When March returned to his quarters that afternoon he found a letter from Scoot Bailey waiting for him. It was full of excitement and enthusiasm, and it filled March with a good deal of envy.

“I’ve flown already!” Scoot wrote. “I didn’t think we’d get around to it for quite a while, but I got up the third day I was here. Of course, I didn’t handle the plane, really, but I just held my hand lightly on the stick while the instructor took me through a few simple turns and climbs. Just to give me the feel of it, he said, and so I’d know I really came here to fly, not just to study in classes.”

March shook his head. “And to think that I’ve hardly seen a submarine!” he muttered to himself. “And I surely haven’t been inside one. But Scoot’s already been up in a plane! It just goes to show,” he told himself, “that submarines are tougher than planes. Just think of the tests we’ve got to go through before they can even let us take a ride in a sub. With a flier all he’s got to do is pass a physical test!”

“And speaking of classes,” Scoot’s letter went on, “they are really tough! Remember back in college we used to think we had to study fairly hard? Boy, we just had a picnic in those days! We’d look on that kind of business as a hilarious vacation down here.”

March felt worse than ever. “I’m just wasting time!” he complained to himself. “Not even a class yet, and Scoot’s studying already!”

He finished Scoot’s letter quickly, learning that he had made a few good friends already, that he felt fine, that he loved flying. Then March sat down and wrote Scoot a long letter.

“I’ll tell him about the pressure chamber,” March said. “I’ll show the lad that we’re doing plenty here that he never even dreamed of. And I’ll tell him about the escape tower we’re going to have a try at tomorrow. That ought to show him that he’s picked just an easy branch of the service.”

So March wrote, and he told Scoot plenty. He made the test in the pressure chamber sound much more harrowing than it had actually been, even inventing one man who passed out, bleeding profusely, in the middle of the test.

Then he felt better, and went down to dinner feeling once more that he was in the cream of the Navy. As he walked down the hill he heard the drone of an airplane motor overhead.

“Simple,” he said to himself. “See how easy it is? Just push a stick this way or that, just push a couple of pedals, and keep your eyes on a couple of dozen instruments. Why, in a sub we’ve got more instruments and dials than in twenty-five bombing planes!”

When he sat down next to Stan Bigelow, it was even better, for Stan agreed with him completely about the super-importance of the submarine service, thinking up a few additional reasons for its superiority over Naval Aviation that had not occurred to March. Then they began discussing the escape tower test the next day.

“Do you know much about this Momsen Lung they use?” Stan asked. “I saw some today when we took the pressure test, but I don’t know the details of how they work.”

“Yes, I read all about them a few years ago,” March answered. “They were invented by an Annapolis man—then Lieutenant Charles Momsen—not much more than ten years ago. And you know, Stan, that guy conducted every single experiment himself—wouldn’t let anybody else take the chance.”

“Boy, he should have got a medal for that!” Stan exclaimed.

“He did! Distinguished Service Medal,” March said. “And the Lung is one of the biggest things ever invented to make subs safer. Simple—really, like most good things. The good thing about it is that there’s no connection at all with the outside. Most such devices had a valve system for letting the exhaled air out into the water. But the valves jammed shut—or open—too often. There’s nothing like that to go wrong in the Momsen Lung.”

“How does it get rid of the carbon dioxide that you breathe out?” Stan asked.

“There’s a can of CO(2) absorbent inside it, that’s all,” March explained. “Of course, in time it wouldn’t absorb any more, but how long are you ever going to use a Momsen Lung at one stretch, anyway?”

“Ten or fifteen minutes, I suppose,” Stan replied.

“Sure,” March agreed. “And the can of absorbent can take care of your carbon dioxide for a lot longer than that. And the rest of it is really just as simple. It’s an airtight bag that straps over your chest. There’s a mouthpiece you clamp between your teeth for breath, and a nose clip to close your nose so you won’t breathe through it. When the bag’s filled with oxygen—there you are!”

“Wonderful!” Stan said. “But doesn’t that bag of oxygen, plus your own tendency to float, send you shooting up to the surface in a hurry?”

“It would if you let it,” March replied. “That’s why there always has to be a line or cable up to the surface, so you can hold on to it and keep yourself from ascending too quickly.”

“And get the bends,” Stan concluded. “If anything, I know I’ll go more slowly than they tell me.”

The next morning they had a chance to look more closely at the Momsen Lungs before they put them on, with the instructor explaining their workings and showing the students how to adjust them. March did not see Scott, the radioman, among the group, although all the others were the same that had gone through the pressure test the day before. He spoke to the young pharmacist, asking about Scott.

“Got a cold,” was the reply. “Just a little nose cold, but they wouldn’t let him do the escape test with it.”

“Too bad,” March said. “But he’ll be able to catch up with the rest of us soon.”

The Chief Petty Officer in charge was explaining the test to the men, as they got into their swimming trunks.

