The Dangerous Book for Boys Page 9

  The SOS sequence in Morse is dit dit dit—dah dah dah—dit dit dit.

  This really is one worth learning. Rescuers have heard messages tapped out underneath fallen buildings, heard whistles or seen the flashes from a capsized dinghy. This cipher has saved a large number of lives over the years since its invention. It has also sent quite a few train timetables.

  If you do have a flag handy, it’s left for a dash, right for a dot. This is not so well known.

  U.S. Naval Flag Codes

  EVEN IN THESE DAYS of radio and satellite communications, the U.S. Navy uses the international alphabet flags, numeral pennants, numeral flags, and special flags and pennants for visual signaling. These signal flags are used to communicate while maintaining radio silence. Navy Signalmen transmit messages by hoisting a flag or a series of flags on a halyard. Each side of the ship has halyards and a “flag bag”, containing a full set of signal flags. Signals unique to the Navy are used when communicating with other U.S. Navy or allied forces. When communicating with all other vessels, the International Code of Signals is used. The code/answer pennant precedes all signals in international code.

  Flag Name Phonetic Pronunciation Navy Meaning International Meaning

  ALFA AL-fah I have a diver down; keep well clear at slow speed.

  BRAVO BRAH-voh I am taking in, discharging, or carrying dangerous cargo.

  CHARLIE CHAR-lee “Yes” or “affirmative”.

  DELTA DELL-tah I am maneuvering with difficulty; keep clear.

  ECHO ECK-oh I am directing my course to starboard.

  FOXTROT FOKS-trot I am disabled; communicate with me. On aircraft carriers: Flight Operations underway

  GOLF GOLF I require a pilot.

  HOTEL hoh-TELL I have a pilot on board.

  INDIA IN-dee-ah Coming alongside. I am directing my course to port.

  JULIET JEW-lee-ett I am on fire and have dangerous cargo; keep clear.

  KILO KEY-loh I wish to communicate with you.

  LIMA LEE-mah You should stop your vessel immediately.

  MIKE MIKE My vessel is stopped; making no way.

  NOVEMBER no-VEM-bur No or negative.

  OSCAR OSS-kur Man overboard.

  PAPA pah-PAH All personnel return to ship; proceeding to sea (Inport).

  QUEBEC kay-BECK Boat recall; all boats return to ship. Ship meets health regs; request clearance into port.

  ROMEO ROH-me-oh Preparing to replenish (At sea). Ready duty ship (In port).

  SIERRA see-AIR-ah Conducting flag hoist drill. Moving astern.

  TANGO TANG-go Do not pass ahead of me. Keep clear; engaged in trawling.

  UNIFORM YOU-nee-form You are running into danger.

  VICTOR VIK-tah I require assistance.

  WHISKEY WISS-kee I require medical assistance.

  XRAY ECKS-ray Stop carrying out your intentions and watch for my signals.

  YANKEE YANG-kee Ship has visual communications duty. I am dragging anchor.

  ZULU ZOO-loo I require a tug.

  ONE WUN Numeral one.

  TWO TOO Numeral two.

  THREE TREE Numeral three.

  FOUR FOW-er Numeral four.

  FIVE FIFE Numeral five.

  SIX SICKS Numeral six.

  SEVEN SEV-en Numeral seven.

  EIGHT AIT Numeral eight.

  NINE NIN-er Numeral nine.

  ZERO ZEE-roh Numeral zero.

  Making Crystals

  HAVING A CRYSTAL growing on your windowsill can be good fun. With food coloring, you can make them any color you wish.

  The problem is finding a suitable chemical. You may have seen copper sulfate and potassium permanganate in school. Both can be quite toxic and are therefore not easily available in local drugstore. Your science teacher may allow you to have a sample, if you ask very politely.

