Free The frogmen by 1909-1990 Robb White

with his hands.
    Amos and John and Max also wondered what Tanaka did in the cabin. His navigation, Amos guessed, because he always shut himself in right after taking his evening star sights.
    "He just doesn't want us to know where we're going," John said. "I'd say he was talking to Tokyo every night, only there's no radio."
    "I bet he hides the stuff, papers and things, in the copra somewhere," Max said. "Reeder'll never find it-It was wearing them out. The days in the cabin, the heat, the lousy food, the rain on them sleeping at night. But, most of all, the suspicion and fear and doubt.
    Amos was just settling down to sleep when he saw John come up out of the cockpit and stand on the sacks, looking around. In a moment he waved, beckoning Amos to come aft.
    Amos glanced at his watch. It was two in the morning.
    Stepping carefully over the men asleep on the deck, they went to the cabin. John closed the door and turned up one of the kerosene lamps.
    "I think I've got some answers," he said in a low voice, "only I don't know the questions."

    He went over to the forward wall, which, like the entire cabin structure, was of unpainted wood, the planks stained with diesel oil and sweat and salt. Some dungarees and Tanaka's blue jacket were hanging from rusty nails driven into the wood beside the racks holding the plates.
    John took the clothes down and did something to one of the planks. A whole section of the wall swung open.
    Amos didn't know much about radios, but the one built in behind that wall looked elaborate and expensive, the front of it covered with dials and switches and knobs.
    John said, "Funny Tanaka hasn't mentioned this. That thing's got enough power to shoot a message around the world and pick it up coming back."
    "How'd you find it?"
    "I'm dumb," John said. "It took me two nights to begin wondering about Tanaka saying that we were going to get a message. And then it hit me. How? A sea gull going to drop something on us? A submarine going to come up alongside? So then I figured it's got to be a radio, and if it's a radio it's got to have an antenna and the antenna's got to stick up and the only thing on this tub that sticks up is that little mast up forward. So, tonight, when he went down and locked the door, I put my ear against the mast."
    John smiled. "When I heard that teeny-weeny whine start up inside the mast, I knew there was a big ma-moo in this boat somewhere. Nothing else makes a whine like that."

    "So he's been talking to somebody every night."
    "I don't think so. I'd have heard a key or a bug; you can't kill that racket."
    "Not code. Just talking, whispering."
    "People don't talk any more, Amos. Not since the war started. It's all in code. Anyway, with that stubby antenna, voice wouldn't carry fifty miles. I think all he does every night is listen. For that message."
    Amos stared at the elaborate radio. "Can you run it?"
    "Sure I can run it." John reached out and touched the smooth black cup of the key. "I'm the fastest dit-dah gun in the Navy."
    "Then dit-dah something to Pearl and ask them what's all this with this little boat and the Japanese skipper."
    "What'd they teach you in ensign school?" John asked. "Now in radiomen's school we learned not to listen to anything that didn't come in in the right code on the right day at the right time. Without that, it's just noise."
    "You mean you can't even talk to anybody on that thing?"
    "You can talk, but who's listening? Look, anybody can say anything they want to on the air. How you going to know who they really are if they don't use your code?"
    Amos felt a little foolish.
    "That works both ways," John said. "The enemy doesn't listen, either, unless you're talking in his

    code. Among other things that bother me is why a little boat like this needs a big ma-moo like that? Who are we talking to, and what code are we using?" He looked at Amos. "We ought to find out."
    "How?"
    "He's got a board somewhere in this boat," John said. "It's not in his suitcase;