That evening at the hour when Silent Storm had promised to be waiting at
his Florida airport to receive any urgent message Sally might send,
Sally sat alone in her cabin. Her fingers were on the dial, headphones
over her ears, speaker under her chin.
“I will,” she whispered. “I must. It’s for the best pal I ever had, for
Danny.”
And yet, she hesitated. It was very still in the cabin. There was only
the faint sound of water rushing along the ship’s side. The thin fog
continued. The convoy moved majestically on. Everyone said they had won
a marvelous victory. Five, perhaps six submarines had been destroyed. No
one could tell for sure about the other two. That her secret radio had
played a major role in this victory she knew quite well. With her help,
this radio with its gleaming red eyes had put out long fingers and
touched the subs here, there, and everywhere. Then those brave boys in
their planes had gone out and destroyed them.
“Danny got one. And then—” She did not finish.
She could not.
She started as there came a knock at her door. After hastily throwing a
blanket over the radio, she said:
“Come in.”
The door opened. “Oh! Mrs. Duke!” she exclaimed. “I’m glad you came.”
“I thought you might need me,” The words were spoken in a surprisingly
calm voice.
“Yes, I-”
Sally lifted the blanket from the radio.
“That’s good! It’s a fine and noble gesture.” Danny’s mother took a
chair.
“It—it’s not just a gesture!” the girl exclaimed. “It’s the realest
thing I ever thought of doing in all my life!”
“Yes, but you must not do it. You must not send the message.”
“It’s for Danny, your son, my friend and pal!”
“Yes, Danny is my son.” The gray-haired woman spoke slowly. “My only
son—he—he’s been my life. But you must not send that message. It would
almost surely mean court-martial for yourself.”
“Yes—I know. I don’t care.” Sally’s hand was on the dial.
[Illustration: “Thought You Might Need Me,” She Said]
“Yes, I know. You would sacrifice your freedom and your honor for Danny.
That is noble. I would do the same and much more.
“But there are others to consider.” The woman’s voice sounded tired. “So
many others! There are more soldiers in this convoy than we know about,
thousands of them! They too are fine young men, just as fine as our
Danny. They too are prepared to sacrifice their lives for their country.
It would be tragic if their lives were wasted.”
“But our boys destroyed those submarines!”
“Not all of them, not for sure, and there are other enemy wolf-packs.
There were never as many as now. We know that they use the same
wave-length as your radio does. They will hear your message and will
hunt us down.”
“We will be listening, Nancy and I, night and day. Let them come! Our
airplanes will destroy them!”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. The weather may not be right for flying. And
then, try to think what it might be like.”
“But Danny?” The words came in a whisper that was like a prayer.
“Danny is alive. I feel sure of that. He’s on his rubber raft. The sea
is calm.”
“But it may storm.”
“God will look after Danny. You believe in God’s care for his children,
don’t you?”
“I—I don’t know. I’ve never been able to think that through.”
“Then you’ll have to trust Danny’s mother.” Mrs. Duke smiled a rare
smile. “The time may come when Danny will mean more to you than he does
to me. When that time comes, I shan’t mind. You are a splendid young
lady. But until that time I shall have the right to say: ‘Sally, don’t
send that message.’”
“All right.” Sally went limp all over. “You win.”
A moment later, after giving herself a shake, she stood up. “I’ll put
the radio away. There’ll be no more subs for a time. Nancy and I have
been invited by the Captain to have our evening meal with him at the
officers’ table.”
“That’s splendid!” Mrs. Duke stood up. “You’ll enjoy it. You’re a real
hero.”
“Will I? Am I?” Sally asked these questions of herself after Danny’s
mother had gone. She did not know the answers.
* * * * *
Danny’s mother was right. For the moment at least, Danny was safe and
quite comfortable. After battling his half-wrecked plane to a point
where further struggle and loss of altitude might prove fatal, he gave
up the fight and, circling down, went in for a crash landing.
His was as successful as any crash landing can be. Between the time he
hit the water and his plane sank he was able to inflate his rubber raft,
look into its equipment, and even salvage a heavy leather coat he
carried for an emergency.
