"If you please, sir," Ted began, "I've been hatching a crazy kind of
a notion in my mind. I'd like to offer it in the way of a suggestion,
if you don't mind, sir."
"Go ahead, lad," said "Little Mack" with a show of interest.
"All right, sir," replied Ted. "There are five torpedoes aboard the
_Dewey_. It occurred to me that you might load all four tubes. Start
the engines and reverse them and then when we are tugging with all our
might shoot out the four torpedoes one after the other in rapid
succession. We'll lighten our load a lot and the kick of the firing
may drag us off. That's all, sir, but it was just an idea and I
couldn't help telling you, sir."
The captain of the _Dewey_ sat bold upright in his chair.
"I never thought of trying such a plan. I'll try it---I'll try it,"
he shouted.
"Little Mack" jumped to his feet and pressed the buzzer for his
executive officer. In a moment Officer Cleary appeared and the plan
was unfolded to him.
In quicker time than it takes to relate it, the _Dewey's_ commander
had sent orders forward for Mike Mowrey to load the torpedo tubes
and for Chief Engineer Blaine to get his engines in motion.
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