The Secret Wireless Part 18

"Sixty-five letters," he said to himself. "If this cipher is anything like the other, those letters must be arranged in columns of equal size."

For a second he sat scanning the letters. Then he muttered, "What will divide sixty-five evenly?" And a moment later, he answered his own query by adding, "Five, and thirteen."

He paused and again ran his eye along the row of letters. "If this cipher works like the other there must be five rows of thirteen letters each, or thirteen rows of five each. I'll try the five rows first.

That's more like the other cipher."

Swiftly he set down the five rows of letters, thus:

E E A N N R D B O E U N R Y W S E U T T E R O N S N N F E E I A Y W M N V T T A S A N X J U L E I G O K W S N V A T Y I Z L E T K

Eagerly he ran his eye down the columns of letters, as he had become accustomed to doing with the old cipher, but the letters were unintelligible. Next he read the letters across the rows, but with no better result. The eager look faded from his eyes.

"I'll have to try the other," he said, and began to make his letters into rows of five each, thus:

E E A N N R D B O E U N R Y W S E U T T E R O N S N N F E E I A Y W M N V T T A S A N X J U L E I G O K W S N V A T Y I Z L E T K

With renewed eagerness he ran his eye down the first column.

"E-R-U-S-E-N-I-N----" he began, then stopped short in disgust.

"Nothing doing that way," he muttered.

Then he read the letters across the rows: "E-E-A-N-N----"

"They've got me stopped," he said. And he threw down his pencil and sat staring at the paper before him, twisting the letters into every shape he could think of, but to no avail.

Meantime each of the other members of the patrol was going through much the same process. Lew gave up first, acknowledging himself beaten.

Henry sat scowling and working away industriously. Dr. Hardy tried first one combination of letters, then another, but in vain. Willie had laid out the letters in exactly the same way Roy had. But Willie worked differently from any boy in the group. The rest had been feverishly setting down letters as new combinations presented themselves to their minds, whether the combinations seemed logical or not. Willie first arranged his letters in the long rows and sat for many minutes looking intently at them.

At Camp Brady it was Willie who had learned, better than any other member of the patrol, the lesson of observation. When the patrol was practising scouting, which is only another name for close observing, Willie had sat for hours studying the landscapes, even when his fellows teased him. Thus he had learned to see everything within sight and make note of it. And when a guide was needed later, to conduct a party through the midnight woods in quest of the dynamiters' lair, Willie was the scout who was able to do it. He had observed perfectly and so carefully noted what he saw that even in the darkness he could find his way.

So now he examined his long rows of letters until he knew everything about them; and he was certain they told no story. When he was certain, he rearranged the letters, as Roy had done, in rows of five each. Then he laid down his pencil and began another careful search.

He read the topmost line from left to right, and from right to left.

It made no sense. He took the second and found no meaning in it.

Another boy might have skipped the others, but not Willie. Each of the thirteen rows he studied forward and backward.

Then he ran his eye down the first column, just as Roy had done. It spelled nothing. But when he began at the bottom and came upward, an eager light leaped into his eyes. He could make nothing of the lowest five letters; but the eight above certainly spelled two words: "nine sure." If the message was in English, Willie knew he had found something definite to work on. He could make nothing of the second column, either upward or downward. But the third column gave him distinctly the words "twenty four." The next column yielded more words: "Six twenty."

By this time Willie's eyes were flas.h.i.+ng. He turned to the bottom of the last column and began to read upward. A single glance confirmed his suspicion.

"Captain Hardy," he cried, jumping over to his chief, and laying his paper on the captain's desk, "begin at the bottom of the last column and read upward. I believe this cipher is exactly the opposite of the other."

Willie's fellows dropped their pencils and gathered eagerly about their leader as he slowly read the letters, beginning at the bottom of the last column and reading upward and backward in the exact opposite of the way the former messages had been deciphered.

"K," he read, "I-N-G-J-A-M-E-S-T-W-E-N-T-Y-S-I-X-T-W-E-N-T-Y- O-N-E-T-W-E-N-T-Y-F-O-U-R-B-A-L-A-K-L-A-V-A-N-R-E-N-D-E-Z-V- O-U-S-N-I-N-E-S-U-R-E."

