SOS
Bzzz ... bzzz, bzzz, bzzz...... bzzz ... bz, bz, bz, bz ... bz ... ...
bzzz, bz, bz ... bz, bzzz ... bzzz, bz, bzzz, bzzz.
"What is it?" Tom asked, standing in the doorway of the wireless room
and looking at the black outline of Cattell's form as he sat at the
instrument shelf. He could hardly see Cattell for the darkness. It
seemed darker, even, than it did out on deck. Some small object fell,
and the sound seemed emphasized by the darkness.
"Huh, there goes my paperweight again," said Cattell; "it's getting
rough, isn't it?"
Tom groped around and found it; then, standing, grasped the door-jamb
again.
"I had to grab the hand-rail coming along," he said; "do you want to
turn in?"
"No; I couldn't sleep, anyway; I might as well be here."
"What was that you took?" Tom asked, as he clambered up into the berth
and settled himself comfortably. He, too, could not sleep.
"Same old stuff," said Cattell; "_To the day._ They're drinking each
other's health again."
"I got that a couple of times," said Tom; "what is it, anyway?"
Cattell reached out and pushed the door shut. "Must be pretty chizzly
for those fellows up in the crow's-nest," he said.
"Yes; it's queer to hear them calling in the dark, isn't it?"
"You didn't see any lights in the stateroom ports as you came along, did
you?" Cattell asked.
"Nope; there's a sailor marching back and forth outside along the
starboard tier. Everything's as dark as pitch."
They were silent for a few minutes, listening to the rising wind and to
the sound of the spray as it broke over the deck. Cattell folded a
despatch blank and stuffed it in the crack of the door to stop its
rattling.
"It's comfortable in here, anyway," said Tom; "it's kind of like
camping."
Again there was silence, broken only by the wind outside and the
occasional voice of the lookout, thin and spent as from another world,
and the scarcely audible, long-drawn-out answer from the bridge.
"'To the day,'" said Cattell, sticking his feet upon the shelf, "means
to the day the Kaiser will own the earth--emperor of the world. In the
German navy, whenever they take a drink they always say, 'To the day.'
The day that poor Austrian guy was murdered in Serbia--you know, that
prince--and the Kaiser saw his chance to start the ball rolling, all the
high dinkums in the German navy had a jambouree, and some old gink--von
Somebody or other--said: 'Now, to the day.'
"Well, it got to be a kind of password or slogan, as you might say. If a
German spy wants to let another German know that he's all right, he uses
a sentence with those three words in. And the sub-commanders are all the
time slinging it around the ocean--testing their instruments sometimes,
I dare say. It don't do any harm, I suppose. Talk's cheap."
"I wondered what it meant," said Tom.
"That's all it means. When you hear that you'll know some sub-captain is
taking a drink of wine or something. When the _Emden_ captured an
English ship a couple of years ago, it happened there was a nice,
gentlemanly German spy on board the Britisher. The German captain was
just going to pack him off with the others as a prisoner when he said
something with those three words in it. The German commander understood,
and they didn't take any of his things, but just let him stay among the
English, and the English weren't any the wiser."
"Huh," said Tom.
Again there was silence.
"I think the other operator is all right, don't you?" Tom asked.
"Sure--is or _was_. He may have been killed down there and thrown
overboard. He was straight as a bee-line. You put Conne on the right
track, all right."
"Do you think they'll ever find out about the rest of it?" Tom asked.
Cattell shrugged his shoulders. "Search _me_," he said.
All night long the wind blew and the swell broke noisily against the
ship and beat over the rail. At intervals, when Tom climbed down and
stumbled over to open the door for a glimpse of the sullen night, the
slanting rain blew in his face, and he closed the door again with
difficulty. It would have been a ticklish business to make one's way
along the deck then, he thought.
It was a couple of hours before dawn, and Tom, lulled by the darkness,
had fallen into a doze, when he was roused by a sudden shock and sat
upright clutching the side of the berth.
"What is it?" he said. "Are you there, Cattell?"
Afterward, when he recalled that moment, and tried to describe the
shock, he said it seemed as if the vessel were shaking herself, as a dog
shakes himself. The crash, which he had so often read about, he did not
hear at all; no sound except the heedless wind and the restless, beating
sea. It merely seemed as if the mighty ship were cold and had shuddered.
"It ain't anything, is it?" he asked, nevertheless climbing down from
his berth.
Then he became aware of something which startled him more than the shock
had done. The steady throbbing which had been continuously present since
that midnight when the ship first sailed, had ceased. The absolute
stillness under his feet seemed strange and ominous.
"It ain't--anything wrong--is it?" he repeated.
"I think we're struck," said Cattell quietly.
For a moment Tom breathed heavily, standing just where he was.
"Can I turn on the light?" he asked. The groping darkness seemed to
unnerve him more than anything else now--that and the awful stillness
under his feet.
"No--put the flashlight on the clock and see what time it is."
There were sounds outside now, and amid them the doleful distant voice
of the megaphone.
"Not three yet," said Tom.... "You--you sending out the call?"
"Yup."
A man in oilskins, carrying a lantern, threw open the door. The rain was
streaming from his garments and his hat.
"We're struck amidships," he said.
The telephone from the bridge rang.
"Answer that; find out where we are," said Cattell.
As Tom repeated the latitude and longitude the urgent "S O S" went forth
into the night. Lights were now visible outside, and the emergency gong
could be heard ringing, mingled with the hollow, far-off voice of the
megaphone.
