The Fantasy Fan, April 1934<br />The Fan's Own Magazine, Various [books you have to read .TXT] 📗

a little recreation. That is why I can say that Norman Ross was normal; two years of friendship means a lot.

Well, one day just after working hours Hegstrom, our boss, called us into his office—both of us together.

"Boys," he said, "I need two operators for Central Asia calls in the night shift. I've always had my eye on you two and I'm going to offer the positions[Pg 13] to you two first. There's a little more responsibility and difficulty, but the pay is higher. Then it's night work. Do you want it? Think it over and tell me tomorrow. It's nothing compulsory."

We thought it over that evening, over glasses of beer, and decided to take it for a change. Hegstrom was pleased.

So we took up the night work. A veteran Oriental call operator broke us in the first night and then we went on our own.

We found the work mightily interesting. Many of the calls came in in broken English. You know, the English that a foreigner speaks that he learned from a book. I handled Persia and a couple of little countries with funny names. My friend Ross took the calls from China.

It was a little odd at first getting used to being alone. When we had the day shift, we were only two out of fifteen operators taking calls from Europe. In the night shift, the big room was empty except for us two. The sound of our typewriters was always extra loud in the silence. But we got used to it, and inside three weeks didn't mind the loneliness a bit. We had a chance to talk to each other occasionally, if Ross and I both happened to get short calls at the same time, and had to wait for the next ones. But the rest of the time the calls kept us busy, taking the messages from the Far East.

[Pg 14]

We had a little trouble, too, getting used to sleeping in daylight. Even with the blinds down you can't forget it's daylight outside and that makes it hard to go to sleep. Neither of us was married so we would hop right home after work (Ross lived with an uncle and aunt) I roomed alone and sleep until middle afternoon. Then we'd dress up and have a meal together and later roam around together looking for diversion. With the increased pay we got for the night work, we were able to see all kinds of expensive shows. Our lady companions liked that and we had just about a choice of any. Then after the show we would steer to some beer garden (thank the Lord Prohibition was repealed ten years ago) and laugh and talk the hours away. Ross and I would boast about our work and tell the girls strange—and a bit distorted—stories of some of the calls we took in from the mysterious East.

But I had better leave these abstract ruminations and return to the story. Only I wanted to show you that Norman Ross was really normal in all respects. Then, too, it eases my troubled mind now to think back to those happy days—days that will never be again.

It was just a month after our transfer that it all happened. Ross was sitting as usual with one leg off the floor, the heel of his shoe on a big throw switch on the control panel. It was a dead switch, though, that had never been taken out. Down low close to his stomach was the typewriter and he typed with his elbows resting on the arms of the chair. It was his own chair that he had bought for that particular purpose[Pg 15] because he said he couldn't do any work with the regular armless chair that other operators used. He had used that chair for two years; Hegstrom didn't care a bit, so long he did his work and did it good. Personally, I think Ross had a spark of laziness in him.

Well the particular night this whole story centers about—now my hand is trembling, I hate to go on. But I must. It will explain things to others. Anyway, Ross was imbedded as per custom with that right leg of his in the air. During ordinary calls he would slowly swing his toe back and forth as his heel rested on the dead switch. Once in a while it would stop and then I would know that something a little exciting was coming to him, war news from the north or perhaps a bandit raid in the stormy western part of China. His typewriter, too, would clack a little sharper as he bore down harder on the keys.

It was along about three a. m. that we had a breathing spell after we both had short calls. We discussed a few clipped plans for the following evening and which of the ladies we would take out. When Ross talked to me, he wouldn't budge an inch. He would merely twist his neck in my direction and talk with that toe of his swinging lazily. We both kept our eye on the clock so that we wouldn't be late for a call—Hegstrom would get mighty fussy over complaints from the central wave-traffic office that operators at our station took calls late, even a few seconds.

So about half a minute before his next call was due, Ross turned from me with a sigh—that is, turned his neck back—and stretched a lazy hand to the[Pg 16] dial to get ready for the carrier wave. My next call wasn't due for another two minutes so I watched my friend without any particular purpose in mind.

He reached a slow hand to his head and adjusted the phones on his ears a bit. Then both his hands dropped into position above the typewriter and I heard him say tonelessly, "Call-call-call—xxw2 call—" and then his voice clipped off like a voice in a broadcast clips off when a tube blows out.

Watching him I saw first that toe of his stop swinging. Something important, I thought to myself. But then I began to sit up tense. In the first place, Ross hadn't touched his keys; in the second place he leaned forward in his chair and dropped his leg to the floor.

Now that may sound silly that I mention his leg dropping to the floor, but to a person that knew Ross as well as I did that is something. I had never seen it happen before.

