The Ocean Wireless Boys on War Swept Seas

What happened after the leap, Jack never knew clearly. He felt a wild, half-suffocating rush through the air and then a sensation of choking and strangling as a cold, stifling weight of water pressed in on him. Down, down, down he plunged. It seemed as if he would never rise. In his ears was an intolerable drumming. Everything was blood-red before his eyes.

Then came a sudden blast of blessed air, following a swift upward rush, and he found himself struggling in the wild sea with Dick Sanders clinging desperately to him and almost making him go under again.

Luckily Jack, without conscious thought, had chosen the lee side of the burning ship, where the boats hovered, for his leap for two lives. As his head appeared above the surface, the bright glare of the flames showed his form clearly to the anxious watchers who had witnessed his daring dive.

“There he is! Hurrah!” shouted Bill Raynor, who was the first to see him. “Hold on, Jack, old boy, we’ll be with you in just a second.”

“Keep up your heart! We’ll get you!” bellowed Mr. Smallwood.

Jack essayed a feeble wave in response, with the result that he was once more engulfed. But in a few moments he was safe and a dozen pairs of strong arms had drawn him and Dick Sanders into Mr. Smallwood’s boat.

“Heavens, lad, what a dive,” cried the third mate admiringly, when Jack was somewhat recovered and Dick lay covered with seamen’s coats on the floor of the boat.

“Gracious, we thought you were a goner!” exclaimed Raynor, “when the cattle made the first charge. I guess you didn’t hear it, being below. We all came close to being caught. The man on the forecastle, who was unconscious by the time we got on board, was reached in time to be lowered into one of the boats. In the confusion, we thought you were among us. It was not till we reached the boats again that we found our mistake.”

“In the meantime,” said Mr. Smallwood, “those poor devils of steers had reached the rail and not liking the look of the water any better than the fire, charged back again. It was just as the second ‘wave,’ as you might call it, was coming for you that we saw you weren’t with us. Suddenly we sighted you with that poor kid there,” he nodded to the bottom of the boat, “right in the line of their charge.”

“If it hadn’t been for your warning shout, I might not have been here now,” said Jack.

“I saw that and so I yelled with all my power,” said the third officer, “but lad,” he went on, slapping Jack on the back, “when I saw what you were going to do, I regretted having warned you.”

“It was the only thing to do,” said Jack. “We wouldn’t have stood a chance if we had remained where we were,” and he explained that it was impossible to find shelter on the flush deck or to retreat back into the forecastle.

“Well, all’s well that ends well,” said Mr. Smallwood, “but it gave me a turn when I saw you come sky-hottling off that bow. But, – great Christmas, – look yonder.”

He pointed back at the burning ship. By her own light they saw her pitch heavily forward, hesitate an instant and then, without further warning, and amidst a piteous bellowing that sounded like a death-wail, shoot downward to the depths of the ocean. In an instant the light she had spread across the rough sea had vanished, and by contrast, the night appeared to have suddenly solidified about them in velvety blackness. A moment later a blinding white light groped across the waste of tossing waters and enveloped them in its glow. It was the searchlight of the St. Mark and it accompanied them with its cheering light till they reached the ship’s side.

They were greeted amid acclamation, and Dick Sanders was at once taken charge of by the ship’s doctor and some lady passengers. The man who had been rescued had, by this time, however, sufficiently recovered to accompany Mr. Smallwood, Bill and Jack to Captain Jameson’s cabin, where that officer was eagerly waiting to hear the details of the rescue.

The rescued sailor, whose name was Mark Cherry, soon told them the story of the disaster to the Buffalonian, a British cattle ship which had left New York for London several days previously. Early that evening the craft had been overtaken by a German cruiser and ordered to surrender. Every one on board was made prisoner, and some of the cattle taken, when the British captain, seized by a sudden fit of anger, struck the German commander in the face. He was instantly ironed, as were his officers, Mark Cherry observing all this from under the cover of a boat where he had been working when the cruiser took the cattle craft, and in which he had remained hidden.

In revenge, apparently, for the British captain’s attack on him, the German commander had, on his return to his own ship, ordered the Buffalonian fired upon by the big guns. The hidden sailor crouched in terror in his place of concealment while the cannon boomed. He thought his last hour had come. The projectiles shrieked through the sternworks of the ship and one, he thought, had struck amidships (which accounted for the vessel’s foundering).

At length, appearing to tire of this, the German cruiser put about and steamed away. Cherry crept from his hiding place where he had remained paralyzed with fright throughout the bombardment, and making for the wireless room sent out the only signal he knew, the S. O. S., which he had learned from a friendly wireless man, in case there ever came a time when it would be a matter of life and death to him to use it. This explained why no answer came to Muller’s frantic calls after the first distress signal.

