Chapter X: A Halt for Repairs

Late in the afternoon of the day they left Lota Bay the _Grampus_ spoke the British ship _Sovereign_, bound from Santiago to Liverpool. By means of a megaphone, Matt had a brief talk with the captain of the sailing vessel.

"What craft is that?" inquired the British captain, after answering Matt's hail with information concerning his own vessel.

"The submarine _Grampus_," answered Matt, "six weeks out from Belize, British Honduras, and bound for San Francisco."

"My word!" came from the other megaphone. "Sure about that?"

Matt was "stumped." It was certainly an odd question to ask.

"Of course I'm sure of it. Why?"

"Well, we passed another submarine, two hours ago, and she was towing a torpedo. Said she had discharged it at a target and was going to beach it somewhere, and get it in shape for further use. But the bally joke of it is that the captain of that other submarine said that _his_ boat was the United States submarine _Grampus_. It's a main queer go if there are two submarines of that name both belonging to the United States Government."

"Well, what do you think of that?" muttered Glennie, leaning out of the hatch. "The nerve of it!"

"That other boat was the _Pom_," called back Matt, "sent over to Chili by a firm of French shipbuilders. She was stolen from the harbor of Lota by a handful of Japs."

"Fancy that! Those Japs are----"

The rest of it Matt could not hear. The two boats had merely spoken each other in passing and were quickly out of reach of each other's megaphones.

"Those Sons of the Rising Sun are stealing our thunder," remarked Glennie.

"I suppose," returned Matt, "that it's a heap safer for the Japs to call their boat the _Grampus_ than the _Pom_. If they happened to speak a vessel that knew of the stealing of the _Pom_ results might prove disastrous if they told the truth."

Matt descended to the periscope room to give the news to Carl and Dick.

"Dot's der vorst yet!" grunted Carl. "Der itee oof dem Chaps calling deir old frog-eader poat der _Grampus_! I don'd like dot. Id vas some insulds."

"I guess we can stand it, Carl," said Matt.

"Did Pons tell you anything about that French submarine, matey?" inquired Dick.

"A little, but not as much as I would have liked to learn. The _Pom_, I infer, is smaller than the _Grampus_, and is propelled by electricity when submerged and by gasoline on the surface. She's only able to stay under water an hour. Captain Nemo, Jr., could teach those French builders a trick or two with his patent submerged exhausts."

"How's her diving? Can't she remain submerged longer than an hour with her ballast tanks full and her electric motor quiet?"

"No. Her rudders keep her below the surface, and the diving rudders won't work unless her motor's going."

"She don'd amoundt to mooch, oof dot's der case," commented Carl. "Der _Grampus_ has got der _Pom_ shkinned bot' vays for Suntay. I bed you somet'ing for nodding der _Pom_ couldn't have come aroundt der bottom end oof Sout' America like vat ve dit. _Pom!_ She vas vat der French fellers call a _pomme de terre_, by vich, ven I so expression meinseluf, I mean a botato. Whoosh!" and the Dutch boy gave a grunt of disgust.

The night fell clear and bright. It was Matt's intention to continue running during the night, but submerged so that only the periscope ball was awash.

When the time came to fill the ballast tanks, however, an unexpected difficulty presented itself--a difficulty which had almost brought overwhelming disaster once before, when the _Grampus_ had just emerged from Magellan Strait: the Kingston valves by mean of which the tanks were operated failed to work.

This was no particular fault of the valves, but of some damage that had been done to them, and which caused them to go wrong occasionally--and usually at the most inopportune times.

Matt had made up his mind that new valves would have to be put in, but that was a job which would necessarily have to wait until the submarine reached the end of her long journey.

Repairing the valves would take several hours, and Matt decided to stay on the surface and put in a little bay on Quiriquina Island.

It was not necessary to reach the island before morning and when Dick relieved Gaines at the motor, a call for half speed went through the speaking tube to the motor room.

The young motorist studied his charts, then, with the surroundings of the islands clearly in mind, took the steering wheel himself and laid his course by compass.

It was about five o'clock in the morning when the _Grampus_ rounded a bluff headland and took a due east course across Tona Bay. Quiriquina Island loomed up clear and distinct against the gray dawn hovering in the eastern skies.

The cove which Matt selected as a berth for the submarine while repairs were being made had a sloping beach of white sand. It was virtually a bay within a bay, and the waters were as calm as those of an inland lake.

