CHAPTER XVI

IN THE WIRELESS STATION

In less time than it takes to tell, Jack was bundled into the long steel case, his arms stretched over his head well forward toward the bowcap. So tightly was he wedged in the aperture that his shoulders rubbed against both sides of the tube. Before climbing into the chamber he had hastily crammed a handful of waste inside his hat to act as a cushion for the water pressure against his skull that would be inevitable once his body was thrust out into the sea.

"Are you all ready, Mr. Hammond?" called his commander as he bent over the mouth of the breech cap and reached forward to give the boy a friendly tug at one foot.

"All ready, sir," answered Jack.

The breech cap was swung shut and Jack could hear the click of the mechanism as he was locked in by his comrades and they prepared to shoot their human torpedo out of the sunken submarine.

Now he was completely isolated in the dark, cold tube. The voices of his companions were not audible. It was a time to test the nerve of the most callous individual.

Whis-s-s-h! The compressed air came hurtling into the tube with a roar as of a mighty Niagara. It enveloped him and seemed pressing against his body like many tons of steel. Instinctively the lad inhaled deeply and gritted his teeth.

In another moment the bowcap was swung open and then came a rush of air that shot him forward at a dizzy velocity. As though driven by the force of a thousand tornadoes the boy felt himself, catapulted out of the tube and into the cold salt water that closed around him like a great wall.

His senses reeled and his brain was numbed by the terrible roaring that pounded in his ears. But he had the will to live and he began his fight.

He brought his legs into play and swam upward furiously. Would he ever get there? It seemed an eternity as he battled through the mass of the sea. His arms and legs were getting numb now; his lungs seemed torn to shreds and his head throbbed with intense pain.

And then, when he was almost lapsing into unconsciousness, his head shot up out of the waves, and the boy realized that he had reached the crest of the mountain of water!

For a moment Jack felt paralyzed in every muscle. Then, as he breathed again the cold pure air of the outside world, his senses came struggling back through the haze into which he had felt himself drifting and he was invigorated again. With a great effort the boy turned over on his back with his face to the sky and floated luxuriously, with arms and legs limp on the surface of the water.

Resting thus for a time, he turned finally and struck out with a bold stroke, determined at once to make note of his position. It all came back to him in a flash—-the unknown ship that Sammy Smith had heard working its way up along the coast.

Was it near? Was it friend or enemy? Would he be seen?

Jack lifted his head and scanned the horizon. It was early morning and dawn was breaking out of the sky. The first thing that attracted his attention was a heavy pall of smoke that hung over the water. The sea was rough.

Carried up on the crest of a wave he beheld the ship that the microphone had discovered for him in the wireless room. It was now a long way past the spot where the Dewey lay submerged and had passed northward, several hundred yards nearer the coast. Carried fifty or a hundred feet forward through the water by the force of the expulsion from the torpedo tube, the youth had emerged in the widened wake of the vessel. Apparently it was a German warship returning to its base in Wilhelmshaven after a night raid off Dunkirk or Ostend. It was hugging the coast fortifications now for protection.

Floating alone in the ocean, a mere speck in the water, Jack turned toward land. It was his only salvation now.

Tearing off his hat and with it the wet waste he had inserted as a cushion for his head, he struck out with long bold strokes. The fresh air and the salt water invigorated him wonderfully after the long confinement in the stifling atmosphere of the Dewey.

As he swam he thought of the boys back there in Uncle Sam's submersible and how they, too, would be negotiating this same swim very shortly—-provided they escaped as safely as he had.

Before his mind flashed also the picture of what might happen to him when at last his feet would strike bottom and he would make his way through the surf to shore. He knew full well that practically all of the Belgian seafront was held by the Germans. It was not likely he could go very far without encountering a Hun coast patrol. But he reserved to make the best of the situation and trust to luck.

After a hard swim he found himself in the surf and then his feet touched bottom and he made his way shoreward through the breakers. Fatigued by the trip, he threw himself down on the sand, puffing and blowing from the effects of his fight in the water.

As he rested, he heard the murmur of a skyplane's motors and turned to behold a giant Gotha machine heading up the coast. Stretching himself out quickly, as though to simulate the posture of a drowned man cast up by the waves, he lay wide-eyed watching the German birdman. Undoubtedly, it was one of the aerial coast patrol.

Five hundred feet above, it lazily floated along. It came closer and closer, finally flying almost directly overhead. With bated breath the boy on the sand waited for its passage and heaved a great sigh of relief as it purred onward in the direction of Blankenberghe without giving any indication as to whether its pilot had noted the body on the sand below.

Jack scrambled to his feet.

"Might as well find out what's doing here," he muttered to himself. He peeled off his wet clothes. One at a time he wrung out his garments and shook the water out of his long black hair. Then he turned for a glance around him. In front of him loomed the sand dunes, their weird shifting formations dotted here and there with scraggly underbrush. Down the coast the picture was the same.

