A NIGHT IN THE FOG
“What’s that?” cried Ted, sitting up in bed, his mind too dulled by
sleep to identify the sound that had awakened him so suddenly.
“What’s what?” growled his brother, who had been aroused by Ted’s cry.
“That noise I heard?”
“Noise nothing! Go to sleep! You were dreaming.”
“But I tell you I heard something. Why, it—”
His words were interrupted, however, by the ear-splitting screech of the
Admiral’s siren.
“There! What did I tell you?” gloated the younger boy. “I knew—”
But again his words were silenced by another shrill whistle.
A veritable roar replied from the Admiral’s siren.
Reaching quickly above his head, Phil switched on the electric lights in
the cabin, and the boys stared at one another as a still different-toned
whistle joined in the pandemonium.
“Fog!” they gasped, almost in the same breath. And even as they uttered
the word, they sprang to the floor, their minds recalling the statement
of Captain Perkins in regard to the danger from the palls of mist.
Never another word did either of them speak as they got into their
clothes with a rapidity that would have established a record for
quick-dressing, had any one been present to time them.
Still silent, they rushed to the door and threw it open, then paused.
Not a yard could they see ahead of them.
The screech of the Admiral’s siren seemed continuous, interrupted
incessantly by other whistles, while apparently from all about them, so
does a Superior fog distort all sense of direction, came hails, some
loud, others faint, in accordance with the distance of their utterers,
“Don’t see a thing!” from the lookouts on the carriers.
“Let’s go to the bridge,” whispered Phil, in an awed tone.
“But we may lose our way—and fall overboard. You know what Captain
Perkins said about bodies—”
“Forget that,” cut in the elder boy. “Just take hold of my arm. I’ll
keep one hand on the cabin. Come on.”
As they gained the bridge, the young passengers were just able to
distinguish half a dozen forms.
“See anything?” queried the skipper’s voice, its tone indicating the
tension under which he was, as there came an instant’s lull in the riot
of siren screeches and whistles.
“Thought I saw something off the port bow a minute ago,” responded a
voice which neither of the boys could identify, then it added: “But I
can’t see it now.”
“How about lying to?” suggested the first mate.
“Don’t dare to,” replied the captain. “Those other boats are so close,
I’ve simply got to have steerage way. She’s checked to quarter speed
now.”
“Wireless! Wireless!” shouted another voice. “The Prescott wants to know
our course and position. She’s East by North, half East, off Moose
Point.”
“At the wheel, there! What’s our course?” demanded the skipper.
“North by East, half North,” answered the wheelsman.
“Same course,” snapped Captain Perkins. “Mr. Adams, where do you think
we are?”
When word of the request had been announced, the first mate had darted
below to the pilot house and was scanning the log-book.
“According to our speed and the last bearing entered, we ought to be off
Moose Point,” he called to the skipper.
“Tell the Prescott we are on the same course and in practically the same
position she is. Tell her to swing a point East and I’ll swing a point
North. Get that?”
“Aye, aye, sir!” replied the wireless operator.
Scarcely had the instruments begun to crash out their message than there
rose a terrified shout:
“Boat ahoy, sir! Right off the port bow!”
“Hard astarboard! Hard astarboard!” bellowed Captain Perkins to his
wheelsman, while he sprang to his buttons and frantically signalled for
full speed astern.
And even as he spoke, there loomed a towering, fog-magnified mass,
seemingly right upon them.
The lookouts on the Prescott had spied the Admiral only a few seconds
after the latter’s, and while Captain Perkins was giving his orders, a
frenzied ringing of bells proved that her skipper was also doing his
utmost to avert the collision which meant the foundering of both boats,
because they were loaded, his vessel being older and not equipped with
the modern system for signalling the engine room.
Though both carriers had been creeping through the fog with barely
steerage way, it seemed to the anxious groups on each that they were
racing together at express-train speed. But the reversed propellers of
the Admiral were doing their work, the boat checked with a suddenness
that sent the boys and some of the crew sprawling on the bridge,
quivered and then began to back, the bow swinging away from the
Prescott.
“Port your wheel, hard over!” ordered Captain Perkins, as his boat moved
astern.
