The Wireless Operator—With the U. S. Coast Guard/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
The Destruction of the Derelict
HENRY awoke early next morning. At first he did not know where he was. Then he remembered all. But life no longer looked sable. Indeed, there was a rosy tinge to it, just as there was about the eastern sky. The feeling of nausea had entirely left him. Gone were the terrible headache and the feeling of sickness that had affected his entire body. Though the ship was now rolling far more than it had rolled the preceding night, the motion no longer distressed him. He rose and dressed quickly.
Early as Henry was, the captain was up before him. The captain had taken his turn on the bridge, then snatched a little more sleep, and was now busy at some clerical work at his desk. He looked up as Henry stepped into the cabin.
“Good-morning, youngster,” he said. “How are you feeling? Didn’t make you sick, did it? There’s a pretty good sea going.”
“It made me sick as a dog,” admitted Henry, “but I’m fit as a fiddle now. A good sleep fixed me up.”
They ate breakfast and went to the chart-room. Though the ship was far out in the ocean, it was still many hours’ sail from the location given for the derelict. The captain began to study the ship’s logbook, as the sailing record is called.
“See here, Henry,” he remarked after a. moment. “This logbook might interest you.”
Henry looked at the book, and saw entered there a detailed record of what was done on shipboard, not only from hour to hour but even every few minutes. Glancing back, he saw that his own rescue was noted down, and the recovery of his suit-case, and the exact time the executive officer came aboard, as well as the time when the Iroquois got under way.
“Captain Hardwick,” he said presently, “what does this entry about the log mean? I see it is written down every hour.”
“That’s the way we keep our dead reckoning,’ said the captain. “When we can see sun or stars, we know exactly where we are. But when it’s cloudy we have to figure our position by dead reckoning. We know by our compass which way we are heading. We can tell by the number of revolutions of our propeller how fast we ought to be moving. We have an apparatus fastened to the taffrail that drags in the sea a good many fathoms behind us, and that turns like a propeller. It turns the line with it. The line is on a swivel, and every revolution is recorded on an instrument like a speedometer. When we look at that instrument we can tell how many miles we have made. ‘The quartermaster reads the log every hour and records the reading in this book. So we can tell pretty exactly how many miles we have traveled. We also know in what direction we went. But we can’t always tell how far wind and current have put us out of our true course. We make allowance for them when we figure our dead reckoning. Usually we hit it pretty closely. But if there comes a period when sun and stars are hidden for two or three weeks, as sometimes happens, a ship’s captain may be miles from where he thinks he is. Why, once we went after a steamer that sent an SOS for help, and we had a terrible time to find her because she was seventy miles from where she thought she was, and where we went to get her.”
“Gee whiz!” said Henry. “How did you ever find her?”
“I’ll have to tell you that some other time, Henry. I’m too busy just now.”
Henry went out on the bridge, so as to leave the captain undisturbed. It was still windy and cold, but the day fairly sparkled. The sun shone through a cloudless sky. The waves gleamed and flashed in its brilliant beams. As one spell-bound Henry gazed at the scene. Always he had tried to picture to himself what the ocean looked like. Now he knew that to picture the ocean mentally one must first actually see it. This great, boundless, inconceivable body of water was too vast for the imagination alone to picture. Turn in which direction he would, Henry could see nothing but water. And this water was rolling and tossing and surging and splashing and leaping in a manner past description. Never before had Henry seen waves higher than those in the Hudson River and the New York Bay. He had read of the huge waves of the ocean, but what he now saw, though they were far from being of the largest size, awed and impressed him. He felt sure some of them must be ten feet high. The ensign, who had now come on watch, assured him that they were all of that.
