Before falling asleep that night Sally found two faces appearing and disappearing before her tired eyes. By drawing on her memory she had been able to recall the face of Erma Stone, the Skipper’s secretary. Erma was tall and dark.

“Rather foreign-looking,” she told herself. She dismissed the idea that she might really be a foreigner and, perhaps, a spy. Foreigners could not join the WAVES, and on such a mission as this all members would be chosen with great care.

“She’s smart and has been successful,” she thought. “For some reason she does not like Nancy and me. It may be pure jealousy because of the favors just shown us, or it may go much deeper than that. I’ll be on my guard.”

The second face that seemed to hang on the black wall of darkness was the smiling countenance of Danny.

If she was troubled about Danny, as indeed she was, she might well enough have put her mind to rest for, at the moment at least, Danny was doing very well indeed. He was fast asleep.

Never given much to worrying, he had munched some iron rations, then, as darkness fell, had spread his, heavy coat over him and, using the side of the craft as a pillow, had drifted off to peaceful slumber.

His awakening was rude and startling. Something hard and wet, like a wadded-up dishrag, had struck him squarely in the face.

He came up fighting and clawing. One hand caught the damp and slimy thing. The thing bit his fingers but he hung on.

After dragging himself to a balanced position, he gave both hands to conquering the intruder.

“Feathers,” he muttered. “A sea-bird. Food from the sea.” At that he felt for the creature’s neck, got one more bite from the iron-like beak, then put the wandering bird to rest with neatness and dispatch.

Hardly had he accomplished this, when, with all the force of a big league baseball, a second object struck him squarely in the chest. Completely bowled over, he barely avoided going overboard. This intruder escaped.

After searching about, he located a small flashlight. He started casting its gleams over the sea. All about him the black waters seemed alive.

“Birds!” he exclaimed. “Thousands of them!”

He had not exaggerated. A great host of sea parrots, beating the water with their tough little wings, were making their way south from their summer home.

Three more of them fell into his small boat and were added to his slender larder.

“I must make the most of everything,” he told himself stoutly. “Men have lived for weeks on such a raft as this.”

At that, after watching the last ugly little traveler pass, he once more drew his heavy coat over him and lay down to peaceful sleep.

Next morning Sally awoke with mingled feelings of joy, sorrow, and fear. She was glad that the secret radio had proved to be so great a boon. Old C. K. could die happy. He had achieved a great success and this would not go unrewarded.

She was sorry about Danny. She would miss him terribly. “It’s not a case of love,” she told herself almost fiercely, “We’re just good pals, that’s all.” She did not believe in that word love. It could stand for so much and so little. A stuffy night on a dance floor—that, for some, was love. Men loved their ladies so well they killed them so no one else would get them. Bah! The word might as well be marked out of the dictionary. Perhaps the Old Man’s yeoman thought she was in love with Danny. Who could tell?

It was this same yeoman, Erma Stone, who sent a shudder running through her being.

“I won’t think of it!” She sprang from her berth to turn on the secret radio. Turning the dials, first this one, then that, for some time, she caught nothing.

“Subs are far away this morning,” she reported to Riggs in the radio room, as she passed on her way for coffee, bacon, and toast.

“That’s fine, Sally!” he beamed. “Keep up the good work. As long as the weather remains fair that secret radio of yours will be your assignment, yours and Nancy’s. Don’t sit over it all the time, but tune in for a few minutes every hour. We can’t afford to take chances.”

“Okay, Chief,” was her cheerful reply.

“If the weather gets nasty, we may need your help,” he added.

“It better stay fair.” Her brow wrinkled. “Danny’s out there somewhere.”

“The storm gods don’t care for Danny,” he replied soberly. “Nor for any of the rest of us.”

“Riggs,” she said, coming close and speaking low, “do you know any reason why the Captain’s yeoman should not like me?”

“Erma Stone? No, why? Doesn’t she like you?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“You never know about women.” Riggs looked away. “If one gets a grouch on me I keep my eyes peeled, that’s all.”

“Thanks, Riggs. One thing more, do you think they will send a plane back to look for Danny?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“We’ve come too far since then. Besides, a plane rising from our ship might catch the eye of some sub commander. That would be just too bad. This is a mighty important convoy.”

Sally drank her coffee in a cloud of gray gloom. There was nothing she could do for Danny, absolutely nothing. But when she came out on the deck, the sun was shining brightly, gulls were sailing high and all seemed at peace. Since there was work to be done she snapped out of her blue mood and stepped into things in the usual manner.

