A man in shirt sleeves, and with head phones adjusted, sat humped over the radio desk, working at a dial. This was Jack Simms, radio chief of the Nardak. As Captain Bartlot made the introductions, a ferocious scowl, emphasized by a great scar across the left cheek, seem to draw up Simms’ face, and he spoke shortly, “Howdy, youngster!” with what appeared to Lee unnecessary emphasis on the “youngster.” All these veterans seemed to have it in for the youngest member of the crew, and to resent his being thrust in among them.
While Simms rather perfunctorily explained to his newly arrived assistant the various parts of this very modern and powerful radio unit, Lee couldn’t keep his eyes off the scar across the man’s cheek. What Lee did not know, at that time, was that Simms had gained that perpetual decoration by sticking to his radio post aboard a rammed and sinking ocean liner—a post that he held till he had put wireless through to other ships that answered the call and rescued every man jack aboard the wreck.
“Now here are our ten-meter transmitters for exploring ultra-short waves,” Simms’ cool voice went on. “With condensers adjusted for maximum plate current, sounds from quite a respectable distance can be brought into the clear. I’ll demonstrate.” He turned the tiny marking light on the dial. “That ought to get us Station ZEAF at Brinton, two hundred miles away.”
As the dial light came to rest, a clear burst of beautiful music rolled through the little room.
“That’s hitting it up pretty fine.” Lee’s face glowed. “I reached out to two hundred once with an old battery, some barbed wire and the like. Got the sound, but it was distorted, like the singer was yelling out of the side of his mouth—”
“You’ve made radio, huh? Receiver, or transmitter?”
“Both.”
As Lee, at Simms’ prompting, told something of the various experiments he had tried, Bartlot quietly left the room, to return later bearing the leather case containing the boy’s portable model.
Without a word, the Captain opened back the leather and shoved the contents up under Jack Simms’ nose. The latter half arose, then settled back, and went over the little mechanism carefully. He gave a long whistle. “Some points to that, kid!”
After that, there wasn’t much in the way of radio that Jack Simms didn’t go into minutely for Lee Renaud’s benefit. Old Simms had found that he and Lee talked the same language—audio frequency, voltage, detector grid input, C3, filter, and the rest of the jargon.