Mess was served at noon while the Dewey kept on her run.  Coffee and biscuits made up the frugal meal this time, the officers and crew being anxious to prove the submersible ready for any emergency call that Uncle Sam might make, and not desiring to spare the men from their posts longer than possible.

All afternoon the Dewey ploughed the waves, sometimes running submerged, other times on the surface.  About five o’clock the boys perceived the lighthouse at the bay entrance, and soon they were back in the navy yard.  Their letters home that night thrilled with accounts of their first dive under the ocean, and in their dreams the boys were sharing all manner of wonderful exploits against the foe on the boundless sea.

For several weeks the Brighton recruits were kept busily at the business of mastering submarine navigation.  In the distribution of the crew throughout the vessel Jack and Ted found themselves assigned under the leadership of Chief Gunner Mowrey.  In turn the boys were drilled in the forms for loading and firing torpedoes from the chambers in the bow of the boat, and in manning the four-inch guns above deck, as well as the anti-aircraft guns that poked their noses straight up in the air and sent up shells much after the fashion of Fourth of July skyrockets.  The crew had pet names for their guns.  The forecastle gun was nicknamed “Roosey” for Colonel Roosevelt, the gun aft was dubbed “Big Bob” in honor of “Fighting Bob” Evans of Spanish-American War fame, while the anti-aircraft guns became “the Twins.”

“Hope we get a shot at a zepp some day soon with one of the Twins,” sighed Jack one afternoon after the gun crew had finished peppering to pieces a number of kites that had been raised as targets.

“Yes, and I hope we get that shot at the zepp before the zepp gets one at us,” replied Ted, as he recalled the stories he had read of the submarines being visible while yet under water to aircraft directly overhead, and thus being a ready target for a sky gunner.

Coming in the next afternoon from a run to shake down the engines, the boys on the Dewey found the navy yard in the vicinity of the submarine fleet moorings in a commotion.  Motor trucks were depositing piles of goods near the piers which were being lightered to some units of the submarine fleet in motor launches.  Officers were hurrying to and fro between their vessels and the shore and there was a general air of suspense that seemed to indicate early action of some kind.

The Dewey was wigwagged to take up a position near the other undersea craft that were being provisioned and fueled, and very soon supplies were coming aboard.

“Looks like we are going away from here,” suggested Ted to his sailor comrade.

“It’s a guess I’ve been making myself,” answered Jack.