“Oh, you’re no bother at all,” said Kenryck very kindly. “It’s the inquisitive maniacs who ask fool questions and think it’s queer that I don’t offer to teach ’em the whole code in five minutes—they’re the ones that make signalling an everlasting joy.”
“I suppose so,” said I, taking off my hat, to let the fresh breeze rumple its way through my hair. “But I’ve stopped your game, just the same. Wake up those flags of yours: I like to watch them waving.”
“You’ve stopped nothing,” protested Kenryck. “I’d been squinting through these glasses until my eyes ached, and I was just going to take a minute off, when you came popping up through the trap like the fairy in a pantomime.”
“I’m breaking in three new men,” he went on, in a lower tone. “One of ’em”—with a nod towards the turret—“I’ve got in the box up there: one of my sergeants has another, out on Corey Hill: and the third one’s in charge of still another sergeant, over across the river, in Cambridge, on the tower of Memorial Hall. Running a three-station circuit, you see. Message starts here, goes through the hill station, and lands on top of t’other tower: vice versa with the answer. I’m taking it easy, you’ll notice: just sitting here in the shade and keeping tabs on the Cambridge station through that embrasure. My man overhead calls off the signals from the hill: I jot ’em down: and so I can see that they tally with the original. Great system!”
“Great head!” said I: then, with an upward glance at the clean-cut face of the young soldier leaning easily against the parapet of the turret, “You’ve pulled in some good men, eh?”
“Beauties, all three of ’em!” said Kenryck enthusiastically; “just out of college; all from the same class. Only had ’em a trifle over three months, but they’ve picked up the trick to a charm. Clever? Well, rather! Just see how easily this boy handles his business.” And calling out—“Attention! Call ‘B’ station”—my friend the signal officer went on with his work.
For a time, as he told off the combinations to be made, I followed the fluttering of the swiftly dipping and rising flag. But the whole thing was Sanscrit to me, and it wasn’t long before I wearied of watching it. So when Kenryck, in an interval between messages, turned to me and said, “Simple enough, isn’t it? Begin to catch on?”—I answered, “Well, perhaps in about twenty years I might, but just at present the waving of a red flag conveys to me only four meanings—‘Auction,’ when it’s waved before a building; ‘Miss,’ when it’s waved across the face of a target; ‘Stop!’ when it’s waved in front of a railway train; and ‘Come ahead fast!’ when it’s waved in the face of an ugly bull.” And having thus frankly admitted myself a rank outsider, so far as concerned the science of signalling, I gave myself over to the soothing influence of tobacco and the contemplation of my surroundings.
It has been my fortune to find many a less attractive spot than the tiled roof of our armory tower, with its encircling parapet, broken by alternate embrasure and loop-holed merlon, and with its octagonal turret at one corner, standing—like a sentry on post—in bold relief against the sky. Moreover, the sun was warm, the breeze was cool, and the combination was altogether comforting. And I speedily forgot, one after another, the petty annoyances of my down-town day.
I stepped over to the breast-high wall, rested my elbows upon the capstone, dropped my chin into my hands, and gazed out over the world. Far down in the streets below I could see the pigmy shapes of men, busily crawling to and fro in the anxious chase after money, and seeming—they and their affairs, too—so pitifully insignificant. Which caused me to reflect that it would be good that all mankind should spend an hour each day upon a tower, to gain a better idea of the relative size of things. And I farther was impressed. But never mind. This is a tale of two towers, and I am allowing myself to neglect the other of the twain.
“Mother of Moses!” muttered Kenryck, just as I had turned—after a sweeping glance around the range of low, green hills which, upon three sides, hem in the city—to look out upon the harbor, with its gray-walled forts and glistening sails, “Mother of Moses! What ails the boys in Cambridge?”