THE LAST LETTER
Then Elmer Sawyer (he’s a Raven) came up to me and said, “He’ll do it,
Roy; don’t worry. And they’ll get it too, because everybody in town is
out these nights looking at the searchlights down the Hudson.”
That was one lucky thing. A lot of cruisers and torpedo boats were down
in the harbor and up the Hudson, and we could see their searchlights
even in Bridgeboro.
Wig looked all around the cabin as if he was hunting for something and
then he said, “No searchlight, I suppose.” If we had only had a
searchlight it would have been easy, but there wasn’t any on board.
“Don’t you care,” Pee-wee said to me, “he’ll think of a way.” Oh,
jiminy, but he was proud of Wig. I could see that Wig was thinking and
for just a few seconds it seemed as if he couldn’t make up his mind what
to do.
“Can you smudge it?” Connie Bennett asked.
“Guess so,” he said, “you fellows rip open the ends of these cushions,
but don’t tear the covering any, and somebody get the stove cleared out;
see if there’s a damper in the pipe, and see if there’s any bilge under
the flooring. It’ll take those fellows about twenty minutes to chug up
to Bridgeboro.”
Well, in two seconds he had us all flying every which way, Elks, Silver
Foxes and all.
We didn’t have to open more than one of the seat cushions and, lucky
thing, we found it full of excelsior. That makes a good smudge.
“Only you’ve got to treat it,” Wig said.
“Treat it!” I said; “I’ll treat it to all the ice cream it can eat, if
it’ll only help you to send the message.” I was feeling good now.
“Take it down in the bilge and treat it,” he said, very sober like, to
one of his patrol.
“Don’t let it spend a cent,” I called after him. But I didn’t go because
I could see he would rather have Ravens help him. You can’t blame him
for that. In about half a minute they came upstairs and they had a lot
of the excelsior all damp, but not exactly wet, and I don’t know how
they got it that way, except I know there was bilge water down under the
flooring. They’re a lot of cracker-jacks on signalling, I’ll say that
much for them.
There was a stove in the main cabin with a stovepipe going straight up
through the roof like a smoke stack and there was a damper in it right
near the stove.
“Get a handbook or a pocket code,” somebody said, “so he’ll have the
signs right near him.”
“He doesn’t need any signs,” Pee-wee shouted, disgusted like.
Well, this is the way Wig did it, and after he got started, most of us
went up on the roof to see if we could read it. But that’s mighty hard
to do when you’re right underneath it.
By the time the fellows came upstairs with the damp excelsior (that’s
what they call the smudge) Wig had a good fire started in the stove.
“Lay that stuff down here,” he said; then he said to me, “What do you
want to say?”
“Just say I’m safe, Wig,” I told him. “Say for them not to pay any
attention to what they hear.”
I only waited long enough for him to get started, just so as to see how
he did it, then I went up on the roof and watched the long black smoke
column. Cracky, I was glad it was moonlight, that’s one sure thing.
As soon as he had a good fire started he stuffed some of the damp
excelsior in and shut the door, and told Artie Van Arlen (he’s their
patrol leader) to hold a rag over the crack in the door, because the
black smoke was pouring out that way, especially because the damper in
the pipe was shut.
I didn’t stay there long, because the smoke was too thick for me and
when I saw Artie bind a wet rag over Wig’s eyes and mouth, I knew then
it was going to be mighty bad in that little cabin.
“Have another ready,” I heard him say; “better have three or four of
them.”
Then he put his hand on the damper in the pipe and turned it and then
the smoke in the cabin wasn’t so bad. He just turned it around quick and
kept turning it around and that let little puffs of smoke through, and I
heard the fellows up on the roof shouting, “Hurrah!” so I knew it was
working all right. He sent up a lot of little puffs like that, just so
as to draw attention, and he kept doing it so long I got impatient.
“No use talking till you know somebody’s listening,” he said, kind of
pleasant like to me. I guess maybe he never liked me very much, because
I didn’t want that badge to get into their patrol, and anyway he’s kind
of sober, sort of, and maybe he thought I had too much nonsense. But,
oh, boy, I was strong for him now. And I could see how he began to cough
and I was worried.
