That same night, after dreaming of being in the old garden swing beneath the apple tree at home, and of swinging higher and higher until the swing broke, letting her down on her head, Sally awoke to find herself standing first on her feet and then on her head.
“Something is terribly wrong,” she thought, still half asleep. “Where am I? What is happening?”
Just then her head did bump the boards at the head of her berth and she knew. She was still aboard the aircraft carrier. A terrific storm had set the top-heavy craft to doing nose dives and near somersaults.
“I suppose I should be seasick,” she told herself, “but I am not, not a bit. The Lord be praised for that.”
Just then her ears caught a low moan.
“Nancy!” she exclaimed, springing out of bed. “What’s happened?”
“No-nothing. Every-every thing,” was the faltering answer. “Oh! Sally, I do wish I could die on land.”
“Nonsense!” Sally exclaimed. “You won’t die. You’re seasick, that’s all. I’ve got some Lea and Perrins Sauce in my bag. It’s swell for seasickness, they say. Wait, I’ll get you some.”
“I’ll wait.”
After downing the red-hot pepper sauce, Nancy felt a little better, but hid her face in her pillow and refused to move.
Sally had left her three hours before listening in at the secret radio. Now she herself took a turn at listening. After a half hour of absolute radio silence she dragged the headset off her ears, rolled the radio in her blankets, drew on a raincoat, then slipped out into the storm.
Slipped was exactly the right word. The instant she was outside the wind took her off her feet. She went down with a slithering rush and slid fifteen feet to come up at last against a bulkhead.
“It must be storming,” she said to a sailor who volunteered to help her to her feet.
“I-I shouldn’t wonder,” he laughed, just as they went down in a heap.
“Guess this is a good place to crawl,” he suggested, setting the example. “The wind comes through here something fierce. Not-not so bad up there for-forward.”
A Sailor Helped Sally to Her Feet
Following his example, Sally crept on hands and knees to a more sheltered spot. Then, getting to their feet and gripping hands, they made a dash for it.
At the end of this wild race they were caught by one more mad rush of wind and piled up against the radio cabin door. Sally was on top.
“This,” she said, “is where I get off. Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
She pushed the door open, allowed herself to be blown in, then closed the door in the face of the gale.
“Do you think it will storm?” she asked Riggs who was there alone.
“It might at that,” he grumbled. He looked just terrible, Sally thought.
“Good grief, Sally!” he exploded. “Aren’t you seasick?”
“Not a bit,” she laughed. “At least, not yet.”
“You won’t be then. Thank God for that. How about taking over? I’m about through for now.”
“I’ll be glad to, Riggs.”
“We’ve had to give up blinker signals. It’s so dark you couldn’t see a ten-thousand watt searchlight. Besides, the ships go up and down so you’d never get their messages. But we’ve got to keep in touch with every blasted ship in the convoy. Get lost if we didn’t, bang into one another, and sink everything.”
“Yes, I know, Riggs.”
“We’ve given up radio silence, had to. Anyway, no sub pack would attack in this howling hurricane. We use sound and radio, to keep the ships together.”
“Yes, I know,” she replied quietly.
“Oh! You do? Then you tell me.” Even Riggs got a little peeved at times, when these lady sailors tried to tell him.
“All right, here goes. Every two minutes you give the call number of some ship in the convoy on the radio and then—”
“Then you—” he began.
“Who’s telling this?” she demanded.
“Okay, Sally, okay!” Riggs laughed in spite of himself.
“You give a toot on the ship’s whistle,” Sally continued. “At the same time you send out a radio impulse. The radio sound reaches the ship instantly. The sound of the whistle is slower. The signal man on that other boat notes the difference between the time of arrival of radio impulse and whistle. He does a little figuring, then he radios his approximate position in relation to your ship. After that you tell him to move so far this way and that. Then everything is hunky-dory until next time.” Sally caught her breath.
“Say, you know all the answers!” He laughed.
“Not all, but some of them,” she corrected. “You don’t have to be dumb all the time, even if you are a girl.”
“Guess that’s right. Well, now, go to it.” Riggs threw himself down on a long seat that ran the length of the room, and Sally took up her work.
For a full hour the ship’s whistle spoke and the radio joined in. Sally was there at the center of it all and enjoyed it immensely.
The tanker at the back of the convoy and to the right was slipping behind. She advised them to shovel more coal. The English packet was crowding its mate to the right. 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.
When she made the rounds of the ships for the second time the other radiomen began to notice her.
“Say! You’re all right!” the man on the big transport exclaimed over the radio. “You’re all right, but you sound like a lady. Are you?”
“No chance,” was the snapping answer, “only a WAVE.”
“What do you know about that?”
“Hello, Sally!” came from a liberty ship. “How are you? I saw your picture in a movie!”
“You didn’t!” she exploded.
“Come on over and I’ll show it to you!” he jibed.
“Can’t just now. I’m busy.” She cut him off.
At the end of two hours Danny’s mother appeared with sandwiches and hot coffee. “Thought I’d find you here,” was her quiet comment. “So you’re the little shepherdess of the big ships.” Sally joined her in the laugh that followed. Never a word was said about Danny, nor would there be.
“Have you seen Nancy?” Sally asked.
“Oh yes. Don’t you worry about her. I fixed her up just fine.”
“And Riggs?”
“Yes, Riggs, too. He said to tell you he’d take over any time you sent for him.”
