On duty with the morning watch, just after sick call at half past eight,
Phil Morgan and George Belding met right abaft the radio station. There
was half an hour or so before the divisions would be piped to fall in
for muster and inspection, and the two friends could chat a little.
“Well, the folks are on the sea, as we are, Phil, if the _Redbird_
sailed as per schedule,” Belding said.
“I sha’n’t feel really happy till we hear they are at Bahia,” responded
Whistler, shaking his head.
“Right-o! But the _Redbird_ is a fine ship, and just as safe as a
house.”
“But she’s a sailing ship--and slow.”
“Not so slow, if anybody should ask you,” returned Belding smiling.
“A four-master?”
“And square rigged. A real ship. No schooner-rig, or half-and-half.
Captain Jim Lowder thinks she is the finest thing afloat. Of course, she
is thirty years old; but she was built to last. Regular passenger
sailing ship, with a round-the-world record that would make the British
tea ships sit up and take notice. Her cabin finished in mahogany,
staterooms in white enamel--simply fine!”
“I didn’t know they had such sailing ships,” said Whistler in wonder.
“Oh, there are a few left. The Huns haven’t sunk them all. Nor have the
steam craft put such as the _Redbird_ out of commission. You couldn’t
get Captain Jim Lowder to take out a steam vessel. He abominates the
‘iron pots,’ as he calls the steam freighters.
“But sailing ships like the _Redbird_ are kept out of the European trade
if possible. Even Captain Lowder must admit that a sailing ship is not
in the game of fighting subs.”
“That is the way I feel. Wish your folks and mine were going south on a
steamer, George.”
“No fear. They will be all right,” was Belding’s reassuring reply.
“Just the same I’d feel a lot better if all the Hun subs and raiders
were bottled up at their bases.”
“By the way,” said Belding, “what do you think of this _Sea Pigeon_ we
hear so much talk about? Think there is such a craft?”
“Why not? We know that some kind of an enemy vessel slipped along south
and evaded our patrol, leaving a trail of sunken and torpedoed ships
behind her.”
“But a huge submarine, with superstructure and all----”
“_That_ is only a guess,” laughed Whistler. “Personally, I believe this
_Sea Pigeon_ is a raider and no submarine at all. A submarine of the
size reported would use up a lot of petrol.”
“That’s all right,” said Belding quickly. “She could get supplies down
along the Spanish coast. There are plenty of people that way friendly to
the Germans.”
At the moment they heard the sudden chatter of the radio instrument.
Belding turned instantly to put his head into the little room. The
operator smiled and nodded to him.
“Something doing,” he muttered. “One of you chaps want to take this
message to the com?”
“Let’s have it,” said Whistler, quickly, holding out his hand.
“I’d like to put on that harness myself,” said Belding. “We had a
wireless on the roof of our house in New York before the war. Government
made us wreck it.”
“Jinks!” exclaimed Whistler, waiting for the operator to write out the
message received and slip it into an envelope. “Do _you_ know how to
work one of these things, George?”
“I know something about it,” admitted Belding. “What’s it all about?” he
asked the operator.
“Orders for us,” said the man. “You’ll know soon enough. We’re due for
new cruising grounds, boys. But keep your tongues still till the com
eases the information to all hands.”
He had finished the receipt and “repeat” of the message. Whistler took
the envelope and sprang away with it to the commander’s quarters.
He knew by the expression on Mr. Lang’s face when he scanned the message
that there was something big in view. The commanding officer of the
_Colodia_ swiftly wrote a reply and gave it to Whistler for the radio
man. Belding was still hanging about the wireless room. His face was
flushed and his eyes shone.
“Do you know what it is all about, Phil?” he whispered.
“Not a thing. But the Old Man,” said Whistler, “is some excited.”
Rumor that changed orders had reached the _Colodia_ spread abroad before
muster and inspection. The usual physical drills were gone through while
the boys’ minds were on tiptoe. Even the order at four bells to relieve
the wheel and lookout startled the crew, so expectant were they.
But nothing happened until just before retreat from drill at
eleven-thirty. Commander Lang then made his appearance. He went to the
quarter and addressed the crew.
“We have been honored by an order to go freelancing after a suspected
vessel, supposed to be a German raider, last and recently reported to be
off the Azores,” he said. “Because we were successful some months ago in
taking the _Graf von Posen_, we are assigned to this work.”
At this point the crew broke into cheers, and with a smile the
commanding officer waved his hand for the boatswain’s mates to pipe
retreat.
The _Colodia_ was at this time sailing within sight of half a dozen
other destroyers bound out to pick up the expected convoy. After a
little her wireless crackled a curt “good-bye” to her companions, and
the _Colodia_ changed her course for a more southerly one.
The chances, for and against, of overhauling the _Sea Pigeon_ were
volubly discussed, from the commander’s offices to the galley, and
everybody, including the highest officer and the most humble steward’s
boy, had a vital interest in the destroyer’s objective.
To attempt to chase a ship like this German raider about the ocean was a
most uncertain task.
“But if the luck of the _Colodia_ runs true to form,” Al Torrance
expressed it, “we shall turn the trick.”
“That this _Sea Pigeon_ is a raider and not a submarine, seems to be an
established fact,” Belding said. “Sparks got some private information
from the radio station at the Azores and says the ship is a fast steamer
made over from some big, fat Heinie’s steam yacht he used to race before
the war. She has just sunk a wheat ship from the Argentine.”
“Sparks” is the nickname usually applied to the radio operator
aboardship, and George Belding was quite friendly with the chief of the
wireless force on the destroyer.
“George gets all these ‘wireless whispers’ because he has a pull,” said
Whistler, smiling. “If anything ever happens to Sparks, I expect we’d
see George in there with his head harnessed.”
“And it’s no bad job!” cried Al enthusiastically. “I’ve often wished I
could listen in on this radio stuff.”
“Oi, oi! That just goes to show the curiosity of you,” declared Ikey
Rosenmeyer, with serious air. “It is a trait of your character that
should be suppressed, Torry.”