“Propeller blades free, aren’t they?” McClure was asking.

“Working free and easy or else the shafts wouldn’t turn,” Blaine was saying.

From what the boys could gather from the conversation it was the belief of the ship’s officers that the Dewey was grounded on a heavy sand bar.  She had sloughed down deep in the miry sea bottom with her keel amidships firmly imbedded and her bow and stern floating free.  The suction of the mud prevented her from rising.

In the wireless room Jack, Ted, Sammy Smith and Bill Witt finally came together and began speculating on the critical predicament of their ship.  Cooped up in their cage of steel, shut off from the outside world of fresh air and sunshine, the crew of the Dewey were held prisoners like rats in a trap, dependent for life upon the air they were breathing and the precious stores of oxygen in the emergency tanks!

The next few hours were full of anxiety for the officers and crew of the stranded Dewey.  Several times during the morning the ship’s engines were set in motion and valiant efforts made to drag the ship off the shoal.  But each succeeding effort availed nothing, except to eat up the precious electrical energy in the storage batteries.

In the petrol tanks was plenty of fuel for the engines, but it was useless here on the bottom of the sea where only the electric motors could be used in submerged locomotion.

Realizing the futility of these sporadic efforts at escape, Lieutenant McClure decided to wait until one o’clock for another supreme effort.  It would be high tide at noon and he decided to make the great effort shortly thereafter on the thin hope that he might get away with the tide running out to sea.

The time passed drearily.  Jack and Ted tried to get interested in a game of chess, but with little success.  Bill Witt sought with mouth organ and banjo to buoy up the spirits of his downcast mates and succeeded poorly.  Noon mess was served at eleven forty-five and even Jean Cartier, as he dispensed canned beans, brown bread, stewed fruit and tea, forgot to smile as usual at his culinary tasks.

“We ought to get away now if we are to get off at all,” Jack overheard Lieutenant McClure say to Cleary after mess kits had been stowed and preparations were under way for the “big drive.”

In a few minutes more the Dewey was primed for the test.  Soon the clatter of machinery aft indicated that the engines were in motion.

“Back away!” was the signal flashed to the engine room.  Instantly the full power of the motors was turned into the giant shafts and the propellors threshed the ocean with the fury of a wounded whale.  With all the might she possessed the submarine strove to free herself and float away to freedom.

Thrice were the engines stopped and started again.  But every time the quivering submarine failed to move an inch!