“First we’ll have twenty pounds of pressure in the chamber,” he said, “just to be sure noses and ears are in good shape before going into the water. And then you’ve got a long climb ahead of you. You see, the bottom of this tower is a hundred feet from the surface at the top. You won’t be taking the hundred-foot escape for quite a while yet. Today we go up to the eighteen-foot level.”

March thought that ought to be simple. He had been almost that far beneath the water sometimes when he went in swimming. But then he remembered that this test was to teach the men the proper use of the Momsen Lung, the rate of climb up the cable to the surface. It wasn’t the pressure at eighteen feet that would bother anyone, unless it was somebody who had some deep fear of being under water.

“Such a person wouldn’t very well select the submarine service, though,” he said to himself. “Of course some people have these fears without knowing it. Nothing has ever happened to bring it out, that’s all.”

The time in the pressure chamber seemed like nothing after their fifty-pound session of the day before, and soon the students found themselves ascending to the eighteen-foot level of the tower.

“Up at the top,” the Chief was saying, “there are plenty of men ready to take care of you. Nothing much is likely to go wrong with such a short escape, but we don’t leave anything to chance. So if you get tangled in the cable or decide to go down instead of up, or anything like that, there’s a few mighty good swimmers to do the rescue act. There’s one thing to remember—we send you men up one after the other, pretty fast, just the way you’d be doin’ it if you were getting out of a sub lyin’ on the bottom of the ocean. So get away from the cable buoy fast, and without kickin’ your legs all over the place. You’re likely to kick the next one in the head, especially if he has come up a little too fast.”

“How fast are we supposed to go, Chief?” one of the men asked.

“About a foot per second,” the officer replied. “You hold yourself parallel with the cable, body away from it a little bit, and let yourself up hand over hand. You can put your hands about a foot above each other, and count off the seconds to yourself. We’ll be timing you at both ends, so you’ll find out afterwards whether you went too fast or too slow. Then you’ll catch on to the rate all right.”

March was among the first men who stepped into the bell at the eighteen-foot level. The water of the tower came up to his hips and was kept from going higher in the little compartment by the pressure of the air forced into the top of the bell-shaped room. He saw a round metal pipe shaped like a very large chimney extending down into the water.

“That skirt goes down a little below the water level in here on the platform,” the Chief said. “When you go up, you fasten on your Lung, duck under the skirt, and go straight up. First, I’m going to check to be sure that the cable’s set okay.”

March and the others watched closely as the Chief adjusted his nose clips and mouthpiece deftly, turned the valve opening the oxygen into the mouthpiece, and ducked under. In a moment he reappeared and removed the Lung.

“All set,” he said. “Okay, you—” he pointed to the young pharmacist, “you go first. Your Lung’s filled with oxygen, plenty of it. There’s the carbon dioxide absorbent in there to take up everything you breathe out. Remember to go up hand over hand, about a foot per second. And don’t be surprised if a couple of guys go floatin’ past you in the water on your way up. There’re other instructors swimmin’ around up there and once in a while one of ’em swims down to see how you’re makin’ out. All set?”

“Yes, Chief,” the pharmacist answered. March thought he looked completely calm, though he felt himself growing excited at even this short escape.

“Okay, mouthpiece in place,” the Chief said, making sure that the student did it correctly. “Now, nose clips on—that’s right. Finally, open the valve so you can get the oxygen. Okay?”

The pharmacist nodded that he was all right. “On your way, then, my lad,” the Chief said. “Duck under.”

March watched the young man duck under the water and disappear as he went under the metal skirt. Then he saw the Chief go under, too, right behind him. Up above, he knew, the instructors would see a tug on the yellow buoy fastened to the cable, and would begin their timing of the first ascent. One of them would dive down and have a look at the student coming up, would make him pull away if he were hugging the cable too closely, speed him up or slow him down if necessary, with a gesture and a pat on the shoulder.

Suddenly the Chief reappeared.

“Okay, you,” he said, pointing to March. As he put the mouthpiece in place, he thought how strange it was that in the tower in a pair of swimming trunks he was just plain “you” to the Chief Petty Officer, while in uniform outside he would be “sir.”

“Right now,” March thought as he adjusted the nose clips and turned the valve, “this man’s my superior and my teacher. A young officer can learn plenty from these boys who’ve had so much experience, if they give themselves a chance by forgetting for a few minutes that they’re commissioned officers.”

As the Chief patted his shoulder, March ducked under the water, found the bottom of the round metal skirt, and went under it. Looking up, he saw the long shaft of darkness made by the walls of the tower, and the filmy, cloudy circle of half-light at the surface which suddenly seemed a great distance away. His hands had already found the cable, and he held on to it as he felt the upward tug of the Lung which tried to carry him swiftly to the top.

Putting one hand about a foot above the other he began to count to himself, hoping that his counts were about a second apart. For every count he put his hand up what he judged to be another foot in distance. Then he realized that his legs were unconsciously starting to twine themselves around the cable, and he pulled them away, holding his body straight up and down a short distance away from the escape line.

