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Read Ebook: Motor Matt Makes Good; or Another Victory For the Motor Boys by Matthews Stanley R
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Ebook has 391 lines and 22378 words, and 8 pages
"We'll tell you all about it later, Dick. Where were you when that torpedo went off?"
"Just diving to the bottom to go hunting for the other torpedo. That Whitehead they fired never touched us."
"It must have touched something," put in Speake, "or the firing pin wouldn't have got in its work."
"Zat is not right!" cried the captain. "One mariner is in ze duty bound to help anozzer mariner in ze distress. Me, I call on you. You refuse, zen zat is mos' contemptible."
"I'm sorry you look at it in that way, captain," replied Matt; "but it's just possible I know my own business better than you do."
Captain Pons had a little fit all by himself, and while he had it he was saying unpleasant things.
"What's the matter with the frog eater?" cried Dick. "Throw him overboard!"
Matt signed for the captain of the port to have the negro oarsmen get the boat back to the landing. The captain at once gave the order and the boat danced away in the direction of the wharf.
Captain Pons was still calling down anathemas on the heads of all Americans who refused to help a Frenchman in "ze distress."
Captain Pons glared.
"It is mos' contemptible!" was all he could say.
Matt and Glennie, without delaying further, pushed into the town. Matt had little difficulty in finding the gasoline he wanted. He had to go to two or three places before he found fuel that answered the severe tests he put it to, but finally he got what he desired and had it hauled to the landing.
The captain of the port was not in evidence, but his two negroes were waiting at the boat.
Matt had come down to the wharf in the wagon that brought the gasoline, and Glennie had been left to follow on foot. The ensign put in an appearance just as the barrel had been transferred to the boat. Matt was surprised to see him carrying a rifle.
"What are you going to do with that, Glennie?" laughed Matt. "Shoot Japs?"
"Well, no, not exactly," answered Glennie, "There are a good many ways in which a weapon of this sort might come in handy, besides using it for shooting Japs. It's an American gun, Matt--a Marlin. It looked sort of homelike, so I just took it in, along with a box of cartridges."
If Matt hated one thing more than another, it was a gun. He had seen firearms used so recklessly while he was in the Southwest that he had acquired a strong prejudice against them. Notwithstanding this fact, he was a crack shot, and had more than once carried off the prize in a shooting contest.
"All right, Glennie," said he, although a trifle reluctantly, "bring it along."
"You don't like guns, Matt," observed the ensign as he lowered himself into the boat and dropped down on one of the thwarts.
"Or knives, either," added Matt, "when they are used to get the better of another fellow. A pair of fists make pretty good weapons."
"Fists are all right," laughed Glennie, "so long as the other chap uses them; but when you find an enemy standing off forty or fifty feet and looking at you over the sights of a gun--well, that's the time another gun would be mighty valuable."
Dick, keeping one eye on the negroes while they bent over the pump handles, leaned against the conning tower and heaved a long breath.
"I intended," answered Matt, "to take the torpedo aboard through one of our tubes as soon as we reached this harbor, but the captain of the port came down on us before I had the chance."
"How did you find out about that submarine, and the Japs being in charge of her?"
Matt straightened out this point to his chum's satisfaction. That part of Matt's recital which had to do with the Jap who had been captured under the wharf was particularly interesting to Dick.
"We've got a good chance to show them our heels," said Matt, "and it's our duty to make the most of it."
"I'm a Fiji, though," said Dick, "if I don't hate to run away from those Sons of the Rising Sun. It looks as though the United States and Great Britain had struck their colors to the yellow rascals."
"I feel the same way, Dick, but this submarine is worth a hundred thousand dollars, and we're only her trustees. It's our duty not to take any chances with her."
A HALT FOR REPAIRS.
"What craft is that?" inquired the British captain, after answering Matt's hail with information concerning his own vessel.
"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, what do you think of that?" muttered Glennie, leaning out of the hatch. "The nerve of it!"
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.
Matt descended to the periscope room to give the news to Carl and Dick.
"I guess we can stand it, Carl," said Matt.
"Did Pons tell you anything about that French submarine, matey?" inquired Dick.
"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."
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.
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.
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."
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