Still the Prescott came on, then her propellers bit, and she, too,
checked, but not before her nose was where the huge carrier’s had been
scarce a moment before.
Farther and farther to the right swung the bow of the Admiral, while the
Prescott began to swerve to the left, and the danger was over.
“Great work, Perkins! You’ve saved our lives!” megaphoned the other
carrier’s skipper as she passed on.
“Too close! I don’t want any more like—” began Captain Perkins, when
there came frenzied shouts from the Admiral’s stern, which were quickly
passed by the crew on deck, acting as lookouts, to the bridge: “Boat
ahoy! Off the starboard stern!”
“Take the bridge, Mr. Adams,” exclaimed the skipper, ordering full speed
ahead. “Keep your eyes open in front!” and he hurried to the deck.
“Wireless, sir! Prescott wants to know if she shall stand by?” called
the operator.
“Tell her ‘yes’!” shouted back Captain Perkins, as he ran aft, where he
quickly mounted the superstructure, the better to see, having instructed
Hansen to station men to pass his orders to the chief in the engine
room.
The other boat, however, had heard the cries and located the Admiral,
thus averting the danger of collision by a wider margin than in the case
of the Prescott.
But the shouts and exchange of hails had carried far through the fog,
and again whistles and sirens screeched in all directions.
When a lull came, the Admiral’s skipper raised to his lips the megaphone
he had carried from the bridge.
“Ahoy, astern! Who are you?” he demanded. “Palmer,” came the answer. “We
picked up your wireless, Admiral. There are boats all around us. How are
we going to get out of this tangle?”
“I’m going to wireless everybody within fifteen miles to check and just
keep steerage way.”
“Reckon that’s the safest thing, but all the boats haven’t wireless.”
“We’ll have to watch out for those that haven’t. Bring the Palmer close
to my stern and swing to right angles. I’ll hold the Prescott off my
bow. The three of us can protect each other.”
“Right-o!” exclaimed the captain of the Palmer, and Mr. Perkins hastened
to the bridge, where he quickly gave instructions to his operator,
adding: “Tell each boat to answer, and that I’ll report her to the
Association if she refuses.” For five minutes the man at the wireless
instruments sent out the code call for the attention of the other boats,
then flashed the captain’s orders through the fog. Twice he repeated
them, then waited for replies.
One by one they came in and were reported to the skipper.
“The Wolcott wants to know how she can protect herself from other boats
bound down behind her, if she checks,” announced the operator.
“Tell her to send out her position when we have finished.”
For some time there was silence, then Captain Perkins called:
“How many answers have you received?”
“Eighteen, sir.”
“That ought to give you boys an idea of the danger in a Superior fog,”
commented the skipper, turning to his young passengers. “With twenty-one
boats within fifteen miles, counting the Palmer, Prescott and ourselves,
and nobody knows how many others that haven’t any wireless, there are
plenty of chances for collisions.”
“Why, it’s three o’clock,” exclaimed Phil, looking at his watch. “What
time did the fog set in?”
“Fifteen minutes past twelve,” returned the first mate.
“How long will it last?”
“Goodness knows,” sighed the skipper. “I’ve seen them set in and lift
inside an hour and I’ve seen ’em hold three days. Your opinion is as
good as mine.”
“Will all these boats be drifting for three days, if the fog holds that
long?” asked Ted.
“Unless we can arrange some plan to keep out of the way of one another.
Only there are more likely to be sixty than twenty-one boats floating
about if the fog holds that long.”
Too careful a navigator to turn over his vessel to the mate when his
judgment and nerve might be needed at any moment to meet an emergency,
Captain Perkins went into the pilot house, where he regaled the boys
with stories of other fogs.
“It’s lifting! It’s lifting!” suddenly shouted a voice, joyfully.
Quickly the skipper was on his bridge, followed by Phil and Ted.
In the East a pink glow suffused the mist pall, before which the fog
receded. As dawn burst, the colour effect was gorgeous, and when the sun
seemingly leaped from the lake, the fog vanished as if by magic.
In amazement, the young homesteaders looked about them. The water was
apparently alive with boats as far as they could see in all directions.