The Submarine Boys and the Spies.

by Victor G. Durham.

CHAPTER I

"GUESS DAY" AT SPRUCE BEACH

"Has anyone sighted them yet?"

"No."

"What can be the matter?"

"You know, their specialty is going to the bottom. Possibly they've gone there once too often."

"Don't!" shuddered a young woman. "Try not to be gruesome always, George."

The young man laughed as he turned aside.

Everyone and his friend at Spruce Beach was asking similar questions.

None of the answers were satisfactory, because n.o.body knew just what reply to make.

Everyone in the North who has the money and leisure to get away from home during a portion of the winter knows Spruce Beach. It is one of nature's most beautiful spots on the eastern coast of Florida, and man has made it one of the most expensive places in the world.

In other words, Spruce Beach is a paradise to look at. The climate, in the winter months, is mild and balmy. Health grows rapidly at this favored spot, and so fashion has seized upon it as her own. True, there are yet a few cottages and boarding houses left where travelers of moderate means may find board.

The whole air of Spruce Beach is one of holiday expectancy. The winter visitors go there to enjoy themselves; they expect it and demand it.

They are gratified. From the first of December to the middle of March, life at Spruce Beach makes you think of a great, jolly, unending picnic.

The greatest cause for regret is that more people of ordinary means cannot go there and reap some of the plentiful harvest of fun and frolic.

The thousands of tourists, hotel guests and cottagers at Spruce Beach had been promised that by the middle of December they would have a treat the like of which few of them had ever enjoyed before. The Pollard Submarine Boat Company, so named after David Pollard the inventor--the company of which Jacob Farnum, the shipbuilder, was president--had promised that by that date their newest, fastest and most formidable submarine torpedo boat, the "Benson," should arrive at Spruce Beach, there to begin a series of demonstrations and trials.

Still more extraordinary, the captain of this marvelous new submarine craft of war was known to be a boy of sixteen--Jack Benson, after whom the new navy-destroyer had been named.

Newspaper readers were beginning to be familiar with the name of Captain Jack Benson. Though so young he had, after a stern apprenticeship, actually succeeded in making himself a world-known expert in the handling of submarine torpedo boats.

Those lighter readers of newspapers, who scoffed at the very idea of a sixteen-year-old boy handling a costly submarine boat, were sometimes reminded that the same thing happens at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, where the young midshipmen are given instruction and often are qualified as young experts along similar lines.

More remarkable still, as faithful readers of newspapers knew, Captain Jack Benson had a.s.sociated with him, on the new torpedo boat, two other sixteen-year-old boys, by name Hal Hastings and Eph Somers. It was also rumored, and nearly as often believed, that these three sea-bred young Americans knew as much as anyone in the United States on the special subject of submarine boat handling.

Be that all as it might, it was known to every man, woman and child at Spruce Beach that the "Benson" was due to arrive on this December day and the whole picnicking population was out to watch the incoming from the sea of the strange craft.

More than that, the United States gunboat, "Waverly," had been for two days at anchor in the little, somewhat rockbound harbor just north of the beach. It was to be the pleasant duty of the naval officer commanding the "Waverly" to extend official welcome to the "Benson" as soon as that craft pointed its cigar-shaped nose into the harbor.

The first boat built by the submarine company had been named, after the inventor, the "Pollard." The second had been named the "Farnum," in honor of the enterprising young shipbuilder who had financed this big undertaking. And now Spruce Beach was awaiting the arrival of the company's third boat, the "Benson," so-called in recognition of the hard and brilliant work done by the young skipper himself.

That this was to be something of a social and gala occasion, even on board the gunboat, was evident from the fact that on the naval vessel's decks there now promenaded some two score of ladies and their escorts from sh.o.r.e, and on the hurricane deck lounged musicians from hotel orchestras on sh.o.r.e, these men of music having been combined to form a band, in order to make the occasion more joyous.

"Look at that sh.o.r.e, black with people!" cried a woman to one of the naval officers on the deck of the "Waverly."

"There must be at least ten thousand people in that crowd," laughed Lieutenant Featherstone. "I wonder whether they're more interested in the boat, or its boy officers?"