"Better beat it to your post," said Cattell calmly, as his finger
played the key. "I'll take care of this." He did not seem at all
excited, and his quiet manner gave Tom self-control.
He went out and along the deck where the drenching rain glistened in the
fresh glare of the lights. Once, twice, he slipped and went sprawling to
the rail. He wondered whether it was from the roughness of the sea or
because the vessel was tilting over.
All about hurried people with life preservers on, some sprawling on the
deck like himself, in their haste. One man said the ship had been struck
above the waterline and would float. Others said she was settling;
others that she was sinking fast.
Tom's emergency post was at port davits P 27 on the promenade deck. He
knew what to do, for he had gone through the emergency drill twice a
day, but the tumultuous sea and the darkness and the cold, driving rain
disconcerted him.
Reaching the rail by the life-boat davits, he saw at once that the ship
was canting far over. The life-boat, which in the drills swung close to
the vessel's side, now hung far away. It was already filled and being
lowered.
Falling in line with several of the crew, Tom grasped the rope, and was
surprised at the ease with which the boat was lowered by means of the
multiplied leverage of the block and falls. In the drills, they had
manned but never lowered the boats.
"Don't try that," some one called from the descending boat. "You can't
make it, and we're crowded." The voice sounded strangely clear. "Better
go up on deck," another voice said.
Tom thought that some one must be trying to reach the descending boat
from one of the portholes below.
Then the rope slackened and an officer called, "All right?"
"All right," some one answered; "but she can't ride this."
Tom pressed close to the rail and looked down through the blinding rain.
He could see only dark figures and a lantern bobbing frantically.
"Pull her round crossways to the swell and get away from the
side--quick!" the officer in charge called.
"She's half full of water," answered a voice amid the wind and storm.
Men came rushing from the starboard deck where they said the boats could
not be launched because of the angle of the ship's side which prevented
them from swinging free. They were obedient enough, but greatly alarmed
when told that they must wait their turn.
The few army men on board were models of efficiency and quiet
discipline, herding back the excited passengers and trying to keep them
away from the rail, for the slant of the deck was now almost
perpendicular.
"Help those people launch that hatch if they want to," said an officer
to Tom.
Acting on the suggestion, a dozen or more men ranged themselves around
the hatch and Tom helped to lift it, while others clustered about, ready
to climb upon it.
"You'll have to clear away from here," said an officer; "sixteen is the
limit for one of those hatches. There are seven more." Evidently the
rescuing capacity of the hatches had already been ascertained.
The frightened people hurried along through the driving rain and the
darkness, some of them slipping on the streaming deck and sliding
pell-mell to the rail, which broke away with the impact in one place and
precipitated several screaming persons into the ocean.
Hurriedly Tom counted those around the hatch and found that the officer
had evidently included him among the sixteen who should man it.
"Do you mean for me to go too?" he asked, in his usual dull manner.
"You might as well," the officer answered brusquely.
The great vessel had lost all its pride and dignity, and seemed a poor,
reeling, spiritless thing. The deck was deserted save for the little
group about the hatch who strove with might and main to launch this last
poor medium of rescue. The abrupt pitch of the deck made their frantic
efforts seem all but hopeless, and walking, even standing, was quite out
of the question. Tom could feel the ship heeling over beneath him.
Even the cheerily authoritative voice of the megaphone up on the bridge
had now ceased, and there was no reassuring reminder of life
there--nothing but the black outline of the trestled structure, slanting
at a dreadful angle with the water pouring from it.
Tom and his distracted companions were evidently the last on board.
The rail was now so low that the plunge of the hatch would not be very
hazardous at all events, for the seething waters beat over the deck now
and again, rolling up as on a beach at the seashore and adding their
ominous chill to Tom's already chilled body.
Out of the turmoil of the sea sounds rose, some the even tones of
command, sounding strangely out of place in the storm; others which he
recognized with a shudder as the last frightful gasps of drowning
persons.
In a minute--two minutes--he would be plunged into that seething brine
where he still might hear but could not see. Instinctively he increased
his exertions with this makeshift raft which, if they could but cling to
it till the sea subsided, might bear them up until succor came.
As soon as the hatch was raised, it began to slide away, and those who
had lifted it jumped upon it, clinging as best they could.
From somewhere out of the darkness a man came rushing pell-mell for this
precarious refuge. As he jumped upon it, clutching frantically at the
moulding around its edge, Tom stepped off.
The angle of the careening ship was now so steep that he could not stand
upon the deck, but as he slipped he caught hold of a vent pipe and so
managed to reach the stateroom tier where all the doors hung open like
the covers of so many inverted cigar boxes, flapping in the wind and
rain.
The hatch had slid to the deck's edge and was held precariously by the
doubtful strength of the straining rail.
"Get on!" one of the men called to Tom. "Hurry up!"
"The officer said only sixteen," he answered.
"Are you crazy?" another man called. "Get on while you can!"
"He said only sixteen," Tom called back impassively.
"It's every man for himself now and no orders!" shouted another. Perhaps
it was the man who had usurped Tom's place.
"He said only----"
The rest of his answer was drowned by the crashing of the rail as the
hatch went plunging from the deck into the black turmoil below. The last
they saw of him, he was clinging to one of the flapping doors, his foot
braced against a cable cleat, his shock of hair blowing wildly this way
and that, the rain streaming from his face and soaking clothes.
He did not look at all like a hero, nor even like the picture of a scout
on the cover of a boys' magazine....