“Now!”
“I’ll test it.” He swung it back and forth. As the sound of the boat’s motor rose and fell with the turning, Betty told him, by lifting and lowering a hand, how the sound rose and fell. When at last the spot was found where the sound was strongest, she held both hands straight out.
“It’s like tuning in on a radio program,” she laughed as she continued to listen. “This should be great. I only wish there were an airplane coming in.”
“Oh! They’ll come!” the old man crackled. “Perhaps sooner than you want them.”
As she listened the sound of the motor grew steadily louder. “Coming in,” she thought. Then she wondered what it would be like, setting nets off the shores of the British Isles where many subs lurked and planes, like birds of prey, haunted the skies, ready to pounce down upon you.
“Brave people,” she thought. “They deserve all that we can do for them.”
Tiring of the constant pounding on her eardrums, she nodded to Patsy, at the same time executing a circle with her hand.
Understanding instantly, Patsy began turning the big horn slowly. Gradually the sound of the motor faded into nothing. For a time, Betty caught only the slow wash, wash of waves on the shore. Then, little by little, she began to make out a different sound.
At first only a low snap-snap, like clothes cracking on a distant clothesline, the sound at last became a steady flap-flap that increased in volume with each second.
“I hear wings.” She made a motion to Patsy, and the girl stopped turning.