He might not gain access to a transmitter of sufficient power to reach the Azores, even if the best receivers then in use were ready to pick up his signals. With this difficulty in mind Evans had been experimenting with a new device which had occurred to him for making the receiver on the flagship more sensitive and at the same time more selective, that he might pick out the desired signal, though incredibly faint, from all those abroad in the vibrating ether. As soon as Kendrick had learned his duties and a suitable day should come he was to go, for his services in Gibraltar were much needed. Evans felt sure his device would work, but it must be installed in the flagship and tested in actual use, and this if possible before Kendrick’s departure, lest its failure should entail some modification of his instructions. For this, quick work was required.
About this time a new batch of ensigns, recruited from civil life and put through a four months’ course at the Naval Academy, arrived at Punta Delgada and were distributed to various billets in the fleet. Among them was a youth named Coffee, alert, smartly dressed, and truly a marvel for etiquette. By the caprice of fortune, this ensign was assigned to the communication force on the flagship as an assistant to the fleet radio officer. As soon as he was thus established, he took occasion to make it clear to all the radio personnel of inferior rank to himself, including Evans, that their duties came under his jurisdiction; there was to be no misunderstanding about that.
One Saturday morning when the work of installing the new device in the receiver was nearing completion, Evans asked the chief radio electrician if he could spare one of the operators to assist him with the job.
“It’s almost time for captain’s inspection, sir,” said the chief. “The boys ain’t supposed to be in their dungarees then.”
“Oh, well,” said Evans, “I can manage about as well by myself. There’s not much room for more than one pair of hands on this job, anyway.”
So saying, he clambered and squirmed in behind a varied assortment of apparatus constituting the vitals of the radio room, and in his old dungarees sat down on the steel deck. With knife and pliers he swiftly fashioned the labyrinth of wires which was to put his new receiving device to the test of actual use, the tar of the insulation rapidly turning his hands a dark brown. As he worked away with the joy of one in his native element, he whistled a tune of his early childhood, and soon was quite oblivious of his surroundings. The door of the radio room opened and footsteps approached, followed by more footsteps. For a while Evans continued to scrape and bend his wires, still whistling as he worked. Presently he looked up. There stood the captain of the flagship, and beside him Fraser, chief of staff; behind them was Lieutenant-Commander Elkins and his new assistant, Ensign Coffee. The radio chief and his force of electricians stood at attention for the formalities of the captain’s inspection, but the captain, attracted by the sound of whistling, was peering with a look of mild surprise through the maze of electrical gear at the unusual sight of a man who had failed to stop working for inspection. Evans caught Fraser’s eye and saw there the suggestion of a smile which bespoke enjoyment of the contrast between this unwonted spectacle and the rest of the ship during inspection. But Coffee was glaring at him with a terrible look of affronted dignity, and this in turn provoked the suggestion of a twinkle in Evans’s eye.
The captain glanced around the room and passed on, followed by the other officers. But in a moment Coffee returned and in a sharp voice called—“Gunner! Come out here, I wish to speak to you.”
Evans crawled out through the interstices in the gear.
“What do you mean by being in dirty dungarees at captain’s inspection?” said Coffee.
“There were changes to be made in the apparatus; they’re needed rather urgently,” answered Evans. “Some captains would rather see work going on than idleness; I rather thought our skipper was that kind.”