The Radio Detectives Part 6

Henderson had sent on the search.

Tom and Frank were overjoyed when, a day before Mr. Pauling's ship docked, they succeeded in getting a message to him.

"That's pretty near 300 miles," declared Tom jubilantly, "and our set's only supposed to send 100. Say, that's a real freak message."

But when, a few moments later, they heard some one calling their letters and this was followed by a question as to their location and the information that the inquirer was the government operator at Fort Randolph, Ca.n.a.l Zone, Panama, the two boys could only stare at each other in utter amazement.

"Jehoshaphat!" exclaimed Frank at last. "We were heard clear down in Panama! Why that's pretty near 2000 miles!"

"Almost as good as that fellow over in Jersey who was heard in Scotland and Honduras!" cried Tom. "Hurrah, Frank! Let's try again."

But despite every effort the boys failed to get a reply from any one more than fifty or sixty miles distant and realized that, by some peculiar atmospheric condition, their dots and dashes had been carried through the ether for twenty times and more their normal sending range.

"That's something to tell Dad," declared Tom, and rushing down the stairs he excitedly told his mother of the wonderful feat.

"I suppose it is remarkable, if you say so," said Mrs. Pauling, "but really, I can't see why you should not talk to Balboa or Europe or any other point if you can talk to your father's ship out at sea. One is just as wonderful as the other to me. But I'm proud of you just the same, Tom."

When, the next day, Mr. Pauling arrived, Tom could scarcely wait to relate the story of his freak message and his father was enthusiastic enough to satisfy any boy.

"Marvelous!" he declared. "And the operator on the _San Jacinto_ tells me you've improved a lot since he first talked to you. Says you can send well and had no trouble in getting his message at regular speed. I'm mighty glad you've done so well, Son. Just as soon as I have a chance I'm coming up to see that wonder set of yours. How many have you built since I've been gone?"

Then Tom told his father of the mysterious messages and what had come of their attempts to locate the sender.

Mr. Pauling laughed heartily. "Well, if you got old Henderson interested he must have believed there was something in it. I don't know but what there was. I'll talk it over with him. But I can imagine your disappointment, and his too-when nothing came of it. No, Son, I can't offer any explanation and we're as much in the dark as ever about the smugglers. By the way, I met a chap down at Na.s.sau that was just about as keen on experiments as you boys only he's not a radio fan. No, he's a diver. He's invented a new type of diving suit-self-contained he calls it. Just a sort of rubber cloth shirt and a khaki-colored helmet and lead-soled shoes. He goes down without ropes or life lines or air hose.

Gets his air from a little box or receptacle strapped to his body. I don't know what is in it, but it's some chemical which produces oxygen and he can walk about where he pleases on the bottom. It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen to watch him wade out into the water and disappear and then, half an hour or two hours later, have him bob up somewhere else."

"Gosh, I'd love to see that," declared Tom. "Suppose he wants to come up from deep water without walking ash.o.r.e, how does he manage?"

"He just produces more oxygen so he floats up," replied Mr. Pauling.

"And you'll have a chance to talk with him next week. He's returning to New York and I've asked him to call and see us. Nice young chap, name's Rawlins. The only trouble with his outfit is that he can't communicate with others ash.o.r.e or on the boats. Of course he can take down a line or even a telephone, but then he at once destroys one of the great advantages of his invention. A trailing line or wire is as liable to be caught or tangled in a wreck or in coral as an air pipe or any other rope or line and it means some one must be stationed in a boat over him.

He claims one big advantage of his suit will be the fact that as no boat or air pump is needed, no one can tell where he is. That would be a fine thing in time of war, of course. Think you'll take a great fancy to him, Tom."

For a moment, Tom was silent and then he suddenly let out a yell like an Indian.

"I have it!" he fairly screamed. "Radio! Submarine radio! I'll bet it'll work."

Then, filled with enthusiasm, he started to explain his ideas to his father.

"All right! All right!" cried Mr. Pauling, laughing and holding up his hands in protestation. "I'll take your word for the technical end of it.