That night, since the weather was still beautiful and no dangers appeared to threaten, the Captain authorized a dance for the fliers, the sailors off duty, the nurses, and the WAVES.

Some of the sailors had organized an orchestra of a sort, two fiddlers, two sax players, and a drummer.

To Sally this seemed to offer an hour of glorious relaxation. She loved dancing and did it very well, too. It seemed, however, that a whole flock of gremlins had joined the ship, just to disturb her peace of mind.

The Captain was on hand to lead off the first dance, and chose her as his partner.

She wanted to say: “Oh, Captain! Please! No!” But she dared not. So they led off the dance. It was a glorious waltz. The boys jazzed it a little. Still it was glorious.

The Old Man was a splendid dancer. She lost herself to the rhythm and swing of the music until, with a startling suddenness, her eyes met those of Erma Stone.

From the shock of that flashing look of hate she received such a jolt, that, had not the Skipper held her steady, she must have fallen to the floor.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Dizzy? I shouldn’t wonder. You’ve been working rather hard and had a shock or two.” That was as close as he would come to speaking of Danny.

“It’s nothing!” Summoning all her will power, she pulled herself back into the swing. And so the dark siren was forgotten, but not for long.

Out on the wide open sea Danny had had a busy day. Where he was the sun came out bright and hot. After breakfast he began studying his watermaking machine, and, in due time, had water that was a little better than city water and not as good as that from the old oaken bucket on his uncle’s farm.

After that he skinned and cleaned his birds. Then he sliced the meat thin and spread it out on the edge of the boat, where the sun shone hot, to dry.

“That will do for dinner tonight,” he told himself. “If I only had a cookstove I’d get along fine.”

He would want something for supper. Perhaps a fish would do.

After attaching a lure to his line he cast out into the deep. At the third cast a gray shadow followed his lure halfway in. Then, rising to the surface, it thrust out a fin like a plowshare.

“Huh!” He hauled in his line. “Seems to me this isn’t Friday after all.” He thought what would happen if that shark threw one flipper over the side of his raft.

“It’s always something, but it ain’t never nothin’,” he murmured.

Setting his coat up as a shade, he lay down to avoid the sun. And there with the raft lifting and falling beneath him, he fell to musing on the width of the ocean, the number of ships passing that way, and the probability of a storm.

In the midst of this his eye caught a sudden gleam of light. A dark cloud was rolling along the horizon and from it came an ominous roar.

Apparently Danny need no longer wonder about the probability of a storm. The flash of lightning which had attracted his attention, together with the rolling thunder which accompanied it, made a squall, at any rate, a distinct possibility.

“Watch out for that dark-faced siren.”

It was Danny’s flying pal who spoke. The dance was still on and he, Fred Angel, was dancing with Sally.

“You mean the Captain’s yeoman?” she suggested.

“Sure I do. While you were dancing with him, she looked as if she’d like to murder you.”

“Fred, why doesn’t she like me?”

“Can’t you guess?” He grinned.

“I might try, but I’d probably be wrong.”

“She thinks her boss is sweet on you.”

“Fred! That’s ridiculous! He’s been good to me because I’ve been lucky enough to help out.”

“Sure! That’s it,” he agreed.

“He’s interested in just one thing, the same as the rest of us, helping to bring this terrible war to an end.”

“The thing that most of us are interested in,” Fred corrected her. “Some people never get their minds off themselves for long. Miss Stone is like that. You never worked in a large organization, did you, where there were a lot of really big shots?”

“No. I’m a small town girl.”

“That’s where you were lucky. Me, I worked with a big city outfit and I saw a lot of private secretaries like Erma Stone.”

“Were they all like her?”

“Most of them were, the very successful ones. They work like slaves, do the boss’s work as well as their own. By and by they get to thinking they own the boss. Erma is like that.”

“And she thinks I’m trying to steal her property? That’s absurd!” Sally laughed.

“That’s just part of it. Erma is a two-timer. She has got to like Danny pretty well, too.”

“You don’t blame her, do you?” Sally spoke with feeling.

“Not a bit. Danny’s one of the swellest guys I’ve ever known. He got a real break last trip, sank a sub all by himself, and the rest of us never even got a look-in,” Fred replied with enthusiasm.

“So Erma set a trap to catch him, too?” Sally asked.

