Part 41 (2/2)
In Station Meridian the Director wiped his face. ”Getting anything?”
”No. Boss, can't something be done about that Rio Station? It's sitting right on the frequency!”
”We'll drop a brick on them. Or a bomb. Joe, tell the President.”
”I heard, Director. They'll be silenced!”
”s.h.!.+ Quiet! Betsy-do you hear me?” The operator looked intent, made an adjustment.
From a speaker came a girl's light, sweet voice: ”-to hear somebody! Gee, I'm glad! Better come quick-the Major is hurt.”
The Director jumped to the microphone. ”Yes, Betsy, we'll hurry. You've got to help us. Do you know where you are?”
”Somewhere on the Moon, I guess. We b.u.mped hard and I was going to kid him about it when the s.h.i.+p fell over. I got unstrapped and found Major Peters and he isn't moving. Not dead-I don't think so; his suit puffs out like mine and I hear something when I push my helmet against him. I just now managed to get the door open.” She added, ”This can't be Farside; it's supposed to be night there. I'm in suns.h.i.+ne, I'm sure. This suit is pretty hot.”
”Betsy, you must stay outside. You've got to be where you can see us.”
She chuckled. ”That's a good one. I see with my ears.”
”Yes. You'll see us, with your ears. Listen, Betsy. We're going to scan the Moon with a beam of light. You'll hear it as a piano note. We've got the Moon split into the eighty-eight piano notes. When you hear one, yell, 'Now!' Then tell us what note you heard. Can you do that?”
”Of course,” she said confidently, ”if the piano is in tune.”
”It is. All right, we're starting-”
”Now!”
”What note, Betsy?”
”E flat the first octave above middle C.”
”This note, Betsy?”
”That's what I said.”
The Director called out, ”Where's that on the grid? In Mare Nubium? Tell the General!” He said to the microphone, ”We're finding you, Betsy honey! Now we scan just that part you're on. We change setup. Want to talk to your Daddy meanwhile?”
”Gos.h.!.+ Could I?”
”Yes indeed!”
Twenty minutes later the Director cut in and heard: ”-of course not, Daddy. Oh, a teensy bit scared when the s.h.i.+p fell. But people take care of me, always have.”
”Betsy?”
”Yes, sir?”
”Be ready to tell us again.”
”Now!” She added, ”That's a bullfrog G, three octaves down.”
”This note?”
”That's right.”
”Get that on the grid and tell the General to get his s.h.i.+ps up! That cuts it to a square ten miles on a side! Now, Betsy-we know almost where you are. We are going to focus still closer. Want to go inside and cool off?”
”I'm not too hot. Just sweaty.”
Forty minutes later the General's voice rang out: ”They've spotted the s.h.i.+p! They see her waving!”
AFTERWORD.
In 1931 I was serving in LEXINGTON (CV-2). In March the Fleet held a war game off the coast of Peru and Ecuador; for this exercise I was a.s.signed as radio compa.s.s officer. My princ.i.p.al duty was to keep in touch with the plane guards, amphibians (OL8-A), guarding squadrons we had in the air-i.e., the squadrons were carrierbased land planes; if one was forced to ditch, an amphibian was to land on the water and rescue the pilot.
No radar in those days and primitive radio-the pilots of the plane guards were the only ones I could talk to via the radio compa.s.s. The fighters had dot-dash gear; the radio compa.s.s did not. To get a feeling for the limitations of those days, only 28 years after the Wright brothers' first flight, see my ”The Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail” in Time Enough For Love, PutnamlBerkleylNEL.
A radio compa.s.s depends on the directional qualities of a loop antenna. To talk you rotate the antenna for maximum signal; turn it 90 and you get a minimum signal that marks the direction of the other radio-or 180 from it but you are a.s.sumed to know whether your beacon is ahead or behind you-and you do in almost every case where it matters, such as going up a channel in a fog. That minimum will tell you direction within a degree or two if the other radio is close enough, loud enough.
If it's too far away, the signal can fade to zero before you reach the bearing you need to read, and stay zero until well past it. No use turning it back 90 to try to locate it by the maximum signal; that curve is much too flat.
Late afternoon the second day of the exercise we were in trouble; the other squadrons were landing but VF-2 squadron was lost-all too easy with one-man fighter planes before the days of radar. The captain of the squadron, a lieutenant commander, held one opinion; the pilot of the amphib held another-but his opinion did not count; he was a j.g. and not part of the squadron. The juniors in the squadron hardly had opinions; they were young, green, and depending on their .~kipper-~znd probably had fouled up their dead reckoning early in the flight.
The squadron captain vectored for rendezvous with the carrier, by his reckoning. No carrier. Just lots and lots of ocean. (I was in the air once, off Hawaii, when this happened. It's a lonely feeling.) No sign of the U.S. Fleet. No SARATOGA (CV-3), no battles.h.i.+ps, no cruisers. Not even a destroyer scouting a flank. Just water.
At this point I found myself in exactly the situation described in SEARCHLIGHT; I could talk to the plane guard pilot quite easily-but swing the loop 90 and zero signal was spread through such a wide arc that it meant nothing. . . and, worse, the foulup in navigation was such that there was no rational choice between the two lobes 180 apart.
And I had a personal interest not as strong as that of Betsy Barnes' father but strong. First, it was my duty and my responsibility to give that squadron a homing vector-and I couldn't do it; the equipment wasn't up to it. Had I kept track of vectors on that squadron all day- But that was impossible; Not only had I had four squadrons in the air all day and only one loop but also (and d.a.m.ning) there was war-game radio silence until the squadron commander in trouble was forced to break it.
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