On duty with the morning watch, just after sick call at half past eight, Phil Morgan and George Belding met right abaft the radio station. There was half an hour or so before the divisions would be piped to fall in for muster and inspection, and the two friends could chat a little.
“Well, the folks are on the sea, as we are, Phil, if theRedbirdsailed as per schedule,” Belding said.
“I sha’n’t feel really happy till we hear they are at Bahia,” responded Whistler, shaking his head.
“Right-o! But theRedbirdis a fine ship, and just as safe as a house.”
“But she’s a sailing ship—and slow.”
“Not so slow, if anybody should ask you,” returned Belding smiling.
“A four-master?”
“And square rigged. A real ship. No schooner-rig, or half-and-half. Captain Jim Lowder thinks she is the finest thing afloat. Of course, she is thirty years old; but she was built to last. Regular passenger sailing ship, with a round-the-world record that would make the British tea ships sit up and take notice. Her cabin finished in mahogany, staterooms in white enamel—simply fine!”
“I didn’t know they had such sailing ships,” said Whistler in wonder.
“Oh, there are a few left. The Huns haven’t sunk them all. Nor have the steam craft put such as theRedbirdout of commission. You couldn’t get Captain Jim Lowder to take out a steam vessel. He abominates the ‘iron pots,’ as he calls the steam freighters.
“But sailing ships like theRedbirdare kept out of the European trade if possible. Even Captain Lowder must admit that a sailing ship is not in the game of fighting subs.”
“That is the way I feel. Wish your folks and mine were going south on a steamer, George.”
“No fear. They will be all right,” was Belding’s reassuring reply.
“Just the same I’d feel a lot better if all the Hun subs and raiders were bottled up at their bases.”
“By the way,” said Belding, “what do you think of thisSea Pigeonwe hear so much talk about? Think there is such a craft?”
“Why not? We know that some kind of an enemy vessel slipped along south and evaded our patrol, leaving a trail of sunken and torpedoed ships behind her.”
“But a huge submarine, with superstructure and all——”
“Thatis only a guess,” laughed Whistler. “Personally, I believe thisSea Pigeonis a raider and no submarine at all. A submarine of the size reported would use up a lot of petrol.”
“That’s all right,” said Belding quickly. “She could get supplies down along the Spanish coast. There are plenty of people that way friendly to the Germans.”
At the moment they heard the sudden chatter of the radio instrument. Belding turned instantly to put his head into the little room. The operator smiled and nodded to him.
“Something doing,” he muttered. “One of you chaps want to take this message to the com?”
“Let’s have it,” said Whistler, quickly, holding out his hand.
“I’d like to put on that harness myself,” said Belding. “We had a wireless on the roof of our house in New York before the war. Government made us wreck it.”
“Jinks!” exclaimed Whistler, waiting for the operator to write out the message received and slip it into an envelope. “Doyouknow how to work one of these things, George?”
“I know something about it,” admitted Belding. “What’s it all about?” he asked the operator.
“Orders for us,” said the man. “You’ll know soon enough. We’re due for new cruising grounds, boys. But keep your tongues still till the com eases the information to all hands.”
He had finished the receipt and “repeat” of the message. Whistler took the envelope and sprang away with it to the commander’s quarters.
He knew by the expression on Mr. Lang’s face when he scanned the message that there was something big in view. The commanding officer of theColodiaswiftly wrote a reply and gave it to Whistler for the radio man. Belding was still hanging about the wireless room. His face was flushed and his eyes shone.
“Do you know what it is all about, Phil?” he whispered.
“Not a thing. But the Old Man,” said Whistler, “is some excited.”
Rumor that changed orders had reached theColodiaspread abroad before muster and inspection. The usual physical drills were gone through while the boys’ minds were on tiptoe. Even the order at four bells to relieve the wheel and lookout startled the crew, so expectant were they.
But nothing happened until just before retreat from drill at eleven-thirty. Commander Lang then made his appearance. He went to the quarter and addressed the crew.
“We have been honored by an order to go freelancing after a suspected vessel, supposed to be a German raider, last and recently reported to be off the Azores,” he said. “Because we were successful some months ago in taking theGraf von Posen, we are assigned to this work.”
At this point the crew broke into cheers, and with a smile the commanding officer waved his hand for the boatswain’s mates to pipe retreat.
TheColodiawas at this time sailing within sight of half a dozen other destroyers bound out to pick up the expected convoy. After a little her wireless crackled a curt “good-bye” to her companions, and theColodiachanged her course for a more southerly one.
The chances, for and against, of overhauling theSea Pigeonwere volubly discussed, from the commander’s offices to the galley, and everybody, including the highest officer and the most humble steward’s boy, had a vital interest in the destroyer’s objective.
To attempt to chase a ship like this German raider about the ocean was a most uncertain task.
“But if the luck of theColodiaruns true to form,” Al Torrance expressed it, “we shall turn the trick.”
“That thisSea Pigeonis a raider and not a submarine, seems to be an established fact,” Belding said. “Sparks got some private information from the radio station at the Azores and says the ship is a fast steamer made over from some big, fat Heinie’s steam yacht he used to race before the war. She has just sunk a wheat ship from the Argentine.”
“Sparks” is the nickname usually applied to the radio operator aboardship, and George Belding was quite friendly with the chief of the wireless force on the destroyer.
“George gets all these ‘wireless whispers’ because he has a pull,” said Whistler, smiling. “If anything ever happens to Sparks, I expect we’d see George in there with his head harnessed.”
“And it’s no bad job!” cried Al enthusiastically. “I’ve often wished I could listen in on this radio stuff.”
“Oi, oi! That just goes to show the curiosity of you,” declared Ikey Rosenmeyer, with serious air. “It is a trait of your character that should be suppressed, Torry.”
The boys from Seacove and George Belding—but especially the last and Phil Morgan—had a second topic of daily conversation quite as interesting, if not as exciting, as that of the German raider, in chase of which theColodiawas now driving at top-speed into the southwest.
This topic was the fruitful one of theRedbirdand her cruise to Bahia. If the big sailing ship had left New York on the date promised, then the Belding family and Phil’s sisters would now be off Hatteras—perhaps even farther south.
“For you can believe me, Belding,” Al Torrance declared earnestly, and speaking with all the sea-wisdom acquired during his naval experience, “that Captain Lawdor would not sail right out across the Gulf Stream and make the Azores or the Canaries a landfall, as he might have done before Hun submarines got to littering up the Atlantic as they do now.”
