Tom Swift and His Submarine Boat - Howard R. Garis (classic novels for teens .TXT) 📗
- Author: Howard R. Garis
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“Bless my dinner-plate, I could eat, too!” cried Mr. Damon. “Go up, by all means. We’ll get enough of under-water travel once we start for the treasure.”
“Send her up, Tom,” called his father. “I Want to make a few notes on some needed changes and improvements.”
Tom entered the lower pilot house, and turned the valve that opened the tanks. He also pulled the lever that started the pumps, so that the water ballast would be more quickly emptied, as that would render the submarine buoyant, and she would quickly shoot to the surface. To the surprise of the lad, however, there followed no outrushing of the water. The Advance remained stationary on the ocean bed. Mr. Swift looked up from his notes.
“Didn’t you hear me ask you to send her up, Tom?” he inquired mildly.
“I did, dad, but something seems to be the matter,” was the reply.
“Matter? What do you mean?” and the aged inventor hastened to where his son and Captain Weston were at the wheels, valves and levers.
“Why, the tanks won’t empty, and the pumps don’t seem to work.”
“Let me try,” suggested Mr. Swift, and he pulled the various handles. There was no corresponding action of the machinery.
“That’s odd,” he remarked in a curious voice “Perhaps something has gone wrong with the connections. Go look in the engine-room, and ask Mr. Sharp if everything is all right there.”
Tom made a quick trip, returning to report that the dynamos, motors and gas engine were running perfectly.
“Try to work the tank levers and pumps from the conning tower,” suggested Captain Weston. “Sometimes I’ve known the steam steering gear to play tricks like that.”
Tom hurried up the circular stairway into the tower. He pulled the levers and shifted the valves and wheels there. But there was no emptying of the water tanks. The weight and pressure of water in them still held the submarine on the bottom of the sea, more than a mile from the surface. The pumps in the engine-room were working at top speed, but there was evidently something wrong in the connections. Mr. Swift quickly came to this conclusion.
“We must repair it at once,” he said. “Tom, come to the engine-room. You and I, with Mr. Jackson and Mr. Sharp, will soon have it in shape again.”
“Is there any danger?” asked Mr. Damon in a perturbed voice. “Bless my soul, it’s unlucky to have an accident on our trial trip.”
“Oh, we must expect accidents,” declared Mr. Swift with a smile. “This is nothing.”
But it proved to be more difficult than he had imagined to re-establish the connection between the pumps and the tanks. The valves, too, had clogged or jammed, and as the pressure outside the ship was so great, the water would not run out of itself. It must be forced.
For an hour or more the inventor, his son and the others, worked away. They could accomplish nothing. Tom looked anxiously at his parent when the latter paused in his efforts.
“Don’t worry,” advised the aged inventor. “It’s got to come right sooner or later.”
Just then Mr. Damon, who had been wandering about the ship, entered the engine-room.
“Do you know,” he said, “you ought to open a window, or something.”
“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Tom quickly, looking to see if the odd man was joking.
“Well, of course I don’t exactly mean a window,” explained Mr. Damon, “but we need fresh air.”
“Fresh air!” There was a startled note in Mr. Swift’s voice as he repeated the words.
“Yes, I can hardly breathe in the living-room, and it’s not much better here.”
“Why, there ought to be plenty of fresh air,” went on the inventor. “It is renewed automatically.”
Tom jumped up and looked at an indicator. He uttered a startled cry.
“The air hasn’t been changed in the last hour!” he exclaimed. “It is bad. There’s not enough oxygen in it. I notice it, now that I’ve stopped working. The gage indicates it, too. The automatic air-changer must have stopped working. I’ll fix it.”
He hurried to the machine which was depended on to supply fresh air to the submarine.
“Why, the air tanks are empty!” the young inventor cried. “We haven’t any more air except what is in the ship now!”
“And we’re rapidly breathing that up,” added Captain Weston solemnly.
“Can’t you make more?” cried Mr. Damon. “I thought you said you could make oxygen aboard the ship.”
“We can,” answered Mr. Swift, “but I did not bring along a supply of the necessary chemicals. I did not think we would be submerged long enough for that. But there should have been enough in the reserve tank to last several days. How about it, Tom?”
“It’s all leaked out, or else it wasn’t filled,” was the despairing answer. “All the air we have is what’s in the ship, and we can’t make more.”
The treasure-seekers looked at each other. It was an awful situation.
“Then the only thing to do is to fix the machinery and rise to the surface,” said Mr. Sharp simply. “We can have all the air we want, then.”
“Yes, but the machinery doesn’t seem possible of being fixed,” spoke Tom in a low voice.
“We must do it!” cried his father.
They set to work again with fierce energy, laboring for their very lives. They all knew that they could not long remain in the ship without oxygen. Nor could they desert it to go to the surface, for the moment they left the protection of the thick steel sides the terrible pressure of the water would kill them. Nor were the diving suits available. They must stay in the craft and die a miserable death-unless the machinery could be repaired and the Advance sent to the surface. The emergency expanding lifting tank was not yet in working order.