I sat up stiff as a board. He had just reached up his two hands to the phones and was pressing them closer to his ears like the message was faint.

Now I knew something big was up and I jumped from my chair.

"What's got into you, Norm?" I said, getting in front of him.

But he didn't seem to hear me or know I was there. He only pressed the earphones tighter. When I looked at his face, I was shocked. Only once before had I ever seen that rapt expression—when he got the call from London two years before at the end of that three-month war telling how the whole city had been gassed and bombed, leaving not one soul alive.

I looked at the clock. It was a min[Pg 17]ute past the time for his regular call.

I shook his shoulder. "Listen here, Norm," I yelled. "You've got to get that call or—"

"Listen to this, Bob," he cut in, handing me the phones.

I put them about my ears. All I heard was a faint voice. I pressed the phones close as Ross had done. Then I distinguished it.

In strangely muffled tones, the voice came in, full of sharp hissing sounds and hard consonants. I could understand not a word.

I tore off the phones. "You fool!" I cried. "What's the idea of listening to some foreign station? Look!"—I pointed to the clock—"You're over a minute late on your regular call!"

Ross pointed to the wave-length dial. "See?" he said. "I've got it on the right wave. Eighteen point seven five meters."

I stared a moment in bewilderment. Sure enough, it was where it should be.

"Sure you want eighteen point seven five? Better check," I cried in a small panic, thinking of what Hegstrom would say.

Ross gave me a withering glance which said without words, "Sure I want it? Did I ever lose my memory.

"Well, I can't fuss around here," I said with a hasty glance at the clock. "My call is due in about ten seconds."

Before I took my call I cried to my friend. "Probably something wrong with the dial control. You better try and find your call on some other number."

Then I snapped my button. The carrier wave was already coming in. I had caught my call just in time.

[Pg 18]

"Call-call-call—xxw2-zz5" I spluttered.

Next minute I was busily typing the routine news from Persia. With everything going along smoothly, I turned my eyes in Ross's direction. A good operator can do anything with his eyes while taking routine news; he can even use half his brain to think about other things.

I saw Ross playing with the dial and felt relieved that he was taking my suggestion that something had gone wrong with the works so that the dial was in error. Hegstrom would be awful sore when he got the complaint that Ross had failed to get his call. But then I would be witness that it wasn't his fault at all—that some foreign station had come in on that wave-length and spoiled the regular call. Only it was funny—it came to me then—that the regular call hadn't registered at all; I hadn't heard a background of English in the few seconds I listened to the foreigner. Maybe something had happened to the station in China!

I turned my eyes back to my favorite spot—a dull paint spot on the panel—because I was getting some technical stuff and needed to concentrate.

When I next looked at Ross about two minutes later, I heaved a mighty sigh of relief. He was picking at the keys, taking his call. Only one thing bothered me: his leg was still on the floor. "Oh, well," I thought to myself, "that upset him so much that he's a bit off center," and with this philosophy, I went on with my call in a much more peaceful frame of mind.

I finished my call in about fifteen minutes and then I had a breathing spell of four. I looked at Ross. He still had[Pg 19] that leg of his down on the floor and worse yet, his elbows were not resting on the arms of the chair; they were in the air and he was sitting up in his chair stiff as a knife. But he was peacefully typing out his call so after all everything was all right. I did notice one other thing then but not until later did it become significant: his face, as much of its expression as I could get from a side view, had a look of—I know now what it was although then I couldn't get it—amazement; stark, bewildered amazement.

Restless as I could be while waiting for my next call, I walked to a position just behind Ross to see what it was that had so excited him that his foot was on the floor and his elbows in the air.

I bent down close to see what he had typewritten and then blinked my eyes. The stuff he was taking down was not English any way you looked at it. It was a mess of consonants and s's that sent chills up my spine.

"Listen here," I shouted when I got my wits back, "listen, Ross! What in Heaven's name are you doing? What in thunder is that stuff?"

But Ross kept right on typing as if his life depended on it. Only in one way did he show that he had heard me. He tossed his head sharply once in an unmistakable gesture for me to let him alone.

From this point on my blood pressure rose and my heart pounded—my heart has been pounding ever since then even when I forget for a moment about all this.

I automatically looked at the clock and saw that my next call was due. I calmed down somewhat as I pecked down the routine news. But I felt a[Pg 20] growing fear in my heart as time and again I looked over to my friend to see him typing like a robot, his foot on the floor, elbows in the air. Then my friend, my only real pal, was going crazy—how that thought tortured me. I knew perfectly well that he didn't know any other language than English. Why in the wide world should he