Then he groped around to get hold of the damper, for he was blindfolded
and the smoke in there was getting thicker and thicker. Then he gave it
a quick turn, then waited a few seconds, then held it lengthwise with
the pipe for about twenty seconds.
_R_ I said to myself.
Then he opened the damper three times, each about twenty seconds, and I
could hear the fellows up on the roof shouting.
“O! It’s a good O! Bully for Wig Weigand!”
“Give me another towel, quick,” he said to Artie. “Is the window open?
You better go up, Kid.”
It was the first time he ever called me kid and he had to cough when he
said it. But I just couldn’t move. There was something in my throat and
my eyes that wasn’t smoke, and I said, “I can stand it if you can—Wig.”
“Go on up, kid,” he said, “we’ve—got—got—her—talking—now,” and he
coughed and choked.
“Go on up, Roy,” Artie Van Arlen said.
Up on the roof all the fellows were sitting around the edge with their
legs over, watching the black column in the sky, and shouting when they
read the letters. But I was thinking about those fellows down in that
cabin filled with smoke and how they were doing that all on account of
me.
“Pretty smoky down there,” one of the Elks said to me.
“You said something,” I told him.
“He’s marking up the sky all right, if he can only stick it out,”
another fellow said. “Who’s down there with him?”
“Artie,” I said.
“They’ll stick it out, all right,” Westy Martin said; “it’s easier for
Artie, he can stay near the window.”
“Bully for you, Wig, old boy!” somebody shouted, just as the E in _SAFE_
shot up. And I knew what it meant—it meant that the words _Roy is safe_
had been printed in great big black letters across the sky.
Then it came faster and faster and it seemed as if he must be turning
that damper like a telegraph operator moves his key. “Don’t worry,” it
said, “reports false,” “Roy Blakeley safe,” “Roy safe,” “Blakeley
alive.” He said it all kinds of different ways.
Once Artie came up coughing and choking and watched a few seconds to see
if the wind was blowing the smoke away as fast as the signs were made,
because that was important.
“It’s lucky we have that wind,” he said, and then went down again in a
hurry.
Pretty soon we could see some searchlights far away and I guess they
were on the ships. But ours was different and nearer to Bridgeboro, and
people would be sure to see it, only maybe they wouldn’t understand it
and that’s what made me worry. I’m good on reading smudge signals, even
though I never sent many and I never have to have the _Handbook_ when I
read the code, that’s one thing. And I didn’t pay much attention to all
the talking and yelling, only kept my eyes up in the sky, watching that
long smoky column. It beat any searchlight _you_ ever saw. “Roy
alive”—“Roy alive” it kept saying and sometimes “don’t worry.” I didn’t
see how any fellow could manage a smudge and send it so fast and keep
his spaces. The last word before it stopped was _SAFE_, or that’s what
it was meant to be, only the short flash for E didn’t come. The fellows
all began shouting when there wasn’t any more, and I heard Pee-wee shout
downstairs, “Aren’t you going to put the name of the boat?”
“Do you want him to crack the sky open?” I heard a fellow say, and they
all laughed.
But I remembered how that last E didn’t come and I started down the
ladder for all I was worth. I scrambled around the narrow part of the
deck to the window and called, but nobody answered. The smoke was coming
out thick.
“Wig,” I said, “are you there? Are you all right? Artie, where are you?”
I had to turn away my face on account of the smoke. I pulled off my
scout scarf and tied it over my mouth, so that it covered my ears too.
Then I looked in and down low, because I knew that the smoke wouldn’t be
so thick near the floor. And I saw Wig Weigand lying there right under
the stove pipe and his hand was reaching up holding the damper, and his
hand was all white like and his eyes were wide open and staring. Then I
shouted for all I was worth.
“Doc! come down—hurry! Send Doc Carson down, Wig Weigand is dead—he’s
suffocated.”