Wait and tell Rawlins about it. But honestly I don't know but what there may be something in it. You and Rawlins can work it out."

So filled with his new idea was Tom, that he fairly rushed to tell Frank when the latter arrived, and for the next ten days the two were ceaselessly at work, drawing plans and diagrams, making and discarding instruments, purchasing countless rolls of wire and knock-down apparatus, as they strove to put into concrete form the vision in Tom's brain.

But they found innumerable difficulties to be overcome and were almost discouraged when one evening Rawlins called.

He was such an enthusiastic and interesting man that the boys took a huge liking for him and as soon as Tom told him of his idea he at once fell in with the boys' plans.

"I do believe it can be done!" he declared, when Tom had shown him the plans and had described his ideas fully. "I don't know much about radio, but if you are right about the matter there's no reason I can see why you shouldn't get it to work. I tell you what, Tom, we'll fit up a workshop and laboratory down at my father's dock-it's down near the foot of 28th St. and we don't use it except for storage. The old gentleman's gone out of the wrecking business and has sold all his outfit except the things stored there. It's a fine place to work and experiment. There are tools and a machine lathe and about ten tons of odds and ends that may come in handy. My father had his office and workshop there-did all his repairing of pumps, diving suits and tugs there, and never threw anything away. I learned to dive there-my father and grandfather were deep-sea divers, too-and there's a trapdoor where the divers went down to test their suits and pumps. I made my suits and even my under-sea motion picture outfit there and it's private and no one will disturb us.

The only way we can test out this idea of yours is by actual trial under water. If we do get it, it will be a mighty big thing-greatest improvement in sub-sea work ever. I'll get the place ready and cleaned up a bit to-morrow. I'm just as crazy as you are to try it out."

Mr. Henderson also was deeply interested in the boys' new experiments and declared he believed their ideas might be worked out successfully.

"You'll run across a lot of unexpected and unforeseen difficulties," he warned them. "One never knows what new laws and phenomena one may run up against in a thing of this sort. During the war our government and the Allies, and no doubt Germany also, carried on a good many experiments with under-water radio, but as far as I know they never came to much.

Radio had not progressed so far then and there were more important things to be done and not enough men to attend to it. We _did_ use vacuum tubes and amplifiers for detecting submarines, however. By the way, I have a few things that may be of help to you boys and I'll be glad to let you have them. Among them is a remarkable tuning device of German make and I don't think it has ever been tried out. You'll need something that is simple and accurate and easy to control and this may do the trick."

By the end of a week a snug little laboratory had been set up on Rawlins' dock and the boys and their diver friend spent every available moment of their time there.

Tom and Frank were as interested in seeing Rawlins go down in his odd suit as he was in their radio work, and the first time he put it on to demonstrate it to the boys they became tremendously excited. Rawlins carefully explained all about it, pointing out its various parts and showing them how the oxygen generator worked.

"You have to be careful about this," he said, "if a drop of water gets into it, it blazes or flames up and may kill a fellow. That's the only danger about it. If a man forgets and takes the mouthpiece from his lips to speak without shutting it off and water gets in, he'll have a red hot flame inside his helmet. It's easy to get accustomed to it though-comes as natural as breathing, after a bit of practice."

But even now that it had been explained to them it seemed a most remarkable feat for Rawlins to don the shirtlike suit and helmet and, with only these over his ordinary garments and with no rubber trousers covering his legs, descend the ladder and disappear in the water without lines, pipes or ropes trailing after him. Both Tom and Frank were crazy to go down, but Rawlins refused to permit it until he had made the suits "fool proof" as he put it. Even then, the boys' parents objected until they had visited the workshop and Rawlins had proved to their satisfaction that the boys were perfectly safe in shallow water when he accompanied them.

"We'll have to go down to test out the radio," argued Tom, "so we might as well learn right away."

