The Wireless Operator—With the U. S. Coast Guard

by Lewis E. Theiss

“Oh! We don’t have our full complement of officers. We lack a junior engineer officer and a junior lieutenant. It makes it a little hard, because the officers we do have must perform extra duty.”

While they were talking Henry suddenly became conscious of a curious vibration in the ship, and a low, rumbling noise that filled the air. He suspected that the ship’s propeller must be turning. The ensign confirmed his suspicion when he said: “We’re moving. Would you like to go on deck and see how we get under way?”

Henry did not know it, but the ensign was quite as eager to see as Henry himself could possibly be. The ensign was fresh from the Coast Guard Academy, and this was his first trip as a commissioned officer. Henry was grateful for the courtesy, and gladly followed the young officer up the companionway.

“Come up on the bridge,” said the ensign. “As the captain’s guest, you will be free to go anywhere. We can see better there.”

Interesting as the sights about them were, the things to be seen on deck were even more interesting to Henry. And he made his way forward very leisurely, as he took the first good look at the Iroquois he had had opportunity to take. He noted that the after-deck, from the companionway to the taffrail, was entirely clear and open, and was roofed over with a tightly stretched awning. Amidships towered the smoke-stack. And here, too, was an array of skylights and ventilators, all open now, but so arranged, Henry saw, that in time of rough weather they could be securely battened down. And there were iron doors leading directly downward into the bowels of the ship. One of them was the door through which Henry had descended to the fireroom. Close by the after companionway rose a stately mast. High up on it was the barrel-like “crow’s-nest,” for a lookout aloft. And forward, just behind the wheelhouse, towered a second mast, also with a crow’s-nest, and with signal lamps on a cross-arm. Immediately Henry caught sight of the wireless antennæ stretched between these two masts, and his practiced eye noted every detail of the wiring, and traced the lead-in wire downward to a room beneath the wheelhouse. Amidships, along either rail, hung three or four lifeboats, swung outboard over the side of the ship, and lashed fast to big horizontal spars or strongbacks with stout rope shackles called gripes, so that they were held immovable, as in a vice. And here and there along the rails circular life buoys were fastened or “stopped” with short pieces of rope.

But before Henry could take in any more details, his companion had mounted a ladder that led directly to the bridge, where the captain had already taken his station.

The bridge was a steel structure, reaching from side to side of the ship, and raised high above the deck, so that an unobstructed view could be had of everything. It was railed in with strong, iron rails, reaching breast-high. Stout canvas covers were fastened all around it, extending from the floor almost to the level of the eyes, excepting immediately in front of the wheelhouse, where they were fastened lower. This was the weather cloth, to shut off the wind; and, as Henry was to learn, it was a welcome aid to the navigator. Compasses were balanced on strong pedestals at either side of the bridge, and there were various levers, to use in blowing the ship’s siren, and for other purposes as well, though, of course, Henry did not yet know what they were for, any more than he understood that the Franklin metal life-belts, or buoys, that hung at either end of the bridge could be dropped overboard by a single motion of the hand, and that when they struck the water the queer-looking tubes projecting from them would shoot out lights that would burn for a long period, showing persons struggling in the sea which way to swim for safety.

At present Henry was wholly engrossed in the action that was taking place before him. The ship was moving gently through the water. The anchor had been partly heaved up by the little hoisting engine on the forward deck, but in heaving it, the chain had become twisted around one of the movable flukes, so that the stem of the anchor could not be properly heaved in through the hawse hole. A warrant officer in uniform, and a small group of sailors, leaned over the bow rail, trying to release the fouled anchor. A slender rope ladder had been lowered over the side, and on this a sailor was creeping down to the anchor that hung partly in the water, with a small rope in his hand. The rope he cautiously slipped around a fluke, so that the anchor could be tilted up.

“That’s the boatswain, Mr. Johnson,” said the ensign, indicating the warrant officer in charge of the sailors.

Presently the anchor was freed. The boatswain signaled to the man at the hoisting engine, and slowly the huge anchor-chain was heaved taut, with the flukes of the anchor drawn up tight against the hawse hole. The moment the anchor was lifted free of the water, the boatswain notified the captain, who immediately signaled the engineer to crowd on steam. At once the vibration of the ship became more noticeable. Faster and faster she began to surge through the water, and presently she was steaming at top speed toward the open sea.