Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/844

 The Story of a Wireless Hero

How a wireless operator, with great ingenuity and re- sourcefulness, repaired his apparatus during a terrific gale

��Bv J. Andrew White

��I LIKE to think of "Wireless Operator A. S. McKenzie as a hero, although he cannot be placed among those who have clung to a swaying table and sent out frantic appeals for aid as a submarine's shells screamed by the radio cabin. Mc- Kenzie's battle was against the greater forces of Nature. And not alone that he won, but because he stood a test of over- coming apparently hopeless difficulties by ingenuity and resourcefulness, his ex- perience is worth the telling.

It properly begins at a point 700 miles from shore in a wintry sea. His ship, the Pennsylvania, was not large, nor new. She shivered from stem to stern with each plunge into the seething green wastes as the gale increased in fury; with terrifying regularity her after-deck was buried un- der heavy seas that swirled about the wheel-house and strained to tear it loose. Back in the saloon, off duty, the operator wondered; there had been storms, but never anything like this.

A giant wave bore down on the strain- ing vessel. With a crash and an ominous long-drawn rip, the cover of No. 1 hatch went over the side, the funnel wrenched loose from its stays and the wreckage from a smashed-in bridge, pilot house and wireless cabin swept back with a clutter of doors that had once protected forward staterooms. Below, a muffled rumble conveyed the information that the cargo of liquid asphaltum had broken loose, threatening annihilation of propelling engines upon which safety depended.

The Storm's Work of Havoc Begins

Then, in the tumult, a pungent smell of acid arose and large streams of oil entered the saloon. All hands were puzzled; but the operator knew. The glass plate condenser of his set was mounted on the deck, and the planking was anything but secure. A crippled set to oppose the greed of the furies! A stanch spirit sank before realization of the truth.

��Slipping and sliding on the oil-soaked floor, buffeted about by the roll of the ship, he fought his way out of the saloon. On hands and knees he struggled to the wireless cabin.

The place was knee-deep in water, the set a wreck. On the floor the transformer coil, two pairs of phones, accumulators, the condenser and all the cells were adrift in a slush of broken glass. A glance as- sured him that the service switch was up, the starter "off." Salt w^er, however, had usurped the function of human hands and had made a connection which kept the motor running slowly.

It must be stopped. Scrambling about, gaining a precarious hold and losing it with each wild pitch of the ship threaten- ing to drop him amid the swirl of broken glass and smashing equipment, he worked to a favorable position. A few tugs and off came the wiring.

The Gale Redoubled in Fury

The vessel rolled her top deck under water and pitched like a frightened steed. He fled the place, in search of the captain.

That officer was found wedged in be- tween the stove-in bridge and the pilot- house; he had squeezed into this position to keep from being blown overboard. McKenzie reported conditions.

"Leave everything and go below!" bellowed the captain. "We can do noth- ing now but try to save the ship."

And below he stayed through a night of terror. There was no sleep for anyone.

With the first flush of dawn the wind died down. The day broke clear, but mountainous seas still tossed the vessel about like a cork. No immediate need for an SOS appeared, but there were im- portant orders to be received from the owners, the captain remarked as he dis- consolately viewed the wreckage in tha wireless room. Every effort must be made to patch things up enough to get a message through.

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