“That’s what she did. And now, well, you know the answer from the books you have read. Keep an eye on her, Sally. She’ll get to you sooner or later. She may beat your time with the Old Man, but never with Danny, for you’re in solid there—”

“Danny,” she whispered, swallowing hard. “We may never see him again.”

“There’s a chance there, but I’m betting on Danny!”

The dance was at an end.

“I’ll keep my eyes open,” she whispered. “Fred,” her voice was low and tense—they were walking slowly toward her post of duty, “will we go back the way we came?”

“No one knows that.”

“But do you think we will?” she insisted.

He knew she was still thinking of Danny and wanted to help her, but lies, he knew, never help. “Well, yes,” he spoke slowly, “the Old Man will return this way for he never forgets his boys. Grand old boy, Captain MacQueen is.”

“Thanks, Fred. That really helps a lot. And, Fred,” they were at the door of the radio cabin, “if you are sent out to search for Danny on the way back, will you take me along?”

“Well, now that—” he pondered, “yes, I will, if I can, I’ll even let you stow away.”

“Stowaway. That’s a lovely word,” she laughed. “Shake. It’s a date.” With a hearty handclasp, they parted.

That night Sally insisted on taking a two-hour shift with Riggs, blinking out her messages to the ships of the convoy.

“I want to do something besides sitting and listening for trouble,” she told him.

Truth was, a great loneliness had come sweeping over her. Perhaps the dance had done that. Certainly it had brought back memories of other times. Gay days at high school when she joined in the school hops which had not been so grand but had for all that given her a feeling of buoyant youth. There had been times too when, out with her father on a fishing trip, she had fallen in with a jolly crowd and had danced by the light of a campfire.

Now that the ship’s dance was over, and she stood looking at the endless black waters rolling by, she felt very blue. But the instant the blinker was in her hands and bright little messages came to her out of the night, loneliness fled.

“We’re a big family,” she said to Riggs.

“A family of ships,” he agreed.

“And on those ships are enough people to populate a town as large as the one where I was raised.”

“Quite a young city,” he agreed.

“But it seems so sad that they should all be carried away from their home towns.”

“Some of them got pretty tired of the old home town,” he mused. “But, boy! Won’t they be happy when they get a chance to go back!”

“I hope it may be soon.”

Riggs was a fine fellow. Sally liked him a lot.

“Riggs,” she said, “if I get into trouble, really serious trouble, I’ll come to you first thing.”

“You do just that, Sally.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “You just spill it all to old Riggs. He’ll pull you out of it or die in the attempt.”

“Thanks, Riggs. I feel so much better.”

“It’s the dance that did that,” he slowly insisted. “Really there must be some change in our lives or we break. The Old Man knows that. Great old fellow, the Captain.”

Sally and Nancy worked out a schedule all their own. Four hours on and four off, day and night, turn and turn about, they stayed by the secret radio.

“It seems such a simple thing to do!” Nancy exclaimed, after a full twenty-four hours of it.

“Yes, I know,” Sally agreed. “Nothing ever happens. I hear a little ‘put-put-put-put-a-put’ now and then—”

“Sure! So do I but it sounds far away. The subs seem close together so they can’t be near—

“So we just set the dials and sit and listen, and wait. But just think what has already happened and may happen again!”

“Yes. We stopped them. Stopped them dead. Ships and lives would have been lost.”

“And so we must stick to our post for it may happen all over again.”

In the quiet days that followed there was an hour of dancing every night. These were hours of real joy for Sally. The Captain, apparently considering that he had shown her all due courtesy, seldom asked for a dance. This left her free to enjoy Fred and his fellow fliers. Erma Stone seemed to have forgotten her, but this, she told herself, was only a lull before another storm.

One night while she stood by the rail, watching the black waters roll by and thinking gloomy thoughts, she suddenly found the Captain at her side.

“I just wanted to tell you, Sally,” there was a mellow tone in his voice, “that I haven’t forgotten Danny. I shall never forget him. He was one of my finest. I am hoping our paths may cross yet.”

“How—how can they?” she asked huskily.

“We are taking this convoy to a certain port in England. There it will be split up into smaller groups and convoyed by other fighting ships to other ports.”

“That leaves us free?” There was a glad ring in her voice.

“Yes. We will follow the same course back. We have the spot where Danny was lost marked on the chart and have a record of currents and winds that may carry him off our course.”

“Then you really think there is a chance?”

“Most certainly, a real chance. We shall send out planes and scour the sea.”

