CHAPTER XXIISTARTLING NEWSThere was a chorus of approval from all but Jimmy.“Don’t forget it’s near supper time,” he objected.Joe threw up his hands in mock despair.“That precious stomach of yours!” he groaned.“Nothing can make Jimmy forget that,” laughed Bob. “Nero fiddled when Rome was burning. Jimmy would eat if theMeteorwere sinking.”“He’d rather die full than live empty,” put in Herb.“And Jimmy’s been nibbling at doughnuts all the afternoon, at that,” Joe said accusingly.“I’ve had to keep up my strength,” was Jimmy’s defense of himself. “And, anyway, I’ve given Hector a good share of them. Haven’t I, Hector?”The dog gave a series of barks that Jimmy interpreted as being in the affirmative.“He isn’t to be relied on,” declared Herb. “He’d back you up in anything.”“Anyway,” Jimmy hinted darkly, “I haven’t eaten all the doughnuts that I brought on deck. Somebody swiped two of them from my pocket. I’m not mentioning any names, but you fellows and Ensign Porter are the only ones that have been near me, and I’m dead sure that Mr. Porter didn’t do it.”“That seems to put it up to us,” observed Joe. “Jimmy, it goes to my heart to have you think so poorly of those you know so well.”“That’s just it,” said Jimmy. “I know them too well.”“If any of us has done it,” said Herb—“mind, I sayifany of us has done it—the only motive was to prevent your having an attack of acute indigestion. We think a lot of you, Jimmy.”“That’s very beautiful,” replied Jimmy. “So beautiful that it almost makes me cry. How did that crumb of doughnut come on your coat?”Herb hastily brushed his coat and Jimmy laughed loudly.“There wasn’t any crumb there,” he finally said. “But I know now who got my doughnuts. I see I’ll have to put padlocks on my pockets.”The laugh was on Herb, and Jimmy good-humoredly but persistently dwelt on the subject as he led the way to the supper table.They still ate, as at the start of their voyage, with the petty officers of the ship. Captain Springer, who was very grateful to the boys for having once saved his life, had invited them to eat with him and the other chief officers at their mess. But the boys had felt that they would often be in the way when the officers were talking over official matters, and so, while thanking the captain warmly for his courtesy, they had asked to remain where they were.They felt, too, more at their ease without frills or formalities to worry about, and they found themselves in the company of a genial, intelligent lot of men where laughter was free and jokes were plenty. And as far as the food was concerned, both in quantity and quality, they could ask for nothing better. Jimmy had pronounced it “bang up,” and anything that received that epicure’s approval left nothing else to be desired.“Coming to see you tonight, Mr. Johnson,” Bob announced to the chief wireless operator.“Come right along,” answered Johnson, heartily. “You’ll be as welcome as the flowers in spring.”The Radio Boys took a short turn on deck after supper, and then accepted the operator’s invitation. When they trooped into the wireless room, they found Dr. Fisher, the medical officer of the ship, sitting beside the sending set of Marston, the assistant operator.The doctor was a short, round, jolly man, with whom the boys had already made acquaintance. He was a great favorite with them. He was full of tales of the sea, which he had sailed for many years. But the genial manner and the quips and jokes with which he abounded did not obscure the fact that he was thoroughly educated and very skillful in his profession.Johnson was also extremely busy when they went in, and so was Maxwell, who attended to the maps and charts. So the boys seated themselves quietly and listened to the conversation that was going on over the radio.This, they soon found, was of absorbing interest. The doctor had been summoned to the wireless room by a call from a steamer two hundred miles away. It was a merchant vessel, and while it had an adequate supply of ordinary drugs on board, it had no medical officer.A seaman on the vessel had developed an abscess that had formed in the tear duct of one of his eyes. He was suffering intensely, and it was feared that he might lose the sight of the eye. The captain was at his wit’s end as to how to handle the case. Could the surgeon on theMeteorhelp him?Dr. Fisher could and did. With Marston to send the message, the doctor rapidly and concisely gave directions about the application of the proper lotions and other treatment needed. He finished by directing the captain to call him up again in the morning and report on the progress of the case. Then, as he turned away from the instrument, he caught sight of the boys.“Hello,” he said, with a smile. “Didn’t know you were listening in on my long distance clinic.”“It was mighty interesting,” said Bob. “Do you have much of that kind of work to do?”