Bowen let go the key, leaned back in his chair, rubbed his eyes, took off his receiving gear and stared at the wall.
"What answer?" Nelson and his peering crew were at his shoulder.
"No answer."
"Dan we moost go up and dowse dose signal light, so no ship t'ink we ban on shoal yet," and out onto the deck the impassive Nelson led his men.
"Good old squarehead—you're all right," muttered Bowen. "But as for you," he gritted, "if I could only—just one grip of your throat is all I'd ask for, and then, you dog!"
III
Harty closed his wireless office and headed for the water-front. Near the shore-end of the breakwater he came to a halt. He could but dimly see the beginning of the outstretching wall of concrete, but plainly enough he could hear the combers thundering over the crest of it.
A proper night for an enemy to be adrift in a [pg 91] powerless hulk. Sea enough to suit any purpose out there. And wind! From where he stood in the lee of the donkey-engine house, to the water's edge was a full hundred feet, and yet even so, whenever he stepped out into the open, it was only to be drenched with spray. And out there in the blackness, twenty miles offshore, it would be blowing good; out there on the edge of that bank, in the hollow of the short, high, ugly seas, was a rolling, battered light-ship; as helpless as—well, there was nothing ashore to compare to her helplessness. And when she hit in on the beach—when she hit the sand—it would be over and over she'd roll, and out of her he would come and be smothered. For a second he'd be smooth and sleek as a wet rat and then—Oh, then!
Even in moderate weather, what chance would they have in that surf? And to-night it would be to her mast-head, with combers curving like a rattlesnake's neck, and twisting, and hissing, and they would catch him up, and ten ways he'd go then, gurgling, smothering, drowning, and his body, if ever it did come ashore for anybody to find,—after a December night,—they'd find it frozen stiff.
The walls of the little engine house were icing up, the spray was freezing on his moustache—surely a proper night for a man's enemy to be lost. In the lee of the little shack he lit a cigar; but it [pg 92] would not stay lit, and he threw it from him. The curse which he hove after it brought an answering hail from across the dock, "Hullo there"! Harty drew back, but the hurrying step drew nearer, and suddenly the hurrying form was beside him, and a pair of eyes were peering at him.