Curlie Carson Listens In
R >> Roy J. Snell >> Curlie Carson Listens In"Good!" exclaimed Curlie, gripping his hand. "And in the end," he
concluded, "I think we shall have told the world in a rather effective
way that the air must be free for the important messages; that Uncle Sam
has the right of way in the air as well as on land or sea and that he
has ways of defending those rights."
At that they turned over, to lie there listening to the click-click of
wheels over rails until sleep claimed them.
CHAPTER XII
OUT TO SEA IN A COCKLESHELL
Darkness was falling when at last Curlie and Joe reached the station at
Landensport. In spite of the fact that they had had no supper and were
weary from travel, Curlie insisted on going at once to the hangar where
the _Stormy Petrel_, Alfred Brightwood's seaplane, was kept.
"Yes," said the keeper of the hangar, "they hopped off six hours ago.
Seemed to be preparing for somethin' of a journey; they filled the tanks
with gas and loaded her cabin full of things to eat. Some sort of a
picnic, I reckon. Strange part of it was," he said reflectively, "I
watched 'em as they went and sure's I'm standin' here they shot out to
sea, straight as an arrow, and far as you could see 'em they was going
right on. Couldn't be tryin' to cross the Atlantic, but you can never
tell what'll get into that Brightwood boy's head. He's darin', he is.
Jest some picnic, though, I reckon."
"Some picnic all right!" said Curlie emphatically. "Some picnic for all
of us!"
"Eh? What?" the keeper turned on him quickly.
Curlie did not answer.
"Vincent Ardmore went with him, I suppose," Curlie said after a moment's
silence.
"Of course. Just them two."
"Was the plane equipped with wireless?"
"Yes. They spent two days tending to that; seemed to be mighty
particular about it."
"Yes, of course they would."
"Eh? What?" the man turned sharply about.
Curlie was silent again.
"It's funny about them wireless rigs for a plane," said the keeper at
last. "You git your ground by hanging a wire seventy-five er a hundred
feet down from the plane, then you get ground just the same as if the
wire was dragging through the sea, don't matter whether you're up a
hundred miles or five thousand. Strange stuff, this radio."
"Yes," said Curlie, "it is. By the way," he exclaimed suddenly, "do you
know about this new Packard-Prentiss equipment?"
"Yes, sir; was tryin' one out only yesterday. Fine thing."
"Reliable?"
"Absolutely."
"Know where I can get one?"
"Over at Dorrotey's sea-goods store on the dock. He's got one er two for
sale."
"Thanks." He and Joe started away.
"Next place is Dock No. 3. The _Kittlewake_, the Ardmore yacht, is tied
up over there. Unless I miss my guess we'll be off to sea in less than
two hours," said Curlie to Joe. "Speed's the word now. Those two young
dreamers have gotten away by plane. We've got to stand by in the
_Kittlewake_ or they'll never be seen again. I don't propose to allow
the sea to rob me of my first important offender against the laws of the
air."
"By the way," said Joe, "where is Gladys Ardmore? I haven't seen her
since we left New York."
"I don't know and I'm glad I don't," said Curlie. "She let fall a remark
in the dining car that I didn't like. She said she thought she'd go
along with us on this trip. A five hundred mile trip straight out to sea
in a fifty-foot pleasure yacht with a fifteen-foot beam, is no sort of
trip for a girl. I was afraid she'd try to insist. That would have
caused a scene, for unless I miss my guess she's the determined sort
like her father."
"It's queer she gave us up so quickly."
"Yes, but I'm glad she did."
Suddenly Curlie started. As they rounded a corner he caught sight of a
trim, slender figure. This girl had been standing in the light of a shop
window. Now she dodged inside.
"Huh!" he grunted. "Thought that looked like her, but of course it
couldn't be. Some ship captain's daughter probably."
They arrived on board the _Kittlewake_ just as the captain, a red-faced
old British salt, and the engineer, a silent man who was fully as slim
and wiry of build as Curlie himself, were finishing lunch.
"Pardon me," said Curlie, "but did you get Mr. Ardmore's wire?"
"You're this wireless man, Curlie Carson?" asked the captain.
"Yes."
"'Is message is 'ere; came this morning."
"Then you're ready to put off at once."
"At once!" The captain stared his amazement. "'Ere it is night. At once,
'e says!"
"It's very necessary that we go at once," said Curlie firmly, "and I
believe you have your orders."
"To be hat your service in hevery particular."
"All right then, we must be on our way in an hour."
"Wot course?" The skipper rose to his feet.
