THE DECOY BEACON
Once again the following night the trio, Norma, Rosa, and Marie, were
on duty in the upper room of the Sea Tower, Rosa at the switchboard,
Norma before her charts, and Marie at attention for any emergency.
For more than an hour, save for the clock on the wall that ticked
loudly, there was silence in the room.
Then came a buzz at the switchboard.
“That’s Beth calling from the Granite Head spotter tower.” Norma knew
the number. “What does she want?”
“She’s relaying a report from Betty at Black Knob,” Rosa explained.
“They have discovered a light against the sky well out to sea.”
“Tell her to ask Betty if it’s an airplane light,” Norma suggested.
Rosa relayed the message. For a time after that there was silence, and
then came a second buzz. Rosa pressed the headphone to her ear and
listened intently.
“She says that Betty does not think it is a plane light. It does not
move across the sky and doesn’t grow brighter as it would if it was
coming in. It just sort of sways.”
“Light on the mast of some ship,” Norma suggested.
“Beth says she suggested that,” Rosa explained. “Betty told her it
seemed too high.”
“Oh! Sublime sweet evening star,” Norma sang softly. “How I wonder what
you are.”
Then came a third buzz. “She says Bess has heard a large plane, a long
way off the shore, heading south.”
“Might be an enemy bomber,” Norma said, and sat straight up.
Marie got the men below on the phone.
Before they could report, the WAC watcher on the water tower roof
popped her head through a hole to report the same plane.
Ten seconds later Beth relayed one more message for Black Knob. They,
too, had heard the powerful motors of a large plane. It was some
distance north of the mysterious light and apparently flying straight
toward it. Here surely was a mix-up.
Then the report from the men below came up. No large plane was due
anywhere in this region except some new transport planes being flown
overland.
“But what would one of these planes be doing fifteen miles out to sea?”
was the question that came from the puzzled representatives of the Army.
In the meantime, out on the Black Knob spotter tower, Betty and
Grandfather Norton were wracking their brains for answers to all these
problems.
“That big plane certainly is going straight for that strange light,”
Betty insisted.
“There’s no denying that,” Grandfather Norton agreed, moving his
listening horn first this way, then that, to get its exact location.
It was strange, standing there, watching that light and at the same
time hearing but not seeing the big plane.
Just then someone stepped out on the platform. It was Lena. Having a
day off, she had, strangely enough, chosen to spend it on the island. A
fisherman would take her ashore next morning.
“Lena!” Betty exclaimed. “I thought you were fast asleep!”
“I was.” Lena shuddered from the chill of the night. “But something
woke me up—so I came out here.”
“It doesn’t take much to waken you,” said Betty. “The motor of a
distant plane.”
“What’s up? Why are you so excited?” Lena studied their faces.
“See that light over there against the sky?”
“Yes, I see it.”
“What is it?”
“Why that—” Lena broke off suddenly. She seemed greatly disturbed.
“I—hear a plane!” she exclaimed suddenly.
“Yes, we’ve been hearing it for some time,” said Grandfather Norton.
“What’s it doing out there?” Lena asked. There was a strange quality in
her voice. “As if she herself knew the answer,” Betty told herself.
“Well,” Grandfather Norton spoke slowly, “if I wasn’t dead sure that
there was nothing but water out there, miles and miles of water, I
should say that the light was a beacon to a landing field and that the
plane was heading toward it for a landing.”
“Oh! But that’s impossible!” Betty exclaimed.
“Certainly it is,” Norton agreed.
Like a caged animal Lena began pacing the narrow platform. Once Betty
thought she heard her murmur tensely, “It’s terrible. Just terrible.”
What was terrible and how did this big girl know it was terrible?
In the meantime the big plane was coming closer, ever closer to the
swaying light. Those on shore, Beth, Bess, Norma, Rosa, and the rest,
could hear the plane but could find no answer to the question, “Why is
it there?”
Lena continued to pace the platform. Watching her, Betty realized that
within the big girl’s mind a terrific battle was raging. “What battle?”
she asked herself. “And why?”
For a time she found no answer. Then suddenly the answer came. Or was
it the answer?
“See here!” Lena exclaimed, suddenly gripping Betty’s arm until it
hurt. “I can’t stand it! That plane is going to come down, close to
that light. It will crash. The pilot will be drowned and—and all on the
plane—unless—”
“Unless what?” Betty’s throat was dry.
“Unless we go to the rescue!” Lena pulled at her arm. “There’s not a
moment to lose.”
“But we have no plane.” Betty stared first at Lena, then at Norton. It
was a tense moment of indecision.
“There’s a motorboat, a pretty fast one. I can run it, you know that!”
Lena’s voice was tense with emotion.
“Yes, I know. Norma told me how you saved them.”
“Then come on. Come on, now! We—” Lena’s voice broke; she did not
finish.
Betty looked at Grandfather. He did not speak, merely nodded his head.
“All—” Betty gulped, “all right, I’ll go!”
Instantly the two girls were down from the tower and racing like mad
for the dock.
Once at the dock Lena unscrewed the gas tank cap, flashed a light down
into the tank, then, after a few twists at the cap said, with
astonishing calmness:
“Get in. We are off.”
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[Illustration: _“There’s Not a Moment to Lose!” Lena Exclaimed_]
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Strange questions and wild emotion came and went over Betty’s active
mind as they headed straight for that light and at full speed.
“Has this girl lost her mind?” she asked herself. “Or does she know
some terrible secret? Will the plane really come down?” For the moment
she found no answer. But the answer must come soon. Even as she thought
this Lena exclaimed:
“There! What did I tell you? The plane is beginning to circle. It will
come down. It is flying high, but it will come down.”
This Betty knew was true. The sounds that came from the plane told the
whole story.
