Chapter XIV: A Little Work on the Inside

When Matt drifted back to consciousness, his head lay on Carl's knee. Carl and Dick had dragged him out under the conning tower, where the light was better.

"Where are we?" were Matt's first words.

"In the _Pom_, matey," was Dick's grim response.

"Ve can't ged oudt, eider, Matt," croaked Carl gloomily, "und der Chaps can't ged in. Vich vould you radder be, der Chaps or us?"

Matt sat up, rubbing his head.

"I remember now," he murmured. "The tow line broke, and the _Pom_ end of it sprang back and hit me on the forehead. You brought me below?"

"I couldn't think of anything else to do, matey," said Dick. "We were surrounded by six Japs, and I thought it better to take our chances inside. We got below and closed the hatch just in time. Listen! You can hear the Japs walking around on deck. If you get up in the tower you can see them looking in at the lunettes! But it's not pleasant. The straightened eyes of those swabs are pretty savage. I wouldn't give tuppence for our chances if they could get at us. And they may find out a way to come in here. If you can think of anything to do that will help us out of this hole, Matt, please be in a hurry about it."

"Yah," put in Carl, "don'd vaste any time."

"Where's the _Grampus_?" asked Matt.

His head bothered him, but there was no time to think of physical troubles of that sort.

"I told Glennie to keep her away. There wasn't anything he could do by running close, anyhow. The Japs would have boarded the _Grampus_, if he had come too close, and there would be only four on our boat to stand off the six Japs."

"Oh, well," remarked Matt, looking around, "this might be worse."

"How?" moaned Carl. "I don'd see dot."

Matt's interest in the _Pom_, now that he was able to give the boat a personal examination, bade fair to eclipse his concern for the dangers by which he was surrounded. Here was a brand-new piece of mechanism, a boat crammed with French machinery that would well repay a close study.

A rigid box under the conning tower, enabled a man to lift the upper half of his body into the cupola and get his eyes opposite the lunettes. As the man stood there, his right hand fell naturally on a steering wheel and his left on push buttons which must communicate with the engine room.

"This is a whole lot different from the interior of the _Grampus_," muttered Matt.

"Id is so shmall as a rat drap," shuddered Carl. "I feel like I vas shut oop in a cage."

Matt, pushing backward from the turret, fell off a ledge into a sort of well. As he sat up and groped about with his hands, he touched a switch. Pulling the switch, an incandescent lamp flared out overhead.

"That's better," said he. "Now we can look around without so much trouble."

Here, aft from the conning tower, machinery was packed away closely.

Up against the roof, on the port side, was a little engine, operated by compressed air, by which the submarine was steered. Matt discovered that by observing the wires that ran to the engine from the steering wheel.

On the starboard side, likewise against the roof, was another engine, with disks at each end as large as dinner plates.

"H'm," mused Matt, trying to rub the ache out of his head so his brain would be clearer, "those disks are diaphragms, and must be connected, in some way, with the water pressure. I have it!" and a triumphant look crossed his face, "this is the diving engine, and that wheel"--he touched the wheel as he spoke--"controls it."

At one side was a cubic steel box.

"Air compressor," said Matt, touching the box.

On the floor, just where Matt had dropped into the well, were two levers. Matt lifted one of them. Instantly there came a gurgle and splash of water, directly under Carl and Dick.

"Avast, matey!" cried Dick. "I wouldn't fool with those things until you know more about them."

Muffled cries came from the Japs outside.

"They hear what's going on," laughed Matt, "and they don't like it. We're filling the submerging tanks, Dick," he explained.

"Then why don't we sink?"

"It takes the engine to help us sink--the diving engine and the motor."

Farther back beyond the well was the engine room.

"Here's where I'm at home," said Matt, creeping into the engine room and turning on another incandescent light.

In one side were switchboards for the dynamotors, and near them were spiral resistance coils curving along the roof. Over on the other side was a trolley controller, which Matt knew must be used for speeding the vessel under water.

"Give the wheel of that diving engine a turn to the right, Dick," called Matt.

Dick obeyed the order. Matt turned the switch of the controller and then instantly there was a low, electrical hum and the _Pom_ started toward the bottom.

