Loe raamatut: «The Ocean Wireless Boys and the Lost Liner», lehekülg 10
CHAPTER XXXIX – JACK’S RADIO
Darkly violet under the light of the dawn-fading stars lay Castle Island. Cradled in the heaving seas it was watched by scores of anxious eyes on the Tropic Queen, now in her death struggle. The fire room crew was kept at work only by physical persuasion. The water was gaining fast now through the jagged wound in the craft’s steel side.
In the soft radiance that precedes the first flush of a tropic dawn, the two young wireless men, their occupation gone, watched its notched skyline grow into more definite shape.
As the light grew stronger, they saw that it was a bigger island than they had supposed. Vast chasms rent the sides of rock-ribbed mountains, and the place looked desolate and barren to a degree. Suddenly, too, Jack became aware of something they had not at first noticed.
From the summit of the rocky apex that topped the island, a smudge of smoke was blurred against the clear sky.
“The volcano!” exclaimed the boys in one breath.
“But I thought it was extinct,” said Sam, in a dismayed voice. The thought of being in the proximity of an active volcano was anything but pleasing to him.
“Extinct volcanoes smoke sometimes,” said Jack. “I’ve read of several in Mexico that do.”
On the bridge, gray-faced from their long vigil, the ship’s officers clustered about Captain McDonald, watched with anxiety the growing outlines of the island.
“There are shoals of sand off to the southeast there,” said the captain. “I was here years ago when I was an apprentice on the old Abner A. Jennings. If we can reach them the old ship will lie easy unless bad weather comes on.”
The steamer crept slowly forward. She hardly seemed to move, in the minds of the impatient souls on board her. But at last the water began to show green under her bows, signifying that she was getting into shoal waters. On and on she crawled, till she was a scant quarter of a mile from the mantling cliffs.
It was then that Captain McDonald sent word below to let the stokers come on deck. It was none too soon. The men were working at pistol point with water up to their waists, when the word came to evacuate the stokehold. Even firearms could not have kept them in that water-filled black pit much longer.
The engines were left running and a short time later, like a tired child, the Tropic Queen cradled herself in a bed of soft sand and her voyage was over. An impressive silence hung over the ship as she grounded, which was not broken till the sharp orders that preceded her abandonment were issued.
Then all was bustle. The two remaining boats were lowered and the men sent ashore. At last all that were left on board were the officers and the two wireless boys. The men had carried ashore provisions and canvas for tents, and a stream of water that the first arrivals reported near the landing place, showed them that there was no danger of their going thirsty.
It was just as Jack and Sam were preparing to get aboard the boat that a strange thing happened. The tall, slender form of a young woman appeared on deck. It was Miss Jarrold. An instant later De Garros joined her.
“Why, I thought you were on board the other boats!” exclaimed Captain McDonald, fairly startled out of his stoic calm.
“Like myself, Mr. De Garros elected to see this thing out,” chimed in another voice, and there was Colonel Minturn.
“So we stayed below while the other passengers were being taken off,” said the young aviator, “knowing that if there was any real danger we would still be able to escape. A shipwreck was too exciting an experience to miss.”
“Well, if you want to make two fools of yourselves, I can’t stop you,” said the captain, in slightly nettled tones. “But this young lady. What is she doing here?”
“Inasmuch as my uncle is a prisoner on this ship, it was my duty to stand by him,” said the girl, firmly compressing her lips.
“But I specifically ordered that Mr. Jarrold be taken off in one of the boats,” said the captain, in a bewildered tone.
“Then whoever you gave the orders to disregarded them,” replied the girl calmly. Then quite in a matter-of-fact voice she added, “Are we going to camp on that island?”
“Till help comes, yes,” replied the captain. “I will see that you have a tent and are made as comfortable as possible, but of course you can’t expect luxuries.”
An hour later they were all on shore. Captain McDonald made an address to the men, who were quiet and orderly, telling them that the discipline in the shore camp would be the same as on board the ship, and that later on a consultation would be held and the best means of getting assistance decided upon. They had two boats and it was likely that Mr. Metcalf, in one of them, might be sent to the mainland in quest of aid.
Castle Island was a dismal-looking spot, but the boys decided to make the best of a bad business and set out, after a mid-day meal of canned provisions, coffee and crackers, for a walk along the beach. They didn’t find much of interest, however. In fact they could hardly keep their eyes off the Tropic Queen, lying on the shoals helpless with smokeless funnels, and listed heavily to port.
