“It’s too bad. The captain has certainly been drinking,” mused Jack
to himself as he stood at attention and presented the dispatch he
had just copied.
“What’s this?” demanded the captain, regarding him with bloodshot
eyes that blinked suspiciously.
“Report from the _Seneca_, sir. Bergs in the vicinity,” spoke up
Jack.
“Report from the _Seneca_, eh?” muttered Captain Briggs muzzily.
“Well I know as well as they do there are bergs ahead. Let’s see
what it’s all about.”
He took the message and scanned it under the light of the lantern by
which he had been taking thermometer readings. His hand shook and he
called first officer Mulliner to read the message to him. Mulliner
repeated it in a grave voice.
“Hadn’t we better slow down, sir?” he asked.
“Slow down? What for?” blustered the flushed captain.
“Why, sir, the temperature of the water and then this dispatch all
go to show that we are nearing ice-fields, maybe growlers and bergs.
We are making fully eighteen knots now and----”
“We’ll continue to do so,” exclaimed the captain. “I’ve sailed these
seas for a good many more years than you’ve been on earth, Mr.
Mulliner.”
“That may all be, sir,” rejoined the young officer anxiously, “but
at this speed----”
“At this speed we’ll head ’em off according to my calculations,”
declared the captain. “If we slowed down we’d land in the middle of
’em. If we keep full speed ahead, we’ll pass to the south of ’em.”
“Then you mean to race them, sir?”
“That’s what. If that’s what you want to call it. Now get to your
duty, Mr. Mulliner,” added the captain in sharp tones, as if he felt
he had been too lenient even to argue with his subordinate. Mr.
Mulliner, muttering something about “suicidal,” turned away.
“Any orders, sir?” asked Jack, when he was alone with the captain.
Captain Briggs shook his head. He was a seaman of the old school and
did not place much faith in wireless.
“Just stick at your instruments,” he said, “but if there’s bergs
about the look-out, bet my nose ull pick ’em up ahead of any fool
wireless contraption.”
Jack made his way aft, burning with indignation. Here was a fine,
new ship, being driven at top speed toward the greatest peril a
seaman can encounter, at the whim of a man who had been drinking.
But there was nothing to be done, as Jack reflected with a sense of
speechless anger. Aboard ship the captain, no matter how insane his
orders may appear, is absolute czar of the situation. His word is
law. He can hang or imprison, for mutiny, anyone who dares to
question his orders.
The young wireless operator paused, before he reentered his snug
cabin with its shining instruments, to lean over the rail and gaze
out into the night. The mist had thickened now. It struck at his
face like clammy fingers. The night was quite silent but for the
vague hum of the engines far below him, and the hiss and roar of the
sea as the hulk of the _Cambodian_ was driven through it.
Ahead it was almost impossible to see anything but a dense, black
pall that might hide anything. Dimly through the mist curtains, Jack
could make out the figure of the look-out in the crow’s nest.
Occasionally he could catch his hoarse shout of “All’s well” and an
answer, booming through the smother, from the bridge.
Suddenly the whistle began sounding. At regular half minute
intervals it shrieked hoarsely.
Jack knew what they were doing. If bergs were in the vicinity, in
the intervals of silence between blasts, an echo would be flung
back.
“Pshaw, that’s a haphazard way of detecting bergs at best,” muttered
Jack to himself.
But he found himself listening with strained ears to catch the
slightest sound of an echo after each clamorous yammer of the big
siren. He fell to musing of the night on the _Ajax_ when the big
berg had loomed up before them.
Details of that night were told in the first volume of the Ocean
Wireless Series, which was called “The Ocean Wireless Boys on the
Atlantic.” This volume introduced Jack, his strange dwelling place,
and his odd relative, Cap’n Toby Ready, to our readers. We found
Jack, pretty well disheartened in his ambition to become a wireless
operator, on his way home among the shipping to the queer old
derelict craft where he lived with his uncle Toby, the latter a
purveyor of vegetable drugs and medicine, to old and superannuated
skippers.
Seeing a crowd on a dock, Jack went to find out what was the matter.
He soon discovered that the young daughter of Jacob Jukes, the
millionaire head of the great shipping combine, had strayed from her
father, who was visiting a great “oil-tanker” moored there, and had
tumbled overboard.
Jack leaped from the dock, while the others stood paralyzed with
helplessness, and saved the child in the nick of time. This won him
Mr. Jukes’ extravagant gratitude. He wanted to give Jack money. But
all Jack wanted was a job as wireless operator on the big
“oil-tanker,” the _Ajax_. He got it. Mr. Jukes would have given him
the ship had he asked for it. But the millionaire was autocratic.
After Jack’s first voyage he wanted the lad to give up the sea and,
at a big salary, become the friend and companion of the
millionaire’s son, Tom, a sickly lad. This by no means suited Jack
and he and the millionaire quarreled.
But Jack forged steadily ahead in his chosen profession. On his
first voyage, by a clever wireless trick, he brought confusion on a
gang of tobacco smugglers and set all their plans at naught. For
this brave act he almost paid with his life. But all came out well,
and on a homeward voyage from Antwerp he was able, once more with
the aid of the wireless, to unite Mr. Jukes and his son, Tom, who
had become separated when the millionaire’s yacht caught fire and
burned to the water-line at sea.
