Stand By: The Story of a Boy's Achievement in Radio

  CHAPTER XXIII

  FIGHTING THROUGH

  Radio had brought ships of the air and ships of the sea into the Arcticto search for the lost crew from the great Nardak. Radio must now be theguide to focus the eyes of the searchers upon these dots that werefreezing, starving humans on the boundless wastes.

  Like one demented, Lee Renaud hung over his crude sending machine,tap-tapping his call into the air. He ate next to nothing, slept only insnatches. He must get in touch with Spitzbergen, with the base ship, theKravassin, anchored there.

  Since that first disappointment, two other planes had circled in andpassed on, unseeing. These were two seaplanes, sturdy white-wingedbiplanes, with black fuselage. They had come that close, near enough formen on the ice to see, yet not to be seen. Frantic efforts to signalfrom the ice had been all in vain. One plane had hung in the air for anhour's reconnaissance, then had disappeared in the grim Arctic horizon,flying back toward Spitzbergen.

  "Put radios on the rescue planes. Put radios on the rescue planes,short-wave, telegraphic type. Sending station F-O-Y-N on the drift icecan then communicate direct and give signals to bring the planes to therefugees. S. O. S. to the world! Help! Relay the word to Spitzbergen.F-O-Y-N can't make the touch to its nearest station." Thus, hour afterhour, Renaud sent his call.

  For forty hours now, there had been no radio connection between therefugee camp and the rest of the world. Atmospheric disturbances, mostlikely,--a storm brewing and rolling up interference between themakeshift station and the stations of a listening world! The snow hazewas creeping over the horizon, forerunner of evil weather. And out inthe water lanes, dark forms rose now and again with a swish and a puff,rolled to blow, and sank again. Killer whales come back, like under-seavultures, to await what storm and death might fling to them.

  On and on went Renaud with his tapping. There was nothing else to do.Answer or no answer, his fingers kept doggedly to their task.Tap--listen--tap--and the snow haze closing down.

  Then through the dimness to the southwest, a puff of smoke rose slim andtall, and then spread out on the damp air in a long wavering line.Another smoke puff, closer this time! Smoke bombs! Signals dropped froma plane! With a sudden chitter-chatter that sent his heart pounding upinto his very throat for joy, Renaud's little radio picked up a call outof the near air. The plane--it was sending the radio call! It wascarrying a wireless set, as Renaud had pleaded!

  With flying fingers, Renaud tapped out his location. "Here--to the eastof the smoke bomb! More to the east! Now to the north!"

  On came the plane. It was so easy now, with connection between groundand air. The plane was the splendid silver and orange monoplane that hadsearched in vain for them a day ago. Now it swept in a direct line abovethem, flew low over the ice pack--lower, lower, but did not land.

  "Major Ravoia in the SD-55. No chance to land. Break of the ice wouldsink us all." It was a message that sent Renaud reeling across hismachine.

  But if the SD-55 could not land, something else could. From over theedge of the plane, as it hovered low, an object was dropped. This fellfree for a space, then fluttered open into a parachute to which wasattached a large box. As gently as a hand setting a fragile glass on atable, the broad, inverted chalice of the parachute let its weight downand down till it eased against the ice.

  Renaud had raised his head to watch. Now he went across the ice to thebox with its draping of collapsed parachute. With a piece of metal hebeat open the top--began lifting out the contents. It was enough to stirthe heart of any half-starved marooner--food, clothing, snow glasses,bandages and medicines, rifles and ammunition and a collapsible rubberboat.

  "Dry clothing! Something to eat! Medicine for your eyes!" he called outhuskily to poor Scotty, who, scarce seeing at all now, came waveringacross the snow slush.

  The silver and orange of the monoplane was lifting above their headsnow, but its wireless was pouring out a staccato message that camesliding briskly into the radio base on the drift ice: "Don't despair.The ice-breaker Kravassin is fighting through to you. By radioconnection I can locate you again; can pilot the ice ship on."

  With a zooming roar, the SD-55 was gone. So quickly did the flash oforange and silver disappear into the lowering haze, that it seemedalmost a dream that it had ever hovered within hailing distance. Only,here was the food, the clothing, the strange rubber boat, the parachutethat had eased them to the ice.

  And on the air still seemed to hang the SD-55's message: "Don'tdespair--Kravassin fighting through!"

  On the great Russian ice-breaker hung their last hope.