“Guess you won’t make head or tail of this lot unless you’ve been trained to it,” continued the Berwick lad. “We had a skilled postal telegraphist in last night, and he was whacked. But you can try.”
Craddock put on the head-phones, listened for about twenty seconds, and then turned to his companion.
“There’s an S.O.S.,” he declared.
“Nonsense!” retorted the other incredulously. “It will be Niton calling CQ. You’re not the first to imagine an S.O.S.”
Nevertheless the Berwick Sea Scout took up another pair of phones. He listened and his smile of incredulity vanished. Snatching up a pencil, he wrote rapidly.
Peter, too, tried to follow the bewildering succession of perplexing sounds and could not make head or tail of it. He had to wait until his companion had taken down the message and a reply to it.
The S.O.S. was to the effect that the S.S. Lumberjack was badly grounded in a thick fog, position approximately six miles north-west of Selsea Bill, and that she was rapidly breaking up in the heavy ground swell.
The reply was: “Hayling Island and Bembridge lifeboats proceeding to your assistance. Have requested Government tugs to be sent from Portsmouth.”
The Lumberjack then wirelessed: “Must take to boats.” Followed by a warning from the shore station: “Do not attempt to land in your boats.”
Then came the distressed vessel’s final and uncompleted appeal: “Send help quickly. We are——”