from the road or the ocean either one."
"How about this spot?" Mr. Parker suggested, pointing to a hollow between
two giant dunes.
The place seemed exactly right, so the trio flattened themselves on the
sand. Jerry looked at the luminous dial of his watch.
"One fifteen," he announced. "No sign of activity."
"And no sign of any soldiers," Mr. Parker added. "I hope that whoever is
to take over here shows up before long."
"I don't," Penny said, snuggling close between her father and Jerry. "I'm
having fun!"
"If anything should develop, it's apt to be serious business," Jerry
warned. "I'm inclined to think that we tipped our hand and nothing will
happen."
An hour elapsed. During that time there was no sound save the roar of the
restless sea. The warm sand made a comfortable couch, and despite her
best intentions, Penny caught herself dozing. She had all she could do to
keep awake.
"What time is it now?" she presently asked.
"Two thirty-five," Jerry answered. "It doesn't look as if there's to be
any activity, but then the night's young."
"The night may be, but I'm not," Mr. Parker grumbled, shifting into a
more comfortable position. "Wonder when our relief is to show up?"
"Must be some mix up on orders. We're probably stuck here for the night."
"In that case, Penny should return to the hotel."
"Oh, no. Dad! Anyway, if I left now I might attract the attention of
anyone watching this place."
"You thought that one up!" her father chuckled. "Except for ourselves,
there's no person within a quarter of a mile of this place."
"You're wrong about that," murmured Jerry, stiffening to alert attention.
"What's up, Jerry?" Mr. Parker said quickly. "You act as if you were
seeing things!"
"I am, Chief! Look to the right--between us and the lighthouse!"
Mr. Parker and Penny gazed intently in the direction indicated.
"Can't see a thing," Mr. Parker whispered. "Your eyes must be tricking
you, Jerry."
"Wait just a minute."
Even as Jerry spoke, a shadowy figure emerged from the mists. The man
came swiftly down the beach, making no sound as he walked. When he was
very close, the revolving beacon of the lighthouse singled him out for a
fleeting instant. Brief as was the moment of illumination, Penny
recognized the man.
"George Emory!" she whispered tensely. "What's he doing here?"
CHAPTER
24
_OUT OF THE SEA_
The answer to Penny's whispered question soon became obvious. George
Emory looked carefully about the windswept beach. The three tense
watchers thought that he might approach the dune where they lay hidden,
but he did not.
Instead, the man paused while several yards away and gazed toward the
sea. A moment he stood thus, silhouetted against the sky. Then using a
glowing flashlight, he began making wide sweeps with his arm.
"A signal!" Jerry whispered. "He's trying to attract the attention of a
boat out at sea!"
"Shall we go for him?" asked Mr. Parker.
"Wait!" Jerry advised. "He's not the only one we're after. We're stalking
bigger game."
At intervals for the next fifteen minutes, George Emory repeated the
flashlight signals. Then he turned off the light and waited.
Anxiously, Jerry, Penny and Mr. Parker kept their faces turned to the
sea. They sensed that the hour of action was at hand, and it worried them
that Army men had failed to arrive.
"Look, Dad!" Penny suddenly whispered. She had glimpsed far from shore a
long shadowy object which easily could be a boat. No lights were showing
nor had she heard any sound.
"I don't see a thing," Mr. Parker whispered back. "Yes! Now I do! Jove!
It looks like a submarine that's surfaced. I can make out the conning
tower!"
"But why would it dare come here?" Penny speculated. "Won't it be
detected by the patrol planes?"
"Tonight's a bad night," Jerry pointed out. "Besides, the shore is so
indented at this point of coast that perfect protection is almost
impossible. They're sending a boat, that's sure!"
A small craft had been launched from the wave-washed deck of the
submarine. Manned by two men who rowed with muffled oars, it slowly
approached the shore. When it was very close the watchers behind the sand
dune saw by its grotesque sausage shape that it was a large, rubber boat.
Like a gray ghost it slid over the water.