  For this chapter, we decided to use potassium aluminum sulfate, better known as alum powder. It is a non-toxic substance that used to be used to whiten bread. As with any household substance, you shouldn’t get it in your eyes. It is available from the following website: www.sciencecompany.com. It is also commonly sold as foot powder. 1 ounce will cost you about $3 at the time of writing, not including postage. That is enough for crystal making, but alum can be used for fireproofing and tanning skin—as discussed in other chapters. It also works as an astringent on small cuts, or the crystals can be used as an underarm deodorant. You might want to get more. Alternatively, you can grow crystals with common salt or sugar.

  * * *

  You will need

  10 grams of potassium aluminum sulfate (alum).

  A glass tumbler.

  A Popsicle stick (clean).

  Warm water.

  Thread.

  Small stones, preferably with sharp edges.

  * * *

  METHOD

  1.Make sure the stones are clean—wash them thoroughly in running water.

  2.Put enough warm water in the tumbler to cover the stones. (About a third of the cup.) Do not put the stones in yet.

  3.Add the alum and stir furiously with the stick until it stops dissolving easily. You may be left with a few grains at the bottom. Ignore them. You can either put the stones straight in or, for the classic look, tie a thread around a small stone and the other end around the stick, as in the pictures. We did both.

  4.If you are intending to add food coloring, do it now. Show proudly to parents, who will pat you on the head for being a “little genius.”

  Evaporation is the key for these small crystals, so make sure it is in a warm place. It will take a few days for the first ones to appear, and the full effect can take a few weeks. Larger crystals can be made by repeating the process—after tying a small crystal to the thread.

  The crystal you see here is a picture of the one we grew—the one on the left, not the enormous thing. The huge circle came from the bottom of the glass and in many ways is more impressive than the actual crystal. It took about six weeks in total, and we refilled the alum once.

  Extraordinary Stories—Part One

  STORIES OF COURAGE and determination are sometimes underrated for their ability to inspire. It is true that once-famous names can slip from the memory of generations, names like Charles George Gordon, Richard Francis Burton, Florence Nightingale, Robert Scott, Herbert Kitchener, Henry Morton Stanley, Rudyard Kipling, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and a host of others. Their lives, their stories, were once known to every schoolboy; held up as examples of fortitude and honor. These values have not ceased to be important in the modern world, nor have the stories become less moving. We have chosen five of our favorites. They range from Nelson’s death at Trafalgar to the astonishing modern story of Joe Simpson’s struggle in the mountains of Peru. These are all tales worth knowing.

  Robert Scott and the Antarctic

  Robert Falcon Scott was born on June 6, 1868. All his life, he was known as “Con,” a short form of his middle name. He came from a seafaring family, with uncles, grand-uncles and grandparents all serving in the Royal Navy. His father owned a small brewery in Plymouth, England, that had been bought with prize money from the Napoleonic wars.

  “Con” Scott joined HMS Boadicea at the age of thirteen as a midshipman. It was a hard world, requiring instant obedience and personal discipline. By twenty-two, he was a lieutenant with first-class certificates in pilotage (steering/navigation), torpedoes and gunnery, with the highest marks in his year for seamanship.

  He had met Sir Clements Markham, the president of the Royal Geographical Society, more than once in the course of his naval duties, impressing the older man with his intelligence and demeanor. When, at the turn of the century, the Royal Society wanted someone to head an expedition to the South Pole, Sir Clements Markham fought to have Scott lead the group.

  Scott had no experience of the extremes he would be facing at that point in his career. He solved this problem by consulting those who had, traveling to Oslo to consult with Fridtjof Nansen, a Norwegian explorer of Arctic regions who would later bec
ome the Norwegian ambassador to London. They became firm friends and Scott accepted Nansen’s advice to get dogs to pull sleds, buying twenty dogs and three bitches in Russia for his first attempt on the South Pole.

  By 1900, the first members of the team were appointed. Scott had insisted on personal approval of all appointments and was able to make quick decisions. With an idea of the hardship ahead, most were young and fit, though when Scott met Edward Wilson, a young doctor and artist, the man was suffering from an abscess in his armpit, blood poisoning and lungs weakened by tuberculosis. Nonetheless, Scott appointed him. He also chose one Ernest Shackleton, whose own courageous story would become famous later on.

