CHAPTER VII
THE NIGHT’S WORK
Roy adjusted his receivers, threw over his switch, and listened in. A grin came over his face. The air was as noisy as the old football field at home when Central City was winning. Everybody was yelling through space at somebody else. It was one terrific babel of wireless voices. It seemed to Roy as though everybody within three hundred miles who had a radio instrument was using it. But through all the racket he could plainly distinguish the whining call of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. There was no mistaking that station. Roy tuned in and caught the message. It was an order for a torpedo-boat destroyer to start from Newport News next day for Brooklyn for an overhauling in the dry dock. Then Roy shifted to a commercial wave-length and caught a message from the incoming liner Kroonland, asking the police boat to meet her at quarantine to take off a card shark who had been caught fleecing fellow-passengers. The Clyde liner Iroquois was announcing to her owners her probable hour of arrival from San Domingo. The signals came so sharp and clear that Roy felt certain they were sent from the steamer he had noticed earlier in the evening, which was now almost abreast of them.
Night after night he had listened to wireless operators chatting to each other through the air, exchanging gossip and friendly messages. He hoped it would not be long before he became acquainted with some of his fellow operators so that he, too, could join in the evening gossip. But Roy was reluctant to start a conversation with a stranger. He feared he might be thought “fresh.” Now, as he looked out of a window at the glowing ship so near at hand, he suddenly decided to talk with her, and see if she were the Iroquois. In a minute he had found the Iroquois’ call in his wireless directory, and the minute the Iroquois stopped talking he pressed his key.
“KVF—KVF—KVF—WNA,” sounded his signal, as the blue sparks leaped in his instrument.
Almost immediately came the reply, “WNA—III—GA.”
“Where are you, Iroquois?” asked Roy.
“Off the Jersey coast,” came the answer, “about opposite Barnegat.”
“Is there a steamer between you and shore?” flashed back Roy.
“Yes. What of it? Who wants to know?”
“That’s us,” flashed back Roy, “the Lycoming.”
“Never heard of you. Are you a tramp? Where from?”
“No. New Confederated liner—maiden voyage New York to Galveston. Roy Mercer, operator—just wanted to say howdy-do.”
“Congratulations and thanks,” came the reply. “First job?”
“Very first.”
“Good luck. How did the Giants make out to-day?”
“Haven’t heard,” said Roy.
“Good-bye, old top. My name’s Graham. Call me up again.” And the Iroquois passed on, while Roy got his messages ready for transmittal.
There were not many of these. The captain had filed a final report for the owners: a Wall Street broker ordered the sale of a thousand shares of United States Steel if the market rose. A salesman from Toledo wanted his firm to inform him when he could guarantee delivery of some machinery he had sold. And the usual number of pleasure-seekers were sending messages to their homes, announcing their departure from New York. Roy sent off the captain’s communication first, then quickly got rid of his commercial messages. For a long time he sat at his table, listening to the interesting messages that were pulsating through the nocturnal air. He felt sure that as long as he lived he could never grow tired of listening to these interesting voices of the night.
When ten o’clock approached, he tuned to the Arlington wave-length and waited to catch the time and weather signals. Later still, he listened in for the daily news-letter sent out each night by the Marconi Company, for publication next day in the marine newspapers that wireless telegraphy had made possible on shipboard. The Lycoming had not subscribed to this service and it was not permissible for Roy to give out the news. But there was nothing to prevent him from picking it out of the air for his own information, or from giving it to the captain. In fact, the Marconi Company rather expected this as a courtesy to captains on ships using their service. So Roy was particular to take every word of the eight-hundred-word news-letter that was flashed forth to the world late that night.
The German peace delegates had handed their reply, containing counter proposals, to the secretariat of the peace commission. The despatch gave the main points in the hundred-and-forty-six-page answer of the Germans. A troop call had been issued in Toronto in readiness for the pending strike of workers. A new rebellion was anticipated in Ireland. Captain Andre Tardieu had made a remarkable appeal to ten thousand soldiers of the American Expeditionary Force for a closer union between France and America. The baseball scores were given and Roy was pleased to learn that the Giants had beaten Brooklyn five to two and increased their lead. Hereafter he would be a Giant fan. He wondered if Graham, on the Iroquois, had caught the news and was almost tempted to call him up. There was a brief résumé of stock market conditions. But what interested Roy most was the announcement that the NC-4 would make its last lap next day from Lisbon to London.
