Roy adjusted his receivers, threw over his switch, and listened in. A grin came over his face. The air was as noisy as the old football field at home when Central City was winning. Everybody was yelling through space at somebody else. It was one terrific babel of wireless voices. It seemed to Roy as though everybody within three hundred miles who had a radio instrument was using it. But through all the racket he could plainly distinguish the whining call of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. There was no mistaking that station. Roy tuned in and caught the message. It was an order for a torpedo-boat destroyer to start from Newport News next day for Brooklyn for an overhauling in the dry dock. Then Roy shifted to a commercial wave-length and caught a message from the incoming liner Kroonland, asking the police boat to meet her at quarantine to take off a card shark who had been caught fleecing fellow-passengers. The Clyde liner Iroquois was announcing to her owners her probable hour of arrival from San Domingo. The signals came so sharp and clear that Roy felt certain they were sent from the steamer he had noticed earlier in the evening, which was now almost abreast of them.
Night after night he had listened to wireless operators chatting to each other through the air, exchanging gossip and friendly messages. He hoped it would not be long before he became acquainted with some of his fellow operators so that he, too, could join in the evening gossip. But Roy was reluctant to start a conversation with a stranger. He feared he might be thought “fresh.” Now, as he looked out of a window at the glowing ship so near at hand, he suddenly decided to talk with her, and see if she were the Iroquois. In a minute he had found the Iroquois’ call in his wireless directory, and the minute the Iroquois stopped talking he pressed his key.
“KVF—KVF—KVF—WNA,” sounded his signal, as the blue sparks leaped in his instrument.
Almost immediately came the reply, “WNA—III—GA.”
“Where are you, Iroquois?” asked Roy.
“Off the Jersey coast,” came the answer, “about opposite Barnegat.”
“Is there a steamer between you and shore?” flashed back Roy.
“Yes. What of it? Who wants to know?”
“That’s us,” flashed back Roy, “the Lycoming.”