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

by Lewis E. Theiss

For a long time they drove on through the storm. Belford relieved Black in the wireless shack. Suddenly Henry became aware that something unusual was happening. Again he sensed the fact that the ship was turning, but this time he knew that it was different. Now the motion of the cutter was terrifying. At times she was almost on her beams’ ends. Henry peered out through the windows. He noticed that life-lines had been run along the deck, to grip when passing. He had not realized how truly awful the sea had become. When he glanced over the side of the ship, his heart fairly stood still. They were almost in the breakers. Evidently the captain had been wrong in his reckoning. The cutter had almost piled up on the shoals. She was coming about, very, very slowly. Now Henry understood why she rolled so terribly. He clung to his desk and watched the sea and the boiling breakers in silence, fascinated, almost paralyzed with horror. Was the Iroquois going to be where the Capitol City had so recently been?

At last the ship was headed about, bow to the sea, but the waves had drifted her so close to the surf that every second Henry expected to feel the ship jar and pound on the sands. In the pilot house the captain stood with nerve of iron, though his cheeks had gone white, directing every movement of the Iroquois. The instant she was nose to the sea, he signaled for full speed ahead. The cutter drove forward, and a huge wave, sweeping completely over her bow, tore aft along her deck, smashing and rending. The two small boats were snatched bodily from their davits and hurled far astern into the raging sea. A third was torn loose, and hung by its after-fall, swinging back and forth with the motion of the Iroquois, like a monster pendulum, pounding the ship’s rail to pieces.

“Look!” cried Henry. “That boat will batter a hole in the side of the ship. I must tell the captain.”

He dashed out of the radio house, leaving Belford on watch. Before Henry had taken two steps he realized how reckless he had been to jump out on the deck so thoughtlessly. He could not stand erect without support. Wildly he clutched for a life-line, caught it, and started for the bridge. But the captain was well aware of what had happened. Already he was making preparations to cut away the swinging boat. Sailors were issuing on deck with axes. The captain himself came down from the bridge.

“Stand back,” roared the commander. “That boat’s liable to tear loose and kill somebody.”

Quickly a rope was tied about the body of a sailor, and cautiously he approached the swinging boat. Watching his opportunity, he swung his axe against the fall, severing it. The lifeboat dropped outboard like a plummet. An upshooting wave lifted it and flung it aft. The sailors turned to seek shelter. A cross comber broke over the side of the ship, drenching everybody. Henry alone was not in oilskins. He was soaked to the skin. Quick as thought he darted to the stateroom and grabbed up a dry jacket. He didn’t know whose it was. Back in the radio shack, he drew off his own dripping coat and slipped on the borrowed garment. In the warm radio shack he knew he would soon dry out.

Steadily the Iroquois headed into the wind. That outlying shoal that had all but caught the Iroquois was the eastern tip of Long Island. Well enough the captain knew that, and now he corrected his course. Somewhere to the southeast of this point the Rayolite would likely be.

When he had worked far enough offshore, the captain changed his course again, heading west of south. All the while Henry was trying, from time to time, to pick up the Rayolite again with the wireless. For a long time he got no answer to his messages. Then came an almost inaudible reply. The Rayolite could hear the Iroquois plainly and had answered all her calls. Once more Henry instructed the Rayolite to sound the letters MO while the Iroquois tried to get a compass bearing. While Henry sat at his key, Belford made his way to the radio compass room. This was a little, squarish structure amidships. Inside, the roof was lined with copper screening so that the body of the operator would not influence the inductance and affect the compass. The radio compass itself, a great wrapping of wire on a rectangular frame, like the four sides of a rectangular box, was mounted on a vertical metal rod, so it could be twirled round in a circle. Encircling the revolving vertical shaft was a circular plate, not unlike the steering wheel of a motor-car, upon which were marked the three hundred and sixty degrees of a circle. The compass was at zero when its windings or wire-wrapped sides were parallel with the ship. As the compass was revolved, the listening operator would hear, with varying degrees of loudness, the signal he was watching for. Now he heard the sound with maximum distinctness. Again it grew faint, and, as he twisted the compass farther around the circle, the signal once more reached its loudest pitch. The two maximum sound points the operator noted on the degree-marked circular plate. Halfway between these two maximum points, or at the point of minimum distinctness, was the desired bearing, the point whence came the desired signal. A zero bearing meant that the signal came from either dead ahead or astern.

Now young Belford carefully closed the door of the compass shack, adjusted the headphones, and slowly revolved the radio compass. Very indistinct was the signal from the Rayolite. Again and again the young operator revolved his compass, uncertain when the sound came loudest, so faint was it at all times. But finally he decided upon a bearing, and through the speaking tube called up this bearing to the quartermaster on the monkey bridge. A true compass was located on the monkey bridge. The compass in the radio shack deviated from this, so that it was necessary to correct young Belford’s bearing. This the quartermaster did, and conveyed the resulting information to the captain. There was a deviation table in the radio shack that Belford could have consulted, but he had had little experience with the radio compass.

Now the Iroquois was headed straight in the direction indicated by the radio compass. Every fifteen minutes Henry flashed out the call of the Rayolite and got a reply. For some time these replies grew constantly stronger, and then became fainter, yet the ship signaled that she could hear the Iroquois with increasing distinctness. It was evident that the tanker’s wireless was failing.