AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
“Got to you in time!” the officer exclaimed, in tones of deep
satisfaction. “Was beginning to wonder whether we could find you in
this fog.
“Mr. Porter,” he continued, turning to an ensign who stood near by,
“take these people into the engine room and let them get thoroughly
dried out. Then give them a good hot meal and see that they have
comfortable sleeping quarters. The captain will have a talk with
them in the morning.”
The ensign saluted and led the way to the engine room. The boys
followed, their hearts full of relief and elation. Now that the
strain was over, they realized how cold and wet and hungry they
were. But they were alive, and life was sweet—never so sweet as now
when they thought of how near they had come to losing it.
“If only we were sure that Mr. Strong had been picked up, we’d have
nothing left to ask for,” observed Bob, anxiously.
“I guess with so many boats about, he’s certainly been rescued,”
said Joe, with cheery optimism. “By the way, he has your watch.”
“Sure enough,” answered Bob. “But I was thinking only of him just
then.”
The engine room was crowded as they flocked in, but it was
gloriously warm, and before long their clothes had been dried out
and the boys themselves were glowing.
The ensign, who had left them to give orders to the cook, returned
soon, but not too soon, for they were all as ravenous as wolves.
“What vessel is this?” asked Bob, as they followed the officer to
the dining room, where a smoking and abundant meal had been placed
on the table.
“The United States Government vessel _Meteor_,” was the reply.
“You’re guests of Uncle Sam.”
“Is that so?” replied Bob, in surprise, not unmingled with delight
that was fully shared by his companions. “Well, there isn’t anybody
on earth I’d rather be indebted to.”
“I’ve often wanted to be on a Government vessel,” said Joe. “But I
never expected that my first introduction to one would take place
under such circumstances.”
“I hope we’ll have plenty of time to look it over,” put in Herb.
The young ensign smiled significantly.
“I shouldn’t worry about that,” he remarked. “You’ll probably have
more time to do that than perhaps you’ll want, for we’re bound on a
rather long voyage.”
The boys looked at each other with amazement in their eyes.
“But can’t we be put off on some vessel that’s bound inshore?” asked
Bob.
“Possibly you can,” was the reply. “But with this fog that’s hanging
heavy on the sea, it may be days before we can speak a vessel, and,
in the meantime, we’ll be getting farther and farther from shore.”
“But you have a radio on board, haven’t you?” asked Joe, as he and
the others digested this information.
“Sure thing,” replied the ensign. “All the navy vessels are equipped
with that now. They’d about as soon think of going to sea without a
crew as they would without wireless.”
“Well, that’s all right then,” said Bob, with a sigh of relief. “As
long as we can get in touch with our folks and let them know we’re
safe, I, for one, don’t care how long we stay here. In fact, it will
be a good deal of a lark.”
The ensign, who was still young enough to be in sympathy with their
viewpoint, smiled at their enthusiasm, and went off to attend to a
matter of duty, promising to return when they had finished their
meal and show them their sleeping quarters.
What the boys did to the copious and appetizing meal set before them
was, Joe said, “a sin and a shame.” The sharp sea air had whetted
their appetites, which were keen enough without that stimulus, and
they made a clean sweep of the food, to the manifest satisfaction of
the steward who waited on them and who was kept busy replenishing
their plates and coffee cups. When they had finished, all their
alarm and hardships had been forgotten, and they were thoroughly at
peace with the world.
“Uncle Sam feeds his people well, if that meal was a sample,”
ejaculated Jimmy, who had already surreptitiously been compelled to
undo two buttons of his vest.
“I’ll tell the world,” agreed Herb, who, though he had not quite
kept pace with Jimmy, had come in a close second.
“A life on the bounding wave has a good deal to recommend it,”
affirmed Bob.
“Yes, if the bounding wave isn’t too close,” modified Joe. “I was
altogether too near it when we were tossing about in that small boat
just before we were picked up. I know now how it must feel to be a
castaway.”
“With lots of sharks nosing around and trying to upset the boat,”
Jimmy added to the picture.
“Too cold up here for sharks, I guess,” observed Bob. “But even
without those little playfellows swimming about, it’s bad enough.
It’s mighty good to feel these solid planks under your feet.”
“You boys feeling any better now?” asked Ensign Porter, entering the
cabin.