"This is the point we must reach with all speed," said Curlie, drawing
the photograph of the mysterious old map from his pocket and pointing
to the star near the center. "Compare that with your own chart, locate
it as well as you can and then mark out your own course."
The skipper stared at him as though he thought Curlie crazy.
"That! Why that--"
Turning quickly, he disappeared up the hatch, to return presently with a
chart. This he placed upon the table, beside the photograph.
After five minutes of close study he turned an astonished face upon the
boy.
"That, as I 'ave thought, is five 'undred miles hout to sea. Five
'undred miles in a cockleshell. Man, you're daft."
"All right," said Curlie; "the trip's got to be made. I thought you
might be afraid to undertake it; that's why I wanted to know at once.
I'll go out and hunt another skipper. There's surely plenty of them idle
these dull times."
"Hafraid, did 'e say! Me! Hafraid!" The skipper was purple with rage.
"Hafraid 'e says. 'E says it, a bloomin' Yankee kid, an' me as 'as 'ad
ships sunk under me twice by the bloody German submarines! Me, Captain
Jarvis, hafraid."
He turned suddenly upon Curlie. "Go git yer togs an' shake a leg er the
bloomin' _Kittlewake_'ll be off without you on board."
"That's the talk!" smiled Curlie. "Never fear! We'll be here."
He turned to Joe. "You go ashore and buy us each a suit of roughing-it
things, a so'-wester and the like. We'll need 'em. I'll be back in less
than an hour."
When Curlie returned from his mission ashore he carried but one bundle.
That resembled a fencepost in size and shape. It was carefully wrapped
and sealed in sticky black tar cloth.
"Going to throw a message overboard in case we're lost, I suppose,"
laughed Joe.
"Something like that," Curlie laughed back. Nevertheless, he carried the
thing with great care to his stateroom and deposited it beneath his
berth in the cabin forward on the main deck.
An hour later the two boys were standing on deck watching the shore
lights fade. Each was busy with his own thoughts and wondering, no
doubt, in his own way how much of adventure this trip held for him.
CHAPTER XIII
A GHOST WALKS
"Ever take much interest in gasoline engines?" Curlie suddenly inquired
of Joe.
"Yes, quite a bit; had a shift on one of those marine kinds last summer
on the Great Lakes."
"Good! You'll have to take a shift here on the _Kittlewake_. This trip
can't be made without sleep. I'll spell the captain at the wheel and you
can relieve that lanky engineer."
Again they lapsed into silence. Half unconsciously each boy was taking
stock of the craft they had requisitioned, trying to judge whether or
not she was equal to the task she had been put to. Speed she had in
plenty. "Do forty knots a 'our," the skipper put it, "an' never 'eat a
bearin'."
She was a trim craft. Narrow of beam, a two-master with a steel hull
that stood well out of the water forward, she rode the water with the
repose and high glee of the bird she was named after.
"Yes, she's a beauty, and a go-getter," Curlie was thinking to himself,
"but in a storm, now, four or five hundred miles from land, what then?"
Had he known how soon his question was to be answered he might well have
shuddered.
"Better go down and have a look at the engines before you turn in for a
wink of sleep," he told Joe.
When Joe had gone below, Curlie still sat there on the rail aft. The
throb of the engines beneath him, the rapid rush of air that fanned his
cheek, was medicine to his weary brain. He had been caught in a
whirlwind of events and here, for a time, he had been cast down in a
quiet place where his mind might clear itself of the wreckage of thought
that had been torn up and strewn about within it.
It had been a wild race. He had lost thus far; would he lose in the
end? Had he, after all, trusted too much to theory? Had these two sons
of rich men really only gone for some picnic trip to a well-known island
farther south along the coast? Or had they, as he had assumed, guided by
their ancient map, gone in search of the island of "many barbarians and
much gold," an island which he was convinced existed only in name?
The girl, too; what had she meant when she said she was in some ways
responsible for her brother's actions? There was something queer about
the whole affair. Who had taken the wireless equipment from the wrecked
car out there by the Forest Preserve? Did young Ardmore have the ancient
original of that interesting map or only the photograph? If he did not
have it, who was in possession of it? Strange thing that it would be
lost for a hundred years only to have a brand-new photograph of it show
up all at once. Rather ghostly, he thought. He had meant to ask Gladys
Ardmore about that. He'd ask her now if she were here. But he was more
than glad she was not here.
