“Are you all ready, Mr. Hammond?” called his commander as he bent over the mouth of the breech cap and reached forward to give the boy a friendly tug at one foot.

“All ready, sir,” answered Jack.

The breech cap was swung shut and Jack could hear the click of the mechanism as he was locked in by his comrades and they prepared to shoot their human torpedo out of the sunken submarine.

Now he was completely isolated in the dark, cold tube.  The voices of his companions were not audible.  It was a time to test the nerve of the most callous individual.

Whis-s-s-h!  The compressed air came hurtling into the tube with a roar as of a mighty Niagara.  It enveloped him and seemed pressing against his body like many tons of steel.  Instinctively the lad inhaled deeply and gritted his teeth.

In another moment the bowcap was swung open and then came a rush of air that shot him forward at a dizzy velocity.  As though driven by the force of a thousand tornadoes the boy felt himself, catapulted out of the tube and into the cold salt water that closed around him like a great wall.

His senses reeled and his brain was numbed by the terrible roaring that pounded in his ears.  But he had the will to live and he began his fight.

He brought his legs into play and swam upward furiously.  Would he ever get there?  It seemed an eternity as he battled through the mass of the sea.  His arms and legs were getting numb now; his lungs seemed torn to shreds and his head throbbed with intense pain.

And then, when he was almost lapsing into unconsciousness, his head shot up out of the waves, and the boy realized that he had reached the crest of the mountain of water!

For a moment Jack felt paralyzed in every muscle.  Then, as he breathed again the cold pure air of the outside world, his senses came struggling back through the haze into which he had felt himself drifting and he was invigorated again.  With a great effort the boy turned over on his back with his face to the sky and floated luxuriously, with arms and legs limp on the surface of the water.

Resting thus for a time, he turned finally and struck out with a bold stroke, determined at once to make note of his position.  It all came back to him in a flash—–­the unknown ship that Sammy Smith had heard working its way up along the coast.

Was it near?  Was it friend or enemy?  Would he be seen?

Jack lifted his head and scanned the horizon.  It was early morning and dawn was breaking out of the sky.  The first thing that attracted his attention was a heavy pall of smoke that hung over the water.  The sea was rough.

Carried up on the crest of a wave he beheld the ship that the microphone had discovered for him in the wireless room.  It was now a long way past the spot where the Dewey lay submerged and had passed northward, several hundred yards nearer the coast.  Carried fifty or a hundred feet forward through the water by the force of the expulsion from the torpedo tube, the youth had emerged in the widened wake of the vessel.  Apparently it was a German warship returning to its base in Wilhelmshaven after a night raid off Dunkirk or Ostend.  It was hugging the coast fortifications now for protection.