As I have said, I was in the coastwise trade for nearly a year, and
could _savvy_ anything in English or Spanish, Morse or Continental, that
the old-time operators were able to send. I had sent and received
messages of every description and for every conceivable purpose.
Why, once a brother operator and I married a maid who was on board my
ship to a man somewhere in Panama by wireless. Of course there was a
minister at each end to help the ceremony along but it was we operators
who really did it with our wireless sets.
Another time while we were running through a storm it was my pleasant
duty to flash the tidings ashore that a stork had overtaken us and added
two more to our passenger list, both consigned, to use a maritime term,
to the same family.
The most exciting time I had while I was on the _Carlos Madino_ was when
we were taking a cargo of munitions to the Nicaraguan government and
which we had orders to land at “Alvarada,” the headquarters of the Army.
When we were within a day’s run of that port I heard the call _CM CM CM_
which was our ship. I sent my _O. K._, and then got a message for the
Captain which told him to land the cargo at “Grayville” as the
insurgents were watching “Alvarada.” It was signed Strada, Minister of
War, Nicaragua.
I took this important message to the Captain myself and we were soon
headed for “Grayville.” Several other messages passed between the
Captain and the Minister of War and it struck me that the signals were
the strongest I had ever received for the distance covered; in fact they
were strong enough for a 5 kilowatt transmitter instead of a 2 kilowatt
transmitter which I knew was installed at the station at “Alvarada.”
My first thought was that I had struck some highly sensitive spot on my
crystal and I tested it out only to find that wherever I put the wire
point on it the signals came in just as clear and loud. I wondered.
While I am not the seventh son of a son-of-a-gun nor do I claim any
supernatural powers I got the _hunch_ that down here in tropic waters
where insurrections are the rule and not the exception all was not as it
should be.
I told the Captain about it and while he didn’t take much stock in the
idea he had a search made of the ship. One of the room stewards reported
that he had found an electric cord with a plug end hanging from a lamp
socket in room 138. It might have been for an electric iron, for a
hot-water heater or any one of a dozen other electric appliances, he
said, but it looked suspicious.
A more thorough search of room 138, in which the Captain and I took
part, revealed a heavy suit case under the bunk, which had a place to
plug in the cord, another for the receivers, and a key--at least this
was my theory. A strict watch was kept on the stateroom and I went back
and sent _GA_, which was the call for “Alvarada” every few minutes.
In the course of fifteen minutes or so I got the _OK_ of the operator at
_GA_. The steward who had entered the stateroom adjoining the one
occupied by the suspect heard the faintest sounds of sparks coming from
it. After this report I made a careful examination of my aerial and
found that the _leading-in_ wire from it which connected with my _aerial
switch_ had been cut while the end of the wire from my instruments had
been connected to a wire so small it could scarcely be seen and this
wire led to stateroom 138.
After connecting my instruments to the aerial again I immediately got in
touch with the station at “Alvarada” and learned that no orders had been
given by the Minister of War to change our port of destination. The
Captain had the protesting passenger put in irons to be turned over to
the government officials of Nicaragua and thus it was that another small
insurrection was knocked in the head.
I had filed an application with the _Marconi Company of America_ for a
job on one of their transatlantic ships; it was in for nearly three
months and I had long since concluded that it and I were pigeonholed. My
great ambition now was to get a berth on one of the big ships that
crossed the pond. Various operators had told me that it was useless to
try to get in with the _Marconi Company_ because the latter employed
only operators who received their training in the Marconi wireless
schools abroad.
Be that as it may on one of my return trips my father handed me a note
from the Chief Engineer of the _Marconi Company_ to see him. I did so
and the result of that interview gave me the post of Chief Wireless
officer of the s. s. _Andalusian_, one of the largest ships of the _Blue
Star Line_.
Her route was between New York and Liverpool. Built by Harlan and Wolff
of Belfast, Ireland, she was launched in 1901 and fitted for the
transatlantic service in 1902. She was over 600 feet long, her breadth
was nearly 70 feet and her depth was 40 feet. Talk about a ship, boy,
the _Andalusian_ was as far ahead of the _Carlos Madino_ as that ship
was ahead of a lifeboat.
The aerial of the _Andalusian_ was formed of two wires 375 feet long and
suspended between her top-gallant masts 200 feet above the sea and were
held apart by two 8-foot spreaders. She was one of the first ships to be
fitted with wireless and her wireless room was a specially built room on
the port side of the forward saloon deck.
Although the apparatus was of the old Marconi type, having been
installed when the ship was built, we could send from 300 to 400 miles
with it and receive four times that distance. The transmitter was formed
of two 10 inch induction coils the primaries of which were connected in
series and the secondaries in parallel so that while the length of the
spark was still 10 inches it was twice as fat and hence proportionately
more powerful.
