Presently Riggs came hurrying back. Nancy and Sally remained in the radio room, dividing their time between listening for messages from the outside world, and watching with awe the ever-narrowing circle being drawn about the convoy by the enemy sub pack.

Riggs busied himself getting off messages from station to station on the ship. All men were ordered to their posts. Planes not in readiness were prepared for flight. Some were hoisted from the lower deck to flight deck.

“It’s like a calm before a terrible storm,” Nancy said to Sally. Soon enough they were to learn what an actual storm could mean to a convoy at sea. For the present, however, there was quite enough to occupy their minds.

Once, when Sally climbed the ladder to the flight deck for a breath of air, she chanced to bump into Danny Duke.

“Oh, Danny!” she exclaimed. “Must you go out?” He was garbed in flying togs. A parachute hung at his back.

“Sure!” He laughed. “What do you think I trained for? A game of volleyball?”

She didn’t think. She just didn’t want anyone she liked as well as Danny to be out there fighting subs, dodging antiaircraft fire and watching the black sea that waited to swallow him up.

At last, as dawn approached and a young officer came to take her place, Sally closed up her black box, removed the wires and marched away to store it under her berth.

“Stay there a while,” she whispered, “until we know whether you mean honor or disaster for me.”

It was with a sober face that she returned to the flight deck. She found the planes that were to go all in place, their motors turning over slowly.

She caught a quick breath as the first plane took off; then the second and third had whirled away when a hand waved to her as a voice shouted:

“Hi, Sally! See you later!”

It was Danny. In ten seconds he was not there.

“Gone! Just like that.” She swallowed hard to keep back the tears.

“Yes, just like that,” came in a quiet voice. Sally turned to find Danny’s mother standing beside her.

“Tha—that was Danny,” Sally murmured hoarsely.

“Yes, that was my boy, Danny.”

“Did—did you want him to go?” Sally asked.

“Of course, my child. He’s well prepared, Danny is. It’s the work he was trained to do. Our country is at war. We must all do our part.” The mother’s eyes were bright, but no tears gleamed there.

“It’s so much easier to dream of war than it is to see it, feel it, and be a part of it,” Sally murmured.

“Yes, dreams are often more pleasing than the realities of life,” Danny’s mother agreed.

Sally stood where she was. There was comfort to be had from communing with this big, motherly woman, comfort and peace. And just then she was greatly in need of peace, for she was being weighed in the balance. The next few moments would decide everything. And so she stood there waiting for the answer.

And then the answer came, a deep-toned muffled roar, that seemed to shake the sea.

“They’ve found them,” Mrs. Duke said. “That’s a bomb.”

“They were there. They’ve found them!” Sally wanted to shout for joy. She said never a word, just stood there thinking: “Good old C. K. will be famous because of his secret radio. I won’t be court-martialed and thrown out of service for bringing it on board. Perhaps it has saved the convoy from attack, may save it again and again. Glory! Glory!”

Just then there came another roar. This was followed by a series of pom-pom-poms.

“That’s antiaircraft fire,” said Danny’s mother.

“Does it come from our destroyers?” Sally asked.

“No. We are the ones who have airplanes, not they. Besides, our guns on the destroyers don’t sound like that. You’ll hear them. There! There’s one now!”

There had come a boom that seemed to roll away to sea. There was another and another.

All this time, for all the world as if they were anchored in some harbor, the forty ships laden with freight and human cargo kept their places and moved majestically forward.

“It’s beautiful,” Danny’s mother murmured.

“And terrible!” Sally added with a sigh.

Soon from all sides there came the roar of bombs, the pom-pom-pom of antiaircraft fire, and all the time Sally was thinking: “Danny! Oh, Danny!”

And what of Danny? Having been told the course he should take, he had gone gliding straight away toward his supposed objective. Nor did he miss it. Feeling safe in their false security, the eight enemy submarines on the surface had come gliding silently toward the apparently defenseless convoy.

At the sound of Danny’s roaring motor, the sub he had been sent to destroy crashdived, but too late. Swooping low, Danny released a bomb with unerring accuracy. It missed them by feet, but when it exploded it brought the sub to the surface with a rush and roar of foam.

By the time Danny could swing back, three of the enemy had manned an antiaircraft gun, but, nothing daunted, Danny again swung low and this time he did not miss. His bomb fell squarely on the ill-fated craft and it exploded with a terrific roar.

But before this could happen, the antiaircraft gun had put a shell squarely through the body of Danny’s plane, ripping the radio away, damaging the plane’s controls, and missing sending Danny to oblivion by only a foot or two.

“That,” said Danny, as if talking of someone other than himself, “was your closest miss. Another time, they’d get you. But that other time won’t be—ever. So how about getting back to the ship?” Yes, how? His motor was missing, and his controls stuck at every turn.

In the meantime three planes came zooming back. Anxiously Sally waited as the landing crews made them fast. Danny’s plane was not among them.

One plane, a two-seated dive-bomber, had been shot up. Its pilot was wounded. Mrs. Duke went away to care for him.

The other two planes remained on board just long enough to take on more bombs. Then they were off again.

Catching Sally’s eye, the Captain motioned her to join him at the bridge.

“It’s marvelous!” he told her. “That secret radio of yours has saved ships and lives. Eight subs all ready to pounce on us and now look—” He swung his arm in a broad circle taking in all the gliding ships.

This was high praise. Sally’s bosom swelled with pride. Then—

“Danny?” she said without thinking.

“What about Danny?” He laughed. “Hell be back with the rest. A fine boy. Danny. There are few better. We need a lot of Dannys in this war.”

“Yes—yes, a lot of Dannys, but there’s only one,” she replied absent-mindedly.

She left the bridge to wander back to the deck. One more badly crippled plane made a try for the deck, but missed and fell into the sea.

A line was thrown to the pilot and he was pulled on board.

“Have you seen Danny?” she asked as the man came up dripping wet.

“Dan-Danny?” he sputtered, coughing up salt water. “Why yes, once. He was after a sub. Got him, I guess. But there were the AA guns, you know.”

Yes, Sally knew. She had heard them. Her heart ached at the thought of them.

Other planes came in. Had they seen Danny?

“No Danny.”

Were they going out again?

Orders were not to go. All subs had been accounted for. Looked as if a fog would blow in any time. It had been a grand day.

At last all planes were in but one, and that was Danny’s.

Then came the fog. Drifting in from the north, where fogs are born, it hid every ship of the convoy from Sally’s view.

Turning, she walked bravely along the deck, climbed down the ladder, entered her room, threw herself on her berth, and sobbed her heart out to an empty world.

Finally, she sat up resolutely, and her eyes fell on the secret radio. Here was an idea, perhaps a way out. Danny was out there on the sea. He must be. His plane carried a rubber raft. She would not give up hope. They were not yet too far from shore for heavy searching planes to reach the spot. She would get their location. Then she would radio to Silent Storm. He’d send out a plane, a dozen big planes from the shore. They could not fail to find Danny.

Yes, she would get Storm tonight on the secret radio. But dared she do it? Her splendid body went limp at the thought. This was a terrible world.