Chapter 10 No.10

Jimmy Visits a Lightship off the Coast

For some time after his flight to Northend Jimmy found life rather tame. No really big stories happened in the eastern part of the country. So Jimmy was occupied from day to day with minor tasks that provided little excitement. Yet all the while he was learning more about his job. From day to day he talked with fellow pilots at the Long Island airport, and drew from them as much as he could in the way of helpful suggestions about flying. For some of them had had extremely trying experiences. Whenever he was with newspaper men Jimmy asked as many questions as he could about reporting and news coverage. He bore in mind what the managing editor had said to him: "If you continue to improve, you'll make a great reporter some day." It was Jimmy's ambition to be one of the very best. So he welcomed every experience that added to his knowledge.

Even when his work seemed tamest he was acquiring facts and knowledge with surprising rapidity; and all that he learned enlarged his background and was just so much preparation for the day when he should truly become a great reporter. One of his assignments was to fly out to an incoming steamer in a seaplane and bring ashore some important news photographs from Europe. It was on this flight that Jimmy had his first sight of a lightship anchored at sea. He was instructed to meet the incoming ship near the Ambrose lightship, off the entrance to the Ambrose Channel that leads from the deep water of the sea up to the New York harbor.

Jimmy knew the approximate hour of the steamship's arrival at that point. He flew out to sea a little early, to be certain that he was on time. He was to get the pictures when the ship slowed down to pick up the pilot who was to guide her up the channel to her dock. Arrangements had been made by wireless with the photographer, who was aboard the liner. He was to get the pictures down to Jimmy in the seaplane.

When the latter reached the lightship, the ocean liner was not yet in sight. Jimmy decided that he would not fly out to sea to meet her. He was a little distrustful of all this vast stretch of water about him. He had been ordered to meet the ship when she picked up her pilot. The pilot boat was cruising not far away. Jimmy decided that he would come down on the water, which was very calm, and take a look at the lightship. So he flew close to the vessel, then came down in a long glide, and was soon bobbing safely on the gentle swells of the Atlantic.

The lightship was only a few hundred feet distant. Jimmy turned the nose of his plane toward the vessel and taxied to a point close to leeward of it. He had never seen such a curious craft. It was a clumsy, bunty sort of ship, apparently not more than a hundred feet long, with bulging, bulky bow, like that of a Dutch canal-boat. The sides of the vessel were very high for a ship of her length. The ship was a straw color; and painted on her hull in huge letters was the word Ambrose. She had two masts, and at the top of each mast was apparently a guide light, protected by a circular black iron grating, to flash out warning signals in the dark.

Jimmy taxied as close to the ship as he dared. The crew of ten or a dozen men was lined up along the leeward rail, watching him. Apparently the men thought he wished to board the ship, for one of them had a light line in his hand. Seeing that, Jimmy decided he would go aboard. He scanned the sea and saw no sign of an approaching liner. Then he forced his plane a very little closer to the lightship and waited. At once the man with the coil of rope drew back his arm and flung the line straight toward Jimmy. It sped through the air, uncoiling as it flew, and dropped lightly on the fuselage of the plane. Jimmy stepped out on a wing and secured the line. In another moment he had been drawn close up to the ship. A port opened. A sailor skilfully drew one wing up to the side of the ship, holding it so it would not bump the vessel. Jimmy walked out on the wing and climbed aboard the vessel. At once his plane was allowed to drift a few fathoms to leeward, where it was safe.

The sailors, eager for news from shore, flocked around Jimmy. They plied him with questions. When he had answered all they asked, he put a few questions himself. He wanted to know about all the interesting things he saw. The huge anchor chain and the anchor itself interested Jimmy. The chain was the thickest chain Jimmy had ever seen. The links were made of iron two inches thick, and each link was strengthened by a cast-iron stud. Jimmy whistled when the captain told him that a single fathom of the chain weighed close to 200 pounds, and that the entire chain, measuring only 120 fathoms, weighed about twelve tons. Of course, the chain had to be moved by an engine.

The anchors, too, attracted Jimmy. One of them was at the bottom of the sea, of course, but the other was stopped fast at the bow of the vessel, ready to be let down at a moment's notice. It was a mushroom anchor, and got its name from its shape; for it looked for all the world like a huge metal toadstool. The circular edge of the anchor was sharp, so it would bite into the bottom of the sea easily.

But the thing that interested Jimmie most was the light. This, the captain said, was an occulting white light, that was visible for twelve out of every fifteen seconds. The light at the forward masthead is always used, excepting when that light is out of commission. Then the after light shines.

"If there was a string of lights like this one, each with a distinctive flash," said Jimmy, "a fellow could find his way by night at sea as easily as he can follow his route on land when he follows the Air Mail beacons."

"There is a string of lights all along the coast," said the captain, "and each has its distinctive flash. Most of them are on land, but a few are floating lights, like this, which mark danger points far out from shore."

Jimmy discovered that the great twelve-inch steam fog-whistle blows for three seconds in each fifteen, when the fog is bad at this light station, and the fog bell rings once every thirty seconds. Once every twelve seconds the submarine bell strikes two groups of two strokes each. And the radio fog-signal of the Ambrose lightship is a continuous string of dashes, exactly like the signal of the radio beacons along the lighted airway. Thus, whether a passing ship's captain sees the light or merely hears the fog-horn, or detects the radio signal, he knows what lightship he is passing.

Jimmy was so much interested in learning about the lightship that he could have spent hours aboard of her, but the captain warned him that the liner was visible on the horizon. Jimmy knew it was time for him to be stirring. His plane was drawn up to the ship and he got carefully aboard of her. Soon he was in the air. He came down close to the pilot-boat, which was ready to put a pilot aboard the approaching steamer. The men on this boat said they would get his photographs for him when they put the pilot aboard the liner.

The big steamer came plowing along, her speed gradually lessening, until she was practically at a standstill. Meantime a rowboat had taken the pilot from the pilot-boat to the side of the liner. The pilot climbed up the ladder at the side of the ship and spoke to the photographer who stood at the rail, ready with his photographs. These were carefully wrapped for protection. He handed them to a sailor who slipped down the ladder with them and put them in the hands of one of the men in the rowboat. The little craft headed about and pulled for the pilot-boat. The liner began to move slowly and presently was steaming away at a rapid rate.

Jimmy was all ready to board his plane when the men got back with his pictures. He stowed them in his coat, climbed carefully aboard his ship, and floated away to a safe distance. Then he rose from the water, headed his plane straight for his landing-place on the southern shore of Long Island, and went streaking back with his pictures. He gave them to a waiting messenger and hustled to get back to his own field.

As he drew near the hangar he noticed great activity. Mechanics were bustling about, ships were on the line, ready to take off, and pilots were getting into their flying togs. Jimmy knew something was in the air. He was just about to ask some one what was up when a mechanic who looked after his ship spied him and shouted: "Call up your office. You are wanted. There's a big story that broke up in Pennsylvania. I've got your ship ready to go at a moment's notice. She's been warming up for half an hour."