"C Q", or, In the Wireless House/Chapter 4
IV
“CQ—CQ—CQ—!” In which Micky learns of the murder of the Earl of Roakby at Parsley Croft.
MICKY, having attended several hundred ships’ “entertainments” during his maritime career, had retired early to the wireless house, where, after a glance into the second cabin in time to hear Mr. Savage’s dismal contribution, he had remained. There were a score or so of messages to be relayed on to New York, and he had a letter to write besides; so by ten o’clock his pipe was alight and his mains had been switched on. Then his detector had got out of order, and it had taken him nearly an hour to fix it, and when he at last got working he found that Morrissy over on the Berlin was frantic with the delay.
“Hardly time to give messages,” he growled. “What’s the matter?”
“Mind own business!” Micky retorted angrily. Then the German behind began signaling for the Pavonia.
“You cut out, Morrissy. I ’m going to take the Dutchman,” he jerked with his key
“CQ de DKV—CQ de DKV,” persisted the Norddeutscher Lloyd three hundred miles eastward.
“DKV de MPA—HS,” replied Micky. (“To the Hohclohe from the Pavonia:—How are my signals?”)
“MPA de DKV,” answered the operator on the Hohenlohe. “Good evening. Mister.” (The German boats always say “Mister”), “Your signals are strong. MSG” (“Commercial message.") “Time now 11.55 Greenwich. Four messages.”)
But Morrissy was still vainly trying to break in. Micky threw him a formal “service message”—a deadly insult to a friend, under the circumstances.
“DKB de MPA—SG. Stand by. If you do not stop jamming I will report you.”
Then he turned again to the German.
“Time O. K. Thanks. GA” (“Go ahead.”)
“MSG. Number one,” returned the other operator, Morrissy having been reduced to silence. ”Ten words. Hohenlohe. Radio Via Casablanca. Trevelyan, Pavonia: Government inspectors here wise to your necklace. H.”
Micky whistled under his breath, but he had no time for disconcerting speculations. The German kept right on sending:
“MSG. Number two. Hohenlohe. Radio. Via Casablanca. Smith, Pavonia: Brother John died this morning. Return first boat Alfred.
“MSG. Number three. Hohenlohe. Radio. Via Casablanca. Tavish, Pavonia: Consols up three quarters shall I sell. Pratt.
“MSG. Number four. Hohenlohe. Radio. Relayed Basaltic—Umberto Primo —via Tangier. Perier, Pavonia: La situation politique très grave. S.”
“O. K. Thanks. GN. Good night,” replied Micky.
“Thanks, Mister. Good night,” answered the German. And there was silence upon the face of the waters.
Micky lit his pipe and gazed out of the window.
“So Mrs. Trevelyan was up to a little smug-gling in spite of her wealth and position!” He laughed softly to himself. Then he turned to the Berlin.
“Now, smarty,” he signaled to Morrissy. “Give us your message, and next time keep a civil tongue in your head.”
At quarter past eleven he stuck his head out of the door for a breath of fresh air. The “entertainment” and its aftermath were over. The starched maids who strolled deckwise of an evening had long since tumbled into their bunks to snore like ladies until such hour as they chose luxuriously to arise. Only a sailor or two could be seen. He darted down the ladder and into the second-cabin scullery, snatched up a couple of beef sandwiches, and clambered up to his perch again. The Pavonia was surging along at twenty knots an hour, but in the soft night she seemed to be lying motionless in a hazy sea of gold.
He cast a look at the Hon. Evelyn’s picture, tested his detector, adjusted the receiver, and began munching his sandwiches and waiting for Poldhu, thinking every now an then of Mrs. Trevelyan and her necklace. He wondered if it was the one she had on. Hardly; she would n’t be so foolish, with all those “detective-stewardesses” aboard. Still— Suddenly he stopped eating. Out of the utter silence of the aerial sea, a silence as dead as that around the frozen pole, a silence opaque in its density, across, as it seemed, millions of miles and eons of time, came to his waiting ear-drums the faintest pk—pk—pk, like—if it was like anything—the pluck of a kitten’s claw in the nap of a carpet in a room across the hall—the ghost of an inaudible signal, like one from a spirit world.
“CQ—CQ—CQ—ZZ—ZZ—ZZ.”
Poldhu was calling.
“All stations—all stations—all stations!”