“We cannot be altogether sure of his course,” murmured George Belding.
“Sailing vessels hate to head into the current of the Gulf Stream,” added Whistler, likewise in doubt.
“You chaps are determined to expect the very worst that can happen, aren’t you? Like a fellow going to have a tooth extracted,” said Al, with disgust. “Now, listen here! It stands to reason that news of this new raider, theSea Pigeon, or whatever it is they call her, was transmitted to the other side of the periscope pond. George’s father and the captain of theRedbirdwould be warned before they sailed from New York of this new danger—if not afterward, by wireless. Of course the ship has a radio plant, hasn’t she?”
“Of course,” agreed the shipowner’s son.
“Nuff said! They never in this world, then, would take the usual course of sailing ships for South America. They would not cross the Gulf Stream. It will take theRedbirda little longer to buck the northerly set of the current; but that is what Captain Lawdor will do, take it from me! I figure they are now about off Hatteras, following the usual course of the coasting vessels.”
“Not much leeway for a big sailing ship,” muttered George.
“Better hugging the shore, even stormy old Hatteras, whichweknow something about, eh, fellows?” added Al, “than dodging subs and raiders out in the broad Atlantic.”
He had an old chart and was marking off the possible course of theRedbirdwith a lead pencil.
“Good work, Torry,” said Frenchy Donahue. “It’s navigation officer you’ll be next.”
They were all five deeply interested, and each day they worked out the probable course of the sailing ship, as well as figuring the distance she probably had sailed during the elapsed twenty-four hours.
“I only hope,” George Belding said, “that we overtake thisSea Pigeonand finish her before her commander takes it into his head to steam across the ocean to the western lanes of travel. If the raider should intercept father’s ship——”
“Ah, say!” cried Frenchy, “that ‘if’ is the biggest word in the language, if it has only two letters. Don’t worry, Belding.”
That advice was easy to give. George and Whistler remained very anxious, however; indeed, they could not help being. Nor did the activities aboard the destroyer during the next few days much take their thought off theRedbirdand her company and cargo.
They talked but little—even to their closest boy friends—about the possibility of there being a great store of coined gold aboard theRedbird. Just the same, this fact they knew would cause the ship to be an object of keen attraction to any sea-raider who might hear of it.
The spy from the Zeppelin had secured George Belding’s letters in which the gold treasure was mentioned and Mr. Belding’s voyage in theRedbirdexplained. More than a month had elapsed between the spy-chase behind the little English port and the sailing of the square-rigged ship from New York for Bahia, Brazil.
“And you know,” George once said, “a whole lot can happen in a month. Those Germans have an ‘underground telegraph’ that beats anything the negroes and their Northern sympathizers had during, and previous to, our Civil War.”
“Aw, don’t bring up ancient history,” growled Al, who tried to be cheerful, but who found it hard work when the older boys seemed determined to see the dark side of the shield. “I’ve forgotten ’most all I ever knew about every war before this one we’re into with both feet—andthensome!”
“Sure, Torry,” put in Frenchy Donahue, “don’t you remember the war of that showman who antedated Barnum—the one they say got a herd of elephants over the Alps to fight for him?”
“Oi, oi! Hannibal!” cried Ikey.
“Say! it would take a friend of yours to do that, Frenchy,” said Al in disgust. “I’ve always had my doubts about that fellow, Hannibal.”
“Besides,” went on Ikey, going back to Belding’s statement, “it’s nothing to do with ‘underground’ or any other telegraph. The Germans use wireless. If that spy got news across the pond——”
“Right-o!” broke in George, with increased good-nature and an answering smile. “But let’s ‘supposing.’ That spy has had ample time to transmit to friends on the other side of the ocean information about the gold my father is carrying to South America.”
“Why,” said Whistler, slowly unpuckering his lips, “he might even have crossed to New York himself by this time—if the British didn’t catch him.”
“If they had caught him wouldn’t we have been told?” asked Belding quickly.
“How? By whom?” demanded Whistler.
“Say!” declared Al vigorously, “the British War Office makes a clam look like it had a tongue hung in the middle and running at both ends!”
“Now you’ve said something!” muttered Frenchy.
“That’s right! The world doesn’t even know how many submarines have been sunk and captured, already yet,” declared Ikey excitedly. “And wewon’tknow, it’s likely, till the end of the war.”
“What’s the odds?” growled Al.
“You got to hand it to them,” sighed Whistler. “The British have great powers of self-restraint.”
“You said it!” again put in Frenchy.
“Well,” Ikey said, more moderately, “if that chap that came near sending Belding here west, was that schmardie’s brother——”
“Cousin!” interposed Whistler.
“Well—anyhow and anyway—Emil Eberhardt—I say!” cried Ikey, “he might have got free and gone over to New York by submarine, or someway, like Whistler says.”
“What do you suppose he’d do if he wanted to get that money off theRedbird?” asked Frenchy, big-eyed.
“Ask us an easier one,” begged Al Torrance.
“You kids are letting your imaginations run away with you,” put in Phil Morgan.
But in secret the two older boys—Belding and Whistler—did not consider the idea of the spy reaching New York before theRedbirdsailed at all impossible.
“That chap with the broken arm we took off the wrecked Zep,” Belding remarked once to Morgan, “told you his cousin, the ‘super-spy,’ was bound for America, didn’t he?”
“He dropped such a hint,” admitted the Seacove lad. “But pshaw! we don’t even know that Franz Eberhardt referred to the fellow we had our adventure with.”
“I know! I know!” muttered George Belding. “But I do wish Willum Johnson, the strong man, had got his hands on that spy.”
“‘If wishes were horses——’”
“Sure! And perhaps it is all right. At any rate, father must have got my letter before he sailed, in which I told him all about losing the papers and warning him about German plotters. Of course he must have got that letter.”
But this thought would have afforded them little comfort had the two friends known that the ship which bore George Belding’s letter of warning had been sunk off the Irish coast by a German U-boat, and that that particular freight or mail for the United States would probably not be recovered until after the war.
TheColodiatouched at St. Michael and then at Fayal, receiving in both ports information of the escapades of the new raider. Lastly she had been heard of far to the west.
Perhaps she was going across the ocean to prey on the American coastwise trade! This was a suggestion that put the Seacove boys and Belding on edge.
There was, however, something rather uncertain about the stories regarding theSea Pigeon. Some of the merchant crews that had already met her, declared her to be a huge new submarine—a submersible that looked like a steam freighter when she was afloat, and that she was all of three hundred feet long.