At last the fathers gave in and Tom went down first with Rawlins. For a week afterwards he could think or talk of nothing else and never tired relating his sensations and experiences to his parents and his boy friends, and Frank did the same. But after the first few times the novelty wore off and the boys soon became quite accustomed to going to the bottom of the river. Rawlins, however, never allowed them to stay down more than a few minutes at a time and after the first few descents the boys found little fun in it. They had expected to find a smooth, hard bottom and to see fishes swimming about and to be able to look up and see pa.s.sing boats overhead. To their surprise, they found they could not walk upright, but leaned far forward and had a peculiar dreamy sensation when they attempted to walk, their feet seeming to half-drag, half-float behind them and that, despite the fact that the bottom of the river was soft and muddy, they did not sink into the bottom to any extent. As Tom put it, it was like trying to hurry in a dream when one's feet seem tied to something and one can't possibly run. Moreover, they found the water dark and so filled with sediment that they could see but a few feet and even near-by objects, such as the spiles and abutments of the dock, the ladder down which they descended and the figure of their companion were scarcely visible a yard distant and took on strange, hazy, indistinct and distorted forms. Indeed, Rawlins always held their hands when they went down, explaining that should they stray a few yards away they might be lost or might be swept off in some current.

But they were glad of the experience and realized that in order to carry on their experiments with any hopes of success they must learn to use the suits, for Rawlins had not yet mastered the details of radio.

In the meantime, however, they worked at the radio devices and at last Tom announced that he had a set which he believed might work.

"It's only an experimental set," he explained to Rawlins. "And it won't stand up long under water, but if the idea's all right and we get any results we can go to work and make a good outfit on the same principle."

Rawlins was almost as excited as the boys when the day came to test the new device and at Tom's suggestion was to go down alone with the receiver in his helmet while the boys remained on the dock and attempted to communicate with him.

"We'll try receiving under water first," said Tom. "If it works we'll get it into good shape and then get busy on the under-water sending set."

So, with the compact but complicated little set inside his helmet, which was specially made to accommodate it, and with the receivers clamped over his ears, Rawlins backed down the ladder while the boys, feeling like explorers about to set foot on some new and unknown land, watched his head disappear beneath the surface of the river.

It was little wonder that they were wildly excited for now, in a few moments, they would know beyond question whether their ideas had been right and whether all their work and trouble had been thrown away or they had made an advance in radio which might revolutionize under-sea work.

At first the boys had not fully realized what the success of their efforts would mean and had gone into it enthusiastically merely as something new and strange.

But as soon as Rawlins had explained the possibilities which a successful under-sea radio telephone would open up, they understood how much might hinge on the triumph or failure of their plans.

"Why," Rawlins had exclaimed, "think what it will do if it works! A man can go down and walk about any place he chooses and yet can talk back and forth with men on a ship or on sh.o.r.e. In wrecking, he could go all through a ship with no danger of getting his life-line or air-hose tangled and he could direct the fellows on the tug or lighter, telling them just where to lower chains or tackle or anything else. And think what it would mean in time of war! Why, a man could walk out from sh.o.r.e anywhere, go under a ship and fasten a mine to her and blow her up and hear all that was going on aboard the enemy's ship. And just think what a dangerous sort of spy a man would be-out of sight under the sea and yet able to hear all the talk and messages of the enemy! I tell you, boys, up to now diving's been like blind man's work-mostly feeling and signaling by jerks on a line. Of course the ordinary phone was a big advance, but with that you still had to trail a wire along and there was a visible connection between the diver and the surface. With my suits and your radio the country that owned the secrets would be mighty near masters of the sea, I'll say."

CHAPTER V

THE UNDER-SEA WIRELESS

As soon as Rawlins was out of sight the boys commenced to talk, Tom speaking through the transmitter while Frank wrote down what he said, for of course they could not know if Rawlins heard them, and the only means of determining if he had received all the words was to keep a record for comparison when he came up. They were busily engaged at this and tremendously interested and excited, when the telephone bell rang.

Telling Rawlins to wait a moment, and explaining the reason, Tom ceased speaking while Frank answered the call.

"h.e.l.lo, Frank," came Henry's voice. "I just rang up to be sure you were there. How's everything going?"