“Lots of it,” replied the doctor. “As a matter of fact, I think I do more prescribing for people off the ship than I do on it. A Government ship these days is nothing more nor less than a traveling dispensary. Scarcely a day passes without some call of this kind.”“I should think it would be especially hard when you can’t see your patient,” remarked Joe.“It is,” the doctor admitted. “I can’t feel their pulse, I can’t note their temperature, I can’t judge by their appearance, I can’t do a dozen things a doctor likes to do when he’s treating a case. I have to depend on descriptions, more or less intelligent. But with all those handicaps, an immense amount of service can be rendered over the radio. A great many lives have been saved and a great deal of suffering relieved by means of wireless that wasn’t possible before it was invented.“Just a little while ago, I got a call from a ship, one of whose seamen was temporarily paralyzed through lack of proper circulation in the legs. Another man who had intestinal troubles I had put in ice packs. I prescribed medicines in addition, and a little later, when the vessels were on their return voyages, I received messages of thanks that told me both had been rapidly cured. Those are only a few scattered instances. I could mention dozens of the same kind. And what I’ve been able to do in that direction is being done in other instances by hundreds of ship’s doctors every day.“They tell me you boys are radio fans,” he concluded, as he rose to leave the room. “Well, I congratulate you. Radio’s the greatest thing in the world.”Marston, who had just taken down another message, turned to the group.“Would one of you boys mind calling McDonald?” he said.McDonald was the chief engineer of the ship, a dour, grizzled Scotchman, snappy and cranky, but one who knew his work and loved it. His engines were the apple of his eye, and while he was at work he talked and crooned to them as though they were his children.“I’ll go,” said Joe, springing to his feet.“Lucky if you get back without having your head snapped off,” laughed Bob.In a short time, Joe returned, followed by the old engineer, puffing and grumbling.“An’ wha’ is eet ye’re callin’ me up here for?” he demanded truculently.“Listen, Mac,” said Marston, placatingly. “Here’s a captain of a ship that’s operated by a Diesel engine and he’s running out of Diesel oil.”“Mair fule he,” growled McDonald. “Wha’s that my beesness?”“Well, you see,” explained Marston, “he’ll have to stop his voyage to re-fuel, and at the nearest port he can get only heavy oil. He’s never used that kind before, and he wants to know what the effect will be on his engines. He——”Here the choleric old engineer exploded, and the air was blue for a while as he stamped around and roared about the “fule cap’n” that ought to be sailing toy boats in a bathtub instead of commanding ships on the high seas. Marston let him rave until his wrath and scorn had subsided, and then returned to the attack.“Oh, come along, Mac, and be a good fellow,” he urged. “The man’s in a fix, and he needs advice. No doubt he’s a fool and all that, but you can’t expect him to know all that you do about engines. Who does, for that matter? There’s only one McDonald,” he concluded, with a side wink at the boys.That the “salve,” though rather crudely laid on, was not without effect was shown by the final consent of the old fellow to give the necessary information, though only on condition that Marston should give it in his exact words. As these, however, involved a number of uncomplimentary references to the “blitherin’ fule” that needed to ask such questions, it is needless to say that Marston toned it down to the proper extent, and finally with a last blast against “tin sailors,” McDonald clumped out of the room and down again to his beloved engines.“This seems to be a regular clearing house for information of one kind or another,” commented Bob, after they had had a good laugh at McDonald’s expense.“That’s what it is,” agreed Johnson, looking up from his instrument. “You’d be astonished and often amused at the multitude of all kinds of questions that are hurled at us. Most of them are sensible, and we are able to be of real service. But the loneliness of the sea is a thing of the past—that is, to all vessels equipped with wireless, and most of them are nowadays.”“You said that this was a busy place, and now we know it is,” remarked Joe.“Yes. And yet you have heard tonight only the side issues, as it were,” was the reply. “We have to be on duty here every minute of the twenty-four hours of the day, working, of course, in different shifts. Our first duty is to comb the seas that are likely to be strewn with icebergs, steaming along on a zigzag, a rectangular or triangular course, as conditions may require. The moment a berg is discovered, we have to find out all about it, measure it, chart it, photograph it, and send out warnings as to its exact position.”