Mr. Parker gripped Penny's hand in an encouraging squeeze.
"Wish you were safe at the hotel," he whispered. "I was a fool to let you
come."
Penny's heart pounded but she shook her head vigorously. Not for anything
would she have missed the adventure. However, she was cool headed enough
to realize that the situation was not shaping up well for her father and
Jerry.
There were two men visible in the rubber boat, unquestionably armed. Then
George Emory must be reckoned with and the arrival of others might be
expected at any moment. Jerry carried a revolver but her father had no
weapon. Already it was too late for any member of the trio to safely go
for help.
"That sub may intend to land Secret Agents here," Jerry speculated. "But
from the code message we deciphered, it's more likely they plan to take
aboard one or more passengers."
"Perhaps that escaped flier," Penny supplied.
"He's a valuable man to them. Well worth the risk they're taking to try
to rescue him."
"If passengers are to go aboard, where are they?" Penny whispered.
"There's no one here but George Emory."
"We must wait and watch. We'll soon see enough or I miss my guess."
The rubber boat had reached the surf and was being churned by the waves.
Two men in full military uniform, leaped out and guided the boat to the
beach. George Emory waded out to meet them. Shaking the hand of each, he
spoke rapidly in German. Though Mr. Parker understood the language, he
was unable to catch a word.
Tensely, the trio waited and watched. At any moment they feared that the
men from the submarine might seek the cache of explosives hidden not far
away. Soberly Jerry and Mr. Parker considered trying to reach the box in
the sand. To do so they must cross an open, unprotected span of beach
with every likelihood of being seen.
"Let's wait and see what happens," Mr. Parker advised. "We shouldn't risk
calling attention to ourselves."
George Emory and his two companions obviously were awaiting someone.
Nervously they paced the beach. Several times Mr. Emory looked at his
watch. Then from far down the road came the sound of a car traveling at
high speed. Tires screamed in protest as the auto came to a sudden halt
on the paved road back from the beach.
"That's why they've waited!" Jerry whispered.
Barely a minute elapsed before two figures were seen coming swiftly from
the direction of the road. A man and a woman crawled through the bushes,
under the fence, and walked hurriedly across deep sand to the beach.
"Mrs. Deline!" Penny identified the woman. "The man with her is the same
fellow who stole food from our camp!"
"I'd know his face from photographs I've seen," contributed Jerry. "He's
Oscar Kleinbrock, escaped German prisoner. The man I was sent here to
trace!"
Mrs. Deline and her companion reached the group of men who awaited them.
"You are five minutes late," George Emory reproved.
"Can we help it?" Mrs. Deline snapped. "We're lucky to be here at all. Do
you know that the road is being watched?"
"By whom?"
"Army men. We were nearly stopped but were able to turn off into the
thicket and wait."
"Then there's no time to waste in talk," George Emory said curtly.
Turning, he spoke to the German flier in his own language.
"He's telling him to get aboard the rubber boat," Mr. Parker interpreted
tensely. "Now they're saying goodbye to Emory and Mrs. Deline."
"Somehow we must hold them all here!" Jerry whispered grimly.
"It's two against five. And they're armed."
Mr. Parker and Jerry looked at each other, fully realizing how slim was
their chance of success. They were not thinking of themselves but of
Penny and what could happen to her if they failed. Mr. Parker touched her
arm.
"Penny," he whispered. "Slip away in the darkness and make a dash for the
hotel. Jerry and I will try to hold them until help comes. Just keep low
as you run or those fiends may take a pot-shot at you." Penny would not
desert her father and Jerry. Stubbornly, she shook her head.
"We want to know that you are safe," Jerry urged. "Please go while you
still have a chance. You can help us most by bringing help."
Penny's determination to remain, weakened. Yet reason told her she never
could reach the hotel and return with help in time to do any good. It
dawned upon her that Jerry was only saying what he did to get her safely
away.
"If only we had the box of explosives!" she whispered. "With it we might
have a chance against those men!"