Roy had often picked these nightly news reports from the air, but never before had they meant to him what this message meant now. Always before, he had been on land and had read in the evening papers much of the news included in the nightly news-letter. Now he was at sea. Every hour carried the Lycoming farther from shore. By morning, perhaps, she would be out of sight of land. Already Roy was beginning to feel that sense of isolation, of loneness, that comes to first voyagers on the sea. When he thought of all the ships that had gone down and all the people who had perished when help was really but a few hours distant, he thrilled anew at the thought that he could talk to other ships, even if they were hundreds of miles away, and so get help or bring help. With this thought came a new sense of the importance of his post. Truly his was a vital share in sailing the ship. It called for the best there was in him.
By the time he had copied the weather-report and the news-letter, it was so late he thought the captain was probably asleep. Every night since Roy came aboard, he had sent the weather-report to Captain Lansford as soon as he had received it. The captain had never acknowledged the receipt of these messages nor indicated that he was pleased to have them. Yet Roy thought the commander ought to know about the weather. He was in a quandary. Should he risk the wrath of the captain by taking the message to him, or should he wait until morning and send it? Roy thought the matter over.
“I’m going to take it to him,” he said, finally. “He ought to have this report and I’ll see that he gets it, no matter what happens.”
He picked up the sheet of paper, skipped down the ladder, and presently found himself before the door of the captain’s cabin. His rather hesitating knock was greeted by a gruff voice from within.
“What do you want?”
“This is the wireless man with the weather-report and the night’s news, Captain,” replied Roy.
An angry exclamation was Roy’s answer. The door was flung open, and the captain, in his pajamas, stood in the doorway, boiling with wrath.
“Weather-report!” he bellowed contemptuously. “Weather-report! What do I want of your weather-reports? Don’t you know better than to come battering at my door in the middle of the night? I left word that I should not be disturbed, and here you come bothering me with weather-reports. I’ll have obedience on shipboard, sir, or I’ll put you in irons. Now get out. And don’t you ever bother me again with your weather-reports.”
“But, Captain Lansford,” objected Roy, “I thought you might want to know the news, and I have the day’s news-letter as well as the weather-report. I did not know that you were asleep or that you had left orders not to be disturbed. I am sorry, sir. I only wished to be of use, not to annoy you.”
“Bah! More of your wireless nonsense!” roared the captain, and he banged his door shut. Yet he snatched Roy’s papers, weather-report and all, before he did so.
Roy turned back toward the wireless house, but his encounter with the captain had driven every vestige of sleepiness from his eyes. He decided that he would look about the ship a bit. It was cool and pleasant and there were no passengers to bother him. It was against the rules for passengers to visit the wireless house, but already several had asked Roy for permission to do so. Roy hardly knew how to refuse such a request without seeming rude, so he was glad to avoid passengers. He walked aft and for a while stood looking over the taffrail at the foaming trail the Lycoming left behind her. Then he went forward and looked ahead. There was no moon, but the stars shone clear and it was surprisingly light. The smallest object would have been visible on the water at a considerable distance. In the very nose of the boat was a sailor on watch. The man stood so motionless and leaned so snugly against the bow that Roy was not at first certain the figure was a man. He was tempted to go talk with him, but remembered in time that it is forbidden to converse with the men on watch. So he leaned over the rail and quietly watched the huge bow wave. He was close to the ladder that leads to the bridge.
Suddenly a voice, very low, but clear and distinct, said, “Come up here, Mr. Mercer.”
Roy looked up and saw Mr. Young, the first officer, standing above him on the bridge. Quickly he scrambled up the ladder and found himself beside the man in command of the Lycoming. Roy knew that passengers were forbidden on the bridge, and was fearful lest he might be trespassing himself. But Mr. Young soon dispelled his fears.
“As wireless man,” he said, “you have a perfect right to come on the bridge, though it might be as well not to do so when the captain is here. You know he has some peculiar ideas.”
Mr. Young smiled, yet there was nothing unkind in his smile. Like the purser, the first mate seemed to have some feeling of kindness toward his superior. Roy wondered at it. He did not see how anybody could feel kindly toward such a gruff old dragon. He was the more surprised because Mr. Young, like Purser Robbins, was the very soul of good nature. Roy had been attracted to him from the start, for Mr. Young had made an evident effort to put Roy at his ease. Now he felt more grateful than ever to this great, blond giant. For Mr. Young was even larger than Captain Lansford.
