Roy J. Snell

“ Drifting in from the north, where fogs are born, it hid every ship of the convoy from Sally’s view.
Turning, she walked bravely along the deck, climbed down the ladder, entered her room, threw herself on her berth, and sobbed her heart out to an empty world.
Finally, she sat up resolutely, and her eyes fell on the secret radio. Here was an idea, perhaps a way out. Danny was out there on the sea. He must be. His plane carried a rubber raft. She would not give up hope. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ But now, here was the secret radio talking again. “This may be the hour,” she whispered excitedly as, having turned the dial, she listened once again.
Slipping from her berth, she drew on a heavy velvet dressing gown, turned the radio up a little, then sat there listening, turning a dial now and then, listening some more and all the time growing more excited.
After twenty minutes of listening her face took on a look of sheer horror.
“I can’t do it,” she thought. “I may be court-martialed. But I must! I must!” ”

“ Barbara was shipped off to a big airport to receive her final training in the art of rigging parachutes. Danny remained behind, but not for long. The autumn winds would soon whisk him away to new fields of adventure and duty.
Both Sally and Nancy had dreamed of attending some truly great university. And, at last, here they were. But for how long? Just long enough to make you efficient in your chosen field, was the precise answer. “And always remember, your services are badly needed right now. Good communications and radio men are scarce. They are badly needed overseas.” ”

“ His visit had made her happy. It is something when a really big man says, “We can’t afford to lose you.” Well, they wouldn’t lose her nor even have occasion to miss her for long at a time.
The storm roared on. Boats pitched and tossed. The English packet had its rigging blown away. The tanker reported a damaged rudder and a destroyer went to her aid.
Day dawned at last and they began using flags for signals. With very little rest, buried in heavy sweaters and slicker, Sally stood like a ship’s figure-head on the tower and signaled all day long.
Once Nancy came to take her place. ”

“ He picked up a booklet entitled, “International Code” and; turning to page twelve, said:
“Morse code isn’t half bad. See! Here it is.” Sally looked over his shoulder. “A is dot, dash; B is dash, dot, dot dot, and so on down the line. You can learn all that in about no time. But receiving takes longer. Those birds send out messages like greased lightning. You’ve got to think fast and be accurate at the same time. That’s tough. But it’s absolutely necessary, especially in your work. To read a message wrong, skip a dot here and miss a dash there, may sink a ship, or even a half dozen ships.” ”

“ And so everything was set for the hour of ten.
“All clear!” Nancy whispered, tiptoeing down the hall. “Deck Three is deserted. Come on up.”
Armed with two pairs of small pliers, a coil of wire, a flashlight and the key to the attic, Sally followed in silence to the floor above. A swift glide, the rattle of a key, the silent opening and shutting of a door and Sally found herself tiptoeing up the attic stairs.
It was a dark and gloomy spot, that attic. As Nancy had put it: “A hundred years look at you up there.” ”

“ We know that they use the same wave-length as your radio does. They will hear your message and will hunt us down.”
“We will be listening, Nancy and I, night and day. Let them come! Our airplanes will destroy them!”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. The weather may not be right for flying. And then, try to think what it might be like.”
“But Danny?” The words came in a whisper that was like a prayer.
“Danny is alive. I feel sure of that. He’s on his rubber raft. The sea is calm.”
“But it may storm.”
“God will look after Danny. You believe in God’s care for his children, don’t you?” ”

“ Catching Sally’s eye, the Captain motioned her to join him at the bridge.
“It’s marvelous!” he told her. “That secret radio of yours has saved ships and lives. Eight subs all ready to pounce on us and now look—” He swung his arm in a broad circle taking in all the gliding ships.
This was high praise. Sally’s bosom swelled with pride. Then—
“Danny?” she said without thinking.
“What about Danny?” He laughed. “Hell be back with the rest. A fine boy. Danny. There are few better. We need a lot of Dannys in this war.” ”

“ All her life she had dreamed of really knowing great and important people. Not that she wished to brag about it, far from that. She did long for an opportunity to study them, to feel their greatness, to try to absorb some of the qualities that had made them great. Now just such a man was giving the major portion of his time to her for one blissful half hour. A young lieutenant had taken over the task of entertaining Nancy, and he did not seem at all unhappy about it either.
Important to Sally also were the things Captain MacQueen was saying to her. ”

