Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/46

 staring out at the battleship. The steward took up his tray and passed on to the operator's door, where, adroitly balancing on one foot, he tapped on the panel with the other. The door opened, and this time the white glare of the electric light shone along the wet deck. The man at the rail, twisting his head, without any betraying movement of the body, succeeded in getting a more satisfactory glimpse of the room.

Behind the door swung a curtain of soiled denim, partly withdrawn. Squatting on a canvas camp-chair before his unpainted work-table was the operator. His wireless helmet-receiver, or "set," was clasped over his ears and held close to the bent head by a chaplet of glimmering metal. Against each "receiver" the operator pressed a white handkerchief, to shut away out side noises.

His face was lean, clear-cut, touched with vigour. It was too vital and youthful in texture to be called leathery, though it was sunburnt to what seemed almost a coffee-colour, contrasting strangely with the ruddiness of the open-weathered ship's officers about him. He had, too, a touch of the ascetic in the high brow and the wide cheek-bones, his leanness of jowl giving one the impression of generous reservoirs of energy greedily and continually drained by