No matter where he looked, Henry saw nothing but water, leagues and leagues of tossing billows, the bluish-green depths spotted everywhere with the yeasty white of foaming wave-crests. No ship was in sight. Land was many miles behind them. Not even a bit of driftwood broke the vast expanse of the heaving ocean. The only object that rose above those miles and miles of furious billows was the Iroquois herself. How tiny, how puny, how insignificant, she seemed in that vast wilderness of water. For a moment a creepy feeling again stole over Henry. Suppose something should happen to the ship. Suppose she should sink. What chance would her crew, mere pigmies, have with these giant combers? But when Henry thought of the wireless, a feeling of courage surged through his heart again, and he was thankful to the men who had labored to make the wireless possible, and thankful that he was a wireless man himself. What a wonderful thing it was, he thought, to be able to call help or to catch the cry of those who needed help. Assuredly, the wireless man carried the safety of untold lives in his hands, just as truly as the captain of the ship did. How proud an operator ought to be, and how faithful he ought to be to his trust. And again Henry frowned as he thought of the lad he had last seen on watch in the wireless shack.
Long before the Iroquois reached the spot where the derelict had been seen, the captain had ordered a watch in the crow’s-nests; and for two hours at a time a man stood in each of these elevated lookouts, searching the seas for some trace of the lost vessel. But the spot where she had been seen was reached without the discovery of a single trace of her.
The captain was not in the least disturbed. He had had no expectation of finding her so soon. Wind and wave would have carried the hulk leagues to leeward of the spot. It was up to the captain to find her. When Henry stepped into the chart-room again, he found the captain plotting on his chart the course he intended to follow in his search for the derelict.
When he noticed that Henry was watching him, the captain said: “That’s what is called a grid. You see we start here, where the derelict was known to be some days ago, and we steer a course that will enable us to view the sea over a wide area. We try to follow the course we think the derelict has taken.”
“But how could you know which way a wreck would go?” asked Henry.
“If the derelict stuck up above water much, it would go in the direction of the wind rather than the water,” said the captain. “If it is mostly submerged, it would go in the direction the water was flowing. I’m going to assume that this derelict has been driven by the wind, for we’ve had this high southwest wind for nearly a week. So we’ll cover a broad belt of sea along her supposed course.”
“But how can you tell where that course is? I should think you’d get lost in this endless wilderness of water. There are no landmarks to help you know where you are.”
“You’re wrong, young man. There’s the greatest landmark in the world, right up there.”
Henry looked overhead. “I see nothing but the sun,” he said.
“That’s all a navigator needs to see,” laughed the captain. “It’s just as I told you. As long as he can see the sun, or the stars, you can’t lose him. When he looks at either through a sextant, he can tell exactly where he 1s.”
“I see,” said Henry. “The sun tells you your latitude and longitude.”
“Correct. That dot on the chart,” and the captain pointed with his pencil, “is the spot where this derelict was reported to be. Also it’s just where we are now. If I drew a mark from that dot along the direction in which the wind is blowing, which is from the southwest, that should be the course of the derelict. But the current may have carried it to right or left of that line. So we have to make a grid, in order that we may not pass the derelict in our search. We will sail a course that takes us first to right and then to left of this supposed course, in such a way that we can examine every foot of the sea over a wide area. Our present grid will be like this;” and the captain drew on a piece of paper a diagram something like the following:
B—Where the first pine boards were found.
C—Where the wreckage was found.
D—Where the hulk was found.
Dotted line A—D supposed course of derelict.
“We are now at A,” he said. “We’ll run off to starboard a distance, then make a right-angled turn to port, and on around so as to make a series of long rectangles, as it were. The sides of these rectangles will be as far apart as twice the supposed limit of visibility. Thus we shall be able to see everything that floats within the limits of our course.”
“How far do you think you could see this derelict?” said Henry.
“Not so very far. We are looking for an old, wooden schooner. Her masts are gone and her decks are awash. At least that is what she was like when sighted. She wouldn’t stick up above the water much, and this sea may have broken her in pieces. We might be able to see her five miles, so the sides of our rectangles couldn’t be much more than twice that distance apart.”
“That’s a fine scheme,” agreed Henry, “and I’ll bet you’ll find her.”