It was on the way back to camp that an odd thing happened. Sam was walking slightly in advance. Suddenly he turned around on Jack: “Say, what are you doing?” he demanded. “Don’t shove me.”
“I didn’t shove you,” said Jack. “I felt the same thing. I – Gracious, it’s the earth shaking!”
“Look, look at the volcano!” cried Sam suddenly.
Jack looked up at the towering, gaunt crest miles away, rearing to an infinite height above them. An immense cloud of yellow, sulphurous smoke, muddying the blue of the sky, was pouring from it.
The earth shook again sickeningly. White-faced, the boys hastened back to camp. They found Captain McDonald and the other men trying to quiet the fears of the crew, who fully believed that before night the volcano would be in eruption, burying them, maybe, in lava. They succeeded fairly well, but the men kept their eyes turned to the smoking crest almost ceaselessly.
Miss Jarrold sat apart in front of her tent with her uncle, whose bonds had been taken off.
The day wore on and the tremors were repeated from time to time. But nothing serious occurred. In fact, the marooned party began to grow used to the shocks. It was arranged that early in the morning, Mr. Metcalf, with one of the boats and a picked crew, was to set out for the mainland and summon help.
During the afternoon, to fend off his melancholy thoughts, Jack decided to write down all that had happened since the eventful voyage of the lost liner started. He begged some paper from the purser, who gave him a stack of duplicate manifests. He sat himself down, pencil in hand, and was beginning to scribble, when he suddenly stopped short and sat staring at a sheet of paper that had fallen to the ground beside him.
His eyes were centered on an entry at the top of the page. There didn’t appear to be much about the entry to cause Jack’s pulses to throb with a wild hope and his heart to beat quicker, but they did. Here is what he read:
“To Don Jose de Ramon, Electric Supplies, Santa Marta. 10 storage batteries from Day, Martin & Co., New York.”
Storage batteries!
Jack threw aside his writing and made for the purser.
“Where are those storage batteries for Santa Marta stored?” he asked.
“In hold Number One,” was the reply. “They are on the top of the Santa Marta cargo.”
“Can they be got at easily?” asked Jack.
“They are among the ‘fragile’ goods,” was the reply, “on the port side of the hold. They were to be the first things ashore at Santa Marta. But why do you want to know?”
“Oh, there’s a reason, as the ads. say,” laughed Jack.
That afternoon the two young wireless men spent in long and anxious consultation. Dark came, and from the volcano a lurid glare lit the sky, yet no heavy convulsions of the earth occurred. Supper was over and the sailors, after desperately trying to keep up their spirits by singing, turned in. Soon the whole camp was wrapped in silence. The only ones awake were Jack and Sam.
Silently, on the soft sand, the two lads crept from the camp. Around their waists they wore life belts taken from the boats, which lay on the sand where they had been pulled up. The inspiration that had come to Jack when he read that entry on the manifest, was about to be put to the test.
“You are sure you can swim it, Sam?” asked the boy as the two lads waded into the water with their eyes fixed on the black hull of the stranded steamer.
“With this life jacket on I could swim round the Horn,” declared Sam confidently.
“All right, then, here goes.” Jack struck off into deep water, followed by Sam.
The water was almost warm and quite buoyant. It was a real pleasure swimming through it in the moonlight, while at every stroke the phosphorescence rippled glowingly from their arms and legs. They reached the ship almost before they knew it, and swam around her till they found the Jacob’s ladder by which the descent to the boats had been made. They scrambled up this with the agility of monkeys, and then made their way along the steeply sloping decks till they reached the wireless room with its silent instruments. Everything there was in perfect order, except for “juice” that was needed to wake them to life. And this Jack intended to have in short order.
Working under his directions, Sam broke into the storeroom where such supplies were kept by the ship’s electricians, and got two huge coils of insulated wire. Carrying these, he followed Jack, who bore a lantern, to Number One hold. It had been broken open at Kingston and the battens had only been loosely replaced for the run to Santa Marta, so that it was an easy matter to gain access to the hold.
Down the steep iron ladder they climbed till they stood among high-piled boxes and bales. Jack flashed his lantern about and at last uttered a cry of triumph.
“There they are,” he cried, pointing to some big boxes labeled, “Jose de Ramon, Santa Marta.”
“Now for the test,” chimed in Sam.
The boys attacked the cases vigorously with hatchets they had brought with them, and soon had the ten powerful storage batteries exposed.
“Now get to work, Sam,” said Jack, producing some pliers and seizing hold of a coil of wire.