“That alone would seem to be enough to take up all your time,” said Jimmy.“It takes a good deal of it,” returned Johnson. “When the night is dark and stormy, we have to keep the searchlight playing on the berg all night, so that it won’t be lost sight of. When a vessel enters the dangerous area, we have to keep her successive positions plotted on the map, so that we’ll always know where she is until she passes again out of the zone. Once a day, we have to send in the day’s report to the Hydrographic Office in Washington. Then, twice a day, we’re required to send in a meteorological report to the Weather Bureau. Oh, take it from me, we don’t have a chance to get rusty on this job.”The weather remained fine, and several days passed busily and fruitfully, the Radio Boys becoming more and more familiar with the fascinating work of the iceberg patrol. Their keen interest in radio cemented the friendship between them and the operators, who gladly showed them all they knew. So expert did the boys become, and so frequent were the opportunities afforded them, that before long any one of them, but especially Bob and Joe, could, on a pinch, have taken the places of the regular operators.They would have been perfectly happy had it not been for the shadow of dread that hovered over them concerning the fire in Clintonia. They had not yet succeeded in getting news any more definite than that contained in the first meager dispatches, and their apprehension seemed at times more than they could bear. To banish it as far as possible, they sought to engross themselves in the work of the ship. But many a night they tossed restlessly on their pillows, a prey to torturing thoughts and fears.Blended with their more personal fears was anxiety about Mr. Strong. It was possible that he might have been picked up and the fact not generally broadcasted. But, as far as they knew, he might have found a grave in the Atlantic.One morning, after the boys had been conscious at intervals through the night of much coming and going on theMeteor, they were surprised to note that Johnson and Marston were missing at the breakfast table. There were many other vacant seats also, and the boys looked at the steward in wonderment.“What’s the big idea?” asked Bob, indicating with a sweep of the hand the empty places.“Sickness,” replied the steward. “Heap of trouble on board. Captain Springer told me to ask you to come to his cabin as soon as you had finished breakfast.”
There was a chorus of approval from all but Jimmy.
“Don’t forget it’s near supper time,” he objected.
Joe threw up his hands in mock despair.
“That precious stomach of yours!” he groaned.
“Nothing can make Jimmy forget that,” laughed Bob. “Nero fiddled when Rome was burning. Jimmy would eat if theMeteorwere sinking.”
“He’d rather die full than live empty,” put in Herb.
“And Jimmy’s been nibbling at doughnuts all the afternoon, at that,” Joe said accusingly.
“I’ve had to keep up my strength,” was Jimmy’s defense of himself. “And, anyway, I’ve given Hector a good share of them. Haven’t I, Hector?”
The dog gave a series of barks that Jimmy interpreted as being in the affirmative.
“He isn’t to be relied on,” declared Herb. “He’d back you up in anything.”
“Anyway,” Jimmy hinted darkly, “I haven’t eaten all the doughnuts that I brought on deck. Somebody swiped two of them from my pocket. I’m not mentioning any names, but you fellows and Ensign Porter are the only ones that have been near me, and I’m dead sure that Mr. Porter didn’t do it.”
“That seems to put it up to us,” observed Joe. “Jimmy, it goes to my heart to have you think so poorly of those you know so well.”
“That’s just it,” said Jimmy. “I know them too well.”
“If any of us has done it,” said Herb—“mind, I sayifany of us has done it—the only motive was to prevent your having an attack of acute indigestion. We think a lot of you, Jimmy.”
“That’s very beautiful,” replied Jimmy. “So beautiful that it almost makes me cry. How did that crumb of doughnut come on your coat?”
Herb hastily brushed his coat and Jimmy laughed loudly.
“There wasn’t any crumb there,” he finally said. “But I know now who got my doughnuts. I see I’ll have to put padlocks on my pockets.”
The laugh was on Herb, and Jimmy good-humoredly but persistently dwelt on the subject as he led the way to the supper table.
They still ate, as at the start of their voyage, with the petty officers of the ship. Captain Springer, who was very grateful to the boys for having once saved his life, had invited them to eat with him and the other chief officers at their mess. But the boys had felt that they would often be in the way when the officers were talking over official matters, and so, while thanking the captain warmly for his courtesy, they had asked to remain where they were.