“Better and fuller,” answered Bob, with a laugh. “You see what we’ve
done to the table.”
“I see you’ve done your full duty,” was the answer. “Now, I suppose,
the next thing is bed. I’ve had a cabin prepared for you young
fellows, with four bunks, so that you can be together.”
He sent the steward off with the rescued members of the crew to the
sailor’s quarters, and then led the Radio Boys to a comfortable
cabin, which, while not very large, was sufficiently so for all
their needs.
“The captain will see you in the morning,” Mr. Porter said, as he
bade them good-night. “You can come then to some definite
understanding about the immediate future.”
It did not take the boys long to undress and slip into their bunks.
In the excitement of the last few hours, it had seemed to them as
though they would never want to sleep again. But now nature asserted
her rights, and they realized that they were enormously weary.
Luckily, in the time that had elapsed between the first alarm and
the sinking of the steamer, they had been able to rescue the suit
cases and other belongings from their cabin, and it was some
satisfaction as they laid out their clothes to know that they would
not have to appear before the captain the next morning in the
wrinkled and disreputable raiment in which they had come on board.
“I wish I’d thought to ask the ensign just where this vessel was
bound,” remarked Joe, as he finished undressing.
“Plenty of time to find out about that in the morning,” replied Bob,
with a yawn that threatened to dislocate his jaw. “For the present,
all that little Bobby wants is to hit the hay.”
The steady throb of the engines provided a lullaby, and, despite the
strangeness of their surroundings, in a few minutes they were all
sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion.
A knock on the door by the steward in the morning that had to be
several times repeated awoke them. They stretched and looked around
them confusedly before they could realize where they were.
“Breakfast ready in half an hour,” called the steward, and went on
his way.
Bob reached for his watch, and then sighed as he remembered.
They dressed with some care for their expected meeting with the
captain. All were possessed with a sense of keen elation. Here
indeed was an adventure they had never looked for, and one that
promised to have in it endless possibilities. Overnight they had
entered into a new world.
Through the porthole of the cabin the sun shone brightly, but with a
frosty gleam, and there was a certain nip in the air as they made
their way to the breakfast cabin that set the blood tingling in
their veins and made a cup of coffee seem the finest thing in the
world.
The tossing of the boat had not in the slightest degree affected
their appetites. While they had not been on long ocean voyages, they
had had a good deal of experience on the sea off Ocean Point, and
were good sailors so no pangs of coming seasickness cast their
shadows before, and they ate a meal that would have done credit to
the most grizzled seaman that had ever sailed with the decks awash
in the “roaring forties.”
They had rather expected to meet the captain at the breakfast table,
but learned from the steward that he and the other chief officers of
the ship had their own mess. The companions of the boys at the table
that morning were the petty officers of the ship and the radio
operators. In the main they were a genial, interesting lot of men,
full of quips and jokes, and the boys were soon on friendly terms
with them.
Following the meal they went up on deck. The vessel was cutting
through the waves at a rattling rate of speed, dashing the water
from her bows in great sprays of foam. She was a staunch boat with
long speedy lines, her decks as white as snow and every bit of
brasswork shining until one could see his face reflected in it. Even
if they had not been told, the boys would have known instinctively
that such a smart spotless craft could belong only to the navy.
The air was bracing, and the Radio Boys drank it in big draughts.
The fog had vanished. The light of the sun was reflected from the
tips of waves in a thousand points that glittered like diamonds.
There was no land to be seen anywhere. As far as any evidence to the
contrary appeared, they might be in the very center of the ocean.
They were enjoying the unusual sight to the full when the young
ensign came along. He smiled pleasantly, as he saw them at the rail.
“The captain’s ready to see you now,” he said. “Come this way.”
They followed him with a slight feeling of trepidation.
“Some old ogre, I suppose,” whispered Jimmy to Bob. “A martinet
ready to snap your head off.”
“Not so bad as that, I guess,” replied Bob. “Probably a very decent
fellow. Brace up, old boy.”
The ensign knocked at the door of a commodious cabin. A voice bade
them come in. They entered.
A man in captain’s uniform sat at a table poring over a chart. He
looked up.
Something like an electric shock went through the Radio Boys.
The man was Captain Amos Springer!