"Are Captain Benson and his comrades really as clever as some of the newspapers have made them out to be?" asked the woman doubtfully.

"Judging by letters I've had from friends who are officers at the Naval Academy," replied Lieutenant Featherstone, "the young men must be very well versed, indeed, in all the arts of their peculiar profession."

A cheer went up from the princ.i.p.al throng over at the beach. Smoke had been sighted off on the eastern horizon, and this must come from the long expected craft.

From boat to boat the news pa.s.sed, and so it traveled to the deck of the "Waverly," where the sailors received it with broad smiles. The leader of the impromptu band raised his baton, rapping for attention.

But Lieutenant Featherstone, below, caught the leader's eye in time and held up his hand for a pause.

"If you play, leader," called the officer, in a low voice that carried, nevertheless, "don't imagine that your music is to welcome the 'Benson.'

Submarine boats don't travel under steam power. They can't."

So, too, on sh.o.r.e, the understanding was quickly reached that the smoke did not indicate the whereabouts of the expected submarine. Half and hour later it was found that the smoke came from the tug of a fruit transporting company.

Where, then, was the "Benson?"

It was not in the least like young Captain Jack Benson to be behind time when he had an appointment to get anywhere. Nor did that very youthful companion expect to arrive late on this day of days.

Some miles away from Spruce Beach the submarine boat, as shown by her submersion gauge, was running along at six miles an hour some fifty-two feet under the surface of the ocean.

Young Eph Somers, auburn-haired and ofttimes impulsive, now looked as sober as a judge as he sat perched up in the conning tower, beyond which, at that depth, he could not see a thing. However, a shaded incandescent light dropped its rays over the surface of the compa.s.s by the aid of which Eph was steering with mathematical exactness.

Out in the engine room stood Hal Hastings, closely watching every movement of even as trusted and capable a man as Williamson, one of the machinists from the Farnum shipyards.

At the cabin table sat Captain Jack Benson himself, his head bent low as he scanned a chart. His right hand held a pair of nickeled dividers.

Near his left lay a scale rule. A paper pad, half covered with figures, also lay within reach.

On the opposite side of the table sat Jacob Farnum, owner of the Farnum shipyard and president of the Pollard Submarine Boat Company. Beside Mr. Farnum sat David Pollard, the inventor.

Readers of the preceding volumes in this series are familiar with all these people, now decidedly famous in the submarine boat world. In the first volume, "_The Submarine Boys on Duty_," was related how all these people came together; how the boys, by sheer force of character "broke into" the submarine boating world. In that volume the building of the first of the company's boats, the "Pollard" was described, and all the exciting adventures that were connected with the event were fully narrated.

Our former readers will also remember all the wonderful adventures and the rollicking fun set forth in the second volume, under the t.i.tle of "_The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip_." In this book, bristling with adventures, and made lighter, in spots, by accounts of humorous doings, was told how the boys gained fame as submarine experts. It was their fine, loyal work that interested the United States government in buying that first boat, the "Pollard."

The third volume in the series, ent.i.tled "_The Submarine Boys and the Middies_" told how our young friends secured the prize detail at Annapolis; where, for a brief time, the three submarine boys served as instructors in submarine work to the young midshipmen at the Naval Academy. Nor was this accomplished without serious, and even sensational, opposition from the representative of a rival submarine company. Hence the boys went through some rousing adventures. Incidentally, they fell against practical instruction in hazing at the Naval Academy.

Adventures enough had befallen the submarine boys to last any man for a lifetime. Yet, as fate decreed it, Captain Jack Benson and his staunch young comrades were now destined to adventures greater and further reaching than any of which they could have dreamed. In advance, this winter trip to Spruce Beach promised to be little more than a pleasant relaxation for the youngsters. What it really turned out to be will soon be made clear in the pages of this volume.

"It seems a very risky plan that you're trying, Jack," remarked Jacob Farnum, at last.

"Don't you want me to do it, sir?" asked the young skipper, looking up instantly from his chart.

"Why, er--"

But here David Pollard, the inventor of these boats broke in, eagerly: