A SHIP IN DISTRESS
The day succeeding that on which Mr. Sharp found the nail in the
field coil was another of those cold, stormy days so typical of the
fall. The heavens were gray with threatening clouds. Fitfully the
wind moaned and sobbed, and there was a rawness in the atmosphere
that penetrated even the warmest of woolen clothing. Everything
portended the approach of a storm.
The weather itself was enough to make one gloomy. But Henry, already
worried sadly by the misfortune that had befallen him, was almost
sick with apprehension. If only he could have done something toward
unraveling the mystery that surrounded him, time would have passed
more quickly and not so dismally. But there seemed to be nothing he
could do except wait.
The day’s newspapers, brought aboard with the mail, told of gales
raging farther along the coast, and of storm warnings posted along
the entire Atlantic. Evidently another gale was sweeping the ocean.
Terrible as had been the storm Henry had so recently witnessed, he
felt that he would almost rejoice at an opportunity to go out and
face another. Then there would be a chance to do something, there
would be an opportunity for action.
It seemed to Henry as though he simply could not endure to remain
idle. Naturally he wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery of the
field coil. But what he should do or what he should try to do he
could not even imagine. To talk about the matter was useless. That
would get him nowhere and advertise something that was known only to
a few. Furthermore the captain himself was continuing his
investigations, and had given strict orders not to talk about the
affair.
When Henry chanced to pass the stateroom of the wireless operators,
he thought he would stop and inquire how Mr. Sharp was. The latter
had quite evidently been sick the preceding day, though he stuck to
his post. Henry knocked at the door. A feeble voice invited him to
come in. Henry entered, and found the chief electrician alone.
Belford was on watch. Henry did not know where Black was. It did not
matter. He saw at once that Mr. Sharp was very sick. His cheeks were
flushed. Henry stepped to the bunk and laid his hand on the man’s
forehead. It was dry and very hot, and his eyes had that burned-out,
almost plaintive look, that fever sufferers sometimes have.
“Why, Mr. Sharp,” said Henry, “you’re sick; you’re real sick. You
must have a high fever.”
“I guess that I am about all in,” agreed the chief electrician.
“I’ve been taking some dope that the doctor gave me for this cold,
and I thought that I could throw it off, but I guess it’s got me.”
“Have you reported sick to the doctor?”
“No. I thought a while ago that I had better do so, but there wasn’t
any one here to take a message, and I felt so rocky I just hadn’t
gumption enough to get up and go to the doctor myself.”
“Let me call the doctor for you,” urged Henry.
“All right. I’ll be obliged to you.”
Delighted to find something to do, Henry stepped from the room and
hurried aft to the wardroom. There he found the doctor, who came at
once. When the latter had taken Mr. Sharp’s temperature and examined
him otherwise, he said: “Sparks, it’s you for the sick bay, quick.
What do you mean by lying here half dead and not sending for help?”
“You can’t put me in any sick bay,” protested the chief electrician
weakly. “I’ve got to go on duty shortly.”
At that the doctor exploded. “Humph!” he snorted. “Duty! Yes, on a
white cot! You’ll be lucky if you see the radio room again in a
fortnight.”
Henry saw his chance. “Let me take your turns at the key, Mr.
Sharp,” he begged. “I promise you nothing more shall happen to the
instruments when I am on watch. I’ll never leave the room for a
second, after this.”
When the chief electrician seemed to hesitate, Henry continued his
pleading. “Mr. Sharp, you don’t believe that I had anything to do
with damaging that coil, do you?”
“No, I do not,” said the chief electrician decisively. “And I’m
perfectly willing to have you go back on duty, but I don’t know what
the skipper will think about it.”
“Will you ask him if I may go back on duty?” begged Henry.
“Yes,” murmured Mr. Sharp weakly.
Henry fairly raced for the captain’s cabin and told the commander
that Mr. Sharp was sick and would like to speak to him. Captain
Hardwick at once went forward. Henry stepped outside the stateroom
and the captain conferred with the chief electrician. The result of
that talk was that Mr. Sharp, who was now suffering from pneumonia,
went to the sick bay and Henry again went on duty in the wireless
house.
The very first message he caught was an order from headquarters for
the _Iroquois_ to proceed to sea at once and take the oil tanker
_Rayolite_ in tow. Henry was going to have his desire fulfilled. The
cutter was to go out and once more wrestle with the ocean. The
_Rayolite_, an unfinished tanker, was being towed from Nova Scotia
to New York. In the storm the towing tug had deserted her, and the
ship was somewhere out on the ocean, driving helplessly before the
wind. Her position was given in the despatch as approximately
forty-one north, seventy-one west. There were some maps in the
wireless shack, so after he had sent the message to the imperiled
tanker Henry looked up her position. It seemed to be almost due east
of the eastern end of Long Island. The wind was east of north, so
that the helpless tanker would be blown along almost parallel with
the coast line. Henry was glad of that. He did not want to see any
more ships piled up on the shore.
Within a very few minutes after the receipt of this message, the
_Iroquois_ was once more heading out to sea. Clad in thick woolen
garments and oilskins, the captain stood on the bridge, conning the
cutter through the channel. He was needed there. The passage, so
fair and easy on a clear day, now called for the utmost caution.
Lowering clouds of fog were driving in from the sea, increasing in
density with every minute. Snow had begun to fall, at first coming
in gusty squalls. Then it fell steadily, the dancing flakes driven
in swirling clouds before the sweeping winds. At times the snow
changed to rain, and was flung in blinding sheets against the little
cutter.
Cautiously the _Iroquois_ nosed her way down the channel, the water
becoming rougher and rougher as she approached the open sea. Looking
into the swirling, blinding curtain of fog and snow, Henry did not
see how the captain could possibly find his way. But with chart and
compass to direct him, and his wonderful seaman’s sense of direction
to aid him, he took the cutter from buoy to buoy, along the channel,
straight out again to the Ambrose Lightship.
With the open sea before him, the captain now confidently set the
cutter upon the course he had plotted to reach, a point to leeward
of the position forty-one north, seventy-one west, whither the
_Rayolite_ would likely have drifted. All the while wind and sea
were making up, more and more tumultuously. In the wireless shack
Henry tried again and again to reach the _Rayolite_. No one on board
knew whether the unfinished tanker was equipped with wireless, but
hour after hour, at intervals, Henry persisted in his attempt to get
word from the helpless vessel. As the _Iroquois_ continued on her
way, the wind began to shift to the east, a fact that Henry noted
with apprehension. He had seen all that he wanted to see of raging
storms that blew directly toward the shore. Regardless of wind and
wave, the _Iroquois_ drove on through the storm, hour after hour,
until at last, as nearly as the commander could tell by dead
reckoning, the cutter had attained the desired point to leeward of
the position forty-one north, seventy-one west.
Long ago night had fallen. Again and again Henry had swept the
stormy skies with the wireless, seeking to get some answering
vibration from the _Rayolite_, but always his efforts had been
futile. Now, as the cutter rolled in the seas, at the point where
the captain had figured the _Rayolite_ ought to be, there was
neither light nor sound to suggest the presence of another ship.
Tumultuous waves and driving curtains of fog and snow shut in the
_Iroquois_. Again and again Henry combed the atmosphere with his
flashing signals, but no answering sound returned through the night.
Henry could not see how it would be humanly possible to find a ship
under such circumstances in such a welter of raging water.
But nothing seemed to dismay Captain Hardwick. When he had swept the
seas with his searchlight, and blown his siren again and again,
without getting any response, he methodically set about finding the
lost tanker, making a grid as he had done when searching for the
derelict. All night long the cutter followed the pattern of the
grid, and all night long the storm grew worse, and wind and sea made
up more furiously than ever. The captain was very careful to lay his
course so that mostly he was either bucking the heavy seas or
running before them.
Dawn brought no cessation of the storm. With undiminished fury it
lashed the sea and clutched at the staunch little cutter. Nor was
there any sign of the lost _Rayolite_, until young Black, standing
his watch in the radio shack, caught a very faint call for help. He
magnified the sound to the maximum, but was able to get nothing
more. At once Henry was summoned. He threw over his switch and
flashed out an answering call, asking for the vessel’s name and
position. His message carried true, for almost immediately came a
hardly audible answer. The message was from the lost tanker. She did
not know her position. She had sixteen men aboard, with no
machinery, no ballast, and forty feet of freeboard. There was little
food and almost no water left. She had a small radio set, operated
by a small storage battery, that might carry fifty miles at most.
She was wallowing fearfully and driving helpless before the storm.
Henry remained on watch while Black took the message to the captain.
“Try to get a bearing with the radio compass,” ordered the captain.
Black hurried to rejoin Henry. “Tell the _Rayolite_ we want to get a
compass bearing,” said Black.
Henry turned to his key and flashed the call of the _Rayolite_.
Hardly audible was the acknowledgment. “_Iroquois_ wants compass
bearing,” telegraphed Henry. “Flash letters MO continuously several
minutes. Stand by for answer.”
“Will flash let——” came the reply, so faint that Henry hardly caught
the signals. The end of the message was lost altogether.
“She’s gone,” said Henry, aghast. Then he added: “Maybe she’s only
gone out of hearing. We must be heading away from her. Tell the
captain.”
Black rushed for the captain. Henry turned to his key. Again and
again he flashed out the call of the _Rayolite_, but no answering
signal came through the storm. Without turning from his instruments
he knew that the _Iroquois_ was changing her course. She began to
roll fearfully in the trough of the sea. Henry had to cling to his
desk to keep from sliding out of his chair. Once such rolling of the
ship would have filled him with terror. Now he thought little of it.
He was too intent on what he was doing.
For a long time they drove on through the storm. Belford relieved
Black in the wireless shack. Suddenly Henry became aware that
something unusual was happening. Again he sensed the fact that the
ship was turning, but this time he knew that it was different. Now
the motion of the cutter was terrifying. At times she was almost on
her beams’ ends. Henry peered out through the windows. He noticed
that life-lines had been run along the deck, to grip when passing.
He had not realized how truly awful the sea had become. When he
glanced over the side of the ship, his heart fairly stood still.
They were almost in the breakers. Evidently the captain had been
wrong in his reckoning. The cutter had almost piled up on the
shoals. She was coming about, very, very slowly. Now Henry
understood why she rolled so terribly. He clung to his desk and
watched the sea and the boiling breakers in silence, fascinated,
almost paralyzed with horror. Was the _Iroquois_ going to be where
the _Capitol City_ had so recently been?
At last the ship was headed about, bow to the sea, but the waves had
drifted her so close to the surf that every second Henry expected to
feel the ship jar and pound on the sands. In the pilot house the
captain stood with nerve of iron, though his cheeks had gone white,
directing every movement of the _Iroquois_. The instant she was nose
to the sea, he signaled for full speed ahead. The cutter drove
forward, and a huge wave, sweeping completely over her bow, tore aft
along her deck, smashing and rending. The two small boats were
snatched bodily from their davits and hurled far astern into the
raging sea. A third was torn loose, and hung by its after-fall,
swinging back and forth with the motion of the _Iroquois_, like a
monster pendulum, pounding the ship’s rail to pieces.
“Look!” cried Henry. “That boat will batter a hole in the side of
the ship. I must tell the captain.”
He dashed out of the radio house, leaving Belford on watch. Before
Henry had taken two steps he realized how reckless he had been to
jump out on the deck so thoughtlessly. He could not stand erect
without support. Wildly he clutched for a life-line, caught it, and
started for the bridge. But the captain was well aware of what had
happened. Already he was making preparations to cut away the
swinging boat. Sailors were issuing on deck with axes. The captain
himself came down from the bridge.
“Stand back,” roared the commander. “That boat’s liable to tear
loose and kill somebody.”
Quickly a rope was tied about the body of a sailor, and cautiously
he approached the swinging boat. Watching his opportunity, he swung
his axe against the fall, severing it. The lifeboat dropped outboard
like a plummet. An upshooting wave lifted it and flung it aft. The
sailors turned to seek shelter. A cross comber broke over the side
of the ship, drenching everybody. Henry alone was not in oilskins.
He was soaked to the skin. Quick as thought he darted to the
stateroom and grabbed up a dry jacket. He didn’t know whose it was.
Back in the radio shack, he drew off his own dripping coat and
slipped on the borrowed garment. In the warm radio shack he knew he
would soon dry out.
Steadily the _Iroquois_ headed into the wind. That outlying shoal
that had all but caught the _Iroquois_ was the eastern tip of Long
Island. Well enough the captain knew that, and now he corrected his
course. Somewhere to the southeast of this point the _Rayolite_
would likely be.
