Jimmy Visits a Lightship off the Coast
For some time after his flight to Northend Jimmy found life rather tame.
No really big stories happened in the eastern part of the country. So
Jimmy was occupied from day to day with minor tasks that provided little
excitement. Yet all the while he was learning more about his job. From
day to day he talked with fellow pilots at the Long Island airport, and
drew from them as much as he could in the way of helpful suggestions
about flying. For some of them had had extremely trying experiences.
Whenever he was with newspaper men Jimmy asked as many questions as he
could about reporting and news coverage. He bore in mind what the
managing editor had said to him: “If you continue to improve, you’ll
make a great reporter some day.” It was Jimmy’s ambition to be one of
the very best. So he welcomed every experience that added to his
knowledge.
Even when his work seemed tamest he was acquiring facts and knowledge
with surprising rapidity; and all that he learned enlarged his
background and was just so much preparation for the day when he should
truly become a great reporter. One of his assignments was to fly out to
an incoming steamer in a seaplane and bring ashore some important news
photographs from Europe. It was on this flight that Jimmy had his first
sight of a lightship anchored at sea. He was instructed to meet the
incoming ship near the Ambrose lightship, off the entrance to the
Ambrose Channel that leads from the deep water of the sea up to the New
York harbor.
Jimmy knew the approximate hour of the steamship’s arrival at that
point. He flew out to sea a little early, to be certain that he was on
time. He was to get the pictures when the ship slowed down to pick up
the pilot who was to guide her up the channel to her dock. Arrangements
had been made by wireless with the photographer, who was aboard the
liner. He was to get the pictures down to Jimmy in the seaplane.
When the latter reached the lightship, the ocean liner was not yet in
sight. Jimmy decided that he would not fly out to sea to meet her. He
was a little distrustful of all this vast stretch of water about him. He
had been ordered to meet the ship when she picked up her pilot. The
pilot boat was cruising not far away. Jimmy decided that he would come
down on the water, which was very calm, and take a look at the
lightship. So he flew close to the vessel, then came down in a long
glide, and was soon bobbing safely on the gentle swells of the Atlantic.
The lightship was only a few hundred feet distant. Jimmy turned the nose
of his plane toward the vessel and taxied to a point close to leeward of
it. He had never seen such a curious craft. It was a clumsy, bunty sort
of ship, apparently not more than a hundred feet long, with bulging,
bulky bow, like that of a Dutch canal-boat. The sides of the vessel were
very high for a ship of her length. The ship was a straw color; and
painted on her hull in huge letters was the word _Ambrose_. She had two
masts, and at the top of each mast was apparently a guide light,
protected by a circular black iron grating, to flash out warning signals
in the dark.
Jimmy taxied as close to the ship as he dared. The crew of ten or a
dozen men was lined up along the leeward rail, watching him. Apparently
the men thought he wished to board the ship, for one of them had a light
line in his hand. Seeing that, Jimmy decided he would go aboard. He
scanned the sea and saw no sign of an approaching liner. Then he forced
his plane a very little closer to the lightship and waited. At once the
man with the coil of rope drew back his arm and flung the line straight
toward Jimmy. It sped through the air, uncoiling as it flew, and dropped
lightly on the fuselage of the plane. Jimmy stepped out on a wing and
secured the line. In another moment he had been drawn close up to the
ship. A port opened. A sailor skilfully drew one wing up to the side of
the ship, holding it so it would not bump the vessel. Jimmy walked out
on the wing and climbed aboard the vessel. At once his plane was allowed
to drift a few fathoms to leeward, where it was safe.
The sailors, eager for news from shore, flocked around Jimmy. They plied
him with questions. When he had answered all they asked, he put a few
questions himself. He wanted to know about all the interesting things he
saw. The huge anchor chain and the anchor itself interested Jimmy. The
chain was the thickest chain Jimmy had ever seen. The links were made of
iron two inches thick, and each link was strengthened by a cast-iron
stud. Jimmy whistled when the captain told him that a single fathom of
the chain weighed close to 200 pounds, and that the entire chain,
measuring only 120 fathoms, weighed about twelve tons. Of course, the
chain had to be moved by an engine.
The anchors, too, attracted Jimmy. One of them was at the bottom of the
sea, of course, but the other was stopped fast at the bow of the vessel,
ready to be let down at a moment’s notice. It was a mushroom anchor, and
got its name from its shape; for it looked for all the world like a huge
metal toadstool. The circular edge of the anchor was sharp, so it would
bite into the bottom of the sea easily.
But the thing that interested Jimmie most was the light. This, the
captain said, was an occulting white light, that was visible for twelve
out of every fifteen seconds. The light at the forward masthead is
always used, excepting when that light is out of commission. Then the
after light shines.
“If there was a string of lights like this one, each with a distinctive
flash,” said Jimmy, “a fellow could find his way by night at sea as
easily as he can follow his route on land when he follows the Air Mail
beacons.”
“There is a string of lights all along the coast,” said the captain,
“and each has its distinctive flash. Most of them are on land, but a few
are floating lights, like this, which mark danger points far out from
shore.”
Jimmy discovered that the great twelve-inch steam fog-whistle blows for
three seconds in each fifteen, when the fog is bad at this light
station, and the fog bell rings once every thirty seconds. Once every
twelve seconds the submarine bell strikes two groups of two strokes
each. And the radio fog-signal of the _Ambrose_ lightship is a
continuous string of dashes, exactly like the signal of the radio
beacons along the lighted airway. Thus, whether a passing ship’s captain
sees the light or merely hears the fog-horn, or detects the radio
signal, he knows what lightship he is passing.
Jimmy was so much interested in learning about the lightship that he
could have spent hours aboard of her, but the captain warned him that
the liner was visible on the horizon. Jimmy knew it was time for him to
be stirring. His plane was drawn up to the ship and he got carefully
aboard of her. Soon he was in the air. He came down close to the
pilot-boat, which was ready to put a pilot aboard the approaching
steamer. The men on this boat said they would get his photographs for
him when they put the pilot aboard the liner.
The big steamer came plowing along, her speed gradually lessening, until
she was practically at a standstill. Meantime a rowboat had taken the
pilot from the pilot-boat to the side of the liner. The pilot climbed up
the ladder at the side of the ship and spoke to the photographer who
stood at the rail, ready with his photographs. These were carefully
wrapped for protection. He handed them to a sailor who slipped down the
ladder with them and put them in the hands of one of the men in the
rowboat. The little craft headed about and pulled for the pilot-boat.
The liner began to move slowly and presently was steaming away at a
rapid rate.
Jimmy was all ready to board his plane when the men got back with his
pictures. He stowed them in his coat, climbed carefully aboard his ship,
and floated away to a safe distance. Then he rose from the water, headed
his plane straight for his landing-place on the southern shore of Long
Island, and went streaking back with his pictures. He gave them to a
waiting messenger and hustled to get back to his own field.
As he drew near the hangar he noticed great activity. Mechanics were
bustling about, ships were on the line, ready to take off, and pilots
were getting into their flying togs. Jimmy knew something was in the
air. He was just about to ask some one what was up when a mechanic who
looked after his ship spied him and shouted: “Call up your office. You
are wanted. There’s a big story that broke up in Pennsylvania. I’ve got
your ship ready to go at a moment’s notice. She’s been warming up for
half an hour.”