Page:The Wireless Operator with the U.S. Coast Guard.djvu/154

 thing was lashed fast. The decks were bare. The Iroquois was stripped for action.

Henry could hardly believe that Captain Hardwick would leave port in such a storm. He knew that storm warnings must be showing all along the New England coast, and perhaps the entire Atlantic seaboard, but before he could return to the cabin and ask the captain if he intended to put to sea, he saw the chief electrician running aft along the slippery deck. Henry threw open the door for him, and the radio man dodged in out of the blinding rain. He had a message for the captain.

Henry descended to the cabin with the electrician. Captain Hardwick took the telegraph blank from Mr. Sharp and studied it a moment.

“No orders?” he asked.

“Not yet,” said the electrician.

The captain sat down at his desk, drew a red-bordered telegraph blank from a pigeonhole, and wrote. “Send that,” he directed.

The radio man struggled out into the storm. The captain rose and touched his call-bell.

“Rollin,” he said, when his attendant appeared, “ask Mr. Farley to come to me at once.”

The commander picked up the telegram and handed it to Henry. “You’ll have a chance to see something to-day, Henry,” he said.

Henry looked at the message in his hands. It