Three thousand miles away, a man in his shirt-sleeves, in a shanty on a Cornwall cliff, a man in an eye-shade, smoking a pipe under a green electric bulb, with a pile of yellow sheets on the table in front of him, was pressing a rubber key with his forefinger and breaking a current of electricity that shot across the black waves through the night at 186,000 miles per second—seven and a half times around the world in a single tick of the five-shilling alarm-clock at his elbow; and Micky and Morrissy, and all the other operators off the Azores, were hearing him as distinctly as if they were on the other side of the room in that same shanty and listening to the ticking of the clock.
Micky drew a pad toward him and picked up a freshly sharpened pencil. The man in Cornwall threw a few commercial messages to boats here and there on the northern route, and then sent out his “SP—SP—SP” signal. "Press for transmission only. Time 1.45. Four hundred words.”
At the end of every sentence he said “stop” instead of punctuating. Micky took it down mechanically Sitting there in his little box in the middle of the night, a half-eaten sandwich beside him, he jotted down the doings of the world as casually as if he were playing tit-tat-to.
“Germany - has - not - yet - replied - France’s - ultimatum - regarding - Morocco - stop - Considerable - uneasiness - in - financial - circles - Bank - of - England - raises - rate - one - half - per - centum - stop - famine - spreading - in - China - stop - Millions - on - verge - of - starvation - stop - Great - fire - in - New - York factory - scores - operators - suffocated - stop - Cunard - steamship - Carmania - breaks - turbine - and - is - laid - up - for - repairs - passengers - transferred - to - other - ships - stop - Prince - Rospetti - wins - 300,000 - francs - at - Monte - Carlo - stop.” Then came the stock market.
Micky took it all down religiously. Some of it interested him and some of it did not. Some beggar was always winning huge sums at Monte Carlo, and he was sick of the Bourse and the Stock Exchange. It bored him to death—most of it; there was something so impersonal about it all! He never seemed to pick anything out of the air that meant anything to him. Why could n’t the man in Cornwall give him a hint as to what the Hon. Evelyn was up to, for instance? Nothing ever made his heart beat the slightest bit faster.
He yawned and glanced across at the photograph of the “leggy little girl with the big dog.” In the haze of his pipe-smoke, she seemed to be smiling at him. Then he stiffened in his chair and listened with all his ears, peering feverishly into his coherer as if to verify the faint message coming from so far away.
“Earl - of - Roakby - reported - dead - from - pistol - shot - wound - at - Parsley - Croft - seat - of - Marquis - of . Varricks - Tuesday - last - stop - fact - concealed - until - today - and - all - details - are - being - carefully - suppressed - stop - disappearance - of - Cosmo - Graeme - youngest - son - of - Lord - Varricks - coincident - with - homicide - leads - to - suspicion - of - foul - play - stop - latter - believed - to - have - left - England - and - to - be - either - on - Continent - or - on - ship - bound - for - America - stop - all - ports - of - arrival - being - closely - watched - stop - Scotland - Yard - requests - all - transatlantic - liners - examine - passenger - list - for - man - about - thirty - years - of - age - weight - one - hundred - and - sixty - height - six - feet - slightly - bald - blue - eyes - curly - hair - clean - shaven - report - if - on board.”
Micky turned slightly pale as the man at Poldhu stopped short and began sending it all over again, and the right hand which held his stub of pencil trembled a little as he checked off the same old story about the French ultimatum and the price of consols and cotton. Earl of Roakby murdered! There was news for you! And the murderer had escaped and was snug aboard an ocean liner. Tuesday last—and this was the following Monday. If the fellow had caught the Mauretania he would already have reached New York. But she was jammed with people from the Olympic. No, he would have had to take some other and slower boat. But why suppose he was on a liner? Probably he was hiding in some quiet English village. Micky stopped checking up. Something made him feel dizzy. The air in the wireless house seemed strangely stuffy. There it was again:
“Earl - of - Roakby - reported - dead - from - pistol - shot - wound - at - Parsley - Croft - seat - of - Marquis - of - Varricks.”
There was a queer roaring in his ears, and he could not hear the man at Poldhu, try as he would. There must be something doing atmospherically. Then a drop of sweat fell from his forehead upon the pad.
“What’s the matter with me!” he wondered, as the cabin turned black for a moment. “There ’s nothing the matter with me!” he repeated, but his knees were shaking. With an effort he shut off his detector and fumbled for the door leading to the open air. For an in-stant he let the night breeze dry his forehead; then he seated himself crossed-legged on the deck outside and leaned his back against the side of the wireless house.