There was a _jigger_, as Marconi called his tuning coil, and a battery
of 18 Leyden jars made up the condenser for tuning the sending circuits.
It was also fitted with a new kind of a key invented by Sammis who was
at that time the chief engineer of the _Marconi Company of America_.
He called it a _changeover switch_ but it was really a key and an aerial
switch combined. In order to connect the receiver with the aerial all
you had to do was to turn the key, which was on a pivot, to the right.
When the key was turned it also cut off the current from the transmitter
by breaking the sliding contact between them.
To throw on the transmitter and cut off the receiver you simply turned
the key back to its normal position and this made the connection between
the aerial and tuning coil and at the same time it closed the circuit
connecting the source of current with the induction coils.
The up-to-date feature of this set was the storage battery which
provided an auxiliary source of current so that in the event of the ship
becoming disabled and water flooding the engine room, which would put
the dynamo out of commission, the storage battery in the operating room
could be thrown in and _C Q D_ could be sent out as long as the wireless
room remained above water. This was a mighty good piece of hindsight,
for ships that might otherwise have been saved by wireless had gone down
at sea with passengers, crew and cargo simply because the dynamos were
drowned out.
The receiver was different from the one I used on the _Carlos Madino_
for instead of a _crystal detector_ we had a _magnetic detector_ which
Marconi had recently invented. While the magnetic detector was not
nearly as sensitive as a crystal detector when you found a sensitive
spot on the latter, still there were no adjustments to be constantly
made as with the former.
Now I’ve told you something about the ship and her wireless equipment
and right here I want to introduce Algernon Percy Jeems, Second Wireless
Officer of the _Andalusian_ and my assistant. Perce, as I called him,
looked his name and lived up to it. He was as thoroughbred a gentleman
as ever worked a key.
He wasn’t very big in body--only 5 foot 4--and he was of very frail
build but he proved to be a giant when it came to sheer bravery and as
for meeting death when duty called he was absolutely unafraid. In fact
when he saw the grim old reaper bearing down on him he went out of his
way to grasp him by the hand and said: “When I get through with this
message I’ll be ready to go with you.” And he did!
Before I tell you what happened to the _Andalusian_ and of the heroic
nerve of Jeems, I want you to know what _C Q D_ means and how it came to
be used as a distress signal. It was not until Jack Binns, who stuck to
his key for 52 hours on the ill-fated _Republic_ and by so doing saved
the lives of 1600 passengers and crew on board that _C Q D_ came to be
known the world over as a distress signal.
In the _Continental code_, which is used all over Europe by the wire
telegraph lines, _C Q_ means that every operator on the line shall give
attention to the message which is to follow. It was natural then that
when wireless apparatus began to be installed on ships that the
_Continental code_ should be the one used. _C Q_ was the call signal
employed to mean that every operator was to give attention to the
message to follow, just as in the wire systems, or as it is said on
shipboard to _stand by_.
Then the _Marconi Company_ added the letter _D_ which means danger,
hence _C Q D_ means _stand by danger_ and when this signal is received
by an operator at sea, no matter how important the message that he is
sending or receiving may be, he drops it at once and answers the _C Q D_
signal to find out what the trouble is.
Now to go on with the story: We sailed from Liverpool about noon on the
15th of March for New York with a full passenger list and a valuable
cargo. The first couple of days out the weather was fairly decent but as
usual at this time of the year we ran into a real winter gale. We were
struck time and again by mountainous seas. One gigantic wave that broke
over her bow tore away a part of the bridge, others poured through
ventilators and nearly every time she was hit more damage was done. To
make matters worse the high winds drove us out of our course.
Although a sharp watch was kept it was so dark at night the lookout
couldn’t see his hand an arm’s length before his eyes though he might
have been able to see a ship’s lights ahead had one been bearing down on
us. As the Captain had been on the bridge continuously for three days
and nights I felt it was my duty as the first wireless officer to stick
to my key, and though it was Perce’s watch I told him to turn in.
About midnight I heard the hull scrape against something that sounded as
though she’d struck bottom when crossing a bar, or perhaps it was an
iceberg. She keeled over until I thought she was a goner but straining
and giving in every part of her superstructure she gradually rolled back
and righted herself again.
The saloon and second cabin passengers came tumbling out of their rooms
in nighties and pajamas but what they lacked in clothes they made up in
life preservers. Wherever you find danger there you will find among the
panic-stricken a few cool, calm and collected men and women and sure
enough two or three men and as many women appeared a few minutes later
fully dressed and ready for anything that might happen. The officers
assured all hands that nothing had or could happen and nearly all of
them returned to their rooms.
The third class passengers were locked in the steerage and here
pandemonium reigned. They pounded on the hatchways and demanded that
they be allowed to go on deck; they were scared stiff. Like the other
and more fortunate passengers they were soon quieted by cool headed
stewards and returned to their miserable quarters in the fo’cas’le.