"It's too late to dig up the box now," said Jerry. "We probably couldn't
find it without a light. And the noise we'd make--"
"Let me try," Penny interrupted.
"All right, see if you can get your hands on the box," her father agreed
suddenly. "Slip back of the dune, and then circle. Don't try to cross the
beach. Be careful! Remember the least sound will bring a hail of
bullets."
Penny nodded and slipped away into the darkness, crawling on hands and
knees. Barely had she left the shelter of the big sand dune than she
heard two shots fired in quick succession.
"Those came from Jerry's revolver!" she thought. "Oh, it was a trick to
get me safely away! Now he and Dad are in for fireworks!"
Raising her head above the protecting sand dune, Penny saw why Jerry had
fired. The rubber boat was being launched. To delay the attack would mean
that the entire party might escape.
"They'll all get away!" Penny thought in dismay. "How can Jerry and Dad
hold them single handed?"
George Emory returned Jerry's fire with deadly aim. The bullets bit into
the dune, throwing up little geysers of sand.
"Launch the boat!" he shouted savagely to the men from the submarine.
"Get away while you can! Be quick!"
Jerry and Mr. Parker were determined that the party should not escape. As
the men sought to launch the rubber boat, they made a concerted rush for
the German flier who was to be taken aboard the waiting submarine. Caught
by surprise, he went down beneath their blows.
Fearful of hitting his own man, George Emory dared not fire again.
Instead, he and the crewmen of the submarine fell upon Jerry and Mr.
Parker. In the melee, one person could not be distinguished from another.
"Fools! Fools!" cried Mrs. Deline as she watched the fierce, uneven
struggle. "There is no time to be lost!"
Jerry and Mr. Parker were putting up the fight of their lives, but they
were no match for four able bodied, trained men. Penny, desperate with
anxiety, saw that the struggle could end only in one way--disaster for
Jerry and her father.
"If I had that box of explosives maybe I could help them!" flashed
through her mind.
Rolling over a dune, she ran to the place near the fence where she
thought the cache was buried. Frantically she clawed and dug at the sand.
She could not find the box.
"It must be here!" she told herself desperately. "Or was it hidden in the
next dune?"
She tried another place slightly to the right. As she dug, she heard a
sound behind her. Turning swiftly, she saw Mrs. Deline starting across
the beach toward her.
"Oh, no, you don't!" the woman shouted.
Penny's hand encountered something hard and firm. The box of explosives!
Digging wildly, she lifted it from the bed of sand and sprang to her
feet. Her fingers closed upon one of the hand grenades.
"Get back!" she ordered Mrs. Deline, balancing herself as if to throw.
The woman stopped short, then retreated a few steps. But only for a
moment was she frightened.
"Why, you infant, you couldn't throw a grenade!" she jeered. "You don't
know how. Besides, you haven't the nerve!"
"Get back!" Penny ordered again. "I warn you."
Mrs. Deline laughed scornfully and came on.
Even the thought of throwing a hand grenade terrified Penny. She knew
that she could not deliberately harm Mrs. Deline or even the men who were
mercilessly beating her father and Jerry. Yet she had to do something.
"Maybe I can destroy the rubber boat!" she thought. "It's far enough away
so that no one should be hurt by the explosion."
Whirling away from Mrs. Deline, Penny faced the sea. Fixing her eyes on
her target, the rubber boat at the water's edge, she hurled the grenade.
"Idiot!" cried Mrs. Deline, flinging herself flat on the sand to protect
her face from flying fragments.
Penny did likewise. The grenade dropped with a thud on the sand beside
the rubber boat. Her aim had been perfect. But there was no explosion.
Belatedly, Penny realized that she had forgotten to pull the safety pin.
Mrs. Deline kept her face buried beneath her arms and did not yet know
what had happened. Sick with the knowledge that she had failed, Penny was
desperate. Her father and Jerry were being cruelly beaten by their
opponents. In another minute they would be overpowered and the Germans
would escape to the waiting submarine.
"I can't let them get away!" Penny whispered. "I must do something!"