Turning, the lad gazed northward in the general direction where he knew lay Holland and her neutral shores.

"That's where I go from here," he said cheerfully.

He had jogged along not more than a quarter of a mile when the coast line veered sharply to right, leaving only the expanse of ocean looming up beyond the stretch of sandy beach. Following along the curve in the coast line, Jack found himself presently on the shore of a small land-locked bay. The mouth of the inlet was barely wide enough to permit the passage of a good-sized vessel.

But neither ship nor human being was in sight.

"Might be one of the secret passageways used by the undersea boats," Jack mused as he followed the curving line of the bay away from the ocean.

Presently he came to an abrupt halt at a break in the beach where the rolling sand dunes fell sheer away to the mouth of another waterway—-this time a small stream that wound its way inland through a tortuous channel. It was no more than two hundred feet across.

Jack realized this must be one of the canals with which the coast was known to be ribboned. For a moment he stood in contemplation of the sight. Now he was more than ever convinced that he had stumbled into a U-boat base. The love of adventure gripped him and he determined to press on.

For the next ten minutes he threaded his way along the canal bank. Suddenly, as he turned one of the snake-like twists in the course of the waterway, he found himself facing an old stone windmill that stood almost directly on the canal bank. It was only a stone's throw away.

Instinctively the boy threw himself upon the sandy loam. There was not a sign of life about the abandoned structure. In the peaceful days before the war it had, no doubt, been used by a Belgian farmer to water his fields.

But now Jack saw something that set his heart a-flutter. From the dome-like crest of the windmill stretched a number of wires tautly drawn and leading away to some point beyond his range of view. For a moment he contemplated the scene in silence with tingling nerves. Satisfied at last that his presence was not yet known—-if any human being was within the stone tower—-he struggled up to a kneeling position and looked beyond the windmill.

What he saw now was a ramshackle farmhouse apparently deserted. Up the side of the dilapidated building ran a great wide stone chimney that reared its head through the gabled roof like a leaning Tower of Pisa. To this chimney led the wires from the windmill.

"A secret wireless station!" exclaimed Jack to himself. "Undoubtedly in the hands of the Germans and being used by them in the direction of their U-boat fleets in the North Sea!" The boy's pulses quickened at the thought.

Like an Indian on the trail he wormed his way forward until he came at last within ten feet of the windmill. There was a window before him. Slowly and cautiously he drew himself up to one side of the casement and then peered in through the latticed shutter.

At a table, on which was spread out the wireless apparatus, was a uniformed figure. A helmet lay on the floor and the man's head was bowed in his arms. He was asleep. A lantern hung on the wall toward the canal side and cast a dim flicker over the cramped interior of the place. Stretching himself up on tiptoe, Jack surveyed the room, but noted not another person in sight.

Quick as a flash the lad withdrew from the window. His plan of action now was clear. He must get control of that wireless key and flash a message to the United States fleet in the North Sea!

Stealthily he began to circle the stone structure. Momentarily he expected to hear the challenge of a sentry; but he was not molested.

In a few moments his foot touched a large flat stone step before a half closed doorway through which the light of the lantern cast its flickering rays. Jack looked about him for a weapon of some kind and noted a long piece of two-by-four that apparently had been used to prop open the door of the wireless station. Stooping over he drew the club toward him and then turned to face the door and the danger that lay beyond it.

Fearlessly but with the lithe movement of the crafty panther Jack stepped across the threshold. As he did so the German wireless operator stirred in his sleep, lifted his head and gazed full upon the American youth. With a snarl of rage and a muttered curse the burly Teuton sprang to his feet and reached for a heavy revolver that lay on the table.

But Jack was too quick for him. With a long leap forward and a smashing blow he brought the heavy stick of wood down upon the head of the surprised operator. The German sank in his chair and slipped to the floor, the revolver rolling off the table with a loud clatter.

Pausing only long enough to note that his captive was completely knocked out by the blow, the Yankee lad sprang to the wireless and opened the key. Now he was grateful for the wireless instruction good old Sammy Smith had given him back there on the Dewey.

"Z-z-z-z-z-z!" the wires snapped with their message, as he flashed forth the code call of the United States fleet.

Would he be heard? Was there any vessel within range that would pick up his random call. For five minutes the boy rattled away and then closed the key to listen. What was his joy to get an almost immediate response. It was the U.S.S. Farragut, a destroyer, reporting her position and asking what was wanted.

In rapid-fire reply Jack related the sinking of the Dewey, gave her latitude and longitude, and urged immediate assistance.

"But where in the world are you sending your radio message from?" came the query out of the sky.

"In a German wireless station on the Belgian coast just about six miles south——-"

But the message was never finished, for at that moment Jack heard a slight movement behind him and turned to look into the revolver of a bulky German who, in broken English, commanded the American to surrender!