Three weeks later Sally was again on those fine waters. Again it was night. Once more the city painted its many colored pictures against the sky. But how strangely different was the craft on which she rode!

Gone was the small rubber raft, the tuna, and the shark. Gone too was strange, intriguing Silent Storm.

“It will be a long time before I see him again,” she told herself, “but I may talk to him, perhaps many times.”

This was true. During the weeks that had just passed she had secured permission from her aged benefactor, the radio inventor, C. K., to show the secret radio to Silent Storm.

She had taken it to his house for the first time on the night of the tuna feast. That feast had been a great success. Nancy had gone with her. Never had she seen Silent Storm so carefree and gay as on that night.

When the feast was over, the three of them, Sally, Nancy, and Silent Storm, had retired to his den. There the secret radio was set up. Since he had a private hook-up with the station’s great aerial, things had gone very well.

For a time, it is true, no sound came over that secret wave length, but this had happened many times before. When at last the “put-put-put” began, the strange broadcasters had put on a real show. As on one other occasion the six separate units broadcasting were some distance apart.

Then came the sudden, loud and insistent bark of a broadcast for all the world like the call of a wolf leader to his pack.

“A call to the kill,” Sally had thought to herself. She was thrilled to the very center of her being, but said never a word. She wanted Silent Storm to listen and form his own opinions.

Slowly, surely, quite like the wolves of the Great White North, the broadcasters drew closer and closer together.

“Closing in on the prey.” Scarcely could she avoid speaking aloud.

Then came the loud, irregular barks of apparent command.

Strangely enough, when all this excitement was over and the broadcasters began to separate there were only five. One had gone silent.

“That,” said Silent Storm, mopping his brow, “is one of the strangest things I ever heard.”

“Is it an enemy sub wolf-pack?” Sally asked.

“It would be only one other thing,” Storm spoke slowly. “It could be a flight of our bombers concentrating on a target and then delivering their cargoes of death and destruction.”

“Yes,” Sally agreed, “the broadcasts fit that picture quite as well.”

“We can only wait and see,” said Storm. “We must do all we can to get Nancy and you on a ship at the earliest possible moment.”

Nancy seemed a bit startled by this, but Sally said: “That will be swell!”

“You see,” said Storm, “when you are on a ship you are constantly changing your position. Once you are at the center of the Atlantic, if these secret broadcasters put on a show like this for you, and if it is north, south, or west of you, you’ll know at once that they are subs and not bombers.

“And then!” he struck the table a blow, “then we’ll go after them. Last year we lost twelve million tons of shipping to those wolf-packs. Think of it! A million tons a month. That might mean the losing of the war.

“But with this secret radio of yours, if things are as we suppose them to be, what we won’t do to those inhuman beasts who have machine-gunned men struggling in the water and women on rafts!”

After that night, Sally had waited, impatiently, for the return of Danny’s ship. Then one day she met Danny on the street.

“Yes,” he whispered. “We are safely back. She’s a grand, old ship. I got a sub.”

“Danny! Good for you!” She wanted to hug him right there on the street.

“We’re sailing tomorrow night with a fresh convoy,” he confided, “and I’ve been told you are to sail with us.”

“And now, here I am,” Sally thought as she watched the city’s lights fade while they sailed out into the dark, mysterious night.

She was standing on a great, flat, top deck. Nancy was at her side, a dim shadow. Larger shadows, that were airplanes, loomed at their backs. No lights were showing. The radio was silent. They were alone on the sea. And yet there was to be a convoy.

“That will come later,” Lieutenant Riggs, radio officer for their flat-top, told her. “The ships of our convoy come from many places, Boston, New York, Portland, even San Francisco. Someone stuck a pin in a map. The spot is right out there in the sea.”

“Our secret meeting place.” Sally wet her lips. It was all so strange.

“It’s all of that,” was the quiet response. “And it better be mighty secret at that. Forty ships, all loaded, food, airplanes, soldiers. There are even a hundred WACS going over in one of those ships.”

“A hundred WACS,” Sally thought as she caught the last spark of light from the shore. There were twelve WAVES on this airplane carrier, and they weren’t just going over, but over and back. There were six women nurses as well. This was to be a trial trip.

“I hope we make good,” she had said to Lieutenant Riggs.

“Oh, you will. I can see it in your eyes.”

“Will we make good?” she asked Nancy.

“We’ll do our best,” was the solemn reply. “But what about the secret radio?”

