CHAPTER XVI WIGWAG

“He has something in his hand--something that shimmers in his hand! See! See, Betty! It--it’s like the radio-powder in that little bottle--Olive’s secret that shines in the dark--only you can see it farther off--much farther off--where we are!”

“Like--like the radio-dials facing the aviator in his tiny cock-pit!” corroborated Betty, in low response to the flaming whisper which scorched her ear, as Sara’s lips hissed into it amid the rustling beach-grass.

“Mer-cy! He’s whirling it--doing something with it--spinning it round in a circle. It is--it is a radio-dial! A big one! Bet-ty----”

“Don’t pinch so har-rd!” sobbed Betty, groveling amid the purple pea-blossoms.

“He’s signaling with it! Oh! my living soul! he is--is--signaling now, with his right arm! Wigwagging! See-ee! Putting his hand d-down, with the dial in it, snapping it back up to his shoulder; that answers to a dot! More slowly now--that’s for a dash, by code! Standing up there in the launch--in that little creek--showing the dial out to sea! Short! Long! Short! Oh-h! I understand Wigwag. But I can’t read that--get the words--message!... I can just barely make out his arm going--catch the shimmer sideways. Heaven and earth! It’s cipher, I suppose.... He’s sending a message out to--sea--by cipher! Betty, he’s a--spy-y!”

The murmuring beach-grass whispered about the two girls. The crushed pea-blossoms lining their sand-nook with velvet cushions--dark velvet--sent the ghost of a wild fragrance up into their nostrils--wild as the situation in which they found themselves on the ragged coast-line of their normal life--wild, abnormal, as War itself.

The launch, with the man standing in it, his left hand on the pilot-wheel, had drawn round into a little tidal creek, a foaming inlet, not forty yards from the girls! Crawling along in the purple hollows, screened by luxuriant vegetation, their whispers drowned by its rank murmurs and by the sea-breeze, sweeping the red lamps of their burning cheeks, which, it seemed, must give them away in the darkness, they had followed his movements, lying low, waiting through endless minutes, until night more fully fell! Sara had! And Betty--trembling little fair-haired Betty--whose loyalty, at least, was ever-green, had not hung back.

“A spy--a spy signaling with radio out to sea, giving out word to submarines! Oh! it may have been he who told the date of the launching of that new vessel we saw, so that she was fired upon--a hole torn in the tugboat’s smoke-stack--so that they were lying in wait for her.... Mercy!”

Had it been a signaling contest, a prize offered for rapidity, the fiery wigwag of Sara’s tongue and thoughts at the moment might have carried off the palm even against that strange--strange--arm curling and uncurling from the black, silhouetted shoulder, outlined with random shimmer, like a phosphorescent twig against the night.

“Must--must be a strong radio-dial! With a telescope--through periscope--it could be seen a long way off--five miles, perhaps! Not otherwise!... Oh!--Oh-h! he’s through now. Cranking the launch--starting off again! People thought him a harmless seal-hunter!... Out into the bay!... But where did I see him before: his--his eyes that puzzled me--arm--hand--the movement he made, twirling his mustache, as he passed our beach a while ago? Oh! Betty, I think, maybe--maybe--I’m mad, but--Bet-ty--it’s coming to me.”

“What’s--coming?”

“The spark! Not just a smoke-cloud any longer! I’m getting it--getting--at--it! Oh-h!”

It was at that moment, straining her burning eyes to follow the dark outline of the launch, gliding away from shore, heading boldly out across the bay, with its Innocent chug, chug, in her ears--America Burnham’s loyal launch, hired or stolen--that Sara Davenport felt as if through the darkness within--the raging tumult--a radio-tipped arrow cleft her from throat to toe--then pointed one way.

Pointed to a picture shimmering against blackness, like an illumined dial, like the beady figurehead on the dragonized dory, its meaning--strong meaning--beginning to be read: the outskirts of a military training-camp, a gassed soldier, a pale girl ministering to him with soaked wisps of cotton-wool, a raging young officer “bawling out” a sergeant and a detached young woman looking on with snow-blink glance, complacently raising thumb and forefinger, pivot and crescent, to her smooth--smooth--lip-corner.

“Betty! Betty! I’m not mad! I’ve got it--got it, the spark. Remember now----Oh! I’m sure I remember where I’ve seen him.... Goody! What a chump”--Sara’s hand madly twisted itself into the pea-vines--“what a simpleton--ninny--I was, not to do so sooner!... Gracious! wor-worse now,”--frenziedly--“letting him get away--off--to find another creek, to do--do some more radio-signaling to submarines!”

“What--what can you do to stop him? The Coast Guard men--patrol men--they ought to see him! Oh-h, let’s run back--back to the others--tell the others!”

“Yes--and let him get clear away! Patrol couldn’t see him; he was hidden from them by that jutting sand-spit behind us. No search-lights playing over the bay either to-night! But they could see me--see me--if I signaled! I can! Iver taught me--Iver, over there!... I’ve got an honor-bead!”

“Oh-h! Where are you going?” Betty clutched wildly at the other’s short blue skirt; a flame--a soul--was in its narrow hem.

“The Bungalow! I can find something--Olive’s electric flash-light--signaling flash-light--she left it behind her; other girls took theirs, to light----”

“Door’s locked!” sobbed Betty. This was War--for the first time she realized it.

“Sure--sure to find a window--somewhere--open! If not--break a pane! He’s not going to get away--get away with it--his radio Wigwag! Was--was it his sister, maybe, up at Camp Evens--or him--himself, in woman’s dress? Oh-h, why on earth didn’t I catch on sooner?... Atlas held up shipping!”