"Wireless them, then," ordered the Secretary of War briefly. "Give them an outline of the exact situation."
Long ago the men in the giant plane out over the ocean had sailed eastward into the night. Darkness was settling about the national capital, the streets were crowded with homeward-bound throngs of shop and business people, as General Bronson jumped into a waiting taxicab, and, with an abrupt order to the uniformed man at the wheel, was shot through the city and beyond its limits, toward the great Government wireless station, in violation of every traffic regulation that ever had been laid down for the District of Columbia.
"R-S-7," he fairly shouted at the operator before he was fully into the radio room. "R-S-7, quick."
The operator, realizing whom this call was for and that something really urgent must be in the wind to so disturb the usually imperturbable General Bronson, threw on his switch and began sending out through the ether successive repetitions of the aeroplane's code call, "R-S-7"—"R-S-7"—"R-S-7"—"R-S-7."
For twenty minutes this was kept up, while the perspiration stood out upon the brow of the man who had declared upon his reputation that these four, of all the men in the air service, were the most competent for the fulfilling of the delicate and dangerous task which had been imposed upon them. He paced the floor back and forth, stopping now and then by the operator, but saying nothing.
Presently the radio man ceased tapping with the key which with every contact seemed to release a streak of blue lightning from the delicately tuned apparatus above their heads. He was listening intently. Something had taken his entire attention.
"Have you got them?" General Bronson finally demanded, unable longer to control his impatience.
"Somebody's picked us up, and they're trying to say something, but I can't catch it," the operator at length answered, still straining to hear the faintest and almost indistinguishable tap-taps which at intervals came to his trained ear.
He arose abruptly and strode across the room. There he pulled a lever, turned a switch, and then resumed his seat, hastily clapping on the earpieces again.
His features began to relax. He reached for the sending key, then apparently changed his mind and grasped a pencil and pad of paper. But before he could begin to write his countenance fell, and he turned wearily toward the anxiously waiting General.