Quietly the two conversed in the starlight, though Mr. Young never took his eyes from the water before them. Occasionally he spoke a word to the steersman behind him in the wheel-house. He asked Roy many questions about his life and seemed interested in him. Roy was immensely pleased when Mr. Young remarked that he was glad the ship was equipped with wireless and that Roy was the operator. And Roy was astonished beyond belief when Mr. Young told him that he had sailed as first mate to Captain Lansford for fifteen years. Roy did not see how anybody who could possibly get another post would willingly serve with Captain Lansford. When he said as much to Mr. Young that officer smiled.
“Wait until you know Captain Lansford a little better,” said Mr. Young, “and you may think differently.” But Roy was sure that nothing could ever change his mind about Captain Lansford. His most fervent wish was to do his work satisfactorily for the next three months and get a transfer to some other vessel.
It was after midnight when Roy sought his bunk. But first he went to his instrument and listened in for several minutes. If the sea was as calm elsewhere as it was about the Lycoming, he did not believe any ship could be in distress—unless it might be from fire. Always, since he had watched the flames on that Brooklyn pier, he was thinking about fire at sea. If any vessel needed help, he did not intend that it should lack assistance through negligence on his part.
When finally Roy retired, he was weary enough. Yet for a long time he could not sleep. The unaccustomed throbbing of the great engines, the vibration of the ship, and the unfamiliar movement as the vessel rode the long, smooth swells, kept Roy awake for a long time. Finally he did sleep, but presently dreamed that Captain Lansford was a real dragon and was about to drown him. Roy awoke with a cry of terror and found that his coat had slipped from its peg and fallen across his face. In another minute he was fast asleep again, and this time he slumbered soundly until six bells in the morning watch, when the striking of the ship’s bell awoke him.
Day after day the weather continued fair and the sea calm. Even off Cape Hatteras, most famed of weather-breeders, the sky was like turquoise and the sea like glass. On the second day out Roy was delighted to discover a school of porpoises off the port bow. He had never seen porpoises before, but had often read about these huge playful fish-like creatures; and when he saw them leaping out of the water, one after another, like so many runners clearing hurdles, he knew at once what they were. To his delight they came close to the ship, and for a long time swam ahead of it, as though towing the great vessel. Roy knew that the Lycoming was making at least fifteen knots an hour or better than a mile in four minutes. Yet these big creatures kept pace with her with no apparent effort; and when finally they swam off, they darted away from the Lycoming as though she were anchored.
“Whew!” whistled Roy. “If we’re going fifteen knots an hour, how fast are those fellows moving now?”
As the steamer drew into southern waters, the gray-green color of the ocean took on a bluish tint. Long before the ship entered the Gulf of Mexico the water was of the most beautiful deep blue, the color being emphasized by little whitecaps. Along the Florida coast the steamer drew so close to shore that Roy could distinctly see the wide beaches, with their crowds of bathers and the many automobiles rushing over the smooth sands. Distinctly he could make out palm-trees and other growths new and wonderful to him. Often he watched the water in the hope that he might discover a manatee, but those strange animals frequent shallow waters and Roy saw none of them.
On the way down the coast there was little for Roy to do. Occasional messages came for the captain; passengers sent messages infrequently; and Roy regularly caught the weather signals and picked from the air the nightly news-letter as long as his instruments could catch the ever fainter pulsations in the ether. These he continued to send to the captain by messenger. Before the journey ended, the Lycoming had passed out of range of the transmitting instrument. After that Roy had only the weather-report to send.
The first time this occurred, the captain’s steward appeared at the wireless house and soon struck up a conversation with Roy. Casually he asked for the daily news-letter. Roy guessed that he had been sent by the captain expressly for this news-letter. But if that were true, the captain gave no evidence of the fact. He continued to ignore Roy and gave no indication of any interest in Roy’s work. To all outward appearances he was merely tolerating Roy’s presence on board because he was compelled to do so. And Roy could see no way to gain the captain’s favor.
After a quick and uneventful run across the Gulf, the Texas coast was sighted, and five days after leaving New York the Lycoming was off the port of Galveston.