“That’s swell!” Stan commented. “Yes, and he insisted on taking the hundred-foot escape right away, too,” March went on. “But they were smart. They wouldn’t let him. They thought he might be acting under a temporary fit of courage and bravado and the old fear might come back on him later. So they made him wait a couple of weeks. It went fine, though.” Before going to the escape tower the next day, March looked up Scott, the radioman, and reminded him of their date to look at Winnie and Minnie together. So Scott and March and Stan went to the hundred-foot tower together that afternoon, donned their swimming trunks, their Momsen Lungs, and stepped under the metal skirt in the water at the bottom. As March started up the long cable leading to the surface, he realized that the hatch and platform there were made exactly like the top of a real sub. And there on the walls were the two beautiful mermaids, Winnie and Minnie, smiling at him. He could not smile back, because of the Momsen Lung mouthpiece, but he waved at the girls and went slowly up past them. At the fifty-foot platform an instructor swam out and around him, waving his arms to indicate that March was moving up at the correct speed. As he broke the surface he felt fine, as if one of the last acts at New London had been accomplished. Stan and Scott followed him quickly, and then the three of them were presented with the special diplomas, decorated with pictures of Winnie and Minnie, stating that they had made the hundred-foot escape. As March and Stan walked back to their quarters, March said, “Now I feel ready for anything!” And waiting for him were his orders—to report in two weeks to Baltimore, Maryland, for duty aboard the new submarine, _Kamongo_. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER EIGHT _KAMONGO_ “_Kamongo?_” Stan exclaimed, holding in his hands the orders which directed him to the same ship. “What kind of fish is that?” “Never heard of it,” March said. “They’re building so many subs these days that they’re running out of fish to name them after. Let’s ask the Exec tonight at mess.” Captain Sampson knew about the Kamongo. “A very important creature,” he said. “If there hadn’t been a Kamongo, we probably wouldn’t be here today.” “What do you mean, sir?” Stan asked, wondering at the officer’s smile and twinkling eyes. “Well, the story has to go very far back in history,” the Captain said, “back when the earth was mostly covered with water and the only living creatures were _in_ the water. There had to be something that crawled out of the water and learned how to live on land. That was Kamongo.” “How did he do it?” March asked. “Did he have lungs?” “Maybe a Momsen Lung,” Stan suggested with a laugh.