“What a pity it could not have been done the hour he was lost.”

“The battle was still on, then came the fog. After that we were far away and this great convoy hung on our shoulders like a crushing weight.” The Skipper sounded old and very tired. “It’s war, Sally. War! God grant that it may soon be at an end.”

As she returned to her cabin after this talk she had with the Captain she ran upon Danny’s mother. She had seen her several times of late, but they had never spoken of Danny. Now she had something cheery to tell.

“Come in, Mrs. Duke,” she invited. “I’ll make a cup of hot chocolate on my electric plate, and we’ll have a talk.”

When the cocoa had been poured steaming hot, she said: “I had a talk with the Captain.”

“Was it about Danny?” Mrs. Duke smiled knowingly.

“Yes, who else?” Sally smiled back.

“Danny’s all right, that is, up to now.”

Sally did not ask how she knew. That would have been questioning a mother’s faith.

“And he’s going to be all right,” Sally replied cheerfully. “The Captain says we are to turn right back the moment we reach England, and that we’ll have a look for Danny.”

“That’s fine. Really, the Captain is a great and grand man.” Mrs. Duke was warm in her praise.

Sally told all she knew. Danny’s mother beamed her gratitude. But as she rose to go, a wrinkle came to her brow. “It’s going to storm,” she said. “I feel it in my bones.”

Sally didn’t say: “That will be bad for Danny.” She said nothing at all, just watched the older woman as she walked out into the night.

Those had been strange, hard days for Danny. He was not long in learning that there is nothing so lonely as an empty sea. “If I get out of this alive,” he told himself, “I’ll always carry some book with thin pages and lots of reading, a Bible, a volume of Shakespeare, just anything.”

His threatened storm turned into a gentle shower. Spreading out his coat, he caught a quart of water and poured it into a rubber bottle. The supply of water that could be produced by his still, he knew, was limited, and this might be a long journey.

That he was slowly going somewhere, he knew well enough. Winds and currents would see to that. Perhaps he would in time come to land. What land? Some wild, uninhabited island, a friendly shore, or beneath an enemy’s frowning fortifications? He shuddered at the thought.

At times he tried reciting poetry. One verse amused him:

“‘This is the ship of pearl, which poets feign, sails the unshadowed main.’ It’s a rubber ship,” he told himself, “but why quibble over small details?”

As he recalled the poem it ended something like this:

“That’s a fine idea,” he thought, “if I could make this rubber raft grow. But I can’t, so I’d better catch me a fish.”

The sharks were gone. His fishing on that day met with marvelous success. After a terrific struggle in which his boat was all but capsized a dozen times, he succeeded in landing a twenty-pound king salmon.

“Boy, oh, boy!” he exclaimed. “How did you get way out here?”

That was not an important question. After cutting off the salmon’s head, he sliced the rich, red steaks into strips and set them drying along the sides of his boat.

“‘Take, eat, and be content,’” he quoted. “‘These fishes in your stead were sent by him who sent the tangled ram, to spare the child of Abraham.’”

He didn’t know what that was all about, but it did somehow seem to fit his case, so he liked it.

One evening his sea was visited by one more flight of small birds with big, ugly heads. By one device and another he captured six of these. Five went into his larder but the sixth being young-appearing and innocent got a new lease on life. He tied it to the boat by a string. At first his pet objected strenuously, but in the end he settled down to a diet of dried salmon meat and was content to sit by the hour perched on the side of Danny’s boat. He looked like a parrot but, try as he might, Danny could not make him talk.

And then this young “ancient mariner” was visited by both hope and despair. A lone boat appeared on the horizon. It remained there for hours, at last came much closer, and then was swallowed up by a great bank of clouds rolling over the surface of the sea.

That same night, after dreaming of being in the old garden swing beneath the apple tree at home, and of swinging higher and higher until the swing broke, letting her down on her head, Sally awoke to find herself standing first on her feet and then on her head.

“Something is terribly wrong,” she thought, still half asleep. “Where am I? What is happening?”

Just then her head did bump the boards at the head of her berth and she knew. She was still aboard the aircraft carrier. A terrific storm had set the top-heavy craft to doing nose dives and near somersaults.

“I suppose I should be seasick,” she told herself, “but I am not, not a bit. The Lord be praised for that.”

Just then her ears caught a low moan.

“Nancy!” she exclaimed, springing out of bed. “What’s happened?”

