"That was a great pleasure," said the latter. "The signals are very clear to-night."
"If you could come in later on, sir," Fritz suggested, "you could hear the news service from Poldhu. There is a station for you!"
"At what hour does the service start?" asked Pachmann.
"Poldhu always calls at eleven-thirty, sir, and starts the news service as soon as the commercial business is out of the way."
"I shall try to be here," said Pachmann. "This long-distance service is a great delight to me, especially when it works so clearly as it does to-night. You will not forget about my incognito?"
"I shall not forget, sir," Fritz assured him, and with a short nod, Pachmann left the house. Fritz sat down again to copy out his messages and to send three or four which the captain's steward at that moment brought in. That done, he thrust his head out for a breath of air, noticed with a grin the couples who had already discovered the advantages of the boat-deck benches, and then went back to his key for a little gossip with such other Marconi men as might be within reach. It was nearly eleven-thirty, and all of them were sitting at their tables, waiting for the far-flung signal which would tell that the operator at Poldhu, that lonely station on the last sheer cliff of Cornwall, was ready for his night's work. And a minute later, the door opened and Pachmann came in.
"I could not resist your invitation, Fritz," he said. "This gets into one's blood," and he adjusted the extra receiver and sat down.
Almost at once came the CQ, CQ, CQ, ZZ, ZZ, ZZ, which told that Poldhu was calling for all stations and on every ship within a thousand miles of that point of rock, the wireless man tuned up his instrument, and waited. The commercial messages came first, and there were a lot of them; four for the Ottilie, three for the Adriatic, five to be relayed far ahead to the Mauretania, one for the incoming Majestic, and one for the Rotterdam. Then the Poldhu man announced that he was ready to receive, and as many more were sent out into the night to him, for relay on to London, and from there to far-separated points on the continent. At last there was a moment's pause, a moment's silence, and then the SP, SP, SP, which told that the news service was about to start. And every man within hearing picked up a fresh pencil and made ready to write, as from dictation.
"SP, SP, SP," snapped Poldhu. "Time 12:54 G. Three hundred wds.
"War between Italy and Turkey seems inevitable stop Italy gives Turkey twenty-four hours to agree to Italy's occupation of Tripoli stop Six thousand troops at Palermo ready to embark stop Turkish munitions and reinforcements already landed stop Board of Inquiry into La Liberté disaster goes into secret session stop Rumour of attempt to destroy La Patrie also stop Moroccan situation grows more serious stop Germany demands equal rights with France abrogating Algeciras treaty stop Directors steel trust declare company is legal corporation and will not take voluntary steps to dissolve stop Officially announced at Chicago that one hundred thousand men on Harriman lines will strike Saturday stop September coffee sells at twelve-ninety-eight New York exchange record price stop Boy Scouts called out to fight plague of wasps in England stop...."