The Luck of the Spindrift by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [Brand, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Action & Adventure
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2016-10-03T22:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER XV

DAYS later, Culver leaned over the wireless with the earphones clasped over his head. He had the thing pretty well in hand now. He knew the whistle, like a squeaking mouse, that announced a station near in the air. He had listened to messages for some time, and his ear had quickened until he was able to take down all except the fastest; but never once did he get the Livermore.

It was the Livermore, according to Burke, that Valdez undoubtedly had taken for the South Seas, but whether the Livermore would go directly to Valdez’ destination or stop at other ports on the way, and so be greatly delayed, Burke could not tell. The whole nature of the cruise might be altered by wireless orders after putting to sea. Burke had found that out before leaving San Francisco. To remain there and watch would simply have been to drive Valdez to another port to take another ship. It was not even sure that Valdez’ ultimate destination would be one of the ports of the Livermore’s, call list. If he could get close enough, he would hire a small craft and make the intervening step, of course. Where Walter Toth might be in the South Seas, in the meantime, they could only guess within a thousand miles. That was why Burke was so desperately eager to have the wireless at work in order to pick out of the air a message to or from the Livermore.

The day after the storm, he called Culver aft to the poop and said: “Culver, maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I got a little out of my head, day before yesterday. I was clean crazy because we’d lost our wind, and I could see Valdez sinking hull-down on us, and sliding over the horizon and then downhill all the way home. Understand? I would of beat up my own father, I guess. And you shouldn’t of hollered out to stop me from Birger Ukko. You shouldn’t of done that! Am I right?”

Culver kept looking at the skipper and wondering at the poisonous bitterness he felt rise in him as he stared. He could not speak. The only conversation he could have been capable of would have been with his hands. As he listened, he found himself picking out points on the skipper’s face where knuckles would have a good lodgment.

The skipper did not continue this semi-apology when he felt the eyes of Culver steadily on him. He merely said: “Go off there to the radio room—and for God’s sake, use your brains on that damned machine. Get the stuff out of the air. Get the Livermore out of the air!”

That was why Culver was leaning over the wireless with the headphones at his ears. He knew the receiver and its dials. He knew the antenna wire, insulated from the wall with heavy porcelain knobs. The ground wire he knew, touching the iron frame of the composite old ship. The third wire introduced

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