“Why! Hello, Sally!” Riggs exclaimed. “What’s up?” He glanced down at the black box. “You’re not planning to leave the ship, I hope?” During the days of fine sailing they had enjoyed together, since the start of the convoy voyage, she and Riggs had become quite good friends.
She did not join in his laugh. Instead she said:
“Lieutenant Riggs, something terrible is happening. We are being surrounded by an enemy wolf-pack of subs.”
“Sally!” he exclaimed. “You’ve been having a bad dream. You’d better go back to bed.”
“It’s no dream.” Her face was white. “It’s a terrible reality.”
“But, Sally, how could you know that? The moon is down. The sky is black. It’s three in the morning. You haven’t a radio and even I have heard nothing within a thousand miles—not that I can hear those wolves,” he added. “No, nor you either.”
“Yes,” she replied in a hoarse whisper, “I do have a radio, and I can hear the sub wolf-pack, have been hearing them for half an hour.”
“What!” He stared at her as if he thought her mad. Then his eyes fell on her black box. “What’s that thing?” he asked in a not unkindly voice.
“It’s a secret radio.” She was ready to cry by now. “Sending and receiving. There’s only one other like it in the world. Perhaps they’ll court-martial me for it. I know how strict the regulations are about radios.
“But that does not matter now!” She squared her shoulders. “All that matters now is that you connect up this radio, that you listen to it and believe what I tell you.”