Sally awoke with a start. She had had a strange dream. In the dream
three of her best friends had stood by her berth looking down at her.
The older of the three said:
“She won’t wake up in time.”
“Not in time,” the next in line agreed.
“Oh, yes, she will!” the third exclaimed confidently.
“Well, I’m awake,” Sally thought. “Now I have all the bother of going
back to sleep again.”
She closed her eyes, then opened them wide again. Through her eyelids
she had received an impression of red light.
And, yes, there it was. The cabin was dark but the faint red light was
there all the same.
“My secret radio!” she thought. “I can’t have left it on!”
She propped herself on an elbow to peer into the darkness. She had left
the radio close to her berth, just in case—
There was no harm in that, for only Nancy slept in the berth above.
“It’s on,” she thought. “I’m sure I turned it off.”
This was strange for Nancy had been fast asleep when she turned in.
Sally had tried picking up some sound of the “put-put-put-a-put” of the
mysterious broadcasters and failed. Then she had—
At that her thoughts broke off short for, very faintly, because the
radio was turned low, there came the familiar “put-put-put-put-a-put.”
“I turned the radio on in my sleep,” she told herself. There seemed to
be no other possible conclusion, yet it seemed close to a miracle that
she had done so for, during the two preceding days, she had caught not
the faintest suggestion of a broadcast on her secret radio, and now,
here, in the middle of the night, it was coming in strong. Needless to
say, she listened with both her ears.
For two whole days she and Nancy, together with Riggs and the second
radioman, had kept their convoy together, with blinker lights by night
and flags by day. Not a sound had come from a radio on any ship of the
convoy. It had been one of the strangest experiences of Sally’s entire
life. To go to sleep at night after a look at dark bulks looming here
and there on the horizon, and to wake up with those same ships in the
identical position in regard to one another, yet some hundreds of miles
on their way, had seemed unbelievable.
But now, here was the secret radio talking again. “This may be the
hour,” she whispered excitedly as, having turned the dial, she listened
once again.
Slipping from her berth, she drew on a heavy velvet dressing gown,
turned the radio up a little, then sat there listening, turning a dial
now and then, listening some more and all the time growing more excited.
After twenty minutes of listening her face took on a look of sheer
horror.
“I can’t do it,” she thought. “I may be court-martialed. But I must! I
must!”
For a full five minutes she sat there deep in perplexing thought. Having
at last reached a decision, she went into action. After dressing
hurriedly, she shut off the radio and disconnected its wires. Then,
seizing it by the handle, she slipped out of the stateroom, glided along
one passageway after another to wind up at last in the radio room where
Lieutenant Riggs was standing watch alone.
“Why! Hello, Sally!” Riggs exclaimed. “What’s up?” He glanced down at
the black box. “You’re not planning to leave the ship, I hope?” During
the days of fine sailing they had enjoyed together, since the start of
the convoy voyage, she and Riggs had become quite good friends.
She did not join in his laugh. Instead she said:
“Lieutenant Riggs, something terrible is happening. We are being
surrounded by an enemy wolf-pack of subs.”
“Sally!” he exclaimed. “You’ve been having a bad dream. You’d better go
back to bed.”
“It’s no dream.” Her face was white. “It’s a terrible reality.”
“But, Sally, how could you know that? The moon is down. The sky is
black. It’s three in the morning. You haven’t a radio and even I have
heard nothing within a thousand miles—not that I can hear those
wolves,” he added. “No, nor you either.”
“Yes,” she replied in a hoarse whisper, “I do have a radio, and I can
hear the sub wolf-pack, have been hearing them for half an hour.”
“What!” He stared at her as if he thought her mad. Then his eyes fell on
her black box. “What’s that thing?” he asked in a not unkindly voice.
“It’s a secret radio.” She was ready to cry by now. “Sending and
receiving. There’s only one other like it in the world. Perhaps they’ll
court-martial me for it. I know how strict the regulations are about
radios.