They felt, too, more at their ease without frills or formalities to worry about, and they found themselves in the company of a genial, intelligent lot of men where laughter was free and jokes were plenty. And as far as the food was concerned, both in quantity and quality, they could ask for nothing better. Jimmy had pronounced it “bang up,” and anything that received that epicure’s approval left nothing else to be desired.
“Coming to see you tonight, Mr. Johnson,” Bob announced to the chief wireless operator.
“Come right along,” answered Johnson, heartily. “You’ll be as welcome as the flowers in spring.”
The Radio Boys took a short turn on deck after supper, and then accepted the operator’s invitation. When they trooped into the wireless room, they found Dr. Fisher, the medical officer of the ship, sitting beside the sending set of Marston, the assistant operator.
The doctor was a short, round, jolly man, with whom the boys had already made acquaintance. He was a great favorite with them. He was full of tales of the sea, which he had sailed for many years. But the genial manner and the quips and jokes with which he abounded did not obscure the fact that he was thoroughly educated and very skillful in his profession.
Johnson was also extremely busy when they went in, and so was Maxwell, who attended to the maps and charts. So the boys seated themselves quietly and listened to the conversation that was going on over the radio.
This, they soon found, was of absorbing interest. The doctor had been summoned to the wireless room by a call from a steamer two hundred miles away. It was a merchant vessel, and while it had an adequate supply of ordinary drugs on board, it had no medical officer.
A seaman on the vessel had developed an abscess that had formed in the tear duct of one of his eyes. He was suffering intensely, and it was feared that he might lose the sight of the eye. The captain was at his wit’s end as to how to handle the case. Could the surgeon on theMeteorhelp him?
Dr. Fisher could and did. With Marston to send the message, the doctor rapidly and concisely gave directions about the application of the proper lotions and other treatment needed. He finished by directing the captain to call him up again in the morning and report on the progress of the case. Then, as he turned away from the instrument, he caught sight of the boys.
“Hello,” he said, with a smile. “Didn’t know you were listening in on my long distance clinic.”
“It was mighty interesting,” said Bob. “Do you have much of that kind of work to do?”
“Lots of it,” replied the doctor. “As a matter of fact, I think I do more prescribing for people off the ship than I do on it. A Government ship these days is nothing more nor less than a traveling dispensary. Scarcely a day passes without some call of this kind.”
“I should think it would be especially hard when you can’t see your patient,” remarked Joe.
“It is,” the doctor admitted. “I can’t feel their pulse, I can’t note their temperature, I can’t judge by their appearance, I can’t do a dozen things a doctor likes to do when he’s treating a case. I have to depend on descriptions, more or less intelligent. But with all those handicaps, an immense amount of service can be rendered over the radio. A great many lives have been saved and a great deal of suffering relieved by means of wireless that wasn’t possible before it was invented.
“Just a little while ago, I got a call from a ship, one of whose seamen was temporarily paralyzed through lack of proper circulation in the legs. Another man who had intestinal troubles I had put in ice packs. I prescribed medicines in addition, and a little later, when the vessels were on their return voyages, I received messages of thanks that told me both had been rapidly cured. Those are only a few scattered instances. I could mention dozens of the same kind. And what I’ve been able to do in that direction is being done in other instances by hundreds of ship’s doctors every day.
“They tell me you boys are radio fans,” he concluded, as he rose to leave the room. “Well, I congratulate you. Radio’s the greatest thing in the world.”
Marston, who had just taken down another message, turned to the group.
“Would one of you boys mind calling McDonald?” he said.
McDonald was the chief engineer of the ship, a dour, grizzled Scotchman, snappy and cranky, but one who knew his work and loved it. His engines were the apple of his eye, and while he was at work he talked and crooned to them as though they were his children.
“I’ll go,” said Joe, springing to his feet.
“Lucky if you get back without having your head snapped off,” laughed Bob.
In a short time, Joe returned, followed by the old engineer, puffing and grumbling.
“An’ wha’ is eet ye’re callin’ me up here for?” he demanded truculently.
“Listen, Mac,” said Marston, placatingly. “Here’s a captain of a ship that’s operated by a Diesel engine and he’s running out of Diesel oil.”
