His reverie was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Harvey, the firstofficer.
“Message from the captain to the owners,” he said briefly; “hustle italong.”
It was only a routine message, but Jack thrilled to the finger tips ashe sent out the call for the station at Sea Gate, from whence themessage would be transmitted to New York. It was the first bit ofregular business he had handled in his chosen calling.
The air appeared to be filled with a perfect storm of messages comingand going. Newspapers were sending despatches of world-wide importance.Ships were reporting. Here and there an amateur,—Jack was out of thisclass now, and held them in proper contempt,—was “butting in” with someinquiry or message. And friends and relatives of persons outward orhomeward bound across the ocean track added their burden to the mightysymphony of “wireless” that filled the ether.
But at last Jack raised the Sea Gate station, and in a second his firstmessage from shipboard was crackling and spitting from the aerial. Hesent crisply, and in a business-like way. The operator at Sea Gate couldhardly have guessed that the message was coming from a lad who had butthat day taken his place at an ocean wireless station.
When this message had been sent, Jack sat in for an answer. Before long,out of the maze of other calls, he picked his summons and crackled outhis reply, adding O.K. G.—“Go ahead.” When he had finished taking themessage, merely a formal acknowledgment of the captain’s farewelldespatch, Jack grounded his instruments and went forward with the replyin search of the skipper.
He found the _Ajax_ wallowing through a somewhat heavy sea. Looking downfrom the narrow bridge, he could see the decks with their coveredwinches, steam-pipes and man-holes only at times through a smother ofgreen water and white foam that swept over them.
Jack clawed his way forward and found the captain with his first officeron the bridge. The wheel was in the hands of a rugged, grizzledquartermaster, who stood like a figure of stone, his eyes glued to theswinging compass card. Occasionally, however, he gave an almostimperceptible move to the spokes of the brass-inlaid wheel he grasped,and a mighty rumbling of machinery followed. For the _Ajax_, likepractically every vessel of to-day, steered by steam-power, and a twistof the wrist was sufficient to move the mighty rudder that was distantalmost a tenth of a mile from the wheel-house.
But the boy did not give much observation to all this. He was intent onhis duty. Touching his cap, he held out the neatly written message,—ofwhich he had kept a carbon copy on his file.
“Despatch, sir!” he said respectfully.
The captain took the message and read it, and then eyed the boyattentively.
Captain Braceworth was a big figure of a man, bronzed, bearded andViking-like. He was also known as a strict disciplinarian. Jack had notspoken to him till that moment. He decided that he liked the skipper’slooks, in spite of an air of cold authority that dwelt in his steadyeyes.
“So you’re our wireless man, eh?” asked the skipper.
“Yes, sir. Mr. Jukes——”
“Humph! I know all about that. I understand this is your first voyage.Well, you have lots to learn. Do your duty and you’ll have no troublewith me. If not, you will find it very uncomfortable.”
He turned away and began talking to his first officer. Jack made his wayback to his cabin with mingled feelings. The captain had spoken to himsharply, almost gruffly. He began to revise his opinion of the man.
“He is a martinet and no mistake,” thought the boy; “a bully too, I’llbet. But pshaw, Jack Ready, what’s the use of kicking? You’ve got whatyou wanted; now go through with it. After all, if I do my duty, he can’thurt me.”
But as he took his seat at his instruments again, Jack, somehow, didn’tfeel quite so chipper as he had half an hour before. In his ownestimation he had rated himself pretty highly as the wireless man of the_Ajax_.
“But I reckon I don’t count much more than one of the crew,” he mutteredto himself as the memory of the captain’s brusque, authoritative mannerrankled in his mind.
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CHAPTER VI.
LEARNING THE ROPES.
Having sent his “T.R.”—as the first message from an outward bound shipis, for some mysterious reason known,—Jack occupied himself byoccasionally chatting with some other operator and exchanging positions.
As the _Ajax_ forged on, the boy began feeling ahead with his key forthe wireless stations at Sagaponack or Siasconset. Messages to and fromNantucket he had already caught, and had sent in a report of the _Ajax_and her position.
Supper time came and Jack ate his meal in company with the second andthird engineers. The captain and the other officers were far tooimportant to sit down with a wireless man on his first voyage. Thesecond engineer was a lively youth with a crop of hair as red as theopen door of one of his own furnaces. His junior was not more than twoyears older than Jack, a stalwart lad, with a bright, intelligent face,named Billy Raynor.
Young Raynor and Jack struck up quite a friendship at supper, and afterthe red-headed second, whose name was Bicket, had left the table, theyfell to discussing the ship and its officers.
“I happened to be on the bridge,—message from the chief,—this afternoonwhen you were talking to the old man,” said Raynor. “From the look onyour face, I fancy you thought him a bit overbearing.”
Jack flushed. He did not know that he had let his mortification bevisible.
“Well, I had expected rather a different reception, I must say; but I’mnot such a baby as to kick about anything like that, or even a good dealworse.”
“That’s the way to talk,” approved Raynor. “The old man’s bark is worsethan his bite, although I don’t come much in contact with him. Mr.Herrick, the chief, is my boss.”