Scarcely had he accomplished this and paddled a short distance, when the
plane put its nose into the water, stood there quivering, then
disappeared from sight.
“Good old plane,” he murmured, as a strange feeling of loneliness swept
over him. “You did your full duty. You sank a sub and probably saved a
ship. Now, in Davy Jones’s Locker, you can rest in peace.
“Looks as if I’d get some rest, too,” he thought as, a short time later,
he settled back against the soft, rounded side of his raft.
“A good, long rest,” he added as a cool damp mist, touched his cheek and
the chill, gray fog came drifting in.
When he first hit the water the boom, bang and rat-tat-tat of battle
were still in the air. After that had come comparative silence,
disturbed only by the low roar of planes returning to their ship.
“A fine bunch of fellows,” he thought, as a lump rose in his throat.
“Finest ever. Here’s hoping they all land safely.”
A faint hope remained that one of those planes would get away to search
for him. When the fog came in he knew that hope was at an end.
He found the silence, broken only by the lap-lap of little waves,
oppressive.
“Going to be lonesome,” he thought as he started to examine the gadgets
that came with the rubber raft. There was a fish line and some
artificial bait.
“I’ll try them all out,” he chuckled. “If I catch a whopper with one of
the lures, I’ll send the manufacturer a picture of it with a story.
He’ll like it for his catalogue.
“Only I won’t,” he murmured a moment later. “They forgot to pack a
candid camera.”
Instead of a camera he found a device for distilling fresh water from
salt, some iron rations, and a small bottle of vitamin B1.
“What? No vitamin D?” he roared. “But then, I’ve heard that there’s lots
of the sunshine vitamin in the ocean air.”
At that he settled back for a rest. Even if worse came to worst he was
better off than those wolf-pack pirates who had come after them.
* * * * *
It was with a feeling of misgiving that Sally allowed herself, along
with Nancy, to be led to the door of the officers’ mess hall that
evening. But when the Captain met them at the door with a bow and a
smile instead of a stiff salute, things began looking better.
As they entered the mess hall they found all of the officers standing in
their places. When the Captain had escorted them to their places at the
head of his table he stood smartly erect, every inch a commander, as he
said:
“Gentlemen, I propose a salute to the ladies of the day, Sally Scott and
Nancy McBride of the WAVES.”
Instantly every man stood erect and snapped to a salute. It was a simple
and impressive ceremony, one long to be remembered, but to Sally’s utter
confusion, she almost forgot to return the salute.
It was all over in twenty seconds of time. Then they were all seated in
their places ready for the meal that was to be quite a feast, in
celebration of a real victory.
There was fried chicken with cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes, fresh,
crisp celery, and baked squash. All this was topped with ice cream and
very fine coffee.
Was Sally conscious of all this wealth of good things? Well, hardly. She
was, first of all, tremendously interested in Captain Donald MacQueen
who sat at her side. All her life she had dreamed of really knowing
great and important people. Not that she wished to brag about it, far
from that. She did long for an opportunity to study them, to feel their
greatness, to try to absorb some of the qualities that had made them
great. Now just such a man was giving the major portion of his time to
her for one blissful half hour. A young lieutenant had taken over the
task of entertaining Nancy, and he did not seem at all unhappy about it
either.
Important to Sally also were the things Captain MacQueen was saying to
her.
“This old friend of yours—his name is Kennedy, I believe—must be a
great genius,” he suggested.
“Oh, he is!” she beamed.
“But it does seem strange that he should have entrusted such a priceless
device to a, well, to any young person.”
“Perhaps it may seem that way to you,” was her slow reply, “but, Captain
MacQueen, I think that too often those who boast of gray hairs
underestimate the dependability, the devotion, yes, and the wisdom of
the young people of today—and—and,” she checked herself, “I have
worked with him for six years.”
“Everything you say is true.” His dark eyes twinkled. “But such a
priceless invention! Look what it has accomplished today—given us a
clean-cut victory, perhaps saved hundreds of lives and very precious
cargo.