"Get on the box under the conning tower, Dick," said Matt, "and do the steering."

"How'll I steer? There's no periscope."

"Steer by compass--there's one right in front of you as you stand in the tower."

"But what'll I do for light? We're under water and no daylight comes in at the lunettes."

Matt touched a switch, and electric light flooded the tower.

"I don't like this tinkering, I'm a Fiji if I do," muttered Dick, as he crawled up into the tower.

"We've got rid of the Japs by the tinkering, Dick," said Matt. "They're swimming ashore by now."

"What I'm afraid of is," went on Dick, "you'll get us on the bottom and not be able to take us to the surface again."

"Don't let that worry you. If we want to go to the surface, all we have to do is to twist the diving rudders and empty the tanks."

"What's the course, matey?" asked Dick.

"West by north until we clear the point, then north."

"How am I to know when we clear the point?"

"Why, we'll go to the surface and take a look. Glennie will probably be glad to have a sight of us before long."

"I'll bet he's worrying his head off! The quicker we can go up, Matt, the better."

"All right. Carl!"

"On der chump!" answered the Dutch boy.

"Give the wheel of the diving engine a turn to the left--to the _left_, mind."

"Dere she goes."

Instantly there was a perceptible movement upward.

"Now," went on Matt, "lift that other lever on the floor near you--the one I didn't lift, if you can remember."

Carl lifted the lever, and, by chance, the right one. A hiss of compressed air was heard, followed by a splash of water being forced from the ballast tanks. The _Pom_ jumped for the surface like a streak.

"Daylight at the lunettes!" shouted Dick, overjoyed to make sure that Matt really knew what he was about. "All you've got to do to know all about a piece of machinery, Matt," he added, "is just to look at it."

"And use my head," laughed Matt.

"Py shinks," boomed Carl, "you can do more mit a cracked head dan any odder feller can do mit vone dot's all ridght. Yah, so helup me. You know more aboudt machinery in a year as anypody else does in a minid."

"See anything of the Japs, Dick?" inquired Matt, stopping the electric motor.

"Not a sign!" exulted Dick. "But there's the old _Grampus_, with Speake on deck and Glennie half out of the tower. Their eyes are this way, and you'd think, from their faces, they're looking at a ghost."

"Dey can't oondershtand how ve got oudt oof dot schrape," said Carl. "Ve hat some pooty pad brospects, for a vile, you bed you."

"Holy smoke!" exclaimed Dick, almost falling off the box he was standing on.

"What's the matter?"

"Why, there's our old friend, the cruiser _Salvadore_, with--with---- 'Pon my soul, Matt, I'm a Fiji if that Captain Pons isn't on the bridge with Captain Sandoval!"

This was amazing news.

"The war ship must have just got here, then," said Matt.

"But how did she know where we were?"

"Probably she spoke the _Sovereign_," Matt answered. "That would have given Sandoval a pretty good clue."

"Oh, strike me lucky! The _Salvadore_ is turning broadside on, and some of her crew are manning the small guns--the rapid-fire guns. They're going to blow us out of water, Matt!"

"Hardly that, Dick," said Matt easily. "Sandoval isn't going to destroy this submarine. Pons wouldn't let him, even if he had such a notion. If anything happened to the boat, Pons wouldn't be able to deliver her to the Chilian government."

"They're mighty warlike, anyway," went on Dick. "And there's Glennie, on the _Grampus_, trying his best to attract the attention of Sandoval."

"Sandoval and Pons think the _Pom_ is full of Japs," laughed Matt. "We'd better go up and clear the fog out of their brains. It will be a pleasure to meet Captain Sandoval again. He's a good friend of ours, you know."

"Meppy dot vas a lucky t'ing," vouchsafed Carl, "seeing as how Pons iss madt pecause ve vouldn't go afder der _Pom_ mit der _Grampus_."

"That's just what we did, though, although we didn't intend making any such move. We shall now have the pleasure of turning the _Pom_ over to Captain Pons."

Making their way through the bulkhead door, Matt, Dick, and Carl gained the hatch, threw it open, and crawled out on the submarine's deck.