“No-nothing. Every-every thing,” was the faltering answer. “Oh! Sally, I do wish I could die on land.”

“Nonsense!” Sally exclaimed. “You won’t die. You’re seasick, that’s all. I’ve got some Lea and Perrins Sauce in my bag. It’s swell for seasickness, they say. Wait, I’ll get you some.”

“I’ll wait.”

After downing the red-hot pepper sauce, Nancy felt a little better, but hid her face in her pillow and refused to move.

Sally had left her three hours before listening in at the secret radio. Now she herself took a turn at listening. After a half hour of absolute radio silence she dragged the headset off her ears, rolled the radio in her blankets, drew on a raincoat, then slipped out into the storm.

Slipped was exactly the right word. The instant she was outside the wind took her off her feet. She went down with a slithering rush and slid fifteen feet to come up at last against a bulkhead.

“It must be storming,” she said to a sailor who volunteered to help her to her feet.

“I-I shouldn’t wonder,” he laughed, just as they went down in a heap.

“Guess this is a good place to crawl,” he suggested, setting the example. “The wind comes through here something fierce. Not-not so bad up there for-forward.”

Following his example, Sally crept on hands and knees to a more sheltered spot. Then, getting to their feet and gripping hands, they made a dash for it.

At the end of this wild race they were caught by one more mad rush of wind and piled up against the radio cabin door. Sally was on top.

“This,” she said, “is where I get off. Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

She pushed the door open, allowed herself to be blown in, then closed the door in the face of the gale.

“Do you think it will storm?” she asked Riggs who was there alone.

“It might at that,” he grumbled. He looked just terrible, Sally thought.

“Good grief, Sally!” he exploded. “Aren’t you seasick?”

“Not a bit,” she laughed. “At least, not yet.”

“You won’t be then. Thank God for that. How about taking over? I’m about through for now.”

“I’ll be glad to, Riggs.”

“We’ve had to give up blinker signals. It’s so dark you couldn’t see a ten-thousand watt searchlight. Besides, the ships go up and down so you’d never get their messages. But we’ve got to keep in touch with every blasted ship in the convoy. Get lost if we didn’t, bang into one another, and sink everything.”

“Yes, I know, Riggs.”

“We’ve given up radio silence, had to. Anyway, no sub pack would attack in this howling hurricane. We use sound and radio, to keep the ships together.”

“Yes, I know,” she replied quietly.

“Oh! You do? Then you tell me.” Even Riggs got a little peeved at times, when these lady sailors tried to tell him.

“All right, here goes. Every two minutes you give the call number of some ship in the convoy on the radio and then—”

“Then you—” he began.

“Who’s telling this?” she demanded.

“Okay, Sally, okay!” Riggs laughed in spite of himself.

“You give a toot on the ship’s whistle,” Sally continued. “At the same time you send out a radio impulse. The radio sound reaches the ship instantly. The sound of the whistle is slower. The signal man on that other boat notes the difference between the time of arrival of radio impulse and whistle. He does a little figuring, then he radios his approximate position in relation to your ship. After that you tell him to move so far this way and that. Then everything is hunky-dory until next time.” Sally caught her breath.

“Say, you know all the answers!” He laughed.

“Not all, but some of them,” she corrected. “You don’t have to be dumb all the time, even if you are a girl.”

“Guess that’s right. Well, now, go to it.” Riggs threw himself down on a long seat that ran the length of the room, and Sally took up her work.

For a full hour the ship’s whistle spoke and the radio joined in. Sally was there at the center of it all and enjoyed it immensely.

The tanker at the back of the convoy and to the right was slipping behind. She advised them to shovel more coal. The English packet was crowding its mate to the right. She shoved it out to sea. The big, one-time ocean liner, now a transport, laden with boys in khaki, was straying and might get itself lost. She called it in a few boat-lengths. The three liberty ships were getting too chummy with one another. She spread them apart.

At the end of the hour she glanced at the long seat. Riggs was gone. She was alone with the ships and the storm. With a little gasp, she returned to her duties.

When she made the rounds of the ships for the second time the other radiomen began to notice her.

“Say! You’re all right!” the man on the big transport exclaimed over the radio. “You’re all right, but you sound like a lady. Are you?”

“No chance,” was the snapping answer, “only a WAVE.”

“What do you know about that?”

“Hello, Sally!” came from a liberty ship. “How are you? I saw your picture in a movie!”

“You didn’t!” she exploded.