“I’m doing fine, I guess,” Sally smiled. “And I’m enjoying it no end.
“But what about Lieutenant Tobin?” Sally asked. “The second radioman.”
“Oh, he’s sick too but he said he’d drag himself around soon.”
Lieutenant Tobin lurched into the cabin a few moments later. Very unsteady on his feet but fighting to keep up his spirits, he said:
“Nice storm, Sally. I never saw a better one. I’ll take over now.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant. Just send for me any time. Storms don’t mean much to me.”
“Lucky girl. Wish I was like that.”
Sally returned to her quarters, looked to Nancy’s comfort, then crept under the blankets.
It seemed to her that she had only just fallen asleep, when a sailor pounded on her door.
“Lieutenant Tobin’s busted two ribs,” he announced. “He got slammed against a stanchion. Lieutenant Riggs requests that you take over.”
“I’ll be there in no time.” Again she hurried into her clothes.
“I’m sorry, Sally.” Riggs seemed shaken by the very violence of the storm.
“That’s all right. I love it.” She managed a smile.
“Got to see that Tobin has proper care. Tried to get to the rail, well—you know why. A big wave slammed him hard. It’s terrible, this storm is. I’ll relieve you later.” Riggs went away. Sally settled back in her place.
Never before had Sally experienced such a sense of power. She held many great ships and thousands of lives in the hollow of her hand. “Some of them know I’m a girl. Some even know who I am, and yet they trust me.” The thought made her feel warm inside.
“It’s worth the whole cost, just this,” she told herself. The whole cost? Yes, giving up her work with old C. K., bidding good-by to her family and friends. It was worth all that and more.
But Danny! If she had lost him forever? She dared not think of Danny. The very thought would unnerve her. Her work would suffer. She might make some terrible blunder.
“One increasing purpose,” a very good man had said to her. “That’s what we need in these terrible hours.”
One increasing purpose. That was what she must have in this hour of trial.
Riggs returned. Sitting down dizzily, he watched and listened for a time. Then, leaning back, he seemed to go into a sort of coma.
At the end of four hours, he came out of this, pushed her aside, mumbled, “Go get some rest,” then took over.
After fighting her way down the deck, she tumbled into her stateroom, banged the door shut, shoved the secret radio into a corner, rolled the blankets about her and fell fast asleep.
Three hours later she was once more at her post.
“I-I’ll be here if you need me.” Riggs threw himself on the hard seat and was soon fast asleep.
An hour later the Skipper looked in upon her.
“How are they coming?” he asked, closing the door without a bang.
“All right, I guess.” Sally nodded to a sort of peg-board map that indicated the location of each ship in the convoy at any particular moment.
He studied the map for a time in silence. “That’s fine,” was his comment. “Really first class.”
“How’s your yeoman?” she asked. There was a twinkle in her eye.
His eyes returned the twinkle. “She hasn’t bothered me for quite a time. She’s under the weather, I suspect.”
He looked at Riggs with a questioning eye.
“He’s all right,” she hastened to assure him. “Doing all he can.”
“It’s a terrible storm, worst I’ve ever seen in these waters. I’m having ropes strung along the ship. You’d better stick to them pretty closely. We can’t afford to lose you.” Then he was gone.
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. She lasted for an hour.
“It-it’s not that I can’t take-it.” Nancy was ready to cry when Sally relieved her. “It’s this terrible seasickness.”
“Yes, I know. Just forget it. The storm will be over before you know it.”
It wasn’t over when Sally went for a few hours of rest, but the clouds were gone, the moon was out, and because of possible submarine menace, they had gone back to blinker signals.
At ten she was at her new post blinking signals. Time and again, as the hours passed, waves sent their spray dashing over her. When at last she was relieved, she was half frozen and soaked to the skin.
To her surprise, when she reached her cabin, she found the door swinging.
“What now?” she whispered. Nancy, she knew, had been removed to the sick bay where Mrs. Duke could look after her.
As she bounced into the room, slamming the door after her, she surprised a tall figure bending over her secret radio.
The instant she saw the girl’s face, she gasped. It was Erma Stone, the Captain’s yeoman. Her face was a sight to behold. She had been sick, all right.
“Perhaps she’s delirious,” Sally thought.
The instant she caught the look of hate and cunning in the girl’s eyes, she knew this guess was wrong.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“I was sent here to make sure you had not been sending messages on this radio.” Miss Stone stood her ground.
“How would you know whether I had or not?” Sally demanded.
“I would—”
“You were not sent here!” Sally was rapidly getting in beyond her depths. “You came of your own accord. Why? I don’t know. But I’ll know why you left!” She took a step forward.
Dodging past her, the girl threw the door open and was gone.
“She was going to send a message,” Sally told herself. “Then I’d get the blame. She couldn’t do that. There is no one to listen at this hour of the night. She—”
Sally’s thoughts broke off short. Yes, someone might be listening. The enemy subs; and if they heard, all her secrets would be out.
Had the girl succeeded in sending a message? She doubted that, for this was a secret radio in more ways than one.
A brief study of the radio assured her that no messages could have been sent.
After making sure of this, she snapped on her headset to sit listening for a half hour. She caught again that “put-put-put.” It seemed nearer now. Tomorrow she and Nancy should get back to this secret radio.
At that she dragged off her sodden garments, rubbed herself dry, drew on a heavy suit of pajamas, then rolled up in her blankets. Soon she was fast asleep. And the storm roared on.