Remembering the pencil bombs, she groped in the cardboard box for them.
They were not there. Instead, her fingers closed upon the sharp bladed
knife.
"I'll slash the rubber boat!" she thought. "I'll try to make a hole in
it!"
Before Mrs. Deline realized what the girl was about, Penny darted down
the beach. The men from the submarine did not see her. Reaching the
rubber boat, she leaped into it. Working with desperate haste, she jabbed
the knife through the bottom. The material was tough and it took all of
her strength to make a long jagged gash. Water seeped in, slowly at
first, then faster.
"I've done it!" Penny thought jubilantly. "I've done it!"
Her triumph was fleeting. The next instant the girl was struck a hard
stunning blow from behind. As she collapsed in a limp little heap on the
sand, she dimly saw the cruel, angry face of Mrs. Deline. Then all went
black and she knew no more.
CHAPTER
25
_A SCOOP FOR UNCLE SAM_
Penny opened her eyes and wondered where she was. For a moment she could
remember nothing of what had transpired. Gradually, she realized that she
was lying down, her head pillowed in someone's lap. She seemed to be in a
fast-moving motor boat for she could hear the wash of waves against the
craft. In panic she decided that she must be a prisoner enroute to the
German submarine. She struggled to sit up.
"Easy there, partner," said a soothing voice.
Penny twisted sideways to look at the speaker. "Jerry!" she whispered.
"You're all right," he said, pressing her gently back. "We'll get you to
a doctor in a few minutes."
"A doctor, my eye!" Penny protested with spirit.
"That was a nasty blow Mrs. Deline gave you on the head," contributed
another voice.
Penny turned again and saw her father. His shirt was half torn off and
there was a long gash on his cheek.
"Dad, you're hurt!"
"Nothing but a few scratches, Penny. Jerry took worse punishment than I
did. But you should see the other fellows!"
"What happened?" Penny asked. "Where am I anyhow?"
"In a patrol boat bound for the hotel."
"But what happened on the beach? The last I remember was when I tried to
slash the rubber boat."
"You not only tried, you did!" chuckled Jerry. "Mrs. Deline struck you on
the head with something--maybe a rock--and you went down for the count.
About that time, some of the Army boys arrived. Mrs. Deline and her crowd
tried to make a get-away, but the boat couldn't be launched."
"Then what happened?" Penny demanded as Jerry paused for breath.
"The two members of the sub crew tried to swim. They were picked up by a
patrol boat that had been drawn to the locality by the gun fire."
"And Mrs. Deline?"
"She and her pal Emory, together with the escaped flier, struck off
across the sand dunes."
"They didn't get away?"
"Not on your life. They reached the road and there found a nice reception
awaiting them! Right now the three are lodged at Headquarters."
Penny took a deep breath. Her head was throbbing but she scarcely felt
the pain.
"What about Jim McCoy at the lighthouse?" she inquired.
"He was taken into custody earlier in the evening. A portable
broadcasting outfit was found on the premises."
"Then Mr. McCoy really was the man responsible for those mysterious
broadcasts--the Voice from the Cave?"
"No doubt he had helpers," Mr. Parker contributed. "We expect to track
down most of the ring now that the leaders have been captured. At any
rate, we've put an end to the broadcasts. Your other theory was right
too, Penny."
"What theory, Dad?"
"That the cave effect was produced by an echo chamber."
"Then no broadcast ever originated in a cave?"
"Probably not. We know McCoy shifted locations frequently. Tonight was
the first time he ever dared broadcast from the lighthouse."
"And what of the old beachcomber, Jake Skagway?"
"Just a beachcomber," Jerry answered. "He had no connection with Emory or
Mrs. Deline."
Penny lay perfectly still for a few minutes, gazing up at the dark sky. A
few stars pricked the black canopy above her, and now and then a quarter
moon peeped from behind a cloud screen.
"How did I get aboard this boat?" she presently inquired.
