[CHAPTER XI]
DRIFTING
There is, perhaps, no greater strain to be endured than waiting—waiting for some certain time to come, waiting for an event to pass, waiting for a letter or a message. And when this nervous strain is multiplied several thousand times, and when the waiting has to do with perhaps the very continuation of life itself, it becomes at last almost unendurable.
That is what Ned, Bob, and Jerry, and their thousands of comrades on board the Sherman, found as they waited for some reply to come to the wireless calls. As has been related, the dynamo that sent out the impulses, controlled by the operators’ keys, had been patched up so that it revolved. Steam was generated for a small engine.
“But how long she’ll work no one knows,” confided an operator to Jerry, coming off duty after several anxious hours in the little deck house. “The repairs are only temporary, the engineer tells me, and she may break down again any minute.”
“But you’ll keep on sending out calls as long as you can, won’t you?” asked Ned.
“Oh, sure,” was the answer.
“How do you account for not getting replies to the wireless calls? You’re sending them out broadcast, aren’t you?”
“That’s it. They can be picked up by any number of shore stations, to say nothing of ships at sea.”
“Then why aren’t our calls picked up and answered?” Bob queried.