He rose to go below to his duties.
“Some time when I’m off watch, I’d like to come up to your coop and havea chat with you about wireless,” he said.
“I wish you would,” said Jack, heartily glad to find,—for he wasbeginning to feel lonely,—that there was at least one congenial soul onthe big steel monster, of which he formed a part of the crew.
Jack’s day ended at eight o’clock, but before his time to go off duty,there came a peremptory message from the captain. The weather had beensteadily growing worse, the sea was mounting and the wind increasing.Jack was to stay at his post and try to catch messages from vesselsfarther out at sea, concerning conditions on the course.
As the night wore on, the gale increased in violence. The tankerwallowed through giant seas, the spray sweeping over even the elevatedbridge linking her bow and stern. Her hull, with its cargo of oil andcoal and the mighty boilers and engines that drove her forward, was assubmerged as a submarine.
The young wireless operator sat vigilantly at his key. The night was abad one for wireless communication, although a storm does not, ofnecessity, interfere with the “waves.”
At last, about ten o’clock, he succeeded in obtaining communication withthe _Kaiser_, one of the big German liners, some one thousand miles tothe eastward.
Back and forth through the storm the two operators talked. The_Kaiser’s_ man reported heavy weather, rain-squalls and big seas.
“But it is not bothering us,” he added; “we’re hitting up an eighteenknot clip.”
“Can’t say the same here,” flashed back Jack; “we have been slowed downfor an hour or more. This is a bad storm, all right.”
“You must be a ‘greeny’; this is nothing,” came back the answer from the_Kaiser_ man.
“It is my first voyage as a wireless man,” crackled out Jack’s key.
“Bully for you! You send like a veteran,” came back the rejoinder; andthen, before Jack could send his appreciation of the compliment,something happened to the communication and the conversation was cutoff.
When he opened the door to go forward with his message for the skipper,the puff
of wind that met the boy almost threw him from his feet. But hebraced himself against the screaming gale and worked his way along thebridge. He wished he had put on oil-skins before he started, for thespray was breaking in cataracts over the narrow bridge along which hehad to claw his way like a cat.
“Well, whatever else a ‘Tanker’ may be, she is surely not a dry ship ina gale of wind,” muttered the boy to himself, as he reached the end ofhis journey.
On the bridge, weather-cloths were up, and the second officer wascrouched at the starboard end of the narrow, swaying pathway. But prettysoon Jack made out the captain’s stalwart figure. The skipper elected toread the message in the chart-house. He made no comment, but informedJack that in an hour’s time he might turn in.
Nothing more of importance came that night, and at the hour the captainhad named, the young wireless boy, thoroughly tired after his first dayat the key of an ocean wireless, sought his bunk. This was in the sameroom as the apparatus, and as he undressed, Jack figured on installing,at the first opportunity, a bell connecting with the apparatus by meansof which he might be summoned from sleep if a message came during thenight. He had made several experiments along these lines at his stationon the old _Venus_, which now seemed so far away, and had met with fairsuccess. He believed that with the improved conditions he was dealingwith on the _Ajax_, he could make such a device practicable.
When he went on deck at daylight, he found that the storm, far fromabating, had increased in violence. The speed of the _Ajax_ had been cutdown till she could not have been making more than eight knots againstthe teeth of the wind.
The white-crested combers towered like mountains all about her. Nothingof the hull but the superstructures were visible, and the latter lookedas if they had gone adrift,—with no hull under them,—in a smother ofspume and green water. It was almost startling to look down from therail outside his cabin and see nothing but water all about, as if thesuperstructure had been an island.
He went back to his instruments and picked up a few messages concerningthe weather. Two were from liners, and one from a small cargo steamer.All reported heavy weather with mountainous seas.
“Not much news in that,” thought the boy, as he filed the messages andprepared to go forward with his copies.
As he opened the cabin door, the man at the wheel must have let the shipfall off her course. A mighty wave came rushing up astern and broke in atorrent of green water over the gallery on which Jack stood. He waspicked up like a straw and thrown against a stanchion, with all thebreath knocked out of him.
Here he clung, bruised and strangling, till the wave passed.
“Seems to me that the life of an ocean wireless man is a good bit morestrenuous than I thought,” muttered the boy, picking himself up anddiscovering that he must make fresh copies of the messages he had beentaking forward.
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CHAPTER VII.
IN THE TEETH OF THE STORM.
An old German bos’un came by as Jack was picking himself up.
“Hullo! Almost man overboard,—vat?” he chuckled. “Don’d go overboard indis vedder, Mister Vireless, aber vee nefer see you no more.”
“Did you ever see a storm as bad as this?” sputtered the dripping Jack.
“Dis not amount to much,” was the reply. “Vait till you cross inmidt-vinter, den you see storms vos is storms.”
He hurried off on his work, while Jack, having recopied his messages,started forward again. This time he met with no mishaps.
On the reeling bridge he found Captain Braceworth. The captain wasclinging to the railing, a shining, uncouth figure in drippingoil-skins. The clamor of wind and sea made speech almost impossible, butJack touched the captain on the elbow to attract his attention.