“Some boat, that!” observed Mr. MacMasters. “We’ve seen ’em with false upperworks, boys. But you know, even theDeutschlandwas no such submarine as this one they tell about.”
Whistler put forth the idea that there were two ships working in these waters; but not many accepted this until, the day after they left Fayal, and the destroyer was traveling west, Sparks suddenly picked up an S O S from the south. The Argentine steamshipQue Vidawas sending out frantic calls for help. She was being shelled by a monster submarine two hundred miles off the port of Funchal of the Madeiras.
“This is the real thing—Sea Pigeonor not!” the radio operator confided to George Belding. “She’s the super-sub we’ve been hearing about. The operator on this Buenos Aires’ ship says she came right up out of the sea at dawn and opened fire with guns fore and aft. Has used a torpedo, and has upperworks like a regular honest-to-goodness steam freighter.
“There! He’s off again!” he exclaimed, as the radio began to spark, and he turned back to the machine.
So was theColodiaoff again, and at full speed, dashing away in quest of theQue Vidaand the great submersible that had attacked her.
Phil Morgan, coming up suddenly from the berth deck just as sweepers were piped at 5:20 in the morning, fairly overturned a smaller lad who had been straddling the top of the ladder.
“Hi, you sea-going elephant, you!” complained Ikey Rosenmeyer’s voice. “Look where you are going!”
“‘Keep off the engine room hatch’,” chuckled the older lad, quoting one of the emphasized orders from the manual. “Haven’t you learned that yet?”
“No more than you have learned that ‘Whistling is never permitted aboard ship’,” rejoined Ikey, getting up and rubbing his elbows.
“Wasn’t whistling!” denied Morgan.
“Well, your lips were all puckered up, just the same. And you know what old Jehoshaphat,” he observed, using the nickname for the chief master-at-arms, “said that time about your doing that. It’s just as bad to look like you were whistling as to do it.”
“Aw, he’s deaf and was afraid I was putting something over on him,” Morgan declared, and immediately proceeded to “pucker up” again in a silent tune.
It was true that Phil Morgan had received more than one demerit when first he had come to sea because of this proclivity of his for whistling. He had really been driven to the extremity of carrying a couple of small burrs under his tongue to remind him of the infraction of ship rules he was about to commit whenever he thoughtlessly prepared to whistle.
The Navy Boys had had a good many rules besides these two quoted above to learn. And not only to learn, but to obey! Excuses are not accepted in the Navy. Anybody who has ever looked through the Bluejacket’s Manual will be impressed by these facts.
Every waking hour of the day has its duties for the men and boys aboard ship. Especially for the apprentice seamen class to which Whistler and his friends belonged. Their “hitch” was for four years, or until they were twenty-one. And the more they learned and the higher they stood in their various classes, the better their general rating would be if they enlisted for a second term.
This last was their intention and expectation. They were by no means cured of their love for the sea or their interest in the Navy by the hard experiences they had suffered.
For that Philip Morgan and his chums had been through some serious experiences since the war began could not be overlooked. But they were just the sort of lads to enjoy what some people might consider extremely perilous adventures.
The daily routine of duty aboard theColodiaat times seemed tedious; but the Navy Boys managed to stir up excitement in some form if routine became too dull. In fact, the two younger chums, Ikey Rosenmeyer and Frenchy Donahue, were inclined to be venturesome and at times they got into trouble with the authorities.
This fact occasioned Whistler at this early hour to wonder what Ikey was doing at the head of the berth deck ladder. This was not the younger lad’s watch. He caught Ikey by the arm and led him to the rail. They were careful not to lean on the rail or on the lifelines, for that was against orders.
“What are you watching here for, anyway?” the older lad demanded.
“For the sun,” grinned Ikey.
“What you giving me? You don’t suppose the sun has forgotten to rise, do you?”
“Dunno. Haven’t seen him yet.”
“It isn’t time.”
“Well, I’m keeping my eyes open,” said Ikey with twinkling eyes but serious face.
“Shucks! What’s the game, anyway?” demanded Whistler.
“Why,” said Ikey, “the sun went down so blamed sudden last night that I wasn’t sure whether it really set same as usual, or just that the old fellow went out of business entirely. Didn’t you notice it?”
“Ah!” exclaimed the older lad, seeing the light, if not the sunlight. “Don’t you know that we are getting nearer and nearer to the tropics, and that there is mighty little twilight there?”
“No!”
“Fact. Night falls very suddenly.”
“‘Sudden!’ You said it!” ejaculated Ikey. “It’s enough to take your breath. I told Frenchy I wasn’t sure the sun would ever come up again.”
The fingers of Dawn were already smearing pale colorings along the eastern sky. The two boys watched the growing day wonderingly. No two sunrises are alike at sea, and Whistler was never tired of watching the changing sky and ocean.
This was the morning following the S O S call regarding the attack of the super-submarine on an Argentine ship. TheColodiawas pounding away at a furious rate toward the place which the wireless had whispered; but the spot was still some leagues away.
It was a cloudy morning, the clouds being all around the horizon with the promise of clear sky overhead. Windrow upon windrow of mist rolled up above the horizon. The light in the east was half smothered by the clouds.
“I guess the old sun will get here on the dot,” said Whistler, in a mind to turn away to go about his duties.
“I’m going to wait for him,” said Ikey stubbornly. “No knowing what tricks he might play. Hi! Look there!”
Whistler, as well as Ikey, suddenly became interested in what they saw upon the western sky. There was a stratum of cloud floating there, beneath which the horizon—the meeting line of sky and sea—was clear. The spreading light of dawn imparted to this horizon line a clearness quite startling. It was as though it had been just dashed on with a brushful of fresh paint.
The floating cloudland was pearl gray above and rose pink beneath; and that streak of “fresh paint” on the horizon line separated this cloudland from the dull blue water.
The sun would soon pop up above the eastern sea line, despite Ikey’s pessimism, and his coming rays were already touching lightly the clouds above.
“Look at that! Isn’t it great?” breathed Whistler. “Why, you can just about see through that cloud. It doesn’t seem real.”
“Clouds aren’t supposed to be very solid,” scoffed Ikey, unappreciative of the poetry in his mate’s nature. “Only air and water.”
“Huh! Two of the three principal elements,” snapped Whistler. “Where’s your science, smart boy? And that plane of cloud——”
“Looks just like the flat sea below it,” suggested Ikey, his interest growing.
“You’re right, it does!” admitted Whistler. “See! I believe that cloud is a reflection of the sea beneath. I bet it isn’t a cloud at all!”