Already the Iroquois had come about and was standing on the first leg of the grid. Hour after hour the cutter continued its search, covering leg after leg of the course. But neither the men on the bridge nor the lookouts in the crow’s-nests could detect any particle of wreckage.
Meantime the chief electrician had been combing the seas with his wireless, asking all vessels that had seen the derelict to give the Iroquois what information they had concerning it.
Every three or four hours he kept broadcasting this message: “Iroquois searching for derelict schooner. Last reported September 25 in latitude thirty-nine, thirty; longitude sixty-six, twenty. Any vessel sighting derelict please notify Coast Guard cutter Iroquois. Call letters NTE.”
And Henry, listening in at times, caught several messages like this: “NTW—NTE—NTE—de—KLF—Your QST acknowledged. Will keep sharp lookout. AR.”
“How wonderful wireless is,” thought Henry. “By means of it we can enlist every pair of eyes on the near-by ocean.”
But the search by wireless was quite as fruitless as that by steam. No trace of the lost schooner could be found. All day the Iroquois steamed along, yet night found her unsuccessful. When dusk came, the lookouts were ordered from the masts, the engines were stopped, and the Iroquois was allowed to drift before the wind, which had now considerably abated. The boat rolled and wallowed in the sea, but the waves were not now severe enough to be a menace.
“Do you think you’ll find her?” asked Henry, while he and the captain were eating supper.
“If she’s afloat I think we’re quite likely to find her. She’ll drive straight before this wind. But it may take us three or four days yet.”
“Three or four days!” cried Henry, in astonishment. “Why, I had no idea a derelict could float so far or so fast.”
“You see we’re in the Gulf Stream, Henry,” said the captain, “and both wind and tide will drive her. Why, the Iroquois once chased a derelict in the Gulf Stream that floated two hundred and eighty-five miles in four days. This one might go as far. And while we make a big total of miles, we don’t advance so very far in one day along the course of the derelict.”
It looked as though the captain’s prediction of a long search was to be realized, for the second day’s run was as fruitless as the first had been. Once more the cutter drifted with the wind during the hours of darkness, yet all the time she was gaining on the derelict, for, standing high above the water, she would drift twice as fast as a low-lying hulk.
At noon the next day the Iroquois had reached the point marked B on the diagram. Here the lookouts discovered three pine boards. ‘They were floating almost exactly in the line the captain had drawn as the probable course of the derelict. Instead of standing on this leg of his grid as usual, the captain ran on for only three or four miles further, and then came about to starboard. This tack brought him once more across the supposed line of the derelict’s path. Here some bits of wreckage were seen. It now seemed certain that the wreck had come along the line indicated in the captain’s diagram, and must, therefore, be straight to leeward. A few moments later the matter was definitely settled, when one of the lookouts spied a floating hulk exactly in the direction indicated. The cutter was brought about and headed straight for the derelict. In less than half an hour the Iroquois was rolling upon the waves, only a few hundred yards from the derelict.
But how different this was in appearance from the craft Henry had been expecting to see. He had looked for a boat with its masts snapped off, riding low in the water, with the waves washing over its deck. Instead of that there lay before them about half of the hulk of a boat, bottom up. Evidently the craft had been broken in half by the storm. The after part had no doubt sunk, but the forward end continued to float, upheld by the air imprisoned within her. The broken midship section floated low under the waves, while the bow projected well above the water. Her bottom was dark and slimy, and Henry shuddered as he looked at the monster, for monster she was, a floating monster, lying in wait for other creatures of her kind. And Henry thanked fortune that the Iroquois had not run upon this lurking death in the darkness of the night and torn herself apart, to drop to the floor of the ocean, even as half of this derelict had already done, and as the other half was so soon to do.
