The Wireless Operator—With the U. S. Coast Guard/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV
A Catastrophe
HENRY gave slight heed to the young operator’s threat. Not for one second did he fear violence from him. Should any physical encounter occur, he was sure he could take care of himself, and he saw no other way in which young Black could harm him. He believed his own word would be taken quicker than Black’s. Knowing that he had done no wrong, and that he intended to do none, he saw no way in which his rebellious assistant could do him an injury. So, as soon as he could, he dismissed the matter from his mind.
But on account of the excitement accompanying his little encounter with Black, it was not altogether easy to forget the matter. When Henry remembered that Black had been asleep at the key, and that some one might have been trying to talk to the Iroquois, he drew on the head-phones and for a space sat listening. Then he threw over his switch, flashed out a general call, and asked if any one had been calling the Iroquois. When, after listening and repeating the message, there came no response, he felt re-lieved. He sat back in his chair, satisfied that all was right.
After breakfast Belford came on duty, according to agreement. He expressed his surprise at findng Henry in the wireless shack. Henry told him what had happened. Young Belford frowned deeply.
“Be careful, Harper,” he said. “I never trusted Black. He might try to do you some harm.”
“T don’t see how he could,” said Henry. “There are too many people about.”
“Just the same I wouldn’t spend too much time out on deck after dark. There’s seldom any one out there except the watch forward.”
“I’m sorry it happened,” remarked Henry. “I hate to tell on him.”
“But you must,” urged Belford. “If you don’t, he’ll think he has scared you out of it. Then he’ll be worse than ever. And he ought to be punished, if only to make him more careful in future. You can’t tell what might happen if the wireless watch goes to sleep.”
“I shall report him, of course, but, none the less, I dislike to do it. It almost makes me feel like the spy he said I was.”
“Don’t feel that way. What you are doing you are doing for the safety of the ship.”
Henry surrendered the watch to Belford and went straight to the captain’s cabin. “Come in,” said the captain, when Henry knocked.
“Good-morning, Captain Hardwick,” said Henry, as he entered the cabin. “I have come to you on a disagreeable business. I have to report young Black for carelessness about his work.”’
The captain looked at Henry keenly. “Have you boys been quarreling?” he asked.
“I was afraid you’d think that was about the size of it,” responded Henry, “and I was very reluctant to bother you with the matter at all. But I thought I really owed it to you, Captain Hardwick. I could not sleep after the excitement last night, and I dressed and went to the wireless room. Black was on duty, and I found him fast asleep.”
The captain’s face grew dark as a thundercloud. “Asleep at the wireless key!” he said. “It was indeed your duty to report the matter to me. I’ll break that fellow quick. We’ll have him before a court-martial and clap him in the brig, and he’ll be dishonorably discharged the minute we reach shore.”
“Please don’t do that, Captain Hardwick. I should hate to think I had made a fellow lose his job. Maybe he'll do better in future. Won’t you let him off with a reprimand or some slight punishment?”
The captain looked at Henry searchingly. “I can’t exactly understand you,” he said. “You report a man for wrong-doing and then don’t want him punished. Can you explain that?”
“Why, sir, he ought to be reported. That’s plain enough. Maybe he ought to be punished, too. But if he is punished, it will look as though I was simply trying to get even with him. I wouldn’t want anybody, even Black, to think I was so small as that.”
“Get even with him!” cried the captain. “Then you did have a quarrel. I can’t seem to get head or tail of this business.”
“It was like this, Captain,” said Henry, seeing now that he could no longer keep anything back. “I found Black asleep. I told him I would report him to you. We had some words. But please don’t think I’m reporting Black because I’m sore at him, or anything like that.”
“I begin to understand,” nodded the captain. “Is there any one else bee knows about this affair?”
“No one was present, sir, but Belford knows about it.”
“Send him to me,” said the commander.
Henry relieved his fellow-operator at the key, and Belford went direct to the cabin. He told the captain all he knew about the affair.