“ Boy, oh, boy!”
“What a triumph for old C. K.!”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Danny, you’ve never met him. That’s too bad.”
“But I’ve met you—in fact, once I actually caught you,” he laughed.
“Danny, today I talked with my boss, Major Storm, and he told me old C. K. taught him radio. He says C. K. is one man in a million. Isn’t that a great break?”
“I suppose so. But why?”
“Because if I want a chance to do something different, like going to sea so I can try out this radio, if I tell him it’s really for old C. K., Silent Storm will help me.”
“Silent Storm! What a name!” Danny laughed low. ”

“ At that big Barbara hugged Sally until she thought her ribs would crack.
“But, Sally, you don’t have to go in for parachute jumping if you’re going in for Radio,” Lieutenant Mayfare protested when Sally made her unusual request next day.
“But I want to,” Sally insisted.
“You’re doing it to help Barbara. Is that fair to yourself?”
“Who knows what is fair?” Sally asked quietly. “It’s not fair to ask a boy to give up his college work right in the middle of his first year to go to war. Or is it? It’s not fair to ask a father to leave two small children for the same reason. ”

“ Sally had a record to maintain. She had resolved at the very beginning to be one of the best WAVES ever entrusted with a job in Communications. She had decided, too, to move heaven and earth to get a spot on some ship sailing the seven seas. She knew quite well that the best way to get what you want is to earn it. Classes must always come first.
For all that, she and Danny did each day spend one glorious twilight hour working away at the secret radio. When Saturday night came, the WAVES one free night, Nancy joined them, and working both radios at once, they really went places and did things. ”

“ Dinner over, Miss Storm took up some knitting that lay in a chair and settled down by herself, because she knew her brother wished it, and she had sensed that there was some serious business in the air.
“It’s not that my sister cannot be trusted,” Silent Storm half apologized when he and Sally were seated in a small, secret den, quite evidently all his own. “She is to be trusted completely. However, it is a rule of war that a military secret is to be shared with no outsider, and the thing you were about to tell me up there in the tower is something of a military secret.” ”

“ Between the time he hit the water and his plane sank he was able to inflate his rubber raft, look into its equipment, and even salvage a heavy leather coat he carried for an emergency.
Scarcely had he accomplished this and paddled a short distance, when the plane put its nose into the water, stood there quivering, then disappeared from sight.
“Good old plane,” he murmured, as a strange feeling of loneliness swept over him. “You did your full duty. You sank a sub and probably saved a ship. Now, in Davy Jones’s Locker, you can rest in peace. ”

“ She shoved it out to sea. The big, one-time ocean liner, now a transport, laden with boys in khaki, was straying and might get itself lost. She called it in a few boat-lengths. The three liberty ships were getting too chummy with one another. She spread them apart.
At the end of the hour she glanced at the long seat. Riggs was gone. She was alone with the ships and the storm. With a little gasp, she returned to her duties. ”

“ In the meantime the big girl, Barbara, opened her bag, shook out her clothes, packed some away in a drawer, hung others up, then dropped into a chair for a few long, long thoughts. The truth was at that moment she wished she hadn’t come.
She thought of the steam laundry where she had worked for three years. All the girls laughing and talking, the fine clean smell of sheets as they ran through the mangle, the rattle and clank of machines and the slap of flat-irons—it all came to her with a rush. ”

“ When it’s not hampered by a convoy, our ship can do close to thirty knots. We’ll steer a straight course. It won’t be long, once we are on our way.”
Sally did not say: “Long before what?” She knew he meant long before they reached the spot where Danny had last been seen.
“The Skipper never forgets one of his boys,” had been Riggs’s word for it. “And he never fails to do all he can for them.”
On the second day Nancy remained on board, but Sally and Danny’s mother once again went ashore. ”

“ That seemed a terrible fate to Sally.
“Oh, yes,” he smiled. “I have a fast, little single-seater and sometimes I haunt the sky, chasing seagulls and wild ducks.”
“A single-seater sounds a bit selfish.”
“It’s not, really. You see, I don’t trust myself too much. There’s always the chance that—”
“Something might go wrong with you?”
“Yes. I’m not willing to take a chance with other people’s lives. But you were going to tell me about that radio.” ”

“ As Sally listened, turned dials, and waited, the broadcasters on the enemy subs began to fan out. After that, with a slow movement that was ominous, they began to surround the convoy. After the circle had been completed they started moving in.
It was the hour before sunset when she hurried to the radio room.
“Rig-Riggs!” She was stammering in her excitement. “They are all around us!”
“How close?” He blinked tired eyes.
“There’s no way to know that,” she replied cautiously.
“They’ll attack at dusk. Always do. You can’t see the wake of their periscopes so well then.” ”