“Come on over and I’ll show it to you!” he jibed.

“Can’t just now. I’m busy.” She cut him off.

At the end of two hours Danny’s mother appeared with sandwiches and hot coffee. “Thought I’d find you here,” was her quiet comment. “So you’re the little shepherdess of the big ships.” Sally joined her in the laugh that followed. Never a word was said about Danny, nor would there be.

“Have you seen Nancy?” Sally asked.

“Oh yes. Don’t you worry about her. I fixed her up just fine.”

“And Riggs?”

“Yes, Riggs, too. He said to tell you he’d take over any time you sent for him.”

“I’m doing fine, I guess,” Sally smiled. “And I’m enjoying it no end.

“But what about Lieutenant Tobin?” Sally asked. “The second radioman.”

“Oh, he’s sick too but he said he’d drag himself around soon.”

Lieutenant Tobin lurched into the cabin a few moments later. Very unsteady on his feet but fighting to keep up his spirits, he said:

“Nice storm, Sally. I never saw a better one. I’ll take over now.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant. Just send for me any time. Storms don’t mean much to me.”

“Lucky girl. Wish I was like that.”

Sally returned to her quarters, looked to Nancy’s comfort, then crept under the blankets.

It seemed to her that she had only just fallen asleep, when a sailor pounded on her door.

“Lieutenant Tobin’s busted two ribs,” he announced. “He got slammed against a stanchion. Lieutenant Riggs requests that you take over.”

“I’ll be there in no time.” Again she hurried into her clothes.

“I’m sorry, Sally.” Riggs seemed shaken by the very violence of the storm.

“That’s all right. I love it.” She managed a smile.

“Got to see that Tobin has proper care. Tried to get to the rail, well—you know why. A big wave slammed him hard. It’s terrible, this storm is. I’ll relieve you later.” Riggs went away. Sally settled back in her place.

Never before had Sally experienced such a sense of power. She held many great ships and thousands of lives in the hollow of her hand. “Some of them know I’m a girl. Some even know who I am, and yet they trust me.” The thought made her feel warm inside.

“It’s worth the whole cost, just this,” she told herself. The whole cost? Yes, giving up her work with old C. K., bidding good-by to her family and friends. It was worth all that and more.

But Danny! If she had lost him forever? She dared not think of Danny. The very thought would unnerve her. Her work would suffer. She might make some terrible blunder.

“One increasing purpose,” a very good man had said to her. “That’s what we need in these terrible hours.”

One increasing purpose. That was what she must have in this hour of trial.

Riggs returned. Sitting down dizzily, he watched and listened for a time. Then, leaning back, he seemed to go into a sort of coma.

At the end of four hours, he came out of this, pushed her aside, mumbled, “Go get some rest,” then took over.

After fighting her way down the deck, she tumbled into her stateroom, banged the door shut, shoved the secret radio into a corner, rolled the blankets about her and fell fast asleep.

Three hours later she was once more at her post.

“I-I’ll be here if you need me.” Riggs threw himself on the hard seat and was soon fast asleep.

An hour later the Skipper looked in upon her.

“How are they coming?” he asked, closing the door without a bang.

“All right, I guess.” Sally nodded to a sort of peg-board map that indicated the location of each ship in the convoy at any particular moment.

He studied the map for a time in silence. “That’s fine,” was his comment. “Really first class.”

“How’s your yeoman?” she asked. There was a twinkle in her eye.

His eyes returned the twinkle. “She hasn’t bothered me for quite a time. She’s under the weather, I suspect.”

He looked at Riggs with a questioning eye.

“He’s all right,” she hastened to assure him. “Doing all he can.”

“It’s a terrible storm, worst I’ve ever seen in these waters. I’m having ropes strung along the ship. You’d better stick to them pretty closely. We can’t afford to lose you.” Then he was gone.

His visit had made her happy. It is something when a really big man says, “We can’t afford to lose you.” Well, they wouldn’t lose her nor even have occasion to miss her for long at a time.

The storm roared on. Boats pitched and tossed. The English packet had its rigging blown away. The tanker reported a damaged rudder and a destroyer went to her aid.

Day dawned at last and they began using flags for signals. With very little rest, buried in heavy sweaters and slicker, Sally stood like a ship’s figure-head on the tower and signaled all day long.

Once Nancy came to take her place. She lasted for an hour.

“It-it’s not that I can’t take-it.” Nancy was ready to cry when Sally relieved her. “It’s this terrible seasickness.”

