Very soon after the commission of liaison officers arrived in London, they were assured by the British authorities in no uncertain terms that the navy was the keystone of everything. A message was cabled to Washington which swept away all vestiges of doubt in the President’s mind that the navy must come first, and which materially facilitated his adoption of the necessary action giving the navy first claim on the draft, which had now passed Congress.
After three weeks of strenuous activity on the part of the entire commission preparing plans for the consolidation of the naval forces, they embarked in their scout cruiser at the great Devonport dockyard where the noise of hammer and riveter, the great heaps of steel wreckage from repaired ships, and the general atmosphere of miscellaneous naval activities betokened its great significance as a naval base. On the high tide the long, slender cruiser glided quietly out through the narrow channel between Stonehouse and Cremyl, and in the gathering darkness left Plymouth Sound for the open sea. Four days later the party landed in New York, and proceeded without delay to Washington.
CHAPTER IV
PROGRESS IN JEOPARDY
Immediately after the return of the commission to Washington, a meeting was held in the Bureau of Engineering, at which those results of the mission to England which had to do with engineering problems were reported.
Admiral Bishop, Chief of the Bureau, presided. He was an elderly officer of robust build, with a hearty red face and white side-whiskers. At his right hand sat Commander Rich, head of the Radio Division of the Bureau, a thin-faced man with an aquiline nose and dark mobile eyes; his face bespoke an alert mind and quick perception. He had enrolled in the navy as a radio electrician many years before. By his ability he had risen through the various grades to warrant officer, and had been one of those selected from this status for the course at the Naval Academy. In this way he had risen to his present rank of commander. Heads of other divisions of the Bureau also sat at the large table near the center of the room. The three or four officers who had been sent abroad on engineering problems were present with their reports. Lieutenant Brown, although attached to the office of the Director of Naval Communications, and therefore belonging to the Bureau of Operations, was present, for among those who had been abroad he was the senior officer concerned with communications. Various other officers, whose duties dealt with the diverse branches of engineering, sat in chairs around the walls of the room. Among these was Lieutenant-Commander Elkins whom Evans had sized up as the most intelligent and open-minded of all the officers in the Radio Division of the Bureau. His technical training in radio engineering was less than that of some of the others, but perhaps by just so much was he free from prejudice in favor of home-made apparatus.
Before the meeting Evans had sought Elkins and explained the results of his investigation of radio methods in England. The British experts had presented convincing reasons for the universal adoption of some of their best engineering developments. One improvement in particular, a new type of vacuum-tube transmitter which they had recently perfected, far surpassed anything that had yet been seen, and by its efficiency in eliminating interference it opened such extraordinary possibilities in the scope of fleet communications that without it the navy would be lagging sadly behind the more progressive Allies. Adoption of this transmitter would mean scrapping a great deal of gear now in use, yet the facts learned in England showed plainly that the navy could not afford to do otherwise. Elkins saw this, and so did Brown. It was Brown’s rôle to report on the handling of communications. This problem was indissolubly linked with that of producing the apparatus, but on all technical phases of the subject he left it to Evans, with his superior scientific knowledge, to report their findings to the meeting.
As clearly as he was able, Evans described the most important contributions which the British had made. He warmed to his theme as he came to their most brilliant feats of invention, especially the new vacuum-tube transmitter. But at this juncture his enthusiasm met a check. Admiral Bishop shook his head in disapproval, and remarked that it would be most unwise to abandon the apparatus which had been so successfully developed by American talent. One or two of the other officers nodded acquiescence. Evans was accustomed to the discussion of problems in physics at meetings of scientists where the quest of truth was as genuine in the others as in himself. He now started to argue the case much as he would have done at such a meeting. Too late he saw his blunder; the opinions of a warrant officer were not to be set up against those of the Bureau Chief. His insistence had only served to incense the Admiral. When he saw the effect of his remarks, he shut up like a clam, and, smarting inwardly with self-reproach enhanced by the rancor of annoyance at the official complacence of the Admiral, listened through the rest of the conference.
Elkins endeavored to argue the case.
“There’s a chance here to increase the efficiency of our communications one hundred per cent,” he said, “I believe, sir, we shall be making a grave mistake if we don’t at least give this transmitter careful consideration.”
But Admiral Bishop only shook his head the harder; he had set the official seal of his disapproval upon the adoption of the British transmitter, and it was clearly the sense of the conference that American-made apparatus and American methods were undoubtedly the best. It is difficult to discard one’s own organization and adopt in its stead the creation of a foreign nation; and to recognize when a situation demands that course, requires more imagination and honesty of mind than most men have.