It was only a few moments after this call that flames burst from the shattered stern, and Cherry knew that unless help came, his hours were numbered. So confused and terrified was he by his desperate situation, that it was not till Jack’s appearance on the scene, he remembered little Dick Sanders, the cabin boy, lying sick in his bunk below. (It may be said here that with care and good treatment the lad quickly recovered his health, and he and Mark Cherry were put to work with the crew of the St. Mark.) Thus, without further incident, the English Channel was reached and Jack began busily to try to communicate with the firm’s London agents for instructions as to docking orders.

CHAPTER XVI

AWAITING ORDERS

While awaiting orders, which the wireless had told the St. Mark’s captain were not ready for transmission, the big liner stood “off and on” at the mouth of the channel. It was wearing work, and all looked forward eagerly to the day when their destination would be settled and they could proceed.

Jack felt the monotony of it no less than anyone else on board, but he spent a good many busy hours perfecting an attachment for a wireless coherer which he hoped would prove of great value in the future, and possibly prove as profitable as the Universal Detector, to which allusion has already been made in “The Ocean Wireless Boys” and “The Naval Code.” One night, after working for some time at some rather abstruse calculations in this connection, he decided to abandon the work for the night and take a stroll on deck before turning in.

Raynor, he knew, was finishing up the last of a series of match games of checkers, so he did not bother to look up his friend. Knowing that Bill was busily engaged, Jack was rather surprised when, at his fourth or fifth turn up and down the deck, which was almost deserted, a steward stepped up to him with a note.

It proved to be from Raynor and read as follows:

“Dear Jack:

“Meet me at once in the stern where we can talk without being spied on. The steward will show you where. I have something important to tell you about Radwig.

    “Bill.”

“This is very peculiar,” mused Jack, and then, turning to the steward he asked:

“Did Mr. Raynor give you this?”

“Yes, sir, and he told me to bring you to where he was waiting, sir,” was the obsequious response.

“All right, lead on,” said Jack and then to himself he added: “I can’t in the least make out why old Bill should be so secretive. I might just as well have met him in his cabin. But maybe he is being watched, and thinks the place he has appointed would be better.”

The steward led the way aft through a maze of corridors and passages. At last they arrived far in the stern of the ship where the unlighted passages showed no cabins were occupied. The twenty first-class passengers had all been booked amidships, thus the hundreds of cabins opening on the stern passages were unoccupied and nobody went near them.

“You’ve no idea why Mr. Raynor selected this part of the ship to meet me?” said Jack, as he followed the man who lighted the way with an electric torch.

“No, sir,” he replied, with a shake of his head. “I suppose he had his reasons, sir.”

“No doubt, but this is an odd part of the ship to keep an appointment,” said Jack. “We must be far away from the occupied cabins.”

“Oh, yes, sir. Almost a tenth of a mile. Wonderful, ain’t it, sir, the size of these big ships? A fellow could yell his lungs out in this part of the vessel, sir, and things, being as they are, and the cabins empty and all, nobody could hear him.”

“I suppose not,” said Jack idly. “Are we nearly there?”

“Yes, sir. Just turn down this passage, sir. Right to the left, sir, mind that step and – ” Crash!

A great burst of light, as if a sudden explosion had occurred in front of him blinded Jack, and at the same instant he felt a violent blow on the back of the head. Then the bright light vanished with a loud report and he seemed to swim for an instant, in blackness. Everything went out, as if a light had been switched off, and the lad pitched heavily forward on his face.

“Good, that will settle his hash for a while,” muttered a voice, and Radwig, a short, wicked-looking bludgeon in his hand, bent over the senseless boy. By the German’s side was another man, a short, thick-set, clean-shaven fellow with a projecting jaw, known on the passenger list as Mr. Duncan Ewing, of Chicago.

The light of the steward’s torch illumined their faces as they stood above the recumbent young wireless boy.

“I say, sir,” muttered the man, “I know you’ve paid me well and all, sir, but I didn’t bargain for no murdering business, sir. I – ”

“Don’t be an idiot,” snapped Radwig impatiently. “We haven’t hurt him. See, he’s beginning to stir. Now then, Schultz – ”

Radwig bent and took up the limp body by the head while Mr. Duncan Ewing, who answered with alacrity to the name of Schultz, laid hold of poor Jack by the feet.

“Now, steward,” said Radwig, as they carried their burden into an empty cabin, “keep a stiff upper lip till we dock, and then I don’t care what happens. You’ll be well taken care of. Don’t forget that.”

“Yes, sir, I know, sir,” said the man, whose hand was trembling as he held the torch; “but I don’t like the business, sir. If it wasn’t for my poor wife being sick and needing the money, and all – ”

“That will do. Go get us the lamp you promised. In the meantime we’ll revive this young fellow and show you that he’s not dead.”

From a carafe of stale water that stood on the washstand, Radwig dashed a liberal application in Jack’s face. He loosened the lad’s collar and chafed his wrists. Jack moaned, stirred, and opened his eyes. For a moment his swimming senses refused to rally to his call. Then, with a flash, he realized what had happened.

“Radwig, you scoundrel!” he exclaimed, “what is the meaning of this outrage?”