In the next volume, which was called “The Ocean Wireless Boys and
the Lost Liner,” Jack found himself the natty chief wireless man of
the crack West Indian liner, _Tropic Queen_, one of the finest
passenger craft plying those waters.
Jack and his assistant, a youth named Sam Smalley, found themselves
involved in an intrigue almost at once. A mysterious wireless code and
a plot to steal papers involving the Panama Canal formed its chief
features.
In trying to fight the ring of rascals, against whom he found
himself pitted, Jack was drugged in the Island of Jamaica and cast
into an inaccessible dungeon--part of an old Spanish castle called
The Lion’s Mouth. By wonderful ingenuity and pluck he escaped from
the fate planned for him.
Later a safe was blown open on the _Tropic Queen_ and the Panama
papers were stolen.
But Jack’s quick work at the wireless key soon summoned Uncle Sam’s
speediest battleships and cruisers to an ocean wide search for the
yacht, on board which was the gang that had stolen the papers. They
were recovered eventually by Jack and handed over to the rightful
owner. But not long after the Tropic Queen was caught in a hurricane
and cast on an island.
All seemed lost, for a huge tidal wave overwhelmed the wreck to
which Jack and Sam had swum out, leaving the others ashore. But
eventually the two boys reached land and rejoined the other
castaways. The message that Jack had sent out before the convulsion
of nature ended, the lost liner had reached other crafts, however,
and all were rescued safely. Jack and Sam each received substantial
rewards for their services.
Jack was turning out of the night to reënter his cabin when Raynor
came along. He was going on watch again.
“What news?” he asked, as he paused near Jack.
“Nothing much, except that there is ice ahead.”
“Bergs?”
“Yes, and growlers too, and field ice maybe. The _Seneca_ reports
it.”
Raynor looked about him in a puzzled way.
“But we haven’t slowed down,” he said at length.
“That’s just it. Captain Briggs is a drinking man. He is drinking
to-night and reckless. He means to keep right on this way.”
“Why, that’s madness. At any minute----”
“That’s just what Mr. Mulliner says. But what are we going to do?
You know as well as I do that the skipper’s word is law at sea.”
Raynor perched himself on the rail, balancing there high above the
water, a favorite position with him.
“I wish you’d brace your legs when you do that,” remarked Jack. “If
there was a sudden lurch or anything you’d go right overboard, and
nothing could save you. I’ve spoken to you a dozen times about it
and----”
“I know you have, you croaking old land-lubber,” laughed Raynor,
“it’s alright. As for danger, if you could see me lying in the
crank-pit, with the big steel throws smashing round within half an
inch of my nose I guess you’d be worried then.”
“No, I wouldn’t, because that’s your business and you know what
you’re doing,” responded Jack, “but balancing like that’s just pure
foolhardiness.”
“So there’s ice ahead?” said Raynor, ignoring Jack’s protest.
“That’s the report. They’re testing the temperature of the water on
the bridge. It’s falling all the time.”
“Well, what does that amiable maniac Briggs think he’s going to do,
knock a berg out of his way if he hits it?”
“No; he figures in his muddled brain that by keeping up full speed
he can pass to the south of the path of the bergs. In other words,
he’s racing them.”
“And if he loses the race there’ll be a most almighty smash-up.”
“That’s it. I---- What in the name of time is that?”
Jack broke off in an alarmed voice. Hoarsely, through the night, had
come the frightened cry of the man in the crow’s nest.
“For the Lord’s sake back her!”
“What’s up?” was shouted from the bridge.
“It’s ice. Ice dead ahead! To the port to starboard!”
With startled eyes and drumming pulses Jack stared forward.
Ghostlike, gigantic and looming white in the darkness a monolithic
tower overhung, as it seemed, the _Cambodian’s_ bow.
“Full speed astern!” came the voice of Mulliner, shrill with alarm,
and then the hoarse shout of Captain Briggs.
“No, confound you. Ahead! D’ye hear me--ahead!”
And then came a shout to the wheelman.
“Hard over! Hard over for your life!”
The _Cambodian_, at unreduced speed, swung off her course. A
shivering shock ran through her steel frame as she grazed the giant
berg and then--swung off, hardly scratched. Jack felt a quick bound
of his heart. In spite of his dissipation, Captain Briggs had shown
he knew how to handle the emergency. That quick order of full speed
ahead, and the swift shifting of the wheel had enabled the
_Cambodian_ to save her life.
“Say, Raynor, old man!” cried the boy enthusiastically, while the
shouldering form of the berg grew dim, a passed menace, and the
raucous shouts of the crew rose up to him, “say Raynor, I’ll take
back what I said about Captain Briggs. I----why don’t you answer?”
Jack turned swiftly. Then he stiffened with alarm. The place where
his chum had been perched upon the rail was vacant. Raynor was gone.
For a brief instant Jack was silent from the shock. Then his voice
rang out in tones of vibrant fear.
“Man overboard!” he cried, running forward stumblingly, “man
overboard!”