For no sooner had the Iroquois lost headway than the gripes were unfastened on one of the small boats, the falls loosened, and the boat lowered level with the rail. Meantime, the necessary materials for destroying the derelict had been assembled. ‘These were now lifted aboard the small boat and the crew leaped in after them. Then Lieutenant Hill, who was to command, took his place in the stern. Oars were gotten ready, and at a favorable opportunity the boat was dropped gently into the waves. In a moment she was riding safely at a little distance from the Iroquois, and her oarsmen were bending to their oars.
How astonished Henry was as he watched the little boat fight its way over to the derelict. Now it went up, up, up, until it reached the very crest of a wave, then it dropped into the trough-like depression just ahead and was almost lost to sight, only to come shooting upward again on the next billow. So it made its way to the derelict. Meantime the entire crew of the Iroquois leaned over the rail, watching.
To the astonishment of the onlookers, the small boat turned shortly after it reached the wreck and pulled straight back to the Iroquois without making any attempt to destroy it. The captain awaited the return of the boat by the leeward rail.
“What's the difficulty, Mr. Hill?” he called, when the small boat came within speaking distance.
“We need some storm oil and a drip-bag,” shouted the lieutenant through cupped hands. “It’s so rough that we can’t get close to her.”
The desired materials were brought and the small boat returned toward the derelict. Meantime, the oil had been poured from the can into the drip-bag, which was merely a conical bag of tightly-woven duck stuffed with oakum. When the boat had pulled some distance to windward of the hulk, a sailor jabbed several holes in the drip-bag with a knife-point, and the bag was hung out over the water on the end of an oar. But apparently the effect was not all Mr. Hill hoped for, for presently the boat pulled around to leeward of the hulk and the dripping process was repeated.
“What are they doing?” asked Henry.
“Oiling the water,” said the executive officer, who stood near him. “That is to stop the waves from breaking.”
Henry had heard that oil would still the troubled waves, but it hardly seemed credible that little drops of oil could produce the effect he now witnessed, for slowly but surely the sea about the derelict grew calmer. To be sure, the water still rose and fell, but no longer did the wave crests break. Like a billowing sea of glass was the ocean, rather than a storm-torn sheet of water.
Now the small boat came close to the old hulk. A length of strong wire, with a mine attached, was fastened to the hulk, and the mine lowered so that it hung just below the bottom of it. Then the small boat rowed off to windward, paying out as it went the detonating wires attached to the mine. Three hundred yards away the boat was stopped. The lieutenant touched off his electric battery. There was a tremendous ex- plosion. The sea heaved upward like a water-spout, and great pieces of the shattered bottom of the derelict were blown aloft, shooting up and up and up until they were a thousand feet in air. Presently they came raining down again, some of them dangerously close to the Iroquois’ small boat.
When Henry looked at the sea again, the derelict had disappeared. But several dangerously large pieces of the hulk still floated. Immediately Lieutenant Hill began to herd these together. When they were all collected, the sailors lashed them together, a second mine was secured beneath them, and once more the small boat pulled away to the length of the detonating wires. Again there was a terrific explosion, and this time the shattered bits of wreckage shot even higher into the air than they had gone before. When they had all dropped back into the sea again, the small boat rowed back to where the derelict had been, but nothing big enough to menace navigation now floated above the waves.
Lieutenant Hill turned his boat toward the Iroquois. A few minutes later the dripping craft once more hung on its davits, securely lashed to its strongback. The men had returned to their stations, the propeller was churning the salty sea, and the Iroquois was speeding back to her anchorage off Staten Island, with her task accomplished, and the pathway of the ocean freed of one more menace.
Truly, Henry thought, it was a great thing to belong to the Coast Guard. If there was any way by which he could accomplish it, he meant to become a wireless man on a Coast Guard cutter. His decision had been made. He knew he would never be satisfied until he, too, wore a blue uniform with red electric flashes and some red bars on his blue sleeve. But how he was to accomplish his end was quite another matter. There was evidently no place for him on the Iroquois, and probably every other cutter in the service had likewise its full complement of wireless men.