“Yes, I know. Just forget it. The storm will be over before you know it.”

It wasn’t over when Sally went for a few hours of rest, but the clouds were gone, the moon was out, and because of possible submarine menace, they had gone back to blinker signals.

At ten she was at her new post blinking signals. Time and again, as the hours passed, waves sent their spray dashing over her. When at last she was relieved, she was half frozen and soaked to the skin.

To her surprise, when she reached her cabin, she found the door swinging.

“What now?” she whispered. Nancy, she knew, had been removed to the sick bay where Mrs. Duke could look after her.

As she bounced into the room, slamming the door after her, she surprised a tall figure bending over her secret radio.

The instant she saw the girl’s face, she gasped. It was Erma Stone, the Captain’s yeoman. Her face was a sight to behold. She had been sick, all right.

“Perhaps she’s delirious,” Sally thought.

The instant she caught the look of hate and cunning in the girl’s eyes, she knew this guess was wrong.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“I was sent here to make sure you had not been sending messages on this radio.” Miss Stone stood her ground.

“How would you know whether I had or not?” Sally demanded.

“I would—”

“You were not sent here!” Sally was rapidly getting in beyond her depths. “You came of your own accord. Why? I don’t know. But I’ll know why you left!” She took a step forward.

Dodging past her, the girl threw the door open and was gone.

“She was going to send a message,” Sally told herself. “Then I’d get the blame. She couldn’t do that. There is no one to listen at this hour of the night. She—”

Sally’s thoughts broke off short. Yes, someone might be listening. The enemy subs; and if they heard, all her secrets would be out.

Had the girl succeeded in sending a message? She doubted that, for this was a secret radio in more ways than one.

A brief study of the radio assured her that no messages could have been sent.

After making sure of this, she snapped on her headset to sit listening for a half hour. She caught again that “put-put-put.” It seemed nearer now. Tomorrow she and Nancy should get back to this secret radio.

At that she dragged off her sodden garments, rubbed herself dry, drew on a heavy suit of pajamas, then rolled up in her blankets. Soon she was fast asleep. And the storm roared on.

When Sally awoke, hours later, the sun was shining. Great billowing waves with no foam on their crests were rolling their ship up and down. The worst of the storm was over.

Looking like a ghost, Riggs crawled out of his hole to resume his duties. Even Nancy was back to her old, normal self.

“You take it nice and easy, Sally,” was Riggs’s advice. “You’ve done a swell job and deserve a rest.”

After drinking her coffee and eating toast and oatmeal at a real mess table, Sally felt swell. She took a turn or two along the deck, then climbed the ladder to the flight deck. There she came across Fred.

“Quite some storm,” he grinned. “We had a heck of a time keeping the planes from taking off all by themselves. But say!” His face sobered. “What about Danny? What do you know about him out there on a rubber raft?”

“I don’t know a thing, and I try not to think about it,” was her solemn reply.

“Oh, well, some ship may have picked him up. And then, again, this storm might not even have gone his way.” Fred was a cheerful soul.

Sally went back to the lower deck. In her own stateroom, she hooked up the secret radio, then lay propped up in her berth listening.

Almost at once she caught a low “put-put-put.” “Still far away,” she murmured.

For three hours she lay there turning dials, listening, then turning more dials. Now and then she dozed off into a cat nap. But not for long. She was disturbed. Each passing hour found the “put-puts” coming in stronger. There was one particular broadcaster whose code messages fairly rang in her ears.

By working on her record of messages and her German dictionary, she was able to tell that this particular broadcaster was directing the course of several other subs.

“They must be subs,” she told herself. “And such a lot of them! Twelve or fourteen. And they are coming this way.”

What did it mean? Had one or two of the enemy subs from that other pack escaped? Had they joined another larger wolf-pack and were they all coming in to attack?

She took all these questions to the Captain’s cabin. She found the “siren” at her typewriter, but ignored her. When she had made her report to the Captain, he said:

“Our radio was going yesterday. That was unavoidable. We may be attacked. How soon do you think it may come?”

“They seem quite a distance away. It may be several hours yet,” Sally replied thoughtfully.

“Several hours? I hope so. By that time we shall be in waters that are within striking distance of powerful land-based planes in England. When we’re sure the attack is to be made we’ll radio for aid. Those big planes will blast the subs from the sea!”

“But do you think they will come right in as they did before—the subs, I mean?” Sally asked.