“That’s funny,” he told himself. “I guess I always twined my legs around a rope when I was going down it, so I want to do the same thing going up.”

He looked up again quickly and saw legs kicking above him. That would be the pharmacist pulling away from the buoy. How much farther did he have to go? It was hard to judge the distance. He had reached a count of nine, so he should be halfway if he had been putting his hands a foot apart.

His eyes blinked at a form moving up close to him. He saw a man in trunks floating toward him in the water, waving his arms slowly. No, he wasn’t waving—he was swimming! He wore a pair of nose clips but no Momsen Lung. One of the instructors from above, March concluded.

The man motioned his arms upward urgently. Unmistakably March knew that he had been going too slowly, so he increased the tempo of his count slightly. And before he knew it, his eyes blinked in the sunlight and he felt water running down his face. He was up!

“Clips off! Valve off!” an instructor in the water beside him said.

March moved away from the buoy toward the side of the tank, where he saw other men standing on the little platform, and as he did so he removed his nose clips with one hand, shut the oxygen valve. Then he remembered that it had not felt a bit strange to breathe through his mouth instead of through his nose.

“I guess as long as your lungs get the oxygen they need, you don’t much care how it gets there.”

He felt a hand helping him as he climbed up on the little platform at the top of the tower. Standing there, he removed the mouthpiece and then took off the lung itself. As he dried himself and slipped into his robe, the man behind him broke the surface and started toward the edge.

Suddenly March felt a little dizzy. He had looked out the window and had seen how high he was from the ground. And then he smiled.

“What would Scoot think of me?” he thought, “getting dizzy even for a second only a hundred feet off the ground?”

Down below was the river, and March saw a sub making its way down toward Long Island Sound. It looked very tiny and slim.

“How did it go, sir?” asked a voice behind him. He turned and saw the pharmacist.

“All right, I guess,” March replied. “Didn’t mind it, anyway. I guess I was a little slow. They had to send a man down to hurry me up.”

“They sent one down to slow me down,” the pharmacist said, “but I came out just about right. They told me it was a better sign if you went too slow than too fast.”

“I suppose it indicates you’re not overanxious about being under water,” March said.

A familiar head broke the water of the tank and March saw Stan Bigelow moving over toward the platform. When he had got out and removed his Lung, he smiled at March.

“Nothing to it, was there?” he called. “I’d like to try the fifty-foot level right away.”

“Same here,” March said, “but I guess we wait a day or two.”

Later, when they did make the fifty-foot escape, they found that it went just the same as the eighteen-footer. Sure, it took fifty seconds, but the sensations were about the same. There was more pressure on the ears, but not enough to bother anyone. March was very surprised to hear that one of the enlisted men, near the end of the group, had suddenly gone panicky just before it was his turn to go.

“Had he gone through the eighteen-foot test all right?” March asked the Chief Petty Officer in charge.

“Yes—just too fast,” the man replied. “But lots of them do that at first. He must have been holding himself under control for that one, though, and the thought of the fifty was too much for him.”

“Too bad,” March said. “Will they transfer him back to his old branch of the service?”

“No—they’ve decided to give him another chance,” the Chief said. “The Doc—the psychological one—thinks it’s just a fear the guy never even knew he had. He’s goin’ to talk to him a bit to see if he can find out what caused it. Then maybe he can get rid of it. He won’t be able to go down in a pigboat until he handles the fifty-foot escape okay, but we’ll keep him on for a while to give him another crack at it. Good man in every other way, as far as I can see.”

March learned later that the man was one of the fire controlmen who had ridden out on the bus with him.

“Gee, I hope he makes it,” Scott, the radioman, said to March when they talked it over. “He’s a swell guy. Cobden’s his name, Marty Cobden. And he’s got his heart set on bein’ a submariner, dreams about it at night even. Never had the faintest notion he was scared of anything, least of all just fifty feet of water.”

“Did he go swimming much?” March asked.

“I asked him that, too,” Scott replied. “He says he liked to swim but he didn’t like to dive. But he wasn’t scared of it!”

Scott had got over his cold and had caught up with the rest of them, making the eighteen-foot and fifty-foot escapes without difficulty.

“Well, we’re qualified now to go to school here,” March said. “And we can even go down in a sub. But when do we take the hundred-foot escape?”

“Don’t have to,” Scott said. “But most of ’em try it, sir—some time later. They all want to see Minnie and Winnie.”

“Minnie and Winnie?” March asked. “Who are they and where are they?”

“They’re mermaids,” Scott said without a smile. “Beautiful mermaids. And they’re painted on the walls of the tank down at the hundred-foot level. Only one way to see ’em—and that’s to make the escape. An’ you get a diploma when you’ve done it.”

“I’ll see you there, Scott,” March said. “We’ll both have a look at Winnie and Minnie one of these days.”