“Mair fule he,” growled McDonald. “Wha’s that my beesness?”
“Well, you see,” explained Marston, “he’ll have to stop his voyage to re-fuel, and at the nearest port he can get only heavy oil. He’s never used that kind before, and he wants to know what the effect will be on his engines. He——”
Here the choleric old engineer exploded, and the air was blue for a while as he stamped around and roared about the “fule cap’n” that ought to be sailing toy boats in a bathtub instead of commanding ships on the high seas. Marston let him rave until his wrath and scorn had subsided, and then returned to the attack.
“Oh, come along, Mac, and be a good fellow,” he urged. “The man’s in a fix, and he needs advice. No doubt he’s a fool and all that, but you can’t expect him to know all that you do about engines. Who does, for that matter? There’s only one McDonald,” he concluded, with a side wink at the boys.
That the “salve,” though rather crudely laid on, was not without effect was shown by the final consent of the old fellow to give the necessary information, though only on condition that Marston should give it in his exact words. As these, however, involved a number of uncomplimentary references to the “blitherin’ fule” that needed to ask such questions, it is needless to say that Marston toned it down to the proper extent, and finally with a last blast against “tin sailors,” McDonald clumped out of the room and down again to his beloved engines.
“This seems to be a regular clearing house for information of one kind or another,” commented Bob, after they had had a good laugh at McDonald’s expense.
“That’s what it is,” agreed Johnson, looking up from his instrument. “You’d be astonished and often amused at the multitude of all kinds of questions that are hurled at us. Most of them are sensible, and we are able to be of real service. But the loneliness of the sea is a thing of the past—that is, to all vessels equipped with wireless, and most of them are nowadays.”
“You said that this was a busy place, and now we know it is,” remarked Joe.
“Yes. And yet you have heard tonight only the side issues, as it were,” was the reply. “We have to be on duty here every minute of the twenty-four hours of the day, working, of course, in different shifts. Our first duty is to comb the seas that are likely to be strewn with icebergs, steaming along on a zigzag, a rectangular or triangular course, as conditions may require. The moment a berg is discovered, we have to find out all about it, measure it, chart it, photograph it, and send out warnings as to its exact position.”
“That alone would seem to be enough to take up all your time,” said Jimmy.
“It takes a good deal of it,” returned Johnson. “When the night is dark and stormy, we have to keep the searchlight playing on the berg all night, so that it won’t be lost sight of. When a vessel enters the dangerous area, we have to keep her successive positions plotted on the map, so that we’ll always know where she is until she passes again out of the zone. Once a day, we have to send in the day’s report to the Hydrographic Office in Washington. Then, twice a day, we’re required to send in a meteorological report to the Weather Bureau. Oh, take it from me, we don’t have a chance to get rusty on this job.”
The weather remained fine, and several days passed busily and fruitfully, the Radio Boys becoming more and more familiar with the fascinating work of the iceberg patrol. Their keen interest in radio cemented the friendship between them and the operators, who gladly showed them all they knew. So expert did the boys become, and so frequent were the opportunities afforded them, that before long any one of them, but especially Bob and Joe, could, on a pinch, have taken the places of the regular operators.
They would have been perfectly happy had it not been for the shadow of dread that hovered over them concerning the fire in Clintonia. They had not yet succeeded in getting news any more definite than that contained in the first meager dispatches, and their apprehension seemed at times more than they could bear. To banish it as far as possible, they sought to engross themselves in the work of the ship. But many a night they tossed restlessly on their pillows, a prey to torturing thoughts and fears.
Blended with their more personal fears was anxiety about Mr. Strong. It was possible that he might have been picked up and the fact not generally broadcasted. But, as far as they knew, he might have found a grave in the Atlantic.
One morning, after the boys had been conscious at intervals through the night of much coming and going on theMeteor, they were surprised to note that Johnson and Marston were missing at the breakfast table. There were many other vacant seats also, and the boys looked at the steward in wonderment.
“What’s the big idea?” asked Bob, indicating with a sweep of the hand the empty places.
“Sickness,” replied the steward. “Heap of trouble on board. Captain Springer told me to ask you to come to his cabin as soon as you had finished breakfast.”