“I think I understand now,” said the commander. “Harper told Black he would report him, and Black called him a spy. That went hard with Henry. He couldn’t help feeling he was a sort of spy, even though he was doing his plain duty.”
“And don’t forget, sir, that Black threatened to fix Henry if he reported him,” said Belford.
The commander of the Iroquois turned the situation over in his mind. “Jimmy,” he said, “was there any good reason why Black should have fallen asleep? Was he worn out, as some of the rest of the crew were, by their long efforts?”
“He was the freshest man on the boat,” said Belford, with feeling. “He never left our cabin the whole time we were trying to save our men, and most of the time I think he was in bed.”
“Why?” demanded the captain, astonished.
Jimmy hesitated. “I think, sir, he’s yellow.”
“Send him to me,” thundered the captain.
Just what occurred during that interview nobody but the captain and the delinquent operator ever knew. But young Black came out on deck at last, looking both frightened and very vengeful, and the captain announced that Black had been restricted for twenty days. If the third-class radio man realized how near he had been to a general court-martial, he gave no sign of know-ing, and showed no gratitude for the pleas that had in all probability saved him.
The run to Boston continued without incident. Slowly but steadily the Iroquois proceeded with her tow. The wind fell steadily, and the sea grew calmer. The journey up the tortuous channel was made without mishap. The Capitol City was safely berthed where she could be repaired, and the Iroquois continued to the Navy Yard, and secured some small boats to replace those she had lost overboard. Then the little cutter once more headed down the harbor and out to the open sea.
The passage back was indeed an eventful one to Henry. Had it not been for the terrible events he had so recently witnessed, events which he could not forget, the journey would have been joyful in the extreme. The weather was excellent. Bright and clear shone the sun: the sea, becoming ever calmer, flashed and sparkled brilliantly; the air had a tonic quality. Overhead, white, fleecy clouds floated in an azure sky.
Porpoises appeared. In shoals they played about in the sea. Like so many hurdlers, they drove forward in groups, first one and then another, lunging above the waves as though to leap over some unseen marine obstacle. Henry had never before seen porpoises. It delighted him to watch them. And when he found that a shoal of them was swimming immediately m front of the ship’s prow, he leaned over the forward rail with the sailors, and watched them. In particular he was interested in two of the great, lumbering bodies that swam side by side immediately before the cutwater. Their tails almost touched the prow. They looked as though they were towing the ship, as apparently, without effort, they kept pace with it. But when a sailor hit one of them with a clinker, frightening them, the great fish showed that they were anything but lumbering. They darted away from the Iroquois as though that ship were tied to a post, instead of traveling fourteen or fifteen miles an hour. Henry wondered how fast porpoises could swim. He thought that they must be going at least twice as fast as the cutter. He remembered that he had read of the enormous speed of those curious denizens of the deep, the barracuda and the sailfish, which travel sixty or even seventy miles an hour.
But if the porpoises interested Henry, the next fishes he saw held him almost speechless, for off the Nantucket shoals the Iroquois came upon several whales. With the glasses Henry could make them out plainly. Enormous bulks they were, and at times they spouted columns of water aloft, which was quickly blown into misty spray by the breeze. Henry had read of whales spouting, but he had never expected to see one of them doing it.
Close to the Ambrose Lightship the Iroquois passed as she was heading into the channel for New York. On the lightship’s flaming red side was painted in huge letters the word “Ambrose.” Instead of topmasts she carried, on her mastheads, round red globes for lights at night. Henry marveled at the sturdiness of these little ships that lie at anchor month after month, riding out the most terrific storms, and guiding the sailor on his way.
As the Iroquois sailed past the lightship, the colors of the latter slowly fluttered down from aloft, then rose again. Henry had not previously seen one ship salute another by dipping her colors. He noticed the flag fluttering down, but did not catch the significance of it until the quartermaster called to a sailor to run aft and dip the Iroquois’ flag. A moment later the cutter’s ensign came fluttering down, then was run aloft again.