“Then I guess I was right,” chuckled Ikey. “Nothing veryrealabout it, is there?”
Mr. MacMasters came forward along theColodia’sdeck just as Ikey made this reply. He addressed the two friends smilingly:
“What is all the excitement, boys? Haven’t spotted a submarine, have you, Rosenmeyer?”
Whistler turned to the ensign and waved a hand toward the phenomenon in the west.
“What do you think of that out there, Mr. MacMasters?” he asked.
“I am not sure, but I think we are being vouchsafed a sight not often noted at sea—and at this hour. It looks like a mirage.”
“Oi, oi!” murmured Ikey. “I understand now why it looks so funny.”
Whistler said: “Then that is a reflection of the sea up there in the air?”
“Hanging between sea and sky, yes,” said the ensign. “A curious phenomenon. But not, in all probability, a reflection of the sea directly under that cloudlike vision.”
“No, sir.”
“Probably a reflection photographed on the clouds of a piece of the ocean at a distance—just where one could scarcely figure out even by the use of the ‘highest of higher mathematics’,” and the ensign laughed.
“A mirage,” repeated Whistler. “Well, I never saw the like before.”
“It looks just like a piece of the ocean, doesn’t it?” said Ikey eagerly. “But there are no ships——”
He broke off with a startled cry. Mr. MacMasters and Whistler echoed the ejaculation. Everybody on deck who had paid any attention to the mystery in the sky showed increased interest.
Rising slowly and distinctly upon the reflective surface of the reflected sea was an object which the onlookers watched with growing excitement and wonder. It was the outlines of a ship—but not an ordinary ship!
It had upperworks and the two stacks of a steam freighter. It was of the color of the sea itself—gray; yet its outlines—even the wire stays—were distinct!
The sea shown in the mirage had been absolutely empty. Now, of a sudden, this ghostly figure had risen upon it. Whistler Morgan caught Mr. MacMasters by the arm. He was so excited that he did not know he touched the officer.
“Look at it! Do you know what it is?” he gasped. “That’s a submarine—a huge submarine. She’s just risen to the surface.”
“It’s the sub we’re looking for!” cried Ikey, hoarsely. “My goodness, see it sailing up there in the sky!”
Suddenly the red edge of the sun appeared above the eastern sea line. He had not forgotten to rise! For an instant—the length of the intake of the breath the two astonished boys drew—the mirage painted by nature against the western sky was flooded with the rising glory.
Then the wonderful picture was erased, disappearing like a motion picture fade-out, and there no longer remained any sign of the startling vision in the sky, save a mass of formless and tumbled cloud.
“What do you know about that?” murmured Ikey Rosenmeyer, in amazement.
“You’ll never see the like of it again, boys—not in a hundred years,” Ensign MacMasters said with confidence. “That was a wonderful mirage!”
“But, Mr. MacMasters,” cried Whistler Morgan, “that vision was the reflection of something real, wasn’t it? An actual picture of a part of the sea?”
“So they tell us.”
“Where do you suppose that piece of water lies?” demanded the youth eagerly.
“I have no idea. ‘Somewhere at sea’! It may be north, east, south, or west of theColodia’spresent position. As I tell you, there is no means of making sure—that I know anything about,” he added, shaking his head.
“Oi, oi!” exclaimed Ikey. “Then we don’t know any more than we did before where that super-submarine is.”
“If that was a picture of her,” said Whistler thoughtfully.
“It is truly ‘all in the air’, boys,” laughed Ensign MacMasters. “We saw something wonderful. Every mirage is that. But it is a mystery, too.”
“Maybe that wasn’t the picture of the submarine, after all,” Ikey suddenly suggested. “Maybe that was the mirage of a real freighter we saw. Two stacks and as long as this old destroyer, I bet! Maybe it only looked as though it rose from the sea.”
“I’d wager money on it’s being a picture of a huge German submarine,” said Whistler with confidence.
“Why so sure, Morgan?” asked the ensign with curiosity.
“You couldn’t see the water pouring off her sides as she came up in that mirage,” scoffed Ikey.
“No; but another thing I did notice,” Whistler declared, answering both the doubting ones. “She had no flag or ensign flying!”
“Good point!” cried Mr. MacMasters.
“If she had been a regular steamship, no matter what her business might be, she would have shown at least a pennant. And we would have seen it fluttering, for there is a good breeze.”
“Right, my boy,” admitted Mr. MacMasters. “I must report to the chief. But, of course, we can have no surety as to the direction of the craft, nor of her distance from us.”
The mirage caused considerable excitement and a good deal of discussion aboard the destroyer. Aside from the more or less “scientific” explanations offered by the old-time garbies in the crew, Ikey Rosenmeyer suggested one very pertinent idea: As he had sighted the ship which two other witnesses agreed was a submarine, was he not entitled to the twenty-dollar gold piece which was Commander Lang’s standing offer for such a discovery?
“Catch Ikey overlooking any chance for adding to his bank account,” Al Torrance declared. “Why, he’s got the first quarter he ever earned and keeps it in a wash-leather pouch around his neck.”
“Bejabbers!” agreed Frenchy in his broadest brogue, “an’ that’s the truth. Did yez iver see the little flock of trained dimes Ikey’s got? Wheniver they hear the spindin’ of money mintioned, they clack in Ikey’s pocket as loud as a police rattle.”
“You certainly can stretch the truth, Frenchy,” admonished Belding. “Truth in your facile fingers becomes a piece of India rubber.”
“Gab, gab, gab!” ejaculated Ikey, seriously. “It doesn’t prove anything. I want to know if I am going to get the twenty? I saw the submarine first.”
“A mirage,” scoffed Frenchy.
“That’s all right. It was a reflection of a real ship. Mr. MacMasters said so. If I’d seen a submarine picture in a looking glass, rising right off yonder,” and he pointed over the rail of the destroyer, “wouldn’t I have yelled, ‘There she blows!’ and got the double-eagle?”
“But you gave no alarm,” grinned Al. “Did he, Whistler?”
“I guess he did call the attention of an officer to it,” Whistler responded, with great gravity. “Are you going right up to the Commander with your claim, Ike?”
While the boys and the rest of the crew were joking about the mysterious submarine, the officers of theColodiawere seriously engaged in discussing the immediate course of the destroyer. They were under orders to find theSea Pigeon, a very fast raider; but they could not refuse very well to try to pick up this big submersible, if she could be overtaken.