“We can always listen for the subs. They can’t detect our listening. Perhaps that’s the most important of all.”

“Silent Storm has the other set?”

“Yes. He’ll be standing by for a half hour in the morning and again at night. In an emergency, the secret radio might help. Other than that, silence is the order of the day.”

“Yes, subs have ears,” Nancy agreed. “Loose talk may sink a ship.”

“It’s nice to have Danny on the ship.”

“Which do you like best, Danny or Storm?” Nancy asked.

“I like them both, but in different ways. Storm is like a big brother. He helps a lot. Danny’s just a very nice boy.”

“And really nice boys are about the nicest creatures in the world.” Nancy laughed low.

“I’m going below for a few winks of sleep.” Sally turned away. “There’ll be work to do later.”

“I couldn’t sleep now. It’s all too strange,” Nancy murmured, her eyes on the sea.

And indeed for this American girl it was strange. All her life she had been looked after, cared for. The things she wanted she got. She had joined the WAVES to do her bit but with the thought that she would remain in America. Now, caught up and carried on by Sally’s enthusiasm, she had gone to sea. She had been told that theirs was to be a slow convoy, that they would be twelve days at sea.

“Twelve days,” she whispered, looking away at the dark waters of night. “Twelve nights.” Losses from sinking were greater in these days than ever before. She could swim, but shuddered at the thought of being thrown into those cold, black, miserable waters. How was it all to end?

“Whatever happens, I’m in it to the end,” she had written her mother just before she sailed.

“And that’s that,” she told herself stoutly as she turned to make her way down the ladder to the forward cabins on the deck below where the nurses and the WAVES had their quarters.

Four hours later Sally found herself standing on the ship’s tower. Beside her stood Lieutenant Riggs. Riggs was a veteran ship’s radio engineer. No one seemed to know how old he was. He was tall, erect, every inch a sailor. His steel gray hair told that he was not young. His sharp, darting eyes had told Sally that here was a man who would demand exactness of service and never-failing loyalty. And she loved him for that.

She was feeling a bit nervous, for this was to be her first testing at sea. They had arrived at the place of meeting, an unmarked spot in an endless sea, ahead of the other members of the convoy.

Just a moment, before, she had caught a winking blink on the horizon.

“There’s one, south southwest,” she had said to Riggs.

“You have good eyes,” he commended. “Give them this message. See if they get it.”

As he read off the location the other ship was to take in relation to the airplane carrier, she blinked it out in code with the aid of an electric blinker, aimed like a gun at the other ship.

They waited. Then came the answering blinks.

“They got it,” she said simply. “They will go at once to their position.”

“Very good,” was his quiet reply.

For a full hour after that they stood there, he giving orders in a low monotone and she blinking them across the waters to some newly-arrived ship. As the work went forward, her heart swelled with pride. She was part of something really big. Great ships moved in on the dark horizon, ships loaded with oil, airplanes, food, soldiers, everything that is vital to war. Like an usher in some great theater of the sea, she told each ship where its place was to be and it silently glided into position.

“This,” she murmured, “is the life!”

“You are doing very well,” was Riggs’s comment. “Not a mistake yet.”

There were no mistakes. When the last ship had taken its position, there came low orders passed from man to man. Then they began moving on into the night.

Still Sally and Lieutenant Riggs held their places. One ship had forgotten or failed to receive the hour of departure. A question blinked to them was speedily answered. Then they too began to move.

A half hour later a tanker lagging behind was ordered to put on more steam.

And so it went until four hours were gone. Then Nancy appeared with a young lieutenant and Sally crept away to her quarters for more sleep.

“How do you like it?” a gray-haired nurse with a kindly face asked.

“Fine, so far,” was her answer. “Just swell. And so different!”

“Yes, it’s different all right. You might like to know,” the nurse’s voice dropped to a whisper, “I’m Danny Duke’s mother.”

“Danny’s mother!”

“He told me about you and Nancy. He likes you.” The gray-haired woman gave her a fine smile.

“And we like him. He caught me once, saved me from a broken leg or something,” was Sally’s reply.

“Yes, he told me about that.” She laughed. “Danny’s just a boy, you know. He’s my only child. You won’t tell that I’m his mother?” she begged. “It’s a bit irregular, my being on a ship with him. But I wanted it, so I told them if sons could sail the sea then mothers could, too. So they took me on, just for this trip. It’s sort of a tryout for all of us, you know.”

“Yes, I know. I won’t tell a soul. Thanks so much for telling me.” Sally moved on.