CHAPTER XIV

THE FOG

With one accord Ned, Bob, and Jerry looked at one another, their faces close together in the thick fog that was settling down over everything in a white, damp pall.

“There isn’t any doubt of it now!” exclaimed Jerry.

“I should say not!” agreed Bob.

“That’s the voice of Professor Snodgrass,” declared Ned. “I’d know it among a hundred, even if he didn’t use his characteristic talk about some new kind of bug.”

“Mist-flies!” exclaimed Bob. “What are they?”

“Oh, some kind of insect that flies only in a fog--or at least that’s what the professor thinks they are,” commented Jerry.

“Well, now that we’re sure--or almost positively so--that Professor Snodgrass is on board,” suggested Ned, “why not see him? Let’s call out and let him know we’re here--within a hundred feet of him, I should say, though this fog is so thick that he may be several hundred feet off. Voices carry very plainly over water and through heavy mist. I’m going to----”

“You’re going to keep still--at least for a while!” interrupted Jerry, putting his hand over Ned’s mouth in time to prevent that energetic lad from sending out a call to the unseen owner of the voice which sounded so like that of Professor Snodgrass.

“Just wait a bit,” Jerry went on, when Ned had recovered his composure caused by the sudden stoppage of his vocal powers. “I admit that the voice was that of our professor, but maybe it would spoil his plans to be recognized just now or to meet with us.”

“How could it?” asked Bob.

“That’s what I don’t know,” Jerry was frank enough to admit. “But for some reason the professor prefers to remain somewhat concealed. He must have his own reason for that. Very good--it’s his privilege. Now let’s wait until this thing clears up.”

“Do you mean the fog?” asked Ned.

“Partly that, yes. Great guns! isn’t it thick, though? You could almost slice it like cheese.”

“It’s dangerous, too,” said Ned.

“That’s so,” assented Jerry. “This fog adds another danger to this eventful voyage. I never saw mist so thick.”

“What are we going to do?” Bob asked.

“There isn’t anything we can do,” Jerry declared. “All any one can do is to wait for it to lift. I suppose they have a means of sounding some sort of warning signal.”

“No, I didn’t mean so much what can we do about the fog, though that’s bad enough--seems to take away all my appetite,” complained Chunky. “I meant what are we going to do about Professor Snodgrass? Now that we know he’s on board oughtn’t we do something?”

“Yes,” admitted Jerry, “I believe we ought. But not just yet. Let’s wait a while. We’ve got plenty of time. The professor can’t get away any more than we can, and if we start looking for him now we may get him into some sort of mixup. Let matters take their course for a while.”

“I don’t hear anything of him now,” said Ned, listening intently. “He seems to be on the still hunt for his new fog-bugs.”

Though all about them, coming through the white mist, were murmurs of voices and the sound caused by the movement of many bodies, neither of the three lads had a glimpse of Professor Snodgrass. Nor did the echo of his peculiar voice come to them.

The fog seemed to be growing more dense every minute. There was no wind to carry the mist away, and it hung about the disabled troopship like some heavy, white veil. It was actually impossible to see more than fifty feet, and then only dimly. To peer out over the side of the craft was to gaze into a white sea, opaque and impenetrable. To look forward or aft was to note the same thing. From amidships neither stern nor bow of the _Sherman_ could be seen, and men moving about the decks actually collided with one another.

“Why don’t they do something?” complained more than one fretful voice, and it was evident that many were under a great strain.

“What can they do?” asked Jerry, of one of these complaining soldiers. “The invention hasn’t been dreamed of that will dissipate a fog at sea.”

“Well, why don’t the sailors fire guns, blow horns, or something, so we won’t be run down?” went on the other. “We’re floating around here like a log, and we may have a crash before very long.”

“I fancy they’ll start signaling soon,” said Ned.

“How are they going to when they can’t get up steam for the engines?” Bob asked.