"No trip for a girl," he told himself, "and she said she'd go. Strange
she gave it up so easily. Strange that--"
His thoughts broke off suddenly as he stared forward. The _Kittlewake_
was equipped with three cabins; a forecastle and aftercabin, both below
the main deck, built largely for stormy weather, and a fair-weather
cabin in the center of the main deck. The night was dark, the moon not
having come up. It was difficult to distinguish objects at a distance,
but, unless his eyes deceived him, Curlie saw some object, all white and
ghostly, rising slowly from the hatchway leading to the forecastle. Cold
perspiration sprang out upon his brow, his heart beat madly, his knees
trembled as he involuntarily moved forward. That was the way he had of
treating ghosts; he walked straight at them.
In the meantime, had one been on some craft three hundred miles farther
on in the direct course of the _Kittlewake_, he might have caught the
thunderous drumming of two powerful Liberty motors. He might also have
seen a spot of light playing constantly upon the black waters. While
this light was constant, it moved rapidly forward in a wide circle. The
circle was never the same in size or location, yet the spot of light did
not move more than twenty miles in any direction from a certain given
center. The spot of illumination came from a powerful searchlight
mounted upon a seaplane. It was manipulated by a boy in the rear seat. A
second boy drove the plane. These boys, as you have no doubt long since
guessed, were Vincent Ardmore and his reckless pal, Alfred Brightwood.
This light had been playing upon the water since darkness had fallen,
some three hours before. They had been circling for four hours. Their
hopes of completing their search before dark had been thwarted by a
defective engine which had compelled them to make a landing upon the sea
when the journey was only half completed.
At this particular moment the plane was climbing steadily. It was a
perfect "man-bird" of the air, was this _Stormy Petrel_. With broad
spreading planes and powerful motors, it was the type of plane that now
and again hops off from some point in England during the dewy morning
hours and carries her crew safely to Cuba without a single stop.
Yet these boys were not planning a trip across to Europe. They were, as
Curlie had supposed they might be, hunting for the island of "many
barbarians and much gold."
When they had mounted to a considerable height, Alfred shut off the
engines and allowed her to volplane toward the sea.
"Aw, let's give it up and get back," said Vincent downheartedly. "It's
not here. Probably that old map-maker made a mistake of a trifling
hundred miles or so."
"That's a grand idea!" exclaimed Brightwood, grasping at a straw. "Not a
hundred miles but perhaps thirty or forty miles. Old boy, we'll be
cooking lunch on a stove of pure gold in half an hour. You'll see! Just
get your light fixed right and I'll take a wider circle. That'll get
it."
"But if we use up much more gas we won't get back to land," hesitated
Vincent.
"Land! Who wants to get back to land!" the other exploded. "If worst
comes to worst we've got the wireless, haven't we? We can light on the
water and send out an S. O. S., can't we? I must say you're a mighty bum
sailor."
"Oh, all right," said Vincent, stung into silence, "go ahead and try
it."
Again the motors thundered. Again the spot light traced a circular path
across the dark waters, which to the boy who held the light, appeared to
be reaching up black, fiendish hands to drag them down. This time the
circle they cut was many miles in circumference, miles which drew deeply
from the supply of gasoline in their tanks.
CHAPTER XIV
THE COMING STORM
As Curlie's feet carried him forward on the deck of the _Kittlewake_,
his eyes beheld the ghost which rose from the hatch taking on a familiar
form. A white middy blouse, short white skirt and a white tarn, worn by
a slender girl, moved forward to meet him. As the form came into the
square of light cast by a cabin window, his lips framed her name:
"Gladys Ardmore!"
"Why, yes," she smiled, "didn't you expect me? I told you I thought I'd
go."
"And I said you should not." Her coolness angered him.
"You forget that this is my father's boat. A man's daughter should
always be a welcome guest on his boat."
"But--but that's not it," he hesitated. "This is not a pleasure trip.
We are going five hundred miles straight to sea in a boat intended for
shore travel. It's likely to storm." He sniffed the air and held his
cheek to the breeze that was already breaking the water into little
choppy waves. "It is going to be dangerous."
"But you are going," she said soberly, "to the assistance of my brother.
I have a better right than you to risk my life to save my own brother. I
can be of assistance to you. Truly, I can. I can be the galley cook."
"You a cook?" He looked his surprise.
"Certainly. Do you think a rich man's daughter can do nothing but play
tennis and pour tea? Those times are gone, if indeed they ever existed.
I am as able to do things as is your sister, if you have one."
"But," said Curlie suddenly, "I am going from a sense of duty. Having
set out to have your brother arrested I mean to do it."
For a full moment she stared at him stupefied. Then she said slowly,
through set, white lips: "You wouldn't do that?"