The wireless messages from theQue Vidahad ceased hours before. That afternoon they sighted a regular flotilla of small boats on the quiet sea and knew at once that the submarine had again been at work. This time, however, the Germans had been more merciful than usual to the crew of the sunken ship.
Nevertheless the two life crafts and four boats were a long way from either Fayal or Funchal. The sea was quiet, but the German submarine commander did not know it would remain so. He had gone directly contrary to international law in deserting these people.
They proved to be the crew and passengers of theQue Vida, more than twenty-four hours in the boats. The captain had been carried away, a prisoner, by the huge submarine that had attacked the steamship from Buenos Aires.
The story of the chief officer of the lost ship was illuminating. TheQue Vidamight have escaped the Germans, being a fast vessel, had it not been for the fact that the former appeared to be a merchant ship, and flew a neutral flag, as did theQue Vida.
This enabled the submersible to get within gunfire range. Suddenly she revealed her guns fore and aft and threw several shells at the Argentine vessel. The latter was then so close that she was obliged to capitulate immediately.
The German then ran down nearer and ordered her victims to abandon ship within half an hour. She sent a boat for the captain of the merchant vessel.
When the boats and rafts were afloat, a boatload of Germans on their way to put bombs aboard theQue Vidastopped and pillaged each boatload of victims, taking their money, jewelry, any other valuables they fancied, and especially pilfering the woolen garments of both men and women.
TheQue Vidacarried some coin and her captain was evidently made to tell of this. The Germans searched the ship before putting the time bombs in her hold.
“Then, Señores,” said the chief officer, in concluding his story, “when the poorQue Vidawas sunken, the great submarine steamed away with Señor Capitan di Cos. Perhaps they have killed him.
“But we—Well, you see us. That gr-reat submarine is the most wonderful ship. I would not myself have believed she could submerge did I not see her go down with my own eyes not a mile away from our flotilla.
“And three hundred feet long she is, I assure you! As long as this destroyer, Señores. A so wonderful boat!”
“Once we drop a depth bomb over her, we’ll knock her into a cocked hat, big as she is,” growled one of theColodia’spetty officers in Whistler’s hearing.
“And the captain of the Spanish ship—what of him?” murmured the Seacove lad.
The taking aboard of the wrecked ship’s company caused considerable excitement on the destroyer. These torpedo boat destroyers do not have many comforts to offer passengers, women, especially.
“Cracky, Whistler!” observed Al Torrance to his chum, “there are girls come aboard the old destroyer. What do you know about that?”
“Well, the Old Man couldn’t very well leave them to drown, could he?” responded Morgan gravely.
“Spanish girls, too. One is a beauty; but the other is too fat,” said Frenchy who claimed to be a connoisseur regarding girls and their looks.
“Hold him, fellows! Hold him!” advised Ikey, sepulchrally. “He’ll be off again, look out!”
“Aw, you——”
“Don’t forget how he fell for that Flora girl when we were back there in England.”
“Shucks!” said Belding laughing. “Flora was the goddess of flowers.”
“Ah,” said Ikey, shaking his head, “you don’t know Mike Donahue. He’ll call this Spanish girl a goddess, yet. You just see.”
TheColodia, however, was driven at top speed for the nearest port, there to be relieved of the shipwrecked company from the Argentine steamship. So the susceptible Frenchy was soon out of all possible danger.
There was a keen desire, on the part of both the destroyer’s crew and officers, to overtake the craft that had brought theQue Vidato her tragic end.
It was well established now that the big submarine and theSea Pigeonwere two different vessels, though they might be working in conjunction. But either or both of the German craft would be welcome prey to the United States destroyer. The latter continued her tedious work of “combing the sea” for these despicable enemies.
Since sailing out of Brest and before receiving her special orders by wireless telegraph, theColodiahad made no base port where the crew could receive either mail or cablegrams. Two weeks and more had passed. Philip Morgan and George Belding had no idea where theRedbirdwas, or whether or not their relatives were safe.
“The fate of a ship at sea is an uncertain thing at best,” Phil Morgan said seriously to his friend, “in spite of the old salt’s oft-repeated prayer: ‘Heaven help the folks ashore on this stormy night, Bill!’”
“Don’t joke about such serious matters,” Belding replied. “Wonder how far the folks have got toward Bahia?”
“Well, you know where we stuck the pins in the chart to-day, boy?”
“To be sure. But we don’t really know a thing about it.”
“Courage!” urged Whistler. “We are just as likely to be right in doping out theRedbird’scourse as not.”
“It’s the confounded uncertainty of it that gets me,” said Belding bitterly, and then changed the subject.
Interest in theColodia’ssearch for German raiders and submarines did not flag even in the minds of these two members of her crew. For several days, however, the destroyer plowed through the sea, hither and yon, without picking out of the air a word regarding either theSea Pigeonor the huge submarine which some of the boys believed they had surely seen in the mirage reflected against the morning sky.
The detail work of a naval vessel at sea even in wartime, unless something “breaks,” is really very monotonous. Drills, studies, watch duties, clothes washing, deck scrubbing, brass polishing. All these things go on with maddening regularity.
Every time the wireless chattered the watch on deck started to keen attention. But hour after hour passed and no word either of the German raider or the big submarine was caught by Sparks or his assistants.
Yet there was a certain expectation of possible action all of the time that kept up the spirits of the men and boys of the destroyer. At any moment an S O S might come, or an order from the far distant naval base for immediate and exciting work.
TheColodiaand her crew were supposed to be ready for anything—and she was and they were!
The daylight hours were so fully occupied with routine detail that the boys made little complaint; but during the mid-watch and the first half of the morning watch when the time drags so slowly, the crew sometimes suffered from that nervous feeling which suggests to the acute mind that “something is about to happen.”
On this particular night—it was mid-watch—things were going very easily indeed on theColodia. It was a beautiful tropical night, with a sky of purple velvet in which sparkled more diamond-stars than Whistler Morgan or George Belding seemed ever to have seen before.
They were lying on the deck, these two, and gazing lazily skyward, it not being their trick on lookout. TheColodiawas running as usual with few lights showing; but not because it was supposed that there was any other craft, either friendly or of the enemy, within miles and miles of her course.
They lay within full hearing of the radio room. Suddenly the wireless began to chatter.
“Hold on!” exclaimed Whistler, seizing his friend’s sleeve. “That isn’t a call for you, George.”
“I’ve got so I jump everytime I hear it,” admitted Belding, sinking back to the deck.