“Why not?” he asked, seeming a little surprised.

“Perhaps they have been warned. They may try some new trick,” Sally suggested.

“It’s hard to imagine what that might be. Certainly they can’t sink our ships without coming in where we are. Keep a sharp watch. Stick to that radio of yours and report to Riggs every hour.”

Sally returned to her cabin with grave misgiving. That the enemy would repeat the performance of that other day seemed improbable. There was, of course, a fair chance that they did not know of the catastrophe that had befallen that other sub pack.

“It seems to me that we have had enough for one trip,” Nancy said when Sally told her what was happening.

“In war no one ever has enough trouble,” was Sally’s sober reply. “There is no such word as enough in the war god’s dictionary. It is always more and more and more. I’ve heard that we’re losing two hundred ships a month. No one seems to know for sure. One thing is certain, we haven’t lost any and we’re about two days from England.”

It did seem, after an hour had passed, and then another, that this sub pack was going to do just as the other had done. As Sally listened, turned dials, and waited, the broadcasters on the enemy subs began to fan out. After that, with a slow movement that was ominous, they began to surround the convoy. After the circle had been completed they started moving in.

It was the hour before sunset when she hurried to the radio room.

“Rig-Riggs!” She was stammering in her excitement. “They are all around us!”

“How close?” He blinked tired eyes.

“There’s no way to know that,” she replied cautiously.

“They’ll attack at dusk. Always do. You can’t see the wake of their periscopes so well then.”

“Don’t you think we should send for the big planes from the mainland?” she asked.

“It may be too soon. We want them to arrive at what you might call the psychological moment. Wait. I’ll ask the Skipper.”

He called the Captain on the ship’s phone, then stated his problem.

“You don’t think so?” he spoke into the phone. “I thought that might be best, sir.

“Yes, sir, all the men are at battle stations now. I’ll wait, sir.” He hung up.

“The Skipper says to wait,” he explained “He—”

He broke off short for at that moment the lookout sang out:

“A sub off the port side.”

“Sub—sub off the port side,” came echoing back.

At once there came the sound of running feet, of guns swung to position, and more shouts: “Subs! Subs!”

Sally dashed to the rail. Just what she meant to do, she did not know. At any rate, it was never done for, at that instant, a gun roared and in three split seconds a shell crashed into the radio cabin.

“Torpedo!” a voice shouted.

“Hard to port! Hard to port!” the man on the bridge roared.

With a sense of doom Sally saw the radio cabin smashed, then saw a torpedo leave the sub. Fascinated, terrified, she watched it come. It seemed alive. It played like a porpoise. First it was in the air above the water, then beneath the water.

With sudden terror, she realized that the torpedo would strike the ship directly beneath her. The order to turn the ship had come too late.

“And when it does strike!” Her knees trembled. For the first time in her life, she was paralyzed with fear.

The torpedo came on rapidly. Now it was fifty feet away, forty, thirty. It dove beneath the water, rose sharply, sped through the air, and—

Shaking herself into action, Sally turned and ran. Headed for the opposite side of the ship she was all prepared for a terrific roar accompanied by the sound of rending and crashing of timbers. But none came.

Racing headlong, she banged into the gunwale on the opposite side, to stand there panting.

Suddenly she rubbed her eyes, then looked at the sea. “It’s gone,” she murmured. “The torpedo is going away. It must have plunged low and gone under the ship.”

Her instant of relief was cut short by the realization that there were other torpedoes and shells, that the battle had just begun and that a shell had gone through their radio cabin.

“Riggs!” she cried. “Riggs was in that cabin!”

She reached the radio door just as two sailors carried Riggs out. His face was terribly white.

Asking no questions, she brushed past them and into the cabin. With Tobin and Riggs gone, she must carry on.

A look at the radio gave her a sense of relief. It had not been damaged. She tested it and her heart sank.

“Dead!” she murmured. Then: “It’s the power wires. They’ve been cut.”

One moment for inspection and she was gripping a hatchet, cutting away a varnished panel that hid the wires.

Finding rubber gloves, tape, pliers, and a coil of wire, she set about the business of repairing the wires.

“Every second counts,” she told herself. “Those bombers from the mainland must be called.”

The wires had been connected; she was just testing out the radio when the Skipper bounded into the cabin.

“The radio!” he exclaimed. “Can it be repaired?”

“It has been repaired. It’s working!” she replied, straightening up.