a desert.

All at once a tremor, a feeling of life ran through the structure of the craft.

The novel propellers had begun their work.

Gracefully as a floating swan the White Shark moved off on her maiden trip.

“So far without a hitch,” breathed Mr. Chadwick, “but will she dive—and if she does, will she come up again?” he added.

Possibly that was the question which each soul on board the newly launched craft was asking himself.