Chinks must all be in the fo’c’s’le, hatchin’ their plots. Will ye trust your prisoner to go below an’ see how MacFinney is comin’ along? An’ do you meantime while the engines are turnin’ over, an’ ye have your chance, go into the radio room off the bridge. ’Tis up this ladder.” He indicated a narrow iron-runged ladder beside him, leading to the tiny bridge above. Keenly he regarded the boy. “Can ye use it when you’re up there?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Frank. “Well, here goes before a Chinaman sees me. Come on, gang.”
And shinning up the ladder, he entered the room opening from the bridge, with Mr. Temple followed by Bob and Jack hard on his heels. One glance around, and he saw what he was looking for. The control apparatus for sending messages was on a stand against the opposite wall. Adjusting a headphone, and pulling a microphone toward him, Frank reached for the knobs and began calling the Sub Chaser while manipulating them.
[CHAPTER XV—ABANDON SHIP]
“A fine place for defense,” commented Jack, looking about him.
“If we keep down, they may not even discover us,” said Mr. Temple.
The front wall of the little radio room was composed of stout wooden panelling to half a man’s height from the floor with glass above. Mr. Temple, Bob and Jack knelt or crouched behind this protective screen, their heads showing just above it, as they looked along the deck toward the forecastle where the crew was housed. The forecastle door was closed.
On the narrow deck below were two immense hatches opening into the hold where when the trawler was legitimately employed, fish would be packed. But “Black George” used that big hold in which to pack Chinese coolies. Beyond the hatches rose a stout derrick, and beyond that the forecastle. Behind the bridge and the radio room, or aft in the trawler, lay the engine room. That way the view
was cut off by the blank wall of the radio room against which stood the instruments which Frank was now trying to use.
“Listen,” whispered Jack. “Frank’s talking.”