“Oh, they’ve got donkey engines for hoisting out the cargo,” remarked Jerry. “Those boilers can make steam, and I guess it can be conveyed to the whistles. That will warn other vessels of our nearness. And this fog may be a good thing, too.”

“How do you figure that out?” a corporal wanted to know.

“Well, we’ll begin signaling, and we may be heard by some craft which can help us. It’s queer they didn’t blow the whistle when they found the wireless wasn’t working.”

“Yes, they might have done that,” assented Ned. “But I don’t agree with you, Jerry, that the blowing of a whistle by our ship in this fog will help us any.”

“Why won’t it?”

“Because as soon as any other ship hears our signals she’s going to keep as far away as she can to avoid a collision.”

“That’s so,” admitted the tall lad. “But I presume there’s some sort of whistle code so they can send out a distress call.”

“In that case we’ll be all right,” said Ned. “Well, all we can do is to grin and bear it. The fog seems to have come to stay.”

And this seemed true. Denser and more dense, the white vapor closed around the slowly drifting _Sherman_. The air was cold and damp, and it penetrated through the clothing.

“What causes the fog?” asked Ned of a sailor who rolled past the three friends as they stood at a rail.

“Davy Jones, I guess,” was the answer. “Leastways he gets his full share of ships when a fog like this here one comes. Maybe this here one was caused by icebergs.”

“Icebergs!” cried Jerry.

“Yes, this is the time of year they come down, sometimes. An iceberg is cold, you know, and when it gets in warm air it makes a fog. I’ve been on ships more than once that bunked into ’em.”

“Do they do much damage?” asked Bob.

“Damage!” cried the sailor. “Say, did you ever see a little automobile, the lightest kind there is, going full speed, hit a solid wall of rock?”

“I can imagine what would happen,” admitted Ned.

“Well, that’s what happens when a ship strikes an iceberg,” returned the sailor. “Course we’re not speeding, but if we hit about fifty thousand tons of ice--Aye, aye, sir!” he answered in response to a call from one of the mates, and he moved off through the mist.

“Pleasant prospect,” mused Jerry.

“Let’s don’t think about it,” urged Bob. “Say, I wish we’d stayed in France a few months longer. This being picked to be among the first to go home isn’t as nice as it sounds.”

“Oh, we’ll come out of this all right,” asserted Jerry. “Now let’s consider what’s best to be done in case there is another accident in the fog. We ought to try to find out where Professor Snodgrass is. He’ll never think of trying to save himself if he has as much as one bug to occupy his mind. We’d better try to locate him.”

“I thought you said we wouldn’t force ourselves on him for fear of spoiling his plans,” said Ned.

“We won’t exactly force ourselves on him,” was Jerry’s answer. “But we can inquire from the purser where our friend is placed. That may be his regular cabin where we saw him, or he may only have stepped in there. Once we know where he is we can go there and see that he gets out in case there’s a crash.”

“Yes, that’s a good idea,” agreed Ned and Bob.

They were on their way to the purser, who might be expected to know the names of all on board who were not strictly members of the military force, when they heard from above the deep, hoarse note of a whistle.

“Is that ours?” asked Ned quickly.

“Sounded so,” replied Jerry. “But it may be that another ship is near. Let’s go up and see.”

They hurried on deck to learn that it was their own fog signal whistle which had started sending out its hoarse warning. Steam had been generated in one of the donkey hoisting engine boilers, and, by means of a hastily rigged pipe line, conveyed to the big whistle.

On this there now sounded warning blasts which would tell to other craft in the vicinity the nearness of a ship. And, as the three chums listened, they heard the blasts given in peculiar order--as though spelling out some code word.

“Is that saying anything?” asked Ned of a sailor who loomed up through the mist.

“Yes, that tells whoever hears it that we’re drifting, out of control, and need help.”

“Will help come?”

“Nobody knows,” was the answer. “I don’t believe any other ship would take a chance on coming too close while the fog holds.”

And the fog still held. Like a white blanket it wrapped the transport in its folds, hiding from view everything except in a fifty-foot circle.