More frantically they toiled, trying every device that was suggested to the mechanical minds of Tom, his father, Mr. Sharp or Mr. Jackson, to make the pumps work. But something was wrong. More and more foul grew the air. They were fairly gasping now. It was difficult to breathe, to say nothing of working, in that atmosphere. The thought of their terrible position was in the minds of all.
“Oh, for one breath of fresh air!” cried Mr. Damon, who seemed to suffer more than any of the others. Grim death was hovering around them, imprisoned as they were on the ocean’s bed, over a mile from the surface.
Suddenly Tom, after a moment’s pause, seized a wrench and began loosening some nuts.
“What are you doing?” asked his father faintly, for he was being weakened by the vitiated atmosphere.
“I’m going to take this valve apart,” replied his son. “We haven’t looked there for the trouble. Maybe it’s out of order.”
He attacked the valve with energy, but his hands soon lagged. The lack of oxygen was telling on him. He could no longer work quickly.
“I’ll help,” murmured Mr. Sharp thickly. He took a wrench, but no sooner had he loosened one nut than he toppled over. “I’m all in,” he murmured feebly.
“Is he dead?” cried Mr. Damon, himself gasping.
“No, only fainted. But he soon will be dead, and so will all of us, if we don’t get fresh air,” remarked Captain Weston. “Lie down on the floor, every one. There is a little fairly good air there. It’s heavier than the air we’ve breathed, and we can exist on it for a little longer. Poor Sharp was so used to breathing the rarified air of high altitudes that he can’t stand this heavy atmosphere.”
Mr. Damon was gasping worse than ever, and so was Mr. Swift. The balloonist lay an inert heap on the floor, with Captain Weston trying to force a few drops of stimulant down his throat.
With a fierce determination in his heart, but with fingers that almost refused to do his bidding, Tom once more sought to open the big valve. He felt sure the trouble was located there, as they had tried to locate it in every other place without avail.
“I’ll help,” said Mr. Jackson in a whisper. He, too, was hardly able to move.
More and more devoid of oxygen grew the air. It gave Tom a sense as if his head was filled, and ready to burst with every breath he drew. Still he struggled to loosen the nuts. There were but four more now, and he took off three while Mr. Jackson removed one. The young inventor lifted off the valve cover, though it felt like a ton weight to him. He gave a glance inside.
“Here’s the trouble!” he murmured. “The valve’s clogged. No wonder it wouldn’t work. The pumps couldn’t force the water out.”
It was the work of only a minute to adjust the valve. Then Tom and the engineer managed to get the cover back on.
How they inserted the bolts and screwed the nuts in place they never could remember clearly afterward, but they managed it somehow, with shaking, trembling hands and eyes that grew more and more dim.
“Now start the pumps!” cried Tom faintly. “The tanks will be emptied, and we can get to the surface.”
Mr. Sharp was still unconscious, nor was Mr. Swift able to help. He lay with his eyes closed. Garret Jackson, however, managed to crawl to the engine-room, and soon the clank of machinery told Tom that the pumps were in motion. The lad staggered to the pilot house and threw the levers over. An instant later there was the hissing of water as it rushed from the ballast tanks. The submarine shivered, as though disliking to leave the bottom of the sea, and then slowly rose. As the pumps worked more rapidly, and the sea was sent from the tank in great volumes, the boat fairly shot to the surface. Tom was ready to open the conning tower and let in fresh air as soon as the top was above the surface.
With a bound the Advance reached the top. Tom frantically worked the worm gear that opened the tower. In rushed the fresh, life-giving air, and the treasure-hunters filled their lungs with it.
And it was only just in time, for Mr. Sharp was almost gone. He quickly revived, as did the others, when they could breathe as much as they wished of the glorious oxygen.
“That was a close call,” commented Mr. Swift. “We’ll not go below again until I have provided for all emergencies. I should have seen to the air tanks and the expanding one before going below. We’ll sail home on the surface now.”
The submarine was put about and headed for her dock. On the way she passed a small steamer, and the passengers looked down in wonder at the strange craft.
When the Advance reached the secluded creek where she had been launched, her passengers had fully recovered from their terrible experience, though the nerves of Mr. Swift and Mr. Damon were not at ease for some days thereafter.
“I should never have made a submerged test without making sure that we had a reserve supply of air,” remarked the aged inventor. “I will not be caught that way again. But I can’t understand how the pump valve got out of order.”
“Maybe some one tampered with it,” suggested Mr. Damon. “Could Andy Foger, any of the Happy Harry gang, or the rival gold-seekers have done it?”
“I hardly think so,” answered Tom. “The place has been too carefully guarded since Berg and Andy once sneaked in. I think it was just an accident, but I have thought of a plan whereby such accidents can be avoided in the future. It needs a simple device.”
“Better
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