The messenger soon darted for the commander’s cabin. It was no immediate order or signal for help, or he would have first hailed the bridge. But soon Mr. Lang’s orderly appeared with a message for the officer of the watch.
There were a few whispered words at the break of the bridge. Then the officer conning the ship gave swift directions for her course to be changed and signaled the engine room as well. Almost immediately the pace of the destroyer was increased.
“I wonder what’s in the wind?” murmured Whistler.
“I’m going to see if I can find out,” said Belding, rising again.
He went around to the door of the radio room. Sparks himself was on duty. He sat on the bench with the helix strap and “eartabs” adjusted. He had just taken another message, but it was nothing meant for the commander of theColodia.
“That’s the second time to-night, George,” he said, removing his head-harness. “I don’t know what to make of it.”
“What’s the matter, sir?” asked the young fellow.
“Why, I guess it’s static. Nothing more, I suppose. Yet it is a regular ‘ghost talk.’ I can almost make out words.”
“Goodness! What do you mean?” asked the young fellow, mightily interested. “I never heard of ‘ghost talk’, though I know ‘static’ means atmospheric pressure.”
“Pah! It means electricity in the air that we can’t wholly account for,” said Sparks. “But this——”
“What?”
“Why, I tell you, George; twice to-night I have almost caught something that seemed to be a message in one of our codes and tuned to this length of spark. But I can’t really make head nor tail of it.”
“That wasn’t what you just sent aft to the Old Man?”
“Shucks! No! I’ll give you a tip on that, young fellow,” and the radio man smiled. “We’ve been zigzagging across the steamship routes, but now you will notice that we have an objective. That message was from Teneriffe in the Canaries. That big sub has been seen down that way.”
“Bully!” exclaimed Whistler, who had come to look into the room over his friend’s shoulder.
“Oh, that you, Whistler? Well, there is nothing secret about it. But this confounded ‘ghost talk’——”
“Sounds interesting,” Whistler said.
“I’m puzzled. I hope I’ll catch it again. It is just as though somebody—a slow operator, regular ham—was trying to put something over and couldn’t quite do it. Funny things we hear in the air, anyway, at times.”
He went back to his machine, grumbling, and the boys came away after a bit. The news that the super-submersible had been heard of again was something to talk about, at least, and served to keep them awake through the rest of the watch.
In the morning the news that the German submarine was again active in a certain part of the ocean to the southward became generally known. It was likely that the strange and threatening craft, which plainly could make longer cruises than most submarines, had been sent forth to prey upon food ships from South America.
She expected to lurk along steamship lanes, like a wolf crouched in the underbrush beside a forest path; and like that wolf, too, she was relentless. Yet, her treatment of captured ships thus far had been more humane than most, as shown by her use of theQue Vida’screw and passengers.
“Still, she’s a regular pirate,” Whistler Morgan said in speaking of this. “See how her men robbed those poor sailors, and even the women.”
“Ah, you said something then, boy!” Al Torrance agreed.
“I wonder,” George Belding said reflectively, “if the war should end suddenly, and some of these U-boats are out in the various seas, if their commanders won’t become veritable pirates?”
“How’s that?” cried Frenchy Donahue. “It’s pirates they are already!”
“But to go it on their own hook,” put in Ikey. “I see what Belding means. Just think of a new race of buccaneers! Wow!”
“Begorra!” murmured the Irish lad, his eyes shining, “they might infest certain seas like the old pirates of the Spanish Main.”
“I hope you see what you’ve started, George,” growled Whistler with mock anger. “Those kids are off again.”
The friends from Seacove were not alone excited by the renewed chase of the super-submersible. That day, too, there were two messages about the German craft. She had sunk a small freight boat and a fishing sloop. It was evident that she had run somewhere for supplies, and had now come back to the island waters.
How many Canary fishermen’s sloops and turtle catchers she sank during the next few days will never be known. Mark of such vessels could not be taken until their crews rowed ashore—if they were fortunate enough to get to shore. The tales theColodiagot by wireless, however, showed that the Germans were robbing all crews, as they had the people from the Argentine ship.
From these shore reports, it seemed that the huge submarine was circling about the steamship lane again, boldly attacking everything that came in her way; but it was not until next day that the destroyer got out of the air abona fidecall for help. This was from the radio of the British steamshipWestern Starbound up the Cape of Good Hope.
She had merely time to repeat her S O S signal when her spark was cut off. Doubtless the radio plant of the freighter was destroyed by shellfire.
She had, however, given theColodiaclearly her situation, and the United States destroyer started upon another of those remarkable dashes for which she and her sister ships were originally built.
There was a chance that they might reach the spot where theWestern Starwas being held up before the submarine could get away; and theColodia’screw was at stations, ready for what was coming.
That was a great race, as the boys declared. The engines of theColodiaseemed to pick her right up and fling her onward over the sea.
They passed no other ship, and after the breakdown of theWestern Star’swireless, they got but vague whispers out of the air, and nothing at all about the huge German submarine that was attacking the British freighter.
The lookout tops were filled with excited men and boys; every member of the crew was on the alert. Tearing on through the calm sea, the destroyer reeled off the miles as fast as ever she had since her launching.
Two hours passed. Keen ears distinguished intermittent explosions from a southerly direction. Then a smudge of smoke appeared on the horizon, as though a giant’s thumb had been smeared just above the sea line.
“There she is!” went up the cry from the destroyer’s crew.
Their eagerness was increased, were that possible. As the cloud of smoke grew, they were all aware that it was from a ship in flames. For some reason the submarine had not torpedoed the freighter, but had set her aflame with fire bombs.
Had the crew of the steamship been given a chance to escape? That question was really the mainspring of the Americans’ desire to reach in such a hurry the scene of the catastrophe.
There was the thought of vengeance, too. If they could but overtake the German pirates and punish them as they deserved!
“It is all very well,” said Belding, “to put forth the excuse that these Heinies only do what they are ordered to do. But how many of us Yankees, for instance, would obey our officers if they ordered us to commit such fiendish crimes as these submarine crews do, right along?”
The chance that the German submarine would remain in the vicinity of the freighter till she sank, was not overlooked by the commander of theColodia. All on board were urged to keep their eyes open for the first sign of the enemy.
But it was the refugees from theWestern Starthat the destroyer first raised—a flotilla of small boats being pulled steadily to the eastward where lay the islands surrounding Teneriffe.
TheColodiakept away from the survivors, fearing that she might draw the fire of the submarine and that thereby the safety of the small boats would be endangered.
