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Read Ebook: The Dreadnought Boys on Aero Service by Goldfrap John Henry
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Ebook has 415 lines and 15605 words, and 9 pages
Acting on his impulse he stepped up to Muller.
"I understand wireless," he said; "what messages do you want taken?"
"I don't know yet," rejoined Herr Muller, looking much relieved. Then suddenly his manner changed.
"But you understand the naval code, too, don't you?"
The manner in which the question was worded put Ned on his guard. He saw that it would be better to reply in the negative.
"No," he said, shaking his head, "I haven't had much to do with the signal part of man-o'-war work; but, of course, I learned something of wireless at the naval school."
"Good!" exclaimed Herr Muller; "come with me."
He ushered the boys below--for Herc had trailed along--and into the small wireless room Ned had noticed.
"I am expecting a message at any time now," he said; "but it will come in cipher. Get it absolutely accurate and you will not suffer by it."
Ned nodded.
"Better see about hoisting your aerials," he said.
Herr Muller hurried off on this errand, while Ned looked over the instruments surrounding him. They glistened with brass and polished steel in the smoky light of a bulkhead lamp. But despite the evident haste with which they had been installed, it was easy to see that the apparatus was the finest obtainable.
"What on earth can be up now?" wondered Herc, as Ned took up the metal headpiece and adjusted it.
"Don't know yet," said Ned. "It's evident, though, that Muller is in hopes of picking up some information from the fleet by eavesdropping on its wireless. I'm mighty glad now that I didn't tell him I could read cipher."
Further conversation was interrupted by the re-entrance of Herr Muller. He stepped brusquely up to Ned.
"You had better be ready to catch anything you can," he said; "everything is in readiness above, and we should be picking up messages at any moment now."
Ned nodded and sat down on the stool set over against the table, on which the glittering array of instruments were fastened.
For a long time--or so it seemed to him--he sat thus. Suddenly, in his ears, there sounded the faintest of scratching sounds. It was as soft as the footsteps of an invalid fly. But Ned knew that somewhere out on the sea ship was speaking to ship, and that what he heard was the echo of their talk.
Suddenly he picked up a pencil and began to write rapidly. Herr Muller bent over his shoulder. He watched with keen absorption as Ned's pencil flew over the paper.
"Is that the message you were expecting?" inquired Ned blandly, gazing up at Herr Muller.
"What nonsense is dot?" sputtered the other, lapsing into his foreign accent.
"Well, since you ask me," rejoined Ned, "I think it's the operator on one coasting steamer talking to the wireless man on another vessel about a blonde young lady at Key West."
Herr Muller exploded.
"Vot I care aboudt blonde young vimins?" he demanded, pounding the table angrily. "Der message I vant iss a navy message, you onderstond dot?"
"Oh, that's it, is it?" inquired Ned, assuming great innocence. "I thought you wanted every message that came through the air.--Hullo!--Hush!--Here she comes now!"
Suddenly a new note had struck into the wireless channels. The quick, imperious call of a battleship summoning the wireless ears of another sea-fighter.
Ned took instant advantage of the situation.
With quick, nervous fingers he began pounding the sending key. The lithe, white spark crackled and flashed across the terminals. It crackled like a bunch of firecrackers.
The spark crackled on, but no answering flash came through the air.
"The apparatus is too weak," groaned Ned, despairing at the long silence. But at the same instant his heart gave a great pound. His pulses began to leap. Through space had come an answering message.
Ned lost no time. His fingers began to pound the sending key once more.
Bang!
The interruption was sharp and startling. Splinters flew from under Ned's fingers as the bullet smashed the sending key to smithereens. He turned swiftly. In the doorway stood Merritt, revolver in hand. It was the recreant seaman who had fired the shot and interrupted Ned's warning message.
Ned was conscious of nothing but a hot flame of anger that seemed to bathe him from head to foot in its fury. He flung the helmet from his head and sprang at Merritt like a tiger. Taken utterly by surprise, the fellow was carried clean off his feet by the assault. He crashed backward with Ned on top of him just as Herr Muller rushed out of Chance's cabin, waving the cipher message delightedly.
He stopped short as he almost stumbled over the struggling forms of Ned and Merritt. In the semi-darkness of the cabin and his excitement he had not noticed them before.
"Donnervetter, vos is diss?" he cried as he took in the situation and speedily sensed the fact that Merritt was getting the worst of the struggle.
He picked up a heavy chair that stood close to his hand. He was swinging it and was about to bring it crashing down on Ned's head when something collided with his chin.
As Herr Muller, seeing a whole constellation of stars, reeled backward, dropping the chair with a bang, he dimly realized that that "something" had been the brawny and freckled fist of one Herc Taylor.
NED, CAST AWAY.
But as Herc and Herr Muller crashed floorward together a rush of footsteps came down the companionway stairs. The shot that had destroyed the sending key of the sloop's wireless had been heard on deck. Rescue was at hand for the two scoundrels who had been overborne by the Dreadnought Boys.
Before hands could be laid on Herc, however, the freckle-faced youth had banged his fists twice into Herr Muller's face. He raised his hand for a third blow when a sharp pain shot through him, and he sank back with a groan of helpless pain. Something had flashed in the anarchist's hand for an instant and had buried itself in Herc's side.
"Ned! Ned!" cried the lad in accents of shrill alarm, "the fellow's stabbed me."
With a superhuman effort, Ned flung Merritt's arms from him and dashed across the cabin. Herr Muller had struggled to his feet. He rose just in time to be spun clear across the cabin by the infuriated Dreadnought Boy. Such was the force in Ned's righteously indignant blow, that before the anarchist leader ceased spinning, he crashed clear through a wooden panel.
"Herc, old fellow!" cried Ned, sinking to his knees beside his comrade, "are you badly hurt?"
"I--I--I'm all right, old chap. Save the ships!" mumbled Herc and his eyes closed. The freckled face grew fearfully white.
Before any of the excited crew could lay a hand on him Ned picked up Herc as if he had been a child, and began backing toward one of the cabin doors with him.
"You scoundrels will pay dear for this!" he shouted angrily as he went out.
Paralyzed for the time being by the lightning-like rapidity of events, not one of the men made a move just then. Ned bore Herc into the cabin unmolested. Chance, leaning on one elbow, was lying in the lower bunk. His head was bandaged, but Ned tumbled him out by the scruff of his neck.
"Out of that, you traitor!" he shouted, "and make room for a real man-o'-war's-man."
While Chance, still weak from the effects of his blow, tottered about the cabin, Ned laid Herc on the bunk as gently as a woman might have done with an infant. Herc opened his eyes and smiled up at his shipmate.
He lapsed into unconsciousness once more.
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