When he had worked far enough offshore, the captain changed his
course again, heading west of south. All the while Henry was trying,
from time to time, to pick up the _Rayolite_ again with the
wireless. For a long time he got no answer to his messages. Then
came an almost inaudible reply. The _Rayolite_ could hear the
_Iroquois_ plainly and had answered all her calls. Once more Henry
instructed the _Rayolite_ to sound the letters MO while the
_Iroquois_ tried to get a compass bearing. While Henry sat at his
key, Belford made his way to the radio compass room. This was a
little, squarish structure amidships. Inside, the roof was lined
with copper screening so that the body of the operator would not
influence the inductance and affect the compass. The radio compass
itself, a great wrapping of wire on a rectangular frame, like the
four sides of a rectangular box, was mounted on a vertical metal
rod, so it could be twirled round in a circle. Encircling the
revolving vertical shaft was a circular plate, not unlike the
steering wheel of a motor-car, upon which were marked the three
hundred and sixty degrees of a circle. The compass was at zero when
its windings or wire-wrapped sides were parallel with the ship. As
the compass was revolved, the listening operator would hear, with
varying degrees of loudness, the signal he was watching for. Now he
heard the sound with maximum distinctness. Again it grew faint, and,
as he twisted the compass farther around the circle, the signal once
more reached its loudest pitch. The two maximum sound points the
operator noted on the degree-marked circular plate. Halfway between
these two maximum points, or at the point of minimum distinctness,
was the desired bearing, the point whence came the desired signal. A
zero bearing meant that the signal came from either dead ahead or
astern.
Now young Belford carefully closed the door of the compass shack,
adjusted the headphones, and slowly revolved the radio compass. Very
indistinct was the signal from the _Rayolite_. Again and again the
young operator revolved his compass, uncertain when the sound came
loudest, so faint was it at all times. But finally he decided upon a
bearing, and through the speaking tube called up this bearing to the
quartermaster on the monkey bridge. A true compass was located on
the monkey bridge. The compass in the radio shack deviated from
this, so that it was necessary to correct young Belford’s bearing.
This the quartermaster did, and conveyed the resulting information
to the captain. There was a deviation table in the radio shack that
Belford could have consulted, but he had had little experience with
the radio compass.
Now the _Iroquois_ was headed straight in the direction indicated by
the radio compass. Every fifteen minutes Henry flashed out the call
of the _Rayolite_ and got a reply. For some time these replies grew
constantly stronger, and then became fainter, yet the ship signaled
that she could hear the _Iroquois_ with increasing distinctness. It
was evident that the tanker’s wireless was failing.
Henry went up to the bridge and told the captain. The captain
considered a moment, and Henry looked about while he waited. The
storm had abated not a particle. The view was still veiled by
shifting, swirling curtains of snow, but the fog had lifted. The
waves were tremendous, but as the _Iroquois_ was no longer bucking
them, they did not seem so terrifying. Yet the sea was appalling
enough to one so little accustomed to it as Henry was.
Suddenly the captain spoke. “Henry,” he directed, “tell the
_Rayolite_ that her signals are getting weaker, and that her battery
is evidently going bad. Tell her to save her battery. I’m going to
fire a gun every twenty minutes. Tell her to indicate whether or not
she hears it. A single word will answer.”
Henry returned to the radio shack and flashed the message to the
tanker. A moment later there was a terrific explosion that made him
fairly jump in his chair. He began to make the sparks fly under his
key. “_Iroquois_ just fired gun,” he flashed. “Did you hear?”
A long pause followed. Then came the faint reply, “No.”
Twenty minutes later another shot was fired. Once more Henry called
the _Rayolite_ and asked if she had heard it. And again came the
answer, “No.”
Three times every hour the _Iroquois_ fired a shot, but for a long
time the sound of the reports did not reach the struggling ship.
Meantime the day was passing fast. Late afternoon came, and still
the _Iroquois_ had not found the helpless tanker. But as dusk was
descending there came the joyful word from the _Rayolite_, “Heard
your shot faintly.”
Again the captain called for a compass bearing. This time the
signals from the tanker came much more distinctly, and the captain
accordingly altered his course. The first faint call had given
Belford a bearing not quite correct. The _Iroquois_ continued to
fire her gun. Forty minutes after the course was changed the
_Rayolite_ reported that she heard the shot from the _Iroquois_
clearly.
When Henry sought the bridge with this cheering news, the commander
said, “Tell the _Rayolite_ operator to set his watch with yours. At
five o’clock I will fire another shot. At the same instant you are
to notify him by wireless. Tell him to note how many seconds elapse
between the time he gets your flash and the time he hears my gun.”
Once more Henry called the _Rayolite_ and explained the captain’s
plan. “At five exactly we will fire,” concluded Henry.
Five o’clock came. Henry sat at his desk, switch thrown over, finger
on his key. “Bang!” crashed the gun. Flash, went Henry’s signal.
Then he sat in silence, waiting almost breathlessly for the reply.
Five, ten, fifteen seconds elapsed. Half a minute went by. There was
no reply. Another half minute passed and the wireless was silent.
Henry looked worried.