  Robert Scott

  With the money Sir Clements Markham had raised, the ship Discovery was built, costing £49,277 ($92,000), and launched on March 21, 1901. Scott also purchased a balloon for the voyage, costing £1300 ($2,400). The young King and Queen, Edward VII and Alexandra, came on board to see the ship at Cowes. Sir Clements Markham said of the crew, “No finer set of men ever left these shores, nor were men ever led by a finer captain.”

  The trip south was slow and difficult. Discovery leaked and could not make more than seven knots under full steam. However, they reached New Zealand and had the leak fixed as well as taking on supplies. They sailed on into the ice packs and the high southern latitudes. Scott and Shackleton were the first people ever to take a balloon trip in the Antarctic, though that too developed a leak and was used only once.

  Their lack of experience showed in a number of ways, from misjudging distances and the difficulties of driving dogs, to protecting the skin and cooking in low temperatures. They had to learn vital skills very quickly in an environment where sweat froze and a blizzard could strike without warning. However, they did learn, spending a year in an icy landscape, out of which their ship seemed to grow.

  In November 1902, they made a push to the Pole, but the dogs sickened. They were the first to cross the 80th parallel, after which all maps were blank. They began to kill the dogs, feeding them to the others. Shackleton developed the first symptoms of scurvy due to a lack of vitamins in his diet and the pain of snow blindness became so great for Wilson that he had to use a blindfold and follow Scott’s voice. After an attempt lasting ninety-three days, they were 480 miles from the Pole when Scott gave the order to turn back on December 31. More dogs died on the way back to the ship, but the men all survived to try again.

  A support ship, the Morning, resupplied the expedition and took some members home, including Shackleton. Research trips continued, despite recording temperatures as low as –67°F. The Discovery had become solidly wedged and it took a combination of relief ships and dynamite to free her after two years on the ice. They returned to Portsmouth in September 1904. Still on special leave from the Royal Navy, Scott was appointed Captain on the strength of his achievements. There were exhibitions of drawings and scientific samples, lectures and tours. Scott became something of a celebrity, publishing a two-volume account of the expedition, complete with Wilson’s dramatic pictures. Despite his relative success, the government ignored Scott’s plea to save the Discovery and she was sold.

  In 1907, Scott went back to sea as Captain on various ships, and met and married Kathleen Bruce in 1908. Shackleton tried a trip of his own, but his team turned back when they were only ninety-seven miles from the Pole. The lure of the Antarctic had struck deep in both Scott and Shackleton, but it was Scott’s second expedition of 1910 that was to become famous around the world.

  Scott wrote that “the main object of the expedition is to reach the South Pole and secure for the British Empire the honour of that achievement.” Science would play a lesser part in the second strike for the Pole.

  Scott had learned from his previous experiences and consulted once again with Nansen while the money was raised and the team came together. Funds came slowly and more than one member of the expedition collected money to earn their place. Captain L.E.G. Oates was in charge of ponies. Wilfred Bruce, Scott’s brother-in-law, was sent to Russia to buy the vital sled-dogs and Siberian ponies. They also experimented with motor sledges.

  The Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen was also heading south. Originally, his intentions had been to explore the Arctic, but an American, Robert Peary, claimed to have reached the North Pole in 1909 and Amundsen now had his sights set on the unconquered southern pole. He had a hundred dogs with him and supplies for two years. He knew the conditions and he had planned the route. Scott was still struggling to collect funds in New Zealand and Australia. The final stores were loaded and the ship Terra Nova sailed on November 29, 1910. Two months before, Scott had received a telegram from Amundsen, sent after he had sailed. It had read only, “Beg leave inform you proceeding Antarctic. Amundsen.”

  Terra Nova entered the pack ice on December 9, smashing its way through