The Wireless Officer Part 14

"Blue blazes" was evidently a stranger to the lascars' vocabulary, but they understood the word "pull" and guessed the significance of the rest.

Redoubling their efforts, they made the heavy boat travel rapidly through the calm water; but Peter realized that if the shark attacked with any prompt.i.tude the rescuers would be too late. He saw that Preston and his companion in distress were doing the best thing they could in the circ.u.mstances--making a violent splash. Whether the shark would be scared away was a matter for speculation.

Evidently the tiger of the deep was hungry. He was not devoid of pluck, for he had begun to swim round and round the two men, the while drawing nearer to the buoy. At any moment he might make a dart straight for his victims.

Peter knew this. He had seen a shark seize a South Sea Islander from a crowd of natives splashing and shouting in the surf. He had seen another monster seize and devour a dog within ten yards of a boat putting off to the animal's rescue.

There was no rifle in the lifeboat. In the Royal Navy they do things differently from the Mercantile Marine. Peter had an automatic. It was one of the things he took good care to provide himself with after his experiences in S.S. _Donibristle_; but the weapon was locked up in his cabin, and in the present circ.u.mstances it was like the Dutchman's anchor.

The boat was now a hundred yards from the life-buoy--the shark ten.

The brute was still circling, sometimes diving, sometimes showing its head; but up to the present it had shown no sign of preparing to seize its prey by turning on its back.

A sudden inspiration flashed across Mostyn's mind. In the stern-sheets of the lifeboat was a box containing amongst other things a Verey's pistol. It was a weapon not of offence but for humane purposes. It was fired by means of a cartridge, but, instead of a bullet, it sent up a vivid coloured light to a height of about two hundred feet.

Peter stooped and opened the lid of the box. Thank Heaven! The pistol and cartridges were there. Deftly he opened the breech and thrust home the cardboard cylinder containing the detonator and explosive light; then, standing on the stern bench and steadying the tiller with one foot, he levelled the short-barrelled weapon.

For some seconds he waited. The shark in its...o...b..t was immediately between the lifebuoy and the boat. Preston and his companion were in as much danger from the pistol as they were from the shark.

The huge fish dived and soon reappeared, this time well to the left of the buoy. It had partly turned on its back, and its wide-open jaws, triple lines of pointed teeth, and greenish-white belly were clearly visible, for by this time the whaler was less than twenty-five yards away.

It was now or never. The shark was preparing to make a dash for its victims under the bows of the boat.

Deliberately Peter pressed the trigger. He had to guess for elevation, knowing nothing of the trajectory of the missile. His aim was good.

The rocket must have disappeared down the capacious maw of the shark, for there was no sign of the fiercely burning rocket sizzling on the surface. The satisfactory part of the business was that the shark disappeared and was seen no more.

Quickly the two men were hauled into the boat, both bordering on a state of collapse. Then, ordering the lascars to give way, Mostyn steered for the _West Barbican_, picking up the jettisoned lifebuoys on the way. He was one who always finished a job properly.

CHAPTER XV

Unpopularity

A few days later Mostyn was having an easy time. He was on watch, but with little to do. A notice-board on the promenade-deck furnished the reason for his enforced inactivity:

"S.S. _West Barbican_. To-day, in radio communication with _nil_.

To-morrow, radio communication expected with _nil_."

The notice was painted with the exception of the two _nils_, which were written in chalk. Placed for the convenience of pa.s.sengers wishing to send off private wireless messages, it duly recorded what ships and sh.o.r.e stations were within radio range. In her present position in the South Atlantic she was too far away to dispatch or pick up messages from Cape Town, the radius of her wireless being limited to 240 miles by day and almost thrice that distance by night.

Peter had overhauled the set, and was taking the opportunity of writing home. With his white patrol-coat unb.u.t.toned and his _solar topee_ perched on the back of his head, he was making the best of things in spite of the terrific heat and the attentions of numerous c.o.c.kroaches.

There were thousands of these insects all over the ship, ranging in size from an eighth of an inch to nearly three inches in length.

Whilst the _West Barbican_ was in home waters their presence was invisible. They kept to the dark and inaccessible parts of the ship; but directly the weather grew warmer, as the ship neared the Tropics, they emerged fearlessly from their lairs and swarmed everywhere. By this time the pa.s.sengers had grown more or less accustomed to them, but the early stages of the invasion of the living pests of the ship had caused great consternation and indignation, especially on the part of the ladies on board.

In times of boredom, when the pa.s.sengers were "fed up" with deck-quoits and sweepstakes on the "day's run", the c.o.c.kroaches would be pressed into service to provide entertainment. A dozen or more would be captured and placed on the deck, each having its own particular "fancier" in a miniature race, and it was surprising to see with what zest the pa.s.sengers entered into the sport.