As soon as the anchors were down, all hands came on deck to get a whiff of the morning air.

"We'd better have breakfast before we tackle the valves, hadn't we, Matt?" inquired Speake. "I know I can work better on a full stomach, and I suppose the rest of you can."

"Good idea, Speake," returned Matt. "I had thought about that, but supposed you would like to loaf a little and not pen yourself up in the torpedo room with an electric stove."

"Those confounded valves bother me," grumbled Speake, "and I couldn't loaf and enjoy myself if I had to think about them."

"They bother me, too," added Glennie, "and I believe I'll go below and look them over."

"I'll go with you," said Clackett. "We can make a preliminary survey and then get busy right after breakfast. Plenty of chance to loaf during my watch below."

"Glad to see you fellows so industrious," laughed Matt. "Perhaps, if you are real smart, you can get those valves fixed by breakfast time, and the rest of us won't have to tinker with them."

"You'll be needed, Matt, when it comes to the fixing," answered Glennie, as he climbed into the conning tower.

Clackett followed him.

"I guess I'll go down, too," yawned Gaines, "and catch forty winks on top of the periscope-room locker. This morning air is fine, but I'm satisfied to take my share through the open hatch."

He followed Clackett into the tower. Dick, descending to the edge of the rounded deck, peered into the clear depths of the water below.

"I can see our cable, mates," said he, "and our anchor with one fluke in the sand. Come on, Carl. Let's take a swim before breakfast."

"Nod me, Tick," answered Carl. "I feel like loafing, und shvimming iss too mooch like vork."

"How about you, Matt?"

"I feel as Carl does," said Matt. "Take your swim if you want to, Dick, and Carl and I will be the anchor watch."

Dick was out of his clothes in a jiffy. "So long," he called, as he took a "header" from the bow of the boat.

He was perfectly at home in the water, and when Matt saw him swimming out toward a headland that walled in the cove on the south, he thought little of it. When he saw that Dick was intending to swim around the point, however, he stood up and called out a warning. But Dick only laughed and kept on until he was out of sight.

"He von't go so far dot he can't ged pack again," remarked Carl. "He iss like a fish, Tick iss, und he feels pedder in der vater as oudt oof id."

Carl, for some days, had been wearing an outfit of sailor togs which he had found in the slop chest of the submarine. He was trying to be as nautical as possible, so that he could "shiver his timbers" and "dash his deadeyes" with the best of them when the _Grampus_ reached San Francisco.

"I can valk like a sailor," remarked Carl, getting up from his seat by the tower, "und aboudt all I lack now iss to be aple to hitch oop my drousers like vat a sailor does. How iss der vay oof it, Matt?"

"Never mind that part of it, Carl," laughed Matt. "You'll be enough of a sailor at the end of this cruise, even if you don't know how to hitch up your trousers. Besides," and Matt squinted at him critically, "I doubt if you could ever do the trick."

"For vy nod?"

"Why, the trousers are too tight a fit around the waist."

"Yah, so, aber dey're so pig a fit oop und down dot I valk on der pottoms, und id iss eider hitch dem oop oder cut dem off. Now, vatch. Meppy id goes like dis."

Carl jumped into the air, grapped the band of the trousers with one hand in front and the other behind, and kicked out his legs. When he came down, his feet were so far apart that they slipped on the rounded plates, and he went down and rolled over and over. Matt grabbed him just in the nick of time to keep him out of the water.

"Look out," warned Matt, "or you'll take a swim whether you want to or not."

"I guess dot I leaf der hitching pitzness oudt," said the chagrined Carl, "aber id vas so bicturesque dot I vish I could manach id. Now, ven I----"

Carl was interrupted by a shout, wafted toward them from across the cove. He and Matt started up and saw Dick swimming in their direction with all his might.

"What's the matter, Dick?" called Matt.

"Sharks!" came back the breathless answer.

Matt was no more than a second making up his mind what he should do. To help Dick by bringing the _Grampus_ closer to him was out of the question--disaster might overtake the young sailor before the anchor could be lifted from the bottom.

"Ach, himmelblitzen!" murmured Carl fearfully. "Vat ve going to do, Matt?"

"Below with you, quick!" flung back the king of the motor boys. "Glennie's rifle is in the periscope room. Get that and a coil of rope and hustle back here."

Carl, shaking with excitement, hurried to carry out the order. As he vanished into the tower, Matt went forward toward the bow of the boat, keeping his keen eyes on Dick.