“Miss Scott,” he leaned close, speaking low, “this is one of the most
important convoys ever to cross the Atlantic. Our enemy is not through.
He will attack again and yet again, perhaps. But if we can always know,
as we did today, the hour, the very moment of his attack—what a boon!”
“C. K. Kennedy is a very old man.” She was speaking slowly again, “He is
an extremely modest man. In the case of another important invention he
met with disappointment. I am sure he did not realize the real value of
this secret radio.”
“But now he shall know. He shall be richly rewarded. Of course the
government will want to take over his invention, but even so—”
“He does not ask for reward, only recognition.”
“He shall have both, and in good measure,” the Captain declared. “And
now, let’s talk for a little while about the radio that is in your
stateroom right now.”
“Ah,” Sally thought, with a sharp intake of breath, “now it is coming!”
“Of course, you realize, Miss Scott,” he said, speaking low but
distinctly, “that for the present and probably for a long time to come,
your radio has value to the Navy only as a listening ear.”
“No,” she replied quite frankly. “I’m not sure of that. It works quite
well as a sending set.”
“In bringing such a radio on board you must have realized that you were
laying yourself open to serious charges.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then, why did you do it?” His words were spoken in a tone that betrayed
only a kindly interest.
“Because I believed the radio to be a great invention, one that could be
made to serve my country, and because I wanted to bring honor to a real
friend.”
“You did not really mean to try communicating with anyone on land?” he
asked in a quiet tone.
“Only in case of a great emergency, and then only with an officer.” Her
voice was low.
“I can think of no emergency that would warrant the sending of such a
message. The truth is that such a message would be almost certain to
bring in one more sub wolf-pack to hunt us down.
“That is not all.” He was still speaking in a low, friendly voice. “The
moment our enemy realizes that we are able to listen in on his talk from
sub to sub, that moment your radio loses its value. Think what it will
mean if the escorting vessel in every convoy should be able in the
future to listen as we did today while the wolf-pack moves in!”
“I-I have thought.” Sally wet her dry lips. “I shall not attempt to
contact anyone with my radio, unless you sanction it—not—” she
swallowed hard, “not for anything.”
“That is being a good sailor.” Putting out a hand he said: “It will be a
pleasure to shake the hand of a lady who does honor to the Navy.” They
shook hands solemnly.
When at last Sally and Nancy found themselves on the open deck once
more, they were in prime condition for a long promenade.
“My head is in a whirl!” Nancy exclaimed. “How could all this happen to
us?”
“We’re just what Danny would call fools for kick,” was Sally’s reply.
And then, at the very mention of Danny, she felt an all but
irrepressible desire to sink down on the deck. Danny too should have had
a part in all this. And where was he now?
“The Captain was wonderful,” she said to Nancy. “He must know how we
feel about Danny.”
“Of course he does. He knows we all worked together on the radio.”
“And yet he never once mentioned Danny.”
“Didn’t he?”
“No, and I think that is about the most wonderful of all.”
For a time after that they marched on in silence. In a shadowy corner
they passed two other WAVES seated on a pile of canvas. It was too dark
to distinguish their faces.
After passing beyond a ladder, they paused to watch the moon, a faint
yellow ball, rolling through the fog that was thinning and blowing away.
Then they heard one of the other WAVES talking. “Know who those girls
are?” she was saying. “They are the ladies of the day. Imagine!” Her
laugh was not good to hear. “One of them worked in a radio shop. The
other was a radio ham. Now they’re the ladies of the day. And I gave up
a five-thousand-a-year secretarial job to act as yeoman to Captain Mac
Queen. Isn’t war just wonderful?”
“Who is that girl?” Sally whispered, as she and Nancy hurried on.
“She’s the Old Man’s yeoman all right (secretary to you),” Nancy
replied. “I recognized her voice.”
“What’s she got against us?” Sally asked in a puzzled voice.
“That’s for her to know and for us to find out,” said Nancy. “But she’ll
bear watching!”