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

by Lewis E. Theiss

“Do you suppose her wireless has failed altogether?” he asked Belford. Before the latter could answer, Henry’s headphones began to speak. “Sixty-five seconds difference,” came the reply, both brief and faint.

When the captain received the news he did a little figuring. “Thirteen miles distant,” he commented. “We ought to be up with her in a couple of hours.”

The two hours passed, and no ship was visible. Still the storm raged without abatement. Night had come. For two days and a night the Iroquois had been searching the stormy sea for this tanker that seemed to evade her so persistently. She ought to be at hand, but nowhere could she be seen. Through the blinding storm came no sign of the fugitive vessel. No shaft of light pierced the swirling curtain of snow and mist.

Then suddenly there was the Rayolite, almost abreast of them, not more than three hundred yards distant. It was impossible to send a line to her. No small boat could live in such a sea. It was doubtful if a shot would carry true. The captain swung the Iroquois directly to windward of the tanker, and cut down his speed almost to nothing. In a moment the huge ship was almost out of sight. With her tremendous freeboard, she drove before the gale almost as fast as the Iroquois could steam. The captain turned his searchlight directly on the vanishing tanker, signaled for more speed, and drove straight at her. And all night long the Iroquois steamed directly at the Rayolite, which drove furiously ahead, under the pressure of the gale. The captain left the bridge and threw himself on the cushioned seats in his cabin, to snatch some sleep. Henry, who had spent long, long hours on duty, made his way to the operators’ cabin and lay down, fully dressed, in Black’s bed. The latter and Belford were to watch through the night, with Henry subject to call, if messages had to be sent. He was so worn out that he did not even remove his coat, the jacket he had snatched from the wardrobe after his wetting.

Daylight saw no cessation of the wind, though the snow had ceased to fall, and no longer was the face of the deep clouded with mist. When the captain came on deck again, after a few hours’ rest, he pushed the cutter straight at the Rayolite until she was close behind her. Meantime he had sent a wireless to the tanker, telling her to watch for a line. Now the little brass gun was brought to the cutter’s forward rail, and that sturdy little craft was pushed still nearer the tanker, which was driving ahead, broadside to. At a favorable moment the shot was fired, the slender shot-line went hurtling squarely over the centre of the huge tanker, and the men on her seized it and began to draw it home. A heavier line was bent to it, and soon the end of this had been pulled aboard the Rayolite. Meantime a heavy towing hawser had been passed out through a stern chock of the Iroquois, and the bight of it brought forward, outside of the rail, where it was stopped up or tied with little stops or small ropes. This was to keep the hawser from fouling the propeller, when the cutter should swing around, stern to her tow. Then the hawser was rove round the cutter’s forward bitts. Through Henry the commander now sent a message to the Rayolite.

“Take hawser in through your forward chock and make it fast around your foremast,” telegraphed Henry.

The men on the Rayolite bent to their task and soon pulled the great hawser aboard. They made it fast to the mast.

“Everything ready,” came the message to Henry from the Rayolite.

The captain signaled for more speed. The Iroquois was pushed ahead to get slack. Then the bight of the hawser was cast off the bitts, and the speed of the cutter lessened. Gradually the hawser grew taut. It stretched as tight as a fiddlestring. Then slowly the giant tanker, pressed by the wind, began to turn. The hawser, led through her forward chock, held her bow fast. The wind drove her stern round until she was head to the Iroquois. In another moment the Iroquois herself began to swing. With a startling snap one of the slender stops that held the hawser to the rail parted. Another broke under the strain. The cutter swung further around. One stop after another parted. Finally the Iroquois lay stern to her tow, the hawser taut between them, with no danger of its fouling the propeller.

In turning, the little cutter lay for a moment in the trough of the sea. She rolled alarmingly. At her first pitch Henry’s chair went sliding across the floor, and pads and pencils flew from the desk. At the same instant a message from the Rayolite began to sound in the lad’s ear. He could not reach his fallen pencils. Instinctively he reached in the pocket of the jacket he was wearing. He found a mass of trash and drew it forth, hoping to find a pencil. There were strings, matches, cigarette papers, bits of chalk, and other articles. Among the mass shone two slender little cylinders of metal that made Henry’s heart fairly stop beating. They were two slender finishing nails.