In spite of his feeling, almost of aversion to the grim, strict captain,Jack felt a sensation of admiration for this stalwart, silent figure,guiding his wallowing ship through the storm as calmly as if he had beenseated at a dinner table. One thing was certain, Captain Braceworth wasno fair-weather sailor. Martinet though he might be, he was a man tomeet a crisis calmly and with cool determination.
The captain took the messages silently and once more retired to thewheel-house to scan them. At the other end of the bridge the chiefofficer stood, an equally silent figure, looking out over thetempest-torn ocean. The captain was soon back on the bridge. He wentover to the chief officer and Jack could see the two talking, or rathershouting.
He stood waiting respectfully for orders, crouching in the lee of theweather-cloth for protection against the screaming gale.
As soon as he saw that the captain had finished his conference with theofficer, Jack came from the shelter and clawed his way to the skipper’sside.
Captain Braceworth placed his hands funnel-wise to his mouth and shoutedinto Jack’s ear:
“Try to get Cape Race or Siasconset, and tell the office in New Yorkthat we are in a bad gale and running under reduced speed. From the lookof the glass it may last two days and delay our arrival at Antwerp.”
Jack saluted and was off like a flash, while the captain resumed hissilent scrutiny of the racing billows. Five minutes later, the youngwireless boy sat at his post, sending his message through the shouting,howling turmoil of wind and wave.
Experienced as he was at the key, it was, nevertheless, a novelsensation to be sitting, snug and warm in his cabin, flashing intostorm-racked space, the calls for Siasconset or “the Cape.” Occasionallyhe groped with his key for another vessel, through which his message tothe New York office might be “relayed.”
He knew that some of the big liners had a more powerful apparatus thanhe possessed, and if he did not succeed in raising a shore station, hismessage could be transmitted to one of the steamers and thence to theland.
The spark whined and crackled and flashed for fifteen minutes or morebefore there came, pattering on his ears through the “watch-case”receivers, a welcome reply.
It was from Cape Race. Jack delivered his message and had a shortconversation with the operator. He had hardly finished, before, into hiswireless sphere, other voices came calling through the storm. Back andforth through the witches’ dance of the winds, the questions, answersand bits of stray chat and deep sea gossip came flitting and crackling.
But Jack had scant time to listen to the voice-filled air. He soon shutoff his key and prepared to go forward again, with the news that themessage had been sent. In less than an hour some official at the officeof the line in New York would be reading it, seated at his desk, whilemiles out on the Atlantic the ship that had sent it was tossing in thegrip of the storm.
Jack thought of these things as he buttoned himself into his oil-skins,secured the flaps of his sou’wester under his chin and once more foughthis way forward along that dancing, swaying bridge, below which thewater swirled and swayed like myriads of storm-racked rapids.
The captain, grim as ever, was still on the bridge, but now Jack sawthat both he and the officer who shared his vigil were eying the seasthrough the glasses. They appeared to be scanning the tumbling ranges ofwater-mountains in search of some object. What, Jack did not know. Buttheir attention appeared to be fully engrossed as they handed theglasses from one to another, holding on to the rail with their freehands to keep their balance.
Presently the chief officer shook his head and shrugged his shoulders asif he had negatived some proposition of the captain’s.
The latter replaced the glasses in their box by the engine roomtelegraph, and Jack, deeming this a favorable opportunity, came forwardwith his report.
He had almost to scream it into the captain’s ear. But the great manheard and nodded gravely. Then he turned away and drew out the glassesonce more and went back to scanning the heaving seas.
Jack, from the shelter of the wheel-house, within which an imperturbablequartermaster gripped the spokes of the wheel, followed the direction ofthe skipper’s
gaze.
All at once, as the _Ajax_ rose on the summit of a huge comber, he madeout something that made his heart give a big jump.
It was a black patch that suddenly projected itself into view for aninstant, and then rushed from sight as if it would never come up again.
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CHAPTER VIII.
SIGHTING THE WRECK.
The captain wheeled suddenly. His eyes focused on Jack.
“Operator!”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
“Have you had any calls from a ship in distress?”
“No, sir. I should have reported any message to you at once.”
“Of course. I’m not used to this wireless business, although it seems tobe useful.”
“There—there’s a ship in distress yonder, sir?” Jack ventured to ask.
“Yes, they’re badly off.”
The captain tugged at his brown beard which glistened with spray.
“Call the third officer. He is in his cabin.”
Jack hastened aft and soon returned with Mr. Brown, the third officer ofthe _Ajax_, an alert, active little man. Jack ventured to linger on thebridge while they talked. His heart was filled with pity for whoevermight be on board the storm-tossed derelict. He wanted to know what thecaptain proposed to do.
Fragments of speech were blown to the young operator’s ears as the threeofficers talked.
“Hopeless—Boat wouldn’t live a minute in this sea—she’ll go before eightbells—Yes, bound for Davy Jones’ locker, poor devils.”
The Ocean Wireless Boys on the Atlantic Page 3