“But that does not matter now!” She squared her shoulders. “All that
matters now is that you connect up this radio, that you listen to it and
believe what I tell you.”
“I’ll try.” He did not smile.
In no time at all the radio was hooked up and “put-putting” louder than
ever.
“That’s a sub giving orders to another sub,” she said quietly.
“Ah!” he breathed.
“Now watch. I turn this dial. That changes the direction of our
listening. And—” For a space of seconds there came no sound and then
again, “put-put-put....”
“That’s a different sub, answering the first.” There was quiet
confidence in her voice. “It has a different sound.”
“So it does,” he agreed.
In the next ten minutes, she located six different radios operating out
there, somewhere in the night.
“There are two others” she said as she straightened up. “Eight in all.”
“Eight,” he repeated after her.
“They’re on every side of us,” she said quietly. “The direction from
which the sound comes tells that.”
“On every side of us.” Riggs seemed in a daze.
“But you can’t know unless you’ve listened to them as I have.” She
gripped his arm in her excitement. “They’re closing in on our convoy
from all sides. Closing in for the kill.”
“Closing in for the kill.” The Lieutenant spoke like one in a trance.
“Thousands of lives, soldiers, nurses, WACs, airplanes, ammunition,
food—closing in for the kill.
“Watch the radio!” he ordered. “I’ll be back with the Captain!”
“The Captain! Oh! Oh! No!” she cried. But he was gone.
To say that Sally was frightened would not have expressed it at all. For
some time after Riggs left, she sat there shivering with fear.
Riggs had gone for the Captain. Did that mean that he believed what she
had told him, or had he been shocked by the realization that she had
laid herself open to court-martial?
“He’s gone for the Captain,” she told herself at last. “He’d never think
of doing that, just to get me into deeper trouble. He’s not that kind of
a man.” At that she drew in three deep breaths and felt better.
“He’s gone for the Captain,” she thought and shuddered. She had seen the
Captain on the bridge, that was all. He had seemed a fine figure of a
man, the sort you saw on the bridge in movies, stern, unsmiling,
inflexible. She shuddered again.
But here was Riggs and with him the Captain.
“Miss Scott,” said Riggs, “will you kindly repeat your performance with
that, that radio, for the Captain’s benefit?”
Sally’s fingers trembled as she turned on the radio. Noting this, the
Captain said:
“As you were.” His dark eyes twinkled as he added: “We’re not ’angin’
Danny Deever in the mornin’.”
“So the Captain has a sense of humor,” the girl thought and at once felt
much better.
Not only did she repeat the demonstration she had put on for Riggs, but
for a full half hour she turned dials bringing in first this
broadcaster, then another, and, at the same time, demonstrating by
circles and angles that they were moving in, closer, ever closer, to the
convoy.
Not this alone, but in her eagerness to be understood and trusted, she
told the whole story of the secret radio and the experiments that had
been carried on from the beginning.
[Illustration: “Riggs, I’m Convinced!” the Captain Declared]
“Riggs, I’m convinced!” the Captain declared at last. “They will strike
at dawn. In a half hour our men will be ordered to battle stations.
Twenty minutes before dawn ten planes will leave the ship to scour the
sea. At the same time half our destroyers will take up the search.
“Miss Scott, I salute you.” He clicked his heels. Instantly Sally was on
her feet with a true sailor’s salute.
“They believe me,” she thought as the pair left the radio cabin. “By
rights I should want to shout or burst into tears.” She wanted to do
neither, just felt cold and numb, that was all.
Then, as red blood flooded back to her cheeks and she thought of
fighting planes and destroyers shooting away before dawn, practically at
her command, she suddenly felt like Joan of Arc or Helen of Troy.
Then a terrible thought assailed her. What if it were all a mistake?
Only time could answer that question, time and the dawn. “They fly at
dawn,” she whispered.
Just then someone entered the cabin. It was Nancy.
“Sally,” she exclaimed. “Why are you here? This is not your watch. I
woke up and missed you. What have you been doing?”
“Plenty,” said Sally. “Sit down and I’ll tell you.”