TheWestern Starwas a roaring furnace, from stem to stern. The smoke and flame billowed out from her sides, offering a picture of devastation that was fairly awe-inspiring.
But the sea immediately about the burning ship, as far as theColodia’screw could see, was quite empty. There was no sign of the enemy submarine.
A signalman called to the bridge, flagged the survivors, and a man arose in the leading boat to answer. The Americans made out that the German submarine had been in the vicinity until within a very few minutes. She had but recently disappeared beyond the burning steamship, but had not at that time submerged.
Commander Lang gave orders for a dash around the stern of theWestern Star. It was hoped that the approach of the destroyer might have escaped the notice of the submarine’s commander.
Suddenly there was heard an explosion of a shell in the hull of the burning ship. A great balloon of smoke belched forth and the craft shook from bow to stern. It was evident that the Germans were getting impatient and wished the big freighter to sink.
The gunners of the destroyer were at their stations. There was a chance that they would get a shot at the submarine before she could submerge.
TheColodiaroared on, rounding the stern of the doomed ship. Another shell burst within her fire-racked hull; a second explosion followed, and the hull fairly fell apart amidships!
Then the American destroyer dashed into view of the enemy. The big submarine lay only two cable lengths from the sinking ship, all her upper works visible to the excited Americans. Even her conning tower was open.
She really did look like a small freighter, even at that distance. She had collapsible masts and smokestacks, and there were more than a dozen men on her deck. It would take some time to submerge such a craft. Plainly the Germans had not apprehended the approach of the American destroyer.
“Hurrah, boys!” yelled one of the petty officers, “we’re going to take tea with Heinie!”
A roar of voices went up from the decks of the destroyer in reply to this cheer. A gun fore and aft spoke; both crews had been ordered to fire at the same object. That was the open conning tower of the submarine.
If ever American shells fell true, those two did! Right at the start the submarine’s chances for escape were made nil. The conning tower was wrecked and the craft could not safely submerge.
But she could fight. Her gunners turned their weapons on the destroyer, and the shells began to shriek through the upperworks of the fast naval ship. There were several casualties aboard theColodiawithin the first few minutes.
But the submarine’s most dangerous projectiles, the auto-torpedoes, could not be successfully used. As the destroyer swept past, the Germans sent one of these sharklike things full at her. But theColodiadarted between the submarine and the flaming ship, and the projectile passed her stern, landing full against the side of theWestern Star.
The reverberating crash of the explosion was enough to wreck one’s eardrums, so near was it. But all the time the destroyer was giving the crippled submarine broadside after broadside of guns; the upperworks of the German craft were fast becoming a twisted mass of wreckage!
Again and again the Americans’ guns swept the fated submarine. But the latter was a spitfire. Behind armored fortresses her men fired her guns with a rapidity that could but arouse the admiration of the boys on theColodia.
“Got to hand it to the Heinies!” yelled somebody. “They have bulldog pluck.”
“Put a shell where it will do some good, boys!” begged one of the officers. “We haven’t landed a hit in her ‘innards’—and that is where the shells tell.”
“My goodness!” gasped Whistler, working beside Al Torrance on one of the forward guns, “thatshell told something—believe me!”
The shot he meant seemed to have exploded under the deck of the submarine. Yards upon yards of the armorplate was lifted and splintered as a baseball might splinter a window.
The destroyer was rounding the submarine at top speed. Volley after volley was poured into the rocking German craft. One shell wiped out a deck gun and all the Germans manning it. The slaughter was terrible.
And yet her remaining guns were worked with precision—with desperate precision. She could not hold the range as the Americans did, but her crew showed courage as well as perfect training. The position of the submarine was hopeless, yet they fought on.
Sweat was pouring into Phil Morgan’s eyes as he worked with his crew members over the hot gun. The sun was scorching, anyway; it was the very hottest place he and Al Torrance had ever got into, counting the big fight when they were with theKennebunk, and all!
The destroyer received very little punishment. If the submarine did fight like a spitfire, her shells accomplished little damage.
The Americans saw the big burning steamship fall apart in the middle and sink after the torpedo struck her. Great waves lifted their crests over the spot, and it was at this time the submarine was put in the greatest danger.
The spreading billows caught the helpless submersible and tossed her on their crests. Those on theColodiasaw the Germans running about the deck like ants about a disturbed ant hill. Then a huge wave topped the ship and broke over her!
A cheer started among the crew of the destroyer. But it was quenched in a moment. When the great wave rolled past they saw that the submarine had been flung upon its side and that it was sinking.
“She’s going down, boys! She’s going down!” cried George Belding. “Don’t cheer any more—now.”
Indeed the awful sight completely checked cheering. It is all right to fight an enemy; it is another matter to see that enemy sink beneath the waves.
And the strangeness of this incident impressed the lads seriously as well. The submarine’s own act had sunk her. She had been overborne by a wave from the sinking of the freighter.
“She brought about her own punishment,” remarked Whistler, voicing the general opinion of the crew of the American destroyer. “In other words, it was coming to them and they got it!”
TheColodiawas put about, and at reduced speed approached the spot where the submarine had gone down. There was very little wreckage on the surface of the ocean; but several black spots seen through the officers’ glasses caused two boats to be hastily launched and both were driven swiftly to the rescue of the survivors of the German craft.
Morgan was in one of these boats. All through the fight he had thought of the Argentine skipper, Captain di Cos of theQue Vida. The possibility of his still being aboard the submarine worried the American lad. If there were prisoners, they had gone down with the enemy craft.
These were the fortunes of war; nevertheless, that the unfortunates should be lost with the members of the German crew, was a hard matter. Only three survivors were picked up, and one of them, with his arm torn off at the socket, died before the boats could get back to the destroyer.
The two were Germans. Questioned about possible prisoners aboard the submarine, they denied knowledge of them. Yet it was positive that Captain di Cos, at least, had been carried away by the German craft when theQue Vidawas sunk.
Later some information was gleaned from the two prisoners brought back to theColodia. The super-submarine had been known as the One Thousand and One. She was the first of a new type of subsea craft that the Germans hoped to use as common carriers if they won the war.
According to the story told by the prisoners—especially by one who was more talkative than his fellow—the huge submarine had a crew of sixty men, with a captain for commander, a full lieutenant and a sub-lieutenant. She was fully provisioned and carried plenty of shells. Her commander’s desire to save torpedoes, their supply of which could not be renewed nearer than Zeebrugge or Kiel, was the cause of the submarine being caught unaware by the destroyer.