Within the next couple of hours one of the assistant engineers
discovered that the seams of the hull had parted aft and the water was
pouring into her hold. The Captain ordered all the bulkhead doors
closed, to keep the water out of the other compartments, and her great
pumps going, but once started the mighty pressure of the inrushing water
ripped her seams farther along and broadened the gap. Knowing she could
not stay afloat for any great length of time the Captain ordered me to
send out the call for help and to be quick about it.
I got busy with the key sending out _C Q D C Q D C Q D_ listening
inbetween the calls as I never listened before to get an _O K_ to my
signals. It seemed as if all the operators were either asleep, dead or
on the other side of the Equator, but after an eternity of time--which
probably amounted to as much as five minutes by the clock--I caught the
signal _O K_ and then, “what’s up, old man.”
It was the s. s. _Arapahoe_ that had answered and I was nearly frantic
with joy for I felt that all of the responsibility for saving those 1200
souls on board rested entirely on me. I sent back the name of our ship,
told him we were fast sinking, gave our latitude and longitude so that
the _Arapahoe_ would know where to find us if by good fortune we were
still afloat when she reached us and, I added “for God’s sake put on all
speed.”
In the meantime all the passengers had been notified, told to dress and
to put on their life preservers while the sailors had been ordered to
man the life-boats. When the passengers came on deck the situation was
calmly explained to them together with the hopeful information that
three steamers were bound for us as fast as steam could carry them for I
had got the _O K_ from two others--the _Morocco_ and the _Carlisle_.
There was, on the whole, very little excitement now among the saloon and
second-class passengers, and, curiously enough, I observed that those
who had been seasick nigh unto death seemed to forget their ailment in
the face of danger and had their sea-legs on well enough to look after
their own safety. It proves, I think, that seasickness is largely a
matter of an exaggerated imagination plus a lack of will power.
Before the hatches were opened to let the steerage passengers out of
their hole and on to the lower deck the Captain and one of his officers
took their places on the main deck forward where they could watch every
move the poor frightened mob made. They came helter-skelter up the
hatchways falling all over themselves and everybody else, but when they
saw the Captain and the officer towering above them each with a brace of
horse-pistols leveled at them like young cannon they eased off a bit
their desire to be saved at the expense of others and the stewards had
no further trouble with them.
Just then Perce got awake and hearing the gruff orders of the officers,
the throbbing of the big pumps and the loud and excited talk of the
passengers, he wanted to know the cause of it.
“The ship is sinking! so get up right away,” I exclaimed as evenly as my
voice would let me and working the key for dear life.
“Oh, she is, is she,” he yawned as if it was an every-day occurrence.
There was no excitability in Perce’s makeup.
Well, sir, we kept her afloat until daylight when the Captain ordered
every one to the life-boats, women and children first.
Perce and I stuck to our instruments, keeping the ether busy and every
now and then sending out cheery bulletins to the passengers, the gist of
them all being that help was almost at hand.
I could feel the ship begin to settle and the life-boats loaded to the
gunwales with their cargo of human freight, were quickly lowered into
the running sea. It required great seamanship to do this and even then
one or two of them were capsized.
The Captain suddenly appeared before our window.
“Boys, you have done your duty. Now save yourselves,” and with that he
was gone.
I could feel her nose pointing up in the air and I knew she was going
down stern-end on. It was only a question of minutes.
“Go on, Perce. I’ll stick here.”
“Go on yourself,” he replied; “if any one stays I will.”
I don’t know exactly what happened but something flying through the air
must have hit me, for the next thing I knew I had struck the icy water
and had gone down several fathoms. The sudden ducking revived me and
when I came up I swam for an overcrowded life-boat. The bos’n pulled me
in and a woman’s voice whispered, “Thank God, he’s saved!”
There on the edge of the horizon I could see the dim outline of a ship
with a great black stream of smoke in her wake and I knew her for the
_Arapahoe_ at last.
“Where’s the little operator?” a man asked me.
The bos’n pointed to the fast sinking ship, the bow end only of which
was out of the water, and said, “There he is, sir!”
And as we looked we saw big brave Captain Stacey and little heroic Perce
with their right hands clasped and with the Captain’s left hand on
Perce’s shoulder, just as two old friends might greet each other on
Broadway or the Strand, who had not met for a long time.
An instant later the great ship sank from sight leaving a momentary
whirlpool, due to the suction of it, in the water.
The _Arapahoe_ reached us an hour later and stood by and considering the
heavy seaway and the wind, which though it had somewhat abated was still
blowing half a gale, picked up the survivors and then proceeded on her
way.
The passengers made a good deal over me and, since I am only human, I
should have enjoyed their worship immensely, but while I had done my
duty I knew it was Perce who was the real hero and I told them so.