Presently Peter heard a light footfall on the deck, followed by a distinct knock upon the wide-open door of the cabin.

Rising, Peter found that Olive Baird was standing outside the bra.s.s-rimmed coaming.

"Good morning, Mr. Mostyn," she said. "Will you mind telling me if a message can be sent to Cape Town? And how much per word, please?"

"Sorry, Miss Baird," he replied, "we aren't in touch with any sh.o.r.e station. We may possibly get the Cape Town one to-morrow night."

At the back of his mind Peter found himself wondering why Miss Baird hadn't gone to the trouble of reading the announcement on the notice-board. He was rather glad she hadn't--perhaps she had purposely ignored it. It gave him an opportunity of entering into conversation with the girl.

Already Anstey had found out quite a lot about Olive Baird. How, he refused to divulge, but it was pretty certain that the girl had let out little or nothing.

Olive Baird was motherless. Her father had married again to a woman only five years older than his daughter, and, instinctively scenting domestic trouble in the near future, Olive had determined to earn her own living--a task that she had already found to be far more difficult than the cultured girl had imagined.

Almost at the end of her resources--for she knew that she would receive neither sympathy nor help from her estranged parent--Olive remembered a distant relation, a girl but a few years older than herself, who had married an official holding an appointment in the Kenya Colony.

To her Olive wrote, asking if there might be any post open to her in the district. Three months elapsed before the reply came--that there was a warm welcome awaiting her. Enclosed was a banker's draft, enough, and only enough, to pay for her pa.s.sage out and to provide a necessary and simple outfit.

Before the _West Barbican_ was many days out Mrs. Shallop, in one of her few amiable moods, had asked the friendless and reserved girl if she would, for a small remuneration, give her a couple of hours a day for the purpose of reading to her.

"My eyes aren't what they were," explained Mrs. Shallop. "And it's deadly dull on this ship when I can't even read."

So Olive thankfully accepted the post, because it helped her to pay her way; and, even when Mrs. Shallop had her almost at her beck and call, the girl did her best to keep on good terms with her.

It was not long before Olive found out the true nature of her supposed benefactress. Mrs. Shallop was vain, boastful, and with no regard for veracity. She was one of those persons who, having told the same fairy tale over and over again, firmly believe that the lie is the truth. On the other hand, her memory was defective, with the result that very frequently her story had a totally different setting when told a second or third time. In addition, she was bitingly sarcastic, and was never known to say a good word about anyone but herself.

So Olive had rather a rotten time.

The girl was, however, absolutely loyal to her employer. In the course of conversation with other pa.s.sengers she was careful not to say a word that might be detrimental to Mrs. Shallop. Evidently that lady thought she might, for Argus-like she kept a strict watch upon her.

The Shallops had taken "Round Trip" tickets. These were issued by the Blue Crescent Line, and guaranteed a voyage of not less than three months. If by any chance, as was frequently the case, the voyage was prolonged, the holder of the ticket scored, for he or she was maintained at the Company's expense until the ship returned home or the pa.s.sengers transferred to another vessel of the Company's bound for England.

Olive Baird's employers had made a heap of money during the Great War, and were now doing their best to spend it. Nevertheless, they wanted value for their outlay, and the round trip in the _West Barbican_ pointed that way. Mr. Shallop was not keen on the voyage. It was his wife who insisted upon it, mainly because it was "the thing" to travel, and it would be an easy matter on their return to give out that they had gone on a palatial P. & O. mail-boat. It sounded grander than the Blue Crescent Line.

By this time the heat was beginning to tell upon the portly Mrs.

Shallop. There were actually long intervals in which her strident voice failed to lacerate the ears of her fellow-pa.s.sengers.

This was one of them. Wanting to do "the thing" and send a wireless message to her sister in Cape Town, Mrs. Shallop was too fatigued to mount the bridge-ladder; her husband had sheepishly slunk away to the smoking-room, and only Olive was available to undertake the commission.

"I'm sorry to have interrupted you," remarked Olive.

"Not at all; don't mention it," protested Peter; then, in an outburst of candour, he added: "You haven't seen our wireless-room."

"I should love to," rejoined Olive, who had the modern girl's leanings towards anything of a scientific nature. "I always wanted to see what it was like and how it worked, but I didn't like to ask you."

Without more ado Mostyn proceeded to explain the mysteries of that steel-walled house, unconsciously launching out into an intricate technical lecture on wave-lengths, atmospherics, induced current, valve and spark-gaps, until Olive was quite bewildered.

"There's nothing doing," he remarked, after the girl had placed the telephone ear-pieces to her shapely ears. "We're too far away from land. But I'll disconnect the aerial and let you see a ripping spark."

"Another time, Mr. Mostyn," demurred Olive. "Mrs. Shallop will wonder what I've been doing."