“Do you suppose her wireless has failed altogether?” he asked
Belford. Before the latter could answer, Henry’s headphones began to
speak. “Sixty-five seconds difference,” came the reply, both brief
and faint.
When the captain received the news he did a little figuring.
“Thirteen miles distant,” he commented. “We ought to be up with her
in a couple of hours.”
The two hours passed, and no ship was visible. Still the storm raged
without abatement. Night had come. For two days and a night the
_Iroquois_ had been searching the stormy sea for this tanker that
seemed to evade her so persistently. She ought to be at hand, but
nowhere could she be seen. Through the blinding storm came no sign
of the fugitive vessel. No shaft of light pierced the swirling
curtain of snow and mist.
Then suddenly there was the _Rayolite_, almost abreast of them, not
more than three hundred yards distant. It was impossible to send a
line to her. No small boat could live in such a sea. It was doubtful
if a shot would carry true. The captain swung the _Iroquois_
directly to windward of the tanker, and cut down his speed almost to
nothing. In a moment the huge ship was almost out of sight. With her
tremendous freeboard, she drove before the gale almost as fast as
the _Iroquois_ could steam. The captain turned his searchlight
directly on the vanishing tanker, signaled for more speed, and drove
straight at her. And all night long the _Iroquois_ steamed directly
at the _Rayolite_, which drove furiously ahead, under the pressure
of the gale. The captain left the bridge and threw himself on the
cushioned seats in his cabin, to snatch some sleep. Henry, who had
spent long, long hours on duty, made his way to the operators’ cabin
and lay down, fully dressed, in Black’s bed. The latter and Belford
were to watch through the night, with Henry subject to call, if
messages had to be sent. He was so worn out that he did not even
remove his coat, the jacket he had snatched from the wardrobe after
his wetting.
Daylight saw no cessation of the wind, though the snow had ceased to
fall, and no longer was the face of the deep clouded with mist. When
the captain came on deck again, after a few hours’ rest, he pushed
the cutter straight at the _Rayolite_ until she was close behind
her. Meantime he had sent a wireless to the tanker, telling her to
watch for a line. Now the little brass gun was brought to the
cutter’s forward rail, and that sturdy little craft was pushed still
nearer the tanker, which was driving ahead, broadside to. At a
favorable moment the shot was fired, the slender shot-line went
hurtling squarely over the centre of the huge tanker, and the men on
her seized it and began to draw it home. A heavier line was bent to
it, and soon the end of this had been pulled aboard the _Rayolite_.
Meantime a heavy towing hawser had been passed out through a stern
chock of the _Iroquois_, and the bight of it brought forward,
outside of the rail, where it was stopped up or tied with little
stops or small ropes. This was to keep the hawser from fouling the
propeller, when the cutter should swing around, stern to her tow.
Then the hawser was rove round the cutter’s forward bitts. Through
Henry the commander now sent a message to the _Rayolite_.
“Take hawser in through your forward chock and make it fast around
your foremast,” telegraphed Henry.
The men on the _Rayolite_ bent to their task and soon pulled the
great hawser aboard. They made it fast to the mast.
“Everything ready,” came the message to Henry from the _Rayolite_.
The captain signaled for more speed. The _Iroquois_ was pushed ahead
to get slack. Then the bight of the hawser was cast off the bitts,
and the speed of the cutter lessened. Gradually the hawser grew
taut. It stretched as tight as a fiddlestring. Then slowly the giant
tanker, pressed by the wind, began to turn. The hawser, led through
her forward chock, held her bow fast. The wind drove her stern round
until she was head to the _Iroquois_. In another moment the
_Iroquois_ herself began to swing. With a startling snap one of the
slender stops that held the hawser to the rail parted. Another broke
under the strain. The cutter swung further around. One stop after
another parted. Finally the _Iroquois_ lay stern to her tow, the
hawser taut between them, with no danger of its fouling the
propeller.
In turning, the little cutter lay for a moment in the trough of the
sea. She rolled alarmingly. At her first pitch Henry’s chair went
sliding across the floor, and pads and pencils flew from the desk.
At the same instant a message from the _Rayolite_ began to sound in
the lad’s ear. He could not reach his fallen pencils. Instinctively
he reached in the pocket of the jacket he was wearing. He found a
mass of trash and drew it forth, hoping to find a pencil. There were
strings, matches, cigarette papers, bits of chalk, and other
articles. Among the mass shone two slender little cylinders of metal
that made Henry’s heart fairly stop beating. They were two slender
finishing nails.