this room and looked out of the window; the casement window frame lay on
the ground below, blown from Older Woman Thumbnail its hinges.
He went upstairs, and found the main transmitting room. There were Older Woman Thumbnail two
transmitting desks, each with a towering metal frame of grey radio
equipment in Older Woman Thumbnail front of it. One of these sets was dead and silent, the
instruments all at zero.
The other set stood by the window, and here the casement had been blown
from its hinges and lay Older Woman Thumbnail across the desk. One end of the window frame
projected outside the building and teetered gently in the light breeze. Older Woman Thumbnail one
Older Woman Thumbnail of the upper corners rested on an overturned Coke bottle on the desk. The
transmitting key lay underneath the frame that rested Older Woman Thumbnail unstably above it,
teetering a little in the wind.
He reached out and touched it with Older Woman Thumbnail his gloved hand. The frame rocked on
the transmitting key, and the needle of a milliammeter Older Woman Thumbnail upon Older Woman Thumbnail the set Older Woman Thumbnail flipped
upwards. He released Older Woman Thumbnail the frame, and the needle fell back. Older Woman Thumbnail there was one of
U.S.S. Scorpion'
s missions completed, something that they had come ten
thousand miles to see, that had
absorbed so much effort and attention in
Australia, on the other side of the world.
He lifted the window frame from the transmitting desk and set it down
carefully on the floor; the woodwork was not damaged Older Woman Thumbnail and it could be
Older Woman Thumbnail repaired and put back in Older Woman Thumbnail its place quite easily. Then he sat down at the
desk and with gloved hand upon the key began transmitting in English and in
clear.
He sent, "Santa Maria sending. U.S.S. Scorpion reporting. No life here.
Closing down." He went on repeating this message over and over again, and
while he was doing so the siren blew three blasts.
Older Woman Thumbnail as he sat there, his Older Woman Thumbnail mind only half occupied with the mechancial
repetition of the signal that he knew was almost certainly being monitored
in Australia, his eyes roamed around the transmitting office. Older Woman Thumbnail There was a
carton of American cigarettes with only two Older Woman Thumbnail packs removed that he longed
for, but the captain'
s orders had been very definite. There were one or
two
bottles of Coke. On a window sill there was a pile of copies of The
Saturday Older Woman Thumbnail Evening Post.
He finished transmitting when he judged he Older Woman Thumbnail had been at it for twenty
minutes. In the three final repetitions he added the words, "Lieutenant
Sunderstrom sending. All Older Woman Thumbnail well on board. Proceeding northwards