"Why shouldn't I?" His tone was more gentle. "He has broken the laws of
the air. Time and again he sent messages on 600, a radio wave length
reserved to coast and ship service alone. He has hindered sea traffic
and once narrowly escaped being the death of brave men at sea."
"Oh," she breathed, sinking down upon a coil of cable, "I--didn't know
it was as bad as that. And I--I--knew all about it. I--I--"
She did not finish but sat there staring at him. At last she spoke
again. Her tone was strained and husky with emotion.
"You--you'll want to arrest me too when you know the truth."
"You'll not be dragged into it unless you insist."
"But I do insist!" She sprang to her feet. Her nails digging into her
clenched fists, she faced him. Her eyes were bright and terrible.
"Do you think," she fairly screamed, "that I would be part of a thing
that was wrong, whether I knew it or not at the time, and then when
trouble came from it, do you think that I would sneak out of it and
allow someone else to suffer for it? Do you think I'd sneak out of it
because anyone would let me--because I am a girl?"
Completely at a loss to know what to do upon this turn of events, Curlie
stood there staring back at the girl.
She at last sank back upon her seat. Curlie took three turns around the
deck. At last he approached her with a steady step.
"Miss Ardmore," he said, taking off his cap, "I apologize. I--I really
didn't know that a girl could be that kind of a real sport."
Before she could answer he hurried on: "For the time being we can let
the matter we were just speaking of rest. Matters far more important
than the vindicating of the law, important as that always is, are before
us. Your brother and his friend, unless I am mistaken, are in grave
danger. We may be able to save them; we may not. We can but try and this
trial requires all our wisdom and strength.
"More than that," he again held his face to the stiffening gale, "we
ourselves are in considerable danger. Whether this 'cockleshell,' as the
skipper calls her, can weather a severe storm on the open sea, is a
question. That question is to be answered within a few hours. We're in
for a blow. We're too far on our way to retreat if we wished to. We must
weather it. You can be of assistance to us as you suggest, and more than
that, you can help us by being brave, fearless and hopeful. May we count
on you?"
There was a cold, brave smile on the girl's face as she answered:
"You know my father. He has never yet been beaten. I am his child."
Then suddenly, casting all reserve aside, she gripped his arm and
bestowing a warm smile upon him said almost in a whisper:
"Curlie Carson, I like you. You're real, the realest person I ever
knew." Then turning swiftly about, she danced along the deck, to
disappear down the hatch to the forecastle.
"Huh!" said Curlie, after a moment's thought, "I never could make out
what girls are like. But one thing I'm sure of: that one will drown or
starve or freeze when necessity demands it, without a murmur. You can
count on her!"
Throwing a swift glance to where a thick bank of clouds was painting the
night sky the color of blue-black ink, he hurried below to consult with
the skipper about the weather. They were, he concluded, some three
hundred and fifty miles out to sea. If this storm meant grave dangers to
them, what must it mean to two boys in a seaplane skimming through the
air over the sea? He shivered at the thought.
Fifteen minutes later, Curlie was in the small wireless cabin of the
_Kittlewake_. With a receiver clamped over his head, with a motor
purring at his feet and with the hum of wires and coils all about him,
he felt more at ease and at home than he had been for many hours.
His talk with the skipper had confirmed his fears; they were in for a
blow.
"A nor'-easter, sir," he had affirmed, "an' one you'll remember for many
a day. Oh! we'll weather 'er, sir; somehow we'll 'ave to weather 'er.
With the millionaire heiress aboard we'll 'ave to, worse luck for it.
We'll 'ammer down the 'atches an' let 'er ride if we 'ave to but it's a
jolly 'ard shaking habout we'll get, sir. But she's a 'arty,
clean-hulled little boat, she is, an' she'll ride 'er some'ow."
After receiving this information, Curlie had gone directly to the
wireless cabin. He was more anxious than he was willing to admit for the
safety of his two charges, the millionaire's children; for Curlie did
think of them as his charges. He was used to taking burdens on his own
shoulders. It had always been his way.
Just now he was listening in on 600, ready to pick up any message which
might come from the boys on the seaplane. That the _Stormy Petrel_ was a
doomed aircraft he had not the least doubt. The only question which
remained in his mind was whether the _Kittlewake_ or some other craft
would reach her in time to save the two reckless boys.
Now and again as he listened he picked up a message from shore. The
center of the storm, which was fast approaching, was to the east, off
shore. Messages coming from the storm's direction would be greatly
disturbed by static. But to the west the air was still clear.