As the Iroquois drew near to New York there was an abundance of work for Henry to do. He had to be in the wireless house much of the time. The ship had to report her position at regular intervals. There were orders to be taken and messages to be sent. Henry felt that his days as an operator were passing fast. When Mr. Sharp rejoined the boat in New York, he would of course be relieved from duty. He wanted to learn all he could about the work of a wireless man on shipboard, so hour after hour he sat in the wireless shack, sometimes alone at his own watch and sometimes with his associates.
What was his great joy, on one of these long watches, to hear in the frosty air the crackling signal “WNA—WNA—WNA—de—WNG.” Well did Henry know that call. Often had he flashed it out himself. It was the call of the Lycoming, and her sister ship, the Tioga, was callng her. The Lycoming must be nearing port. Roy would be at her key. He would be in New York when Henry got there, perhaps, or at any rate he would reach there a few hours later. Henry felt that his troubles were over. Roy would help him out, and maybe could find him a permanent job. At any rate, Roy had repeatedly asked Henry to make the trip to Galveston and back as his guest. He would make the trip now. The immediate future was provided for. With his heart beating with happiness, Henry listened to the exchange of communications between the Tioga and the Lycoming, then threw over his switch and rapped out the call, “WNA—WNA—WNA—de—NTE.”
Promptly came the crackling reply, “NTE—NTE—NTE—de—WNA—K.”
How well Henry recognized the: swift, sure, even sending. Nobody else in the world handled a wireless key just like Roy.
“This is Henry Harper,” flashed back Henry. “I am on the Coast Guard cutter Iroquois. We are heading for New York. Expect to arrive after dark to-night. Where can I see you?”
“We dock about sunset,’ came the reply. “Come to the Lycoming. Will wait for you.”
Happy indeed was Henry. A few hours would see him with his old friend. His troubles would be over. Poor Henry!. If only he could have foreseen what the night would bring forth, his smile would have vanished quickly. But he could not foresee, and gleefully he continued with his tasks.
As the ship came nearer and nearer to her harbor, Henry had more and more to do. The captain kept him busy at the wireless. Among other messages, Henry sent one about the men who had been swept ashore, and who were now in New York. They were to be at the Staten Island landing and come aboard the moment the Iroquois dropped anchor. Supper time came. Henry had been eating with the crew, since he became an operator. Now the captain asked him to take this last meal on board with him in the cabin. It was a joyous meal for the lad. He told the captain about his friend Roy and the good times they had had at home, and about his coming meeting with him.
After supper, as they sailed up the channel in the dark, Henry started for the radio house again to relieve Belford. He passed the surgeon, who was hurrying forward with his medicine case.
“What is the trouble, Doctor?” asked Henry.
“One of the sailors mashed a finger while doing something to the anchor-chain,” replied the surgeon, hurrying on.
Henry entered the radio shack and relieved Belford. ‘The quartermaster called the latter up to the chart-room. Henry adjusted the head-phones and almost immediately caught the call of the Iroquois. They were almost at their anchorage, and the call came with startling distinctness. Henry threw open his switch and flashed an acknowledgment of the call. The commandant of the New York district of the Coast Guard was sending a message for Captain Hardwick. Henry wrote it down, copied it neatly on a telegraph blank, and climbed up the ladder through the darkness to the bridge.
The ship’s bell was musically striking the hour. It was seven o’clock. Henry thought he should miss that musical bell after he got ashore. Captain Hardwick stepped into the chart-room, read the message, and wrote a reply. Henry hurried back to his post. He had not been gone five minutes, yet he took the precaution to listen in for a little time. No one was calling him. He spread the telegraph blank on his desk, read the captain’s message, and made ready to send it. He threw over his switch, put his fingers on his key, and started to call headquarters. A few tiny sparks leaped across his gap. Then his key went dead. Aghast, he dropped his phones and began to examine his instruments. But he could see nothing wrong. Everything looked as it had always looked. Again Henry tried his key. There was no response. His face went white. Apparently the costly wireless outfit was ruined. It must have been burned out, and apparently Henry himself was to blame.