CHAPTER XL – THE ANSWER TO THE WIRELESS CALL
Most of my readers have, in all probability, by this time guessed Jack’s plan. It was nothing more nor less than to harness up the powerful storage batteries to the wireless apparatus, and thus secure a wave that, while not as strong as the one from the ship’s dynamos, would yet reach for two hundred miles or more.
This was the inspiration that had come to him when his eye had fallen on the momentous entry on the manifest. The boys worked feverishly. At last the batteries were connected, and it only remained to run the wires to the instruments in the wireless room. Then would come the supreme test.
At last everything was “hooked up” to Jack’s satisfaction, and he sat himself down at the key. He knew that his wave lengths would not be very heavy nor his radius large, but he calculated on the fact that already this part of the ocean was alive with scout cruisers and warships hunting for the Endymion.
With a beating heart and a choking sensation in his throat, he seized the key. Sam could not speak for excitement and suspense, but leaned breathlessly over his chum’s shoulder.
Downward Jack pressed the key.
A simultaneous shout burst from both boys’ throats. The wireless was alive once more!
A green spark, like an emerald serpent, leaped from point to point of the sender. With swift, practiced fingers Jack began sending abroad the message of disaster and the appeal for rescue.
Almost the entire night passed away without any answer reaching his ears, although he ran the gamut of the wireless tuning board. He began to fear that the current was too weak to reach any of the ships that he knew were scouring the sea for the Endymion, when suddenly, in response to his S.O.S., came a sharp, powerful:
“Yes – Yes – Yes.”
“Oh, glory!” cried Jack. “I’ve got a battleship! I know it by the sending.”
“This is the Tropic Queen,” he flashed out. “We are wrecked on Castle Island. Send help quickly. Rush aid. We are – ”
A loud, terrified cry from Sam interrupted him. Through the door the whole sky could be seen a flaming, lurid red. The stranded ship shook as if in the grip of cruel giant hands. The boys were thrown helter skelter about the sloping cabin floor.
The place gleamed with the glaring, crimson light. A dreadful roaring sound filled their ears. The sands beneath them appeared to heave up and down in sickening waves like those of the unquiet sea.
Then came a vast uproar, and the two terror-stricken boys clawed their way out on the slanting deck. They looked toward the island. The sky above it was blood red. The rugged sky-line of its peaks stood out blackly against the scarlet glare. The air was full of a gas that burned the throat and choked the lungs.
“It’s the volcano!” cried Jack. “The volcano! Look!”
But Sam was clutching the other’s arm and pointing frantically seaward. Rolling toward them, its foaming head crimsoned by the lambent glare of the volcano, was a giant wave.
“Into the wireless room. Quick! For your life!” screamed Jack.
They scrambled up the sloping deck and threw themselves flat on their faces in the coop, clinging to stanchions with a death-like grip. The next instant there was a roar like a thousand Niagaras. They felt the solid fabric of the Tropic Queen lifted dizzily skyward, while tons of water roared down on her. Then there came a sickening crash that shook the boys loose from their grips and sent them rolling about the cabin. The door was burst open and they staggered out on the deck. The Tropic Queen was almost upright now, with her bottom smashed in till she stood flat upon her bare ribs in the soft sand.
Jack could see, by the glare of the burning mountain, the bleak figures of men far up among the rocks. The tidal wave, then, had been seen in time for some of them, at least, to save themselves. He had just time to observe this when before his eyes the sea sucked outward – outward – outward. The ocean floor rose into view, all crimsoned from the flaming volcano. He could see gaunt rocks uncovered for the first time since the creation, perhaps, sticking up blackly in the slimy depths.
And then the sea came back! Out in the far distance across the exposed flats a mighty wave shouldered itself. Its body and huge hollow incurve was black, but its crest was glowing with reflected flame. Jack gave one glance ashore. He could see black figures scuttling high up the rocks.
They had just time to rush into the wireless room, with its steel walls and stout foundations bolted to the iron superstructure, when, with a roar, the mighty wave swept landward. Jack and Sam felt the Tropic Queen lifted and rushed toward the shore, then lifted again and again and again till it seemed impossible that anything man-made could resist the awful force.
But at last the ship grounded with a shuddering, sidewise motion that seemed like a last expiring gasp. The boys ventured forth. The ship was lying on the beach almost at the foot of the cliffs. Her funnels and masts had vanished, snapped off like pipe stems. She lay a sheer, miserable hulk in the flaring light of the volcano.