Had theWestern Starbeen sunk at once by the use of a torpedo, the underseas boat would have been far away from the scene when the American ship arrived. It was an oversight!
“And it is an oversight her commander can worry about all through eternity,” Mr. MacMasters growled, in talking about it with the boys he took into his confidence now and then. “It is my idea that that big sub could get stores and oil without running home to her base; but she could not get torpedoes.”
He did not explain further what Commander Lang and his officers suspected. But the German prisoners had been interrogated very carefully along certain lines, especially regarding that German raider called the Sea Pigeon for which theColodiahad really been sent in search.
The big submarine had taken considerable treasure and valuable goods from the vessels she had sunk. Then, for a time, she had disappeared from the steamship lanes. Where had she gone with the stolen goods?
The prisoners hesitated to explain this. Indeed, one of them became immediately dumb when he saw what the questioning was leading to. From his companion, however, was obtained some further information.
It was a fact that the submarine had left her base with the raider known as theSea Pigeon. The underseas boat convoyed the bigger craft through the danger zone. It was not a difficult guess that when the two German boats had separated arrangements had been made for certain rendezvous at future dates—when and where? Besides, both boats were furnished with wireless.
“I would make that Heinie tell the whole story,” Ensign MacMasters said.
“He might not tell the truth, sir,” suggested Whistler Morgan.
“Then I’d hang him,” declared the officer. “A threat of that kind will make these brave Heinies come to time. I know ’em!”
Commander Lang had his own way of going about this matter. He used his own good judgment. Whether he believed he had obtained the full truth from the prisoners or not about theSea Pigeon, he turned the destroyer’s prow toward the reaches of the western Atlantic, leaving the eastern steamship lanes behind.
The crew only knew that theColodiamust be following at least some faint trail of the raider. For the destroyer had been sent to get the German ship, and Commander Lang was not the man to neglect his work.
The radio men picked plenty of chatter out of the air; but, as far as the Navy Boys knew, though they tried to find out, little of it referred to the German raider.
One thing George Belding did learn from his friend, Sparks: The “ghost talk” was rife in the static once more. This wireless spectre had all the operators in a disturbed state of mind, to say the least.
“Sparks seems to have lost his common sense for fair, over it,” Al Torrance observed. “You know more about this aero stuff than any of us, George. What do you really think it is? Somebody trying to call theColodia?”
“That is exactly what Sparks doesn’t know. He admitted to me that he caught the destroyer’s name, but not her number. It’s got so now this ‘ghost’ breaks in at a certain time in the afternoon watch—just about the same time each day. One of his assistants says he has spelled out ‘Colodia,’ too. But it may be nothing but a game.”
“How ‘game’?” asked Ikey eagerly.
“Somebody fooling with a machine. Sparks says the sounds grate just like ‘static!’”
“And that is as clear as mud,” complained Frenchy Donahue.
“Could this unexplained talk be some new German code?” Whistler Morgan asked.
“All Sparks got is in English; but it doesn’t amount to any sense, he says. If it is a code, he never heard the like before.”
“It might be a German code with English words,” put in Al. “One word in code means a whole sentence.”
“I believe you! Wish Sparks would let me put on the harness and listen in on it,” grumbled Belding. “I haven’t forgotten the wireless Morse I learned back there before the war.”
“Go to it, George,” urged Al.
“I wish I knew Morse,” added Whistler. “Get into it, George. Get Sparks to let you try a round with the ‘ghost talk.’ He is friendly to you.”
Thus encouraged, Belding took a chance with the chief of the radio during that very afternoon watch. It was during these hours, it was reported, that the strange and mysterious sounds broke in upon the receiving and sending of the operators aboard theColodia.
“It is against the rules to let you into this room, boy,” Sparks told him, smiling. “I can’t give up my bench to a ham.”
“I’m no ham, Mr. Sparks,” declared Belding. “I’ve shown you already that I can read and send Morse.”
“I don’t know,” the radio man murmured, shaking his head.
But he was really fond of George Belding, and the latter had to coax only a little more. This, as a rule, was not a busy hour.
He allowed the youth to slide in on the bench and handed him the head harness. George slipped the hard rubber discs over his ears and tapped the slide of the tuner with a professional finger.
“Plenty of static,” he observed, for it was trickling, exploding, and hissing in the receivers.
“No induction,” Sparks suggested.
Belding slid up the starting handle. The white-hot spark exploded in a train of brisk dots and dashes. Belding snapped up the aerial switch and listened. The message he was catching from the air was nothing to interest him or theColodia.
He was sensitizing the detector and soon adjusted the tuning handle for high waves. The chief watched him with a growing appreciation of the boy’s knowledge of the instrument and its government.
On these high planes the ether was almost soundless. Only a little static, far-removed, trickled in. It was in the high waves that most of the naval work is done and the sending of orders to distant ships is keyed as fine as a violin string—and sounds as musical.
Sliding the tuning handle downward, Belding listened for commercial wave-lengths. Something—something new and unutterably harsh—stuttered in his ear.
He jerked back from the instrument and glanced suspiciously at Sparks.
“Do you hear it?” the latter demanded.
“I hear something,” said the young fellow grimly. “It—beats—me——”
Were these the sounds that had been disturbing the radio men, off and on, for a week or more? Laboriously, falteringly, the rasping sounds grated against Belding’s eardrums. It was actually torturing!
The atrocious sending began, in Belding’s ear, to be broken into clumsy dots and dashes. The wave-lengths were not exactly commercial; nor did the sending seem to be in the Continental code.
He listened and listened; he turned the tuner handle up and down. He got the soundwaves short and got them long; high and low as well. But one fact he was sure of: they were the same sounds—the same series of clumsy dots and dashes—repeated over and over again!
George Belding swung at last from the instrument and tore off the receiving harness. Sparks was grinning broadly upon him.
“Ugh!” ejaculated the youth. “Is it a joke? I am almost deafened by the old thing.”
“What do you make out the ghost talk to be, George?”
“Are you sure it isn’t a joke?”
“Not on my part, I do assure you,” declared the radio man.
“Then,” said Belding slowly, “I believe somebody is trying to communicate a message and for some reason can’t quite put it through.”
“Did you get the word ‘Colodia’?” Sparks asked quickly.
“No, sir. But one word I believe I did get,” said the young fellow gravely.
“What’s that?”
“‘Help,’” Belding repeated. “‘H-e-l-p, Help.’ That’s what I got and all I got. I do not think I am mistaken in that!”