THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
ing to explain everything, his mates throwing in helpful interpolations. (It was evident to Nelson from the way in which these latter viewed him that he was looked on by the crew of the Q-4 as rather a remarkable individual.)
"Here's the way it's done," began Martin. "This tube"—laying a hand affectionately on one of the breeches—"has a watertight cap at the outer end of it. It can be opened or closed by turning this little wheel. When we want to load a tube we close the outer cap first of all. Then we open this inner cover, like this." He suited action to word and Nelson, stooping, peered into the tube which already held a torpedo. "We roll one of those torpedoes up and slide it in. This cover is closed again; you see it has a rubber joint here which makes it watertight. Then"
"Prepare for firing, Mart," suggested one of the others.
"Yes, that's so. I forgot to say that we remove the safety pin before we load the torpedo, but you probably know about that. And, of course, we set the depth gear. That done, we close this inner cover, so. Next we open this valve which lets in water from the filling tank. There's one of these tanks for each tube, and
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