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قراءة كتاب The Radio Detectives in the Jungle

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‏اللغة: English
The Radio Detectives in the Jungle

The Radio Detectives in the Jungle

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 6

we found them--there wasn’t one chance in a million. Things like this make the most skeptical believe in the Almighty.”

“And the fact that that bunch on the sub get away with it makes a fellow believe in Satan as well,” supplemented the diver.

A moment later the destroyer’s engines ceased to throb; she slipped gently through the waves, and presently was resting motionless, rising and falling, while the ocean castaways bent to the oars and pulled around in her lee.

Then a coil of line spun from the hands of a waiting bluejacket, the man in the bow of the lifeboat caught it and the next instant the haggard-faced occupants of the little craft were being helped over the destroyer’s rail.

There were twenty-two in all--a motley, cosmopolitan lot, the typical crew of a modern steamship. Tow-headed, broad-faced Scandinavians; sallow, black-haired, blue-cheeked Spaniards, whose greasy trousers and grimy faces marked them as wipers, firemen and engine room crew; a few swarthy Italians; one or two who might have been of almost any nationality; two colored men; and a broad-shouldered, ruddy-faced individual with keen, pale blue eyes who was evidently in command.

“Strike me pink, but we’re lucky beggars!” exclaimed the latter, as he leaped on to the destroyer’s deck.

“Are you the captain?” asked Commander Disbrow. “Glad to have saved you. We got your radio yesterday morning, but had little chance of finding you. More luck than anything else. All your crew accounted for?”

The Englishman drew himself up and saluted in true naval style. “No, Sir,” he exclaimed. “I’m the chief officer, ship Devonshire, Liverpool for Trinidad and Demerara. Captain Masters lost ’is life, Sir--defending ’is ship, Sir.”

“Brave man!” exclaimed Mr. Pauling. “Went down with his ship, I suppose.”

The Englishman turned and looked at him in surprise. “Whatever do you mean, Sir?” he exclaimed. “Bless us, the ship wasn’t sunk, Sir. Captain Masters was shot down on his bridge, Sir.”

“The ship wasn’t sunk!” cried Mr. Pauling. “Then why are you adrift in a small boat and why did you send an S. O. S. and what did occur? Come, let’s get this matter straightened out at once!”

“The ship was took, Sir. Made a prize of by the bloody submarine--begging your pardon for the word, Sir. It was this way, Sir. The dirty beggars never gave us arf a chance--played a dirty Hun trick on us, the swine! You see, Sir, we sighted a drifting boat full of men and bore down and took them abroad, Sir, and no sooner were they over the rail than they whips out their revolvers and orders our ’ands up. Blow me for a bloomin’ fish if we wasn’t took that by surprise, Sir, that we does it, Sir. All but the Captain and ‘Sparks.’ They were looking on--you know all hands always crowds the rails to see what’s going on when a boat’s picked up, Sir--and it was all over in a minute. No sooner had they stuck us up than the bloomin’ sub bobs up. With that we was all aback and that dazed, with the suddenness of it and the sub and all, that we don’t rightly know what to make of it, Sir. And then ‘Sparks’ makes a dash for his room and Captain Masters fires at the dirty swine just as one of them jumps after ‘Sparks.’ I see, poor ‘Sparks’ stagger and lurch into his door and the bloomin’ beggar what shot him drops and the next second there’s a rifle shot from the sub and Captain Masters springs up and pitches into the sea, Sir. You say you got a radio from the ship, Sir? Then ‘Sparks’ must ’ave got it off before he died, Sir.”

“Yes, yes!” cried Mr. Pauling. “That accounts for the message ending half finished; but go on, what happened after the captain and the operator were shot?”

“Why, the blinkin’ bloomin’ devils just lined us up and ordered us into a boat and sent a crew abroad the Devonshire from the sub. And just afore they steamed off an left us, Sir, strike me purple hif a bloomin’ airplane didn’t show up! Blow me, but I thought we was saved, Sir. But instead of savin’ of us the blighted plane parses us by and goes along of the ship, Sir, and there we was adrift in an open boat with only a gallon of water and no provisions and no compass and a makin’ up our minds to face death and old Davy Jones like proper British sea-man--though only five of us was British--when we sights your little ship, Sir.”

“What course did they steer?” snapped out Commander Disbrow.

“About south by east--as near as I could judge by the sun, Sir,” replied the officer.

The next instant, sharp, quick orders had been given, and, as if shot from a bow, the destroyer leaped into sudden speed and surged through the sea towards the south.

Then, as the rescued men were half starved and worn out, the questions which Mr. Pauling and his friends were so anxious to ask were put off until the latest victims of the dastardly “reds” could be fed and rested.

Twenty-four hours in an open boat, (twelve of them under a blazing tropical sun), without food and with but a gallon of water for twenty-two men, might kill the average landsmen, but the survivors of the Devonshire seemed to be affected very little by the hardships of their experience and declared that a hearty meal and a few hours’ rest were all they needed to make them “perfectly fit” as Robinson, the chief-officer, put it.

While they were resting, Mr. Pauling and his companions were busily discussing this latest exploit of the men they were trying to run down and by deduction and reasoning were striving to fathom the “reds” object in taking possession of the Devonshire as well as their next moves.

“My opinion is that they are making for some port in order to escape unsuspected,” declared Mr. Henderson. “They had no refuge they could reach in the submarine or seaplane when they found us hot on their trail and approaching Aves. But by steaming boldly into port with a freight steamer, they could then desert and scatter without arousing suspicions until they had disappeared.”

“That’s my idea also,” affirmed Mr. Pauling. “But I’m at a loss to understand why they should continue to use the plane. If that appeared at any port, it would at once attract attention. I should have imagined that they would have sunk it or destroyed it and would all have taken to the Devonshire.”

“Perhaps they did--later,” suggested Mr. Henderson, “but they cannot escape us. They have only twenty-four hours’ start, we can make twice the freighter’s speed, and the nearest port is a good thirty-six or forty hours’ run in the direction they steamed.”

“Yes, but don’t count on their keeping that course,” said Rawlins. “They’re foxy guys and they may have steered south by east just to fool those boys in the boat. As soon as hull down they may have swung to east or west--or even turned on their tracks and headed north. Darned funny they were decent enough not to murder the whole crew. And my idea about the plane is that they’re using her for a scout to warn them of other ships. From a few thousand feet up, the pilot of the plane can spot a ship way below the horizon and the Devonshire can keep clear of ’em. Why, by glory! they could probably spot us and know we’re following them. I’ll say we’ve got some job cut out for us, if we’re going to try to run ’em down. And when it gets dark they can slip away, easy as is. Now I don’t want to butt in all the time, but my idea would be to fight them with their own weapons--play their own game and fool ’em. If we shift our course as if we’d given up or were on the wrong track and send out a few fake radio messages, they’ll think we’ve given up and they’ll beat it for some port. Then, by tipping off the port authorities, they can nab the bunch when they arrive.”

“Hmm,” muttered Mr. Pauling. “A very good plan, Rawlins, except for one or two flaws in it. For

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