Evans began looking for the cause of the trouble. The radio chief was listless and discontented. But it was not his fault. The fleet radio officer seemed discouraged and disgruntled. At first he was rather uncommunicative as to the general plan of coördinating the fleet’s activities, but before long the sympathetic interest which Evans showed in the problem of making the most of the situation, drew him out and revealed the fact that the trouble lay in the Admiral’s chief of staff.
This officer, Captain Brigham, was one of the senior four-stripers in the navy. A man of impressive bearing and iron will, he was a conspicuous exponent of the conservative point of view in all naval matters. He was insistent on decorum and etiquette to the last detail, and he guarded his authority and prestige with a jealous diligence. He was one of those officers who insist on keeping their fingers on every activity that comes under their jurisdiction, if only to throttle it. All the officers on his staff excelled in “officer-like bearing.” Nowhere in the fleet were salutes executed in more perfect form. Behind this cloak of faultless formality there was nothing which made for efficiency in the coördination of the fleet. Captain Brigham had Commander White, the fleet radio officer, completely under his thumb. White had ideas as to the proper organization of communications, but they were snubbed before they even found expression. Captain Brigham had himself been a radio officer for two or three months just after the close of the war with Germany, and he flattered himself that his knowledge of radio was all that could be desired.
The new methods which had been developed by the Bureau of Engineering, to meet the vast demands of the modern fleet with the best that science could offer, differed so much from those which he recalled as standard in the days of his youth, that they were not to his liking. He had abused his authority by having the more modern parts of the apparatus dismantled, and the specially trained operators who understood their use sent away from the ship. The remaining radio force was quite inadequate for the proper handling of the flagship’s communications in the event of battle.
These facts were not posted in so many words on any bulletin board, but Evans read them almost as clearly in many signs and symptoms and in the stray remarks of those with whom he talked. With the fleet radio officer he talked quite frankly, discussing the appalling prospect of a great naval action in which the vast fleet of the enemy would operate with perfect coördination between its battlecruisers, scouts, and destroyers, directed by its flagship, as much a unit as a battleship operated from the bridge, while the Allied fleet, its directing nerve center semi-paralyzed, would be doomed to confusion, and almost certain disaster.
“Do you realize what it means?” he said. “It would be like a man, with half his brain gone to pot, competing at fencing or wrestling with a champion in perfect trim.”
Commander White shrugged his shoulders. “Between you and me,” he said, “the radio on this ship isn’t what it ought to be; but what can you do about it?”
Evans was on his mettle.
“I’ll talk with Captain Brigham, and if I don’t make him understand the need of that apparatus, it won’t be because I haven’t tried.”
“You’ve got your nerve with you,” said White. “Take my advice and keep away from him, if you value your hide.”
“There are more important things in the service than my hide,” said Evans. “I was sent here by the Bureau of Engineering to see that the newer and less familiar parts of the radio equipment in the fleet are in proper working order and are understood by the personnel. If I fail to point out to those concerned what I find amiss, I shall not be doing my job.”