“Some amateur op. is interfering,” was his expression. “But, I declare! it does sound something like this station call. Can it be——?”
He lengthened his spark and sent thundering out on the air-waves his usual reply: “I, I, OKW. I, I, OKW.”
Then he held his hand and waited for any return. The same mysterious, scraping sounds continued. A slow hand, he believed, was trying to spell out some message in Morse. But it was being done in a very fumbling manner.
Of course, half a dozen shore stations and perhaps half a hundred vessels might have caught the clumsy message, as well. But the operator at Station Island, interested by little Henrietta in the Marigold and her company, felt more than puzzlement over this strange communication out of the air.
“Listen in here, Sammy,” he said to his mate, when the latter came in. “Is it just somebody’s squeak-box making trouble to-night or am I hearing a sure-enough S O S? I wonder if there is a storm at sea?”
“There is,” said his mate, sitting down on the bench and taking up the secondary head harness. “The evening papers are full of it. Northeast gale, and blowing like kildee right now.”
“Arlington gave no particulars at last announcement.”
“Don’t make any difference. The boats outside know it. Hullo! What’s this? ‘S-t-a-t-i-o-n I-s-l-a-n-d.’ What’s the joke? Somebody calling us without using the code letters?”
“Don’t know ’em, maybe,” said the chief operator. “Set down what you get and see if it is like mine.”
The other did so. They compared notes. That strange message set both operators actively to work. One began swiftly to distribute over the Eastern Atlantic the news that a craft needed help in such and such a latitude and longitude. The other operator, without his hat, ran all the way to the bungalows to give Mr. Norwood and Mr. Drew some very serious news.