As she watched, frightened, yet fascinated, she tried to measure the
time it would take for the plane to come down. Now it must, she
thought, be a quarter of the way down, now a half, and now
three-quarters of the way. Her heart skipped a beat. What plane was
this? Would it really crash? Was it friend or foe? Should she hope for
a crash or an upward swing just in time? Her brain was in a whirl.
“The light has vanished!” Lena exclaimed suddenly.
It was true. The light had blinked out.
Still the plane came down, rapidly. There seemed no stopping it now.
After breathing a prayer, Betty began to count. One, two, three,
four—she had reached twelve when there came the sound of a muffled
crash.
“Now, if only we can save them,” she thought with a tightening of her
throat. And yet, after all, who were they?
While Lena kept the boat at its utmost speed, Betty stood in the prow
and strained her eyes for some sign of the wreck.
At last her vigil was rewarded.
“There’s a tiny light. But perhaps that’s the one that disappeared.”
“It is not that one!” Lena headed straight for it.
The light grew brighter. A dark bulk loomed ahead. Betty heard a voice
calling. A woman’s voice. That, she thought, was strange.
They came closer. “Are you hurt?” she called.
“No, we’re not hurt,” a woman’s voice answered.
“But please hurry,” came in a different voice. “The plane may sink.”
“We’ve been hurrying, quite a while,” Betty called.
“How did you know we’d crash?” came back.
“I didn’t. We—we just came,” said Betty.
“That light was a decoy,” came from the plane.
“You thought there was a field here?” Betty suggested.
“We were off our course and our gas was low,” one voice explained. “We
came down to see.”
“And I took the plane too far,” the other explained.
“Well, now you’re safe enough,” Betty said a minute later as Lena eased
the boat in close to the plane’s wing where the two women sat. At the
same time she threw her light upon them. They were, she discovered,
surprisingly young and, beyond a shadow of doubt, Americans. At that
moment words from a very old book came to her. ‘An enemy hath done
this.’
“But what about our plane?” one of the girls on the plane asked. “We
are of the Ferry Command. It’s worth a lot of money.”
“And it’s hardly damaged at all,” said the other.
“It’s equipped with sort of water-wings that can be filled with gas in
just no time,” said the first one.
“Why don’t you fill them?” Betty asked. “We’ll stand by.”
“We will!” They both sprang up. “We’ll be right back. Right back.”
A moment later there came a hissing sound and the plane began to lift
slowly.
“The water is smooth. I’m sure we can save the plane,” said Lena.
“Listen!” Betty said. “There’s a boat coming.”
Before the two girls returned, their arms loaded with personal
belongings, two fishing boats pulled alongside. One was quite long, the
other small.
“What happened?” Joe Tratt asked.
“They crashed,” Betty explained. No mention of the decoy light. That
would come later.
“We’re going to try towing it in,” said Lena.
“I’ll help you,” said Joe. “My boat draws a lot of water. Bill can take
you all in. His boat is small.”
So it was agreed. Betty and the two strange girls piled into Bill’s
boat. Betty called, “So long and good luck!” Then they were away.
“Lena is the strangest girl I ever knew,” Betty told herself as she
settled in her place. She wanted terribly to talk, but if she did, she
might say the wrong thing. So she said never a word—not, at least,
until she sat across a table from Grandfather Norton in his secret den.
Then she really opened up.
They talked for an hour. The old man’s voice was mellow. His words came
slowly, thoughtfully, from a well-stored mind. Betty was not a child
and still at times she sprang to her feet to exclaim, “Lena knew it was
going to happen. She really knew!”
“Perhaps,” was the slow reply. “Then again, perhaps not. Some people
are gifted with intuition, particularly women.”
“Yes, I know, but—”
“Even I suggested first that the plane might try to make a landing,” he
added. “There was the whole set-up, night, a plane seeking a landing
place, and a light that seemed a beacon.
“And at the most, we must admit,” he added thoughtfully, “that this big
friend of yours, Lena, might well have been the means of saving lives.
It was a mere chance that saved the plane.”
For a time after that there was silence. Then he spoke again.
“It would seem that, after all, we are discussing a minor problem. The
real problem is, who put out that decoy light, if it was a decoy, and
how did they take it down?”
“Decoy?” Betty exploded. “Of course it was a decoy to lure our
airplanes into the sea.”
“Perhaps. Let’s pass that up for the moment and ask ourselves how the
light got there. Did you see or hear any surface craft leave the spot?”
Betty shook her head. “Not a sign, nor an airplane either.”
“Then, only a sub could have put up that light. With a long telescoped
steel pole, like a giant fishing rod, guyed by wires, they could hang
out a very high light.”
“It might have been an electric light on a wire,” Betty suggested.
“Then they could have blinked it out on the instant.”
“Certainly. And when the plane came close, that’s what they did. Has it
not occurred to you that they might have been afraid of the plane?”
“I think they were afraid of us.”
“With the plane thundering overhead, they could not have heard your
motor. I fancy they thought the plane was out to bomb them. More than
likely they crash-dived.”
“Then why the light?” Betty was more puzzled than ever.
“That is a big sub. These large subs carry small seaplanes that can be
catapulted from their deck. If their plane was out landing spies on our
shores or spying out the land itself, they may have had a beacon out to
guide it back.”
“That,” Betty laughed, “is good enough for a night cap. I’m going to
retire. Goodnight!” She was gone.
When, at dawn, Lena and Joe Tratt arrived at the harbor the big girl
appeared ready to drop. And yet, as soon as the plane was safely
grounded on the sandy beach, she hired a fisherman to take her ashore.
Once there, she drank three cups of black coffee and then, still
teetering on her toes, she climbed the stairs, entered her room, threw
off her coat and shoes, and crept under the blankets to fall fast
asleep.
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