The Ocean Wireless Boys and the Lost Liner Part 16

"I-I wondered if it would be possible for me to go along with the boat, sir?" asked Jack haltingly. There was something very disconcerting in that direct glance of the captain's.

"In the boat, you mean?"

"Yes, sir. You see they have wireless there. I might be of some use.

I--"

"There, don't bother to make excuses," laughed the captain good-humoredly. "You really want to go for the sake of the trip, don't you?"

"Well, I--" began Jack, feeling rather foolish at having his mind read so unerringly.

"Will your a.s.sistant stand watch if I let you go? The s.h.i.+p must not be left without a wireless man."

"Sam will stay, sir," rejoined Jack. "It is his watch, anyway."

"All right, then, consider it settled. Cut along now and send out that message. Those poor devils must be waiting eagerly for it."

"Very well, sir, and thank you," exclaimed the delighted Jack.

"Don't thank me," said the captain, with a gruffness that a twinkle in his eye betrayed. "I heard before you joined the s.h.i.+p that you had a faculty for rus.h.i.+ng in where you had no business to be, and now I see that I was not misinformed."

CHAPTER XX

TO THE RESCUE

"Aren't you going to turn in?"

Sam asked the question as, at midnight, he came on watch. He took his position at the key, but, to his surprise, Jack did not show his usual alacrity to seek his bunk.

"I guess I'll sit up a while," rejoined Jack, without a trace of drowsiness.

Then he added, as Sam looked his bewilderment, "Sammy, my boy, just cast your eye over those copies of radios I got and answered while you were asleep."

Sam obeyed, scanning the despatches and the answers to them, copied in carbon, with deep interest. When he had finished he looked up.

"I can guess the reason for your staying up now," he said.

"Well?" asked Jack, his eyes dancing.

"You're going along in that boat!"

"A good guess," laughed Jack. "You don't mind, do you, Sam?"

"Not a bit. If you will insist on risking your neck, it's no affair of mine," laughed Sam.

"Hum, you're a nice, sympathetic little friend, aren't you?" inquired Jack, giving Sam a dig in the ribs. "But seriously, though," he added, "you don't think it selfish of me to go off alone and--"

"Get a ducking?" chuckled Sam. "No, I don't. I'd rather be comfortable here on board than trying to make a landing on an island beach. It's ten to one you get tipped over in the surf."

"Not much danger of that," said Jack; "we've got some skillful oarsmen in the crew, and you know that boat drill is one of the fads of this line."

"Well, what time do you expect to start?"

"Haven't any idea, but the skipper said we ought to be up with the island by dawn."

"If I were you, I'd turn in and get some sleep."

"Couldn't take a wink. I'm too keyed up about the trip."

Jack looked at his watch, the fine gold one that had been presented to him in Antwerp on his first voyage, in recognition of a brave deed.

"Not one o'clock yet," he muttered impatiently.

"It won't be light for four hours anyhow," counseled Sam; "you'd better get into your bunk."

But Jack was so fearful of being left behind that he refused to turn in.

However, after a time, as he sat in the spare chair of the wireless room, his eyelids did close in spite of all he could do to prevent them.

Sam smiled as, turning around, he saw that his chum was asleep.

It was Schultz, the old quartermaster, who aroused Jack by poking his head into the door of the wireless room.

"Ahoy, vere is dot Yack vot vants to go midt us py der Somprero Lighdt?"

Jack awakened with a start.

"Eh? What?" he demanded sleepily.

"Vell, don't you vant to go midt us py der Somprero?" asked Schultz.

"Oder dot you schleep?"

Broad awake now, Jack sprang to his feet.

"All right, Schultz, I'll be with you in a jiffy," he exclaimed.

"Don't make no nefer mindt aboudt gedtting prettied oop," grinned the old quartermaster grimly, as Jack plunged his face into a basin of cold water and parted his tousled hair; "maype vee gedt idt a spill in der vater before ve gedt back der s.h.i.+p py."

"There, what did I tell you?" demanded Sam triumphantly; but Jack only grinned.

There was a great trampling about on the decks outside. The men who had been selected to form the boat's crew, the pick of the sailors, were running about, loading the small craft with provisions and barrels of fresh water.

To the men this sudden call for a trip to the sh.o.r.e came in the nature of a junket. It afforded an agreeable bit of relaxation in the midst of the hum-drum monotony of sea life. A sailor on such an expedition is like a boy off on a picnic. The men joked and laughed as, in the gray of the early light, they hustled about between boat and storeroom.

Dr. Flynn, to Jack's disappointment, was unable to go. A sick patient on board demanded all his attention. But he put up a case of medicines for the old light keeper and gave Jack directions how to administer them; for, by means of the old man's symptoms, transmitted by wireless through Jack, the doctor of the _Tropic Queen_ had been able to diagnose the trouble as being a case of tropic fever.