Seaward, the waves were breaking tumultuously, but the tidal wave had spent its fury. Dizzy, sick and battered the boys made their way over the side of the lost liner and crept up the beach. It was littered with the smashed fragments of the two boats and the remnants of the hastily abandoned camp.
Through the glowing darkness a figure came toward them.
“Great heavens, boys, is it you?” they heard.
“Yes, Captain,” rejoined Jack. “We’ve come ashore.”
“Thank Heaven you are safe! We are all right except for four poor sailors who did not awaken in time. But where have you been? How did you get on board?”
“We swam out,” said Jack simply, “and had just got out a wireless call when the big blow-up came.”
“A wireless call! Are you out of your head, boy?”
“By no means,” said Jack. “We got out a call, and, better still, got an answer. I don’t know what ship it was, but it was a naval craft. I gave our position and then came the tidal wave.”
“It is our only chance,” said the captain. “Both boats were, of course, smashed, and we are marooned till aid comes.”
It was the next night. The disconsolate castaways were huddled near the pathetic wreck of the lost liner. Food had been obtained from on board, so that there was no actual suffering, but the volcano still glared and rumbled and at any moment a disastrous eruption was to be feared.
De Garros and Miss Jarrold stood together apart from the rest.
“And your uncle’s influence over you is broken forever if we ever escape from this?” he was asking.
She nodded.
“That time in Paris when he tried to persuade you to give up the aeronautical plans was when I first began to mistrust him. I never thought I should see you again after our engagement was broken off, but fate has brought us together. It has been like a dream,” she went on. “I think sometimes that he exercised a hypnotic influence over me. But I know it all now and can see things clearly.”
De Garros was about to answer, when suddenly his body stiffened. He pointed to the northern horizon.
“There,” he cried. “Look there!”
His excitement was mounting high.
“See,” he shouted, “that white light! It’s sweeping the sky! What is it?”
Far off, a faint pencil of light swung across the zenith as if on a pivot. It dipped to the horizon, rose again and swung like a radiant pendulum across the sky.
“Signals,” the girl choked out. “It’s a searchlight!”
From the seamen there came a hoarse cheer.
“It’s a battleship! She’s signaling!” shouted Jack in a voice that shook. “It’s Morse!”
He took a long breath or two. Then he choked out the message that was flung on the sky.
“Courage! We are coming!”
And then pandemonium broke loose. Under the glaring sky, seamen danced and shouted and the other members of the party shook hands. Only Jarrold stood silent and aloof, looking at his niece and De Garros. It was as if he knew that his hold over her was broken forever, and that the approaching warships, speeding to the rescue, meant for him shackles and iron bars.
The scene shifts to Colon harbor. Into port are steaming the Birmingham, scout cruiser, and the Wasp, torpedo destroyer, the craft that rescued the castaways of Castle Island. Already by wireless the story of the lost liner and the wonderful resourcefulness of Jack Ready and Sam Smalley has gone out to the world. Big crowds are waiting to meet the rescuing warships. Among them are the military attachés to whom Colonel Minturn, thanks to Jack, will be able to hand the Panama documents so nearly lost forever.
At the stern of the Wasp, under the ensign, are standing Jarrold’s niece and De Garros. He is telling her that Colonel Minturn has promised to intercede for her uncle, and that in all probability he will be deported with a warning never to tread American soil again, in place of being imprisoned. Nations do not care to advertise their troubles with international spies, if it can be avoided.
Jack and Sam, on board the Birmingham, stand happily by the wireless operator of the cruiser. He is taking a message. Presently he turns to them.
“Some news that will interest you, fellows,” he says. “All the boats from the Tropic Queen have been picked up, without the loss of a single passenger.”
“Good work!” exclaim the two listeners heartily.
“And the Endymion,” continues the operator, “has been in port for a week, and her crew and captain are detained pending an inquiry.”
“Well, I guess they’ll get out of the scrape, all right,” says Jack, “for they didn’t know what schemes Jarrold was up to when he chartered the yacht.”
“What about Cummings?” asks Sam.
“So far as I am concerned, I shall take no action,” replies Jack. “All that I am anxious for now is for a sight of the good old U. S. A. and Uncle Toby and – ”
“Somebody named Helen,” chuckles Sam, while Jack turns red under his tan.
And here, with their adventures on the lost liner at an end, we will say farewell to our ocean wireless boys till we encounter them again in a forthcoming volume dealing with their further stirring adventures at the radio key.
