Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: The Ocean Wireless Boys and the Lost Liner by Goldfrap John Henry Wrenn Charles L Charles Lewis Illustrator
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page
Ebook has 1371 lines and 48210 words, and 28 pages
AT SEA ONCE MORE
The decks were, therefore, deserted; the long rows of lounging chairs were vacant, while the passengers, many of them tourists on pleasure bent, were below in the dining saloon appeasing the keen appetites engendered by the brisk wind that was blowing off shore.
To readers of the first volume of this series, "The Ocean Wireless Boys on the Atlantic," Jack Ready needs no introduction.
Here he comes into the wireless room where his assistant sits reading in front of the gleaming instruments and great coherers. Jack has been off watch, lying down and taking a nap in the small sleeping cabin that, equipped with two berths, opens off the wireless room proper, thus dividing the steel structure into two parts.
"Hello, chief," said Sam Smalley, with a laugh, as Jack appeared; "glad you're going to give me a chance to get to dinner at last. I'm so hungry I could eat a coherer."
"Skip along then," grinned Jack; "but it's nothing unusual for you to be hungry. I'll hold down the job till you get through, but leave something for me."
"I'll try to," chuckled Sam, as he hurried down the steep flight of steps leading from the wireless station up on the boat deck to the main saloon.
Readers of the first volume, dealing with Jack Ready and his friends, will recall how he lived in a queer, floating home with his uncle, Cap'n Toby. They will also recollect that Jack, who had studied wireless day and night, was coming home late one afternoon, despondent from a fruitless hunt for a job, when he was enabled to save the little daughter of Mr. Jukes from drowning. The millionaire's gratitude was deep, and Jack could have had anything he wanted from him.
The injured man was a chum of Jack's, and he did not want to see him lose a limb if it could be helped, or have his life imperiled by unskillful methods. Yet what was he to do? Finally an idea struck him. He knew that the big passenger liners all carried doctors. He raised one by means of the wireless and explained the case. The injured man was carried into the wireless cabin and laid close to the table. Then, while the liner's doctor flung instructions through space, Jack translated them to the captain. The result was that the man was soon out of danger, but Jack kept in touch with doctors of other liners till everything was all right beyond the shadow of a doubt.
An old quartermaster passed the door of the wireless cabin. He poked his head in.
"Goot efenings, Yack," he said, with easy familiarity. "How iss der birdt cage vurking?"
This was Quartermaster Schultz's term for the tenuous a?rials swung far aloft to catch wide-flung, whispered space messages and relay them to the operator's listening ears.
"The bird cage is all right," laughed Jack. "Dandy weather, eh?"
The old man, weather-beaten and bronzed by the storms and burning suns of the seven seas, shook his head.
"Idt is nice now, all righdt," he said, "but you ought to see der glass."
"The barometer? What is the matter with it?"
"Py gollys, I dink der bottom drop oudt off idt. You may have vurk aheadt of you to-night."
"You mean that we are in for a big storm?"
"I sure do dot same. Undt ven it comes idt be a lollerpaloozitz. Take my vurd for dat. Hark!"
The old quartermaster held up a finger.
Far above him in the a?rials could be heard a sound like the moaning bass string of a violin as the wind swept among the copper wires.
"Dot's der langwitch of Davy Chones," declared Schultz. "Idt says, 'Look oudt. Someding didding.' I'fe heardt idt pefore, undt I know."
The old man hurried off on his way forward, and Jack emitted a long whistle.
"My, won't there be a lot of seasick passengers aboard to-night! The company will save money on breakfast to-morrow."
Just then Sam came back from dinner and Jack was free to go below to his meal. He was about to relinquish the instruments when there came a sudden call.
"To all ships within three hundred miles of Hatteras: Watch out for storm of hurricane violence.
"Briggs, Operator Neptune Beach U. S. Wireless Service."
WIRELESS CONVERSATIONS
"Phew! Trouble on the way, eh?" he asked.
"Looks like it. But we need not worry, with a craft like this under our feet."
But Sam looked apprehensive.
"What is the trouble? Not scared, are you?" asked Jack, who knew that, excellent operator though he had shown himself to be, this was Sam's first deep-sea voyage.
"N-no. Not that," hesitated Sam, "but seasickness, you know. And I ate an awful big dinner."
"Well, don't bother about that now. Lots of fellows who have never been to sea before don't get sick."
"I hope that will be my case," Sam replied, without much assurance in his voice.
It was true. From ship to ship, borne on soundless waves, the news was being eagerly discussed.
"You little fellows better take in your sky-sails and furl your funnels; you'll be blown about like chicken feathers in a gale of wind," came majestically from Uncle Sam's big warship.
Then the air was filled with a clamor for more news from the Neptune Beach operator.
"You fellows give me a pain," he flashed out, depressing and releasing his key snappily. "I've sent out all I can. Don't you think I know my job?"
"Let us know at once when you get anything more," came commandingly from the battleship.
"M-M-M!" in the wireless man's code came from all the others, Jack included. The air was vibrant with silent chuckles.
"Say, you fellows, what is going on?" came a fresh voice. Oh, yes, every wireless operator has a "voice." No two men in the world send alike.
"Hello, who are you?" snapped out Neptune Beach.
"Big storm. Affect all vessels within three hundred miles of Hatteras. This is Neptune Beach."
The wireless chat ceased. Sam hastened forward to the sacred precincts of the captain's cabin, while Jack went below to his belated dinner. As he went he noticed that the sea was beginning to heave as the dusk settled down, and the ship was plunging heavily. The wind, too, was rising. The social hall was brilliantly lighted. From within came strains of music from the ship's orchestra. Through the ports, as he passed along to the saloon companionway, Jack could see men and women in evening clothes, and could catch snatches of gay conversation and laughter.
"Humph," he thought, "if you'd just heard what I have, a whole lot of you would be getting the doctor to fix you up seasick remedies."
In the meantime Sam, cap in hand, presented the message to the captain. The great man took it and read it attentively.
"This isn't a surprise to me," said Captain McDonald, "the glass has been falling since mid-afternoon. Stand by your instruments, lad, and let me know everything of importance that you catch."
"Very well, sir." Sam, who stood in great awe of the captain, touched his cap and hastened back. He adjusted his "ear muffs," but could catch no floating message. The air was silent. He sent a call for Neptune Beach, but the operator there told him indignantly not to plague him with questions.
"I'll send out anything new when I get it," he said. "Gimme a chance to eat. I'm no weather prophet, anyhow. I only relay reports from the government sharps, and they're wrong half the time. Crack!"
Sam could sense the big spark that crashed across the instruments at Neptune Beach as the indignant and hungry operator there, harassed by half a dozen ships for more news, smashed down his sending key.
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page