Presently Riggs came hurrying back. Nancy and Sally remained in the
radio room, dividing their time between listening for messages from the
outside world, and watching with awe the ever-narrowing circle being
drawn about the convoy by the enemy sub pack.
Riggs busied himself getting off messages from station to station on the
ship. All men were ordered to their posts. Planes not in readiness were
prepared for flight. Some were hoisted from the lower deck to flight
deck.
“It’s like a calm before a terrible storm,” Nancy said to Sally. Soon
enough they were to learn what an actual storm could mean to a convoy at
sea. For the present, however, there was quite enough to occupy their
minds.
Once, when Sally climbed the ladder to the flight deck for a breath of
air, she chanced to bump into Danny Duke.
“Oh, Danny!” she exclaimed. “Must you go out?” He was garbed in flying
togs. A parachute hung at his back.
“Sure!” He laughed. “What do you think I trained for? A game of
volleyball?”
She didn’t think. She just didn’t want anyone she liked as well as Danny
to be out there fighting subs, dodging antiaircraft fire and watching
the black sea that waited to swallow him up.
At last, as dawn approached and a young officer came to take her place,
Sally closed up her black box, removed the wires and marched away to
store it under her berth.
“Stay there a while,” she whispered, “until we know whether you mean
honor or disaster for me.”
It was with a sober face that she returned to the flight deck. She found
the planes that were to go all in place, their motors turning over
slowly.
She caught a quick breath as the first plane took off; then the second
and third had whirled away when a hand waved to her as a voice shouted:
“Hi, Sally! See you later!”
It was Danny. In ten seconds he was not there.
“Gone! Just like that.” She swallowed hard to keep back the tears.
“Yes, just like that,” came in a quiet voice. Sally turned to find
Danny’s mother standing beside her.
“Tha—that was Danny,” Sally murmured hoarsely.
“Yes, that was my boy, Danny.”
“Did—did you want him to go?” Sally asked.
“Of course, my child. He’s well prepared, Danny is. It’s the work he was
trained to do. Our country is at war. We must all do our part.” The
mother’s eyes were bright, but no tears gleamed there.
“It’s so much easier to dream of war than it is to see it, feel it, and
be a part of it,” Sally murmured.
“Yes, dreams are often more pleasing than the realities of life,”
Danny’s mother agreed.
Sally stood where she was. There was comfort to be had from communing
with this big, motherly woman, comfort and peace. And just then she was
greatly in need of peace, for she was being weighed in the balance. The
next few moments would decide everything. And so she stood there waiting
for the answer.
And then the answer came, a deep-toned muffled roar, that seemed to
shake the sea.
“They’ve found them,” Mrs. Duke said. “That’s a bomb.”
“They were there. They’ve found them!” Sally wanted to shout for joy.
She said never a word, just stood there thinking: “Good old C. K. will
be famous because of his secret radio. I won’t be court-martialed and
thrown out of service for bringing it on board. Perhaps it has saved the
convoy from attack, may save it again and again. Glory! Glory!”
Just then there came another roar. This was followed by a series of
pom-pom-poms.
“That’s antiaircraft fire,” said Danny’s mother.
“Does it come from our destroyers?” Sally asked.
“No. We are the ones who have airplanes, not they. Besides, our guns on
the destroyers don’t sound like that. You’ll hear them. There! There’s
one now!”
There had come a boom that seemed to roll away to sea. There was another
and another.
All this time, for all the world as if they were anchored in some
harbor, the forty ships laden with freight and human cargo kept their
places and moved majestically forward.
“It’s beautiful,” Danny’s mother murmured.
“And terrible!” Sally added with a sigh.
Soon from all sides there came the roar of bombs, the pom-pom-pom of
antiaircraft fire, and all the time Sally was thinking: “Danny! Oh,
Danny!”
And what of Danny? Having been told the course he should take, he had
gone gliding straight away toward his supposed objective. Nor did he
miss it. Feeling safe in their false security, the eight enemy
submarines on the surface had come gliding silently toward the
apparently defenseless convoy.
At the sound of Danny’s roaring motor, the sub he had been sent to
destroy crashdived, but too late. Swooping low, Danny released a bomb
with unerring accuracy. It missed them by feet, but when it exploded it
brought the sub to the surface with a rush and roar of foam.
By the time Danny could swing back, three of the enemy had manned an
antiaircraft gun, but, nothing daunted, Danny again swung low and this
time he did not miss. His bomb fell squarely on the ill-fated craft and
it exploded with a terrific roar.
But before this could happen, the antiaircraft gun had put a shell
squarely through the body of Danny’s plane, ripping the radio away,
damaging the plane’s controls, and missing sending Danny to oblivion by
only a foot or two.
“That,” said Danny, as if talking of someone other than himself, “was
your closest miss. Another time, they’d get you. But that other time
won’t be—ever. So how about getting back to the ship?” Yes, how? His
motor was missing, and his controls stuck at every turn.
* * * * *
In the meantime three planes came zooming back. Anxiously Sally waited
as the landing crews made them fast. Danny’s plane was not among them.
One plane, a two-seated dive-bomber, had been shot up. Its pilot was
wounded. Mrs. Duke went away to care for him.
The other two planes remained on board just long enough to take on more
bombs. Then they were off again.
Catching Sally’s eye, the Captain motioned her to join him at the
bridge.
“It’s marvelous!” he told her. “That secret radio of yours has saved
ships and lives. Eight subs all ready to pounce on us and now look—” He
swung his arm in a broad circle taking in all the gliding ships.