"Another patrol boat came by," Jerry explained. "In fact, after all the
fireworks, just about everyone in Sunset Beach arrived on the scene. We
wanted to get you to a doctor so we took the first transportation that
offered."
"Almost there now too," added Mr. Parker.
Penny sat up. The shore was dark but she could dimly see the dark Crystal
Inn hotel.
"I don't need a doctor," she laughed. "I'm feeling better every minute.
My, won't Louise be green with envy when she learns what she missed!"
"I'd say she was lucky," Mr. Parker corrected. "Penny, you don't seem to
realize what a narrow escape we all had."
"That's right," added Jerry, "those men were desperate, and they'd have
stopped at nothing. I guess we owe our lives to you, Penny."
Penny loved the praise. Nevertheless, she replied with a show of modesty:
"Oh, I didn't do a thing, Jerry. As a matter of record, I nearly messed
up the show. When I threw that hand grenade I forgot to pull the safety
pin."
"I'm glad you did," chuckled Jerry. "If it had exploded, we might not be
here now."
Penny sat very still, thinking over what had happened. Events were a bit
hazy in her mind and many questions remained unanswered.
"The submarine?" she asked after a moment.
"Sunk," Jerry replied. "One of our patrol planes scored a direct hit."
"I guess that brings me up to date," Penny sighed, "There's only one
thing that bothers me."
"What's that?" inquired her father.
"Did you know who Mrs. Deline was when you invited her to come with us to
Sunset Beach?"
"No, but I had a healthy suspicion that she might be working against our
country, Penny. I first met Mrs. Deline at the Club. However, she was
rather transparent in making a play for my attention. In checking up I
discovered that she never had been in China and never had written a
newspaper story in her life. When she practically invited herself to ride
with us to Sunset Beach, I thought I'd try to find out more about her
little game."
"I acted so silly about everything," Penny acknowledged, deeply ashamed.
"I'm sorry, Dad."
"You needn't be, Penny. At times you were rude to Mrs. Deline which was
wrong. But your actions served a good purpose by keeping the woman so
diverted that she never was on her guard."
Shore was very close. As the powerful engines of the motor boat became
muted, Penny said wistfully:
"Now that your work is done here, Jerry, I suppose you'll be winging off
to some far corner of the country."
"Not for a few days at least," he reassured her. "I'm expecting a
furlough and I'll spend it right here at Sunset Beach. We'll cram those
days full of fun, Penny. We'll swim and golf and dance. We'll make every
minute count."
The boat grated gently against the dock and a sailor leaped out to make
the craft fast. Mr. Parker and Jerry helped Penny ashore. Though she
tried to stand steady upon her feet, the boards rocked beneath her.
"Hook on," invited Jerry, offering an arm.
Mr. Parker supported her on the other side, and thus they walked slowly
toward the hotel.
"The Three Musketeers!" chuckled the editor. "'One for all, and all for
one.'"
"We do make a trio," agreed Penny. "Tonight it seems just as it did when
we were together in Riverview working on a big news story. There's one
difference though."
"What's that?" asked Jerry.
"Tonight we were actors in a little drama that should be page one on any
newspaper. Yet neither of you news hawks so much as spoke of trying to
get a scoop for the _Riverview Star_."
"Good reason," rumbled Mr. Parker. "The story of what happened tonight
may never be published."
"I understand, Dad. If the news were printed now it might give valuable
information to the enemy."
Penny paused to catch her breath. With Jerry and her father still
supporting her, she turned to face the restless sea. The patrol boat had
slipped away into the darkness. Far up shore, unmindful that her
faithless master had gone, the bright beacon from the lighthouse swept
the water at regular intervals. Nothing seemed changed.
"Curtain going down on one of the best adventures of my life," Penny said
softly. "Who cares that the _Riverview Star_ missed the story? Why, this
was an A-1 scoop for Uncle Sam!"
Transcriber's Notes
--Replaced the list of books in the series by the complete list, as in
the final book, "The Cry at Midnight".
--Silently corrected a handful of palpable typos.