“I wish you’d let me go to Boston myself and examine the Sheridan’s radio compass, and the one in the shore station at Gloucester that gave the wrong bearing. I believe I could find out something.”
“I don’t see that it would do any good,” said Mortimer. “Besides, you’re needed for your work right here in the Bureau.”
“I’m doing nothing in the Bureau half so important as getting the truth on this matter. If I can find out why the apparatus failed and show how to prevent its failure in future, and thereby restore your confidence in it, I’ll have done the biggest job for the navy that I can ever hope to do.”
“If Commander Rich thinks it worth while to send you there, well and good,” said Mortimer.
“Commander Rich would never send me. He has disliked me ever since that scene we had over the British vacuum-tube transmitter. He’d turn down a request like that just for the sake of snubbing me, even if he saw the point in my going, which he wouldn’t. The only way is to have orders come from some one above him. For God’s sake, Sam, give this thing a chance. Let me get up there and see what happened.”
His earnestness startled Mortimer and recalled the deep trust in his friend that he had always felt, and at last he yielded. It was arranged that Evans should receive orders which would enable him to visit the radio compasses around Boston and to go aboard the Sheridan, now being repaired there.
First Evans visited the station at Fourth Cliff near Scituate, the station which on the fateful day had been reported out of commission. He learned that during the entire day of the wreck the operators had been unable to make the apparatus work. The next morning a careful examination had revealed a loose connection which had resulted in an open circuit. It was the kind of thing that might easily result from undue haste in installing the gear.
At Gloucester he questioned the operators closely. They could not account for the error in the bearings they had given to the Sheridan, both of them having proved to be some sixteen degrees off. The apparatus had been giving accurate bearings for years; they used it on that day just as they always had, and since that day it had been tested and recalibrated, and had proved to be in perfect condition and giving just as accurate bearings as it always had. Evans examined the apparatus himself with the greatest care. Nothing was amiss; it certainly was in perfect working order and adjustment. He was mystified; he could find no possible clue to this sudden and disastrous lapse. At all events, the gear was working well now, and the operators on their guard against mistakes.
On the Sheridan Evans found the radio compass apparently in good order. But when he had signals sent from a station near by and tested the gear in actual use, he found the bearings which it indicated always eight degrees to the right of what they should be. He then examined the circular scale from which the readings were taken and found it eight degrees out of alignment with the coil.
“That’s a rank bit of installation,” he said to the operator in charge of the apparatus. “I thought you’d been getting good bearings with it all along the coast before you went aground.”