"Hurrah for Willie!" cried Roy, who had been putting down the letters as Captain Hardy read them off. "He's solved the problem. Who says boys aren't any good? I'll bet you----"

But Roy was interrupted by his mates. "Read it to us," they demanded.

"It's a funny message," said Roy, and slowly he read the following: "King James twenty six twenty one twenty four----" Then he stopped.

"I can't read the next words," he said.

Captain Hardy took the paper from Roy and read the entire message.

"King James twenty six twenty one twenty four Balaklavan rendezvous nine sure."

"What a queer message," said Henry. "What does it mean?"

"It means," said Captain Hardy, "that the Germans have done their very best to deceive us. They not only changed their cipher, but they sent their message in code. We have read their cipher, but we know no more than we did before. We can never work out their code. All we can do is to guess at the meaning. Our difficulties, instead of being ended, are just beginning. I am more and more convinced that this message is important."

CHAPTER XVIII

TOO LATE

The look of astonishment that appeared on every face at the reading of the message was soon succeeded by one of bewilderment.

"How are we ever going to find out what it means?" demanded Willie. "We can keep juggling letters around until we get them into the proper combinations to make words out of them. But here we've got the words.

And they don't mean anything to us. And I don't see how we're ever going to find out what they do mean. We couldn't juggle words around, too, could we, Captain Hardy?"

"No, Willie. There is no use trying that. The spies know what the words mean, all right enough. And n.o.body else does, unless he has the key to the code. All we can do is to guess what they mean."

"It will take some tall guessing," laughed Roy. "I don't even know what two of those words mean. Read 'em, Willie--those two long ones."

Everybody laughed. "B-A-L-A-K-L-A-V-A-N R-E-N-D-E-Z-V-O-U-S," spelled Willie. "They've got me stopped, too. What do they mean, Captain Hardy?"

"Balaklavan evidently is an adjective referring to Balaklava. Does any one of you remember that word? You've had it in history."

"I know," said Henry. "That's where the Light Brigade made its famous charge in the Crimean War."

"Good," said Captain Hardy. "That's exactly right. So that word evidently refers to a famous battle-ground. Can it be that we have stumbled on a diplomatic message instead of one meant for these spies?

Could it be that this message has anything to do with the situation in the Balkans, I wonder?" and Captain Hardy began to turn the matter over in his mind.

"You didn't tell us what that other word meant," said Roy.

"Oh!" said the captain, with a smile. "That's a word of French origin that means meeting-place. Balaklavan meeting-place, Balaklavan meeting-place," repeated the captain. "This certainly must be an important message. The Chief ought to know about it at once. But I wouldn't dare telephone it. I'd have to take it to him."

"Maybe _we_ could find out what it means," said Roy, "if only you would stay to direct us. Wouldn't it be great if the wireless patrol----"

"Roy," interrupted the patrol leader, "I know how you feel. You are very loyal to the wireless patrol. But this is a case that calls for loyalty to Uncle Sam first. The important thing is to get the message read--not to have it read by any particular persons."

"Let me take the message to the Chief," suggested Lew. "I am no good at this sort of thing, but I can carry a message as fast as anybody. Then you could stay here and help the others."

"Very well, Lew. Take a copy of the message as we caught it, and a copy of the cipher as we arranged it. The Chief will learn as much from them as he would from half an hour's talk. Now hurry."

In a few minutes Lew was speeding toward Manhattan with the message in his pocket, while the remainder of the wireless patrol were drawn up about Captain Hardy's desk, in earnest consultation.

"If only we had an up-to-date history," sighed Henry. "Then we'd know who the sovereigns are in the Balkans. All I know are Peter, of Servia, and it seems to me that he abdicated or died; and Ferdinand, of Bulgaria; and Constantine, of Greece, who abdicated in favor of his son Alexander; and the king of Roumania--isn't his name Ferdinand, too?"