Now he heard a ship off Long Island Sound speaking for a pilot; now some
shore station at Boston assigned to some ship a harbor space; and now
some powerful broadcasting station sent out to all the world a warning
against the rising storm.
Tiring of all this, for a time he tuned his instrument to 200.
"Be interesting to see how far short wave lengths and high power will
carry," was his mental comment.
Now he caught a faint echo of a song; now a note of laughter; and now
the serious tones of some man speaking with his homefolks.
But what was this? He fancied he caught a familiar whisper. Adjusting
his wires, adding all the amplifying power his instruments possessed, he
listened eagerly; then, to his astonishment heard his own nickname
spoken.
"Hello, Curlie," came to him distinctly. Then, "Are you there? You
remember that big bad man, the one who used heaps of power on 1200?
Well, he's gone north--very far north. You'd want to follow him, Curlie,
if you knew what I know. The radiophone is going to do great things for
the north, Curlie. But men like him will spoil it all. Remember this,
Curlie: If you do go, be careful. Careful. He's a bad man and the stakes
are big!" The whisper ceased. The silence that followed it was ghostly.
"And that," Curlie whispered softly, "came all the way from my dear old
home town. She thought I was still in the secret tower room. Fine chance
of my following that fellow up north. But when I get back I'll
investigate. There may be something big there, just as she says there
is. Yes, I'll look into it when I get back--if I do get back."
He shivered as he caught the howl of the wind in the rigging. Then,
tuning his instrument back to 600, he listened once more for some
message from the seaplane, the _Stormy Petrel_.
CHAPTER XV
S. O. S.
The spot of light which raced across the waters of the sea where no land
was to be seen, where the black surface of the swiftly changing waters
shone always beneath the occupants of the seaplane, took on an ever
widening circle. There appeared to be no end to Alfred Brightwood's
belief that somewhere in the midst of all this waste of waters there was
an island.
Vincent Ardmore had long since given up hope of becoming rich by this
mad adventure. His only hope, the one that gave strength to his arms
benumbed by long clinging to the flashlight and new sight to his eyes,
weary with watching, was that they might discover some bit of land, a
coral island, perhaps, where they might find refuge from the sea until a
craft, called to their aid, might rescue them.
The thought of returning to the mainland he had all but abandoned. The
gas in the tank was too low for that; at least he was quite certain it
must be.
There was a chance, of course, that if they alighted upon the water and
sent out an S. O. S., the international call for aid, they would be
answered by some near-by ship. But this seemed only a remote
possibility. He dared not hope it would happen. They were far from any
regular course of trans-Atlantic vessels and too far from shore to be
picked up by a coast vessel or a fishing smack. The very fact that this
island, marked so plainly on the ancient map, had been in this
particular spot, so remote from the main sea-roads, had strengthened
their belief that during all the centuries of travel it had been lost
from man's memory and hidden from his view. Now this very isolation,
since they were unable to locate this island, if indeed it existed at
all, threatened to be their undoing.
Still they circled and circled with great, untiring sweeps. At last,
releasing the searchlight, Vincent put his lips to a speaking tube.
"Let's light," he grumbled. "I'm dead. What's the use?"
"What else can we do but keep looking?" Alfred answered.
"Take a look at the gas. Maybe it will carry us back."
Even as he spoke, a strange thing happened. The air appeared suddenly to
have dropped from beneath the plane. Straight down for fifty feet she
dropped.
With the utmost difficulty Alfred succeeded in preventing her from
taking a nose dive into the sea.
"She--she bumped," he managed to pant at last. "Something the matter
with the air."
And indeed there was something about the atmospheric conditions which
they had not sensed. Busy as they had been they had not seen the black
bank of clouds to the northeast of them. With the wild rush of air from
sheer speed, they had not felt the increasing strength of the gale. Once
Vincent had fancied that the sea, far beneath them, seemed disturbed,
but so far beneath them was it that he could not tell.
Now in surprise and consternation, as if to steady his reeling brain, he
gripped the fuselage beside him while he shrilled into the tube:
"Look! Look over there! Lightning!"
"Watch out, I'm going down," warned the other boy. "Going to light."
To do this was no easy task. Three times they swooped low, to skim along
just over the crest of the waves, only to tilt upward again.
"Looks bad," grumbled the young pilot.
The fourth time, he dared it. With the spray spattering his goggles, he
sent the plane right into the midst of it. For a second it seemed that
nothing could save them, that the wave they had nose-dived into would
throw their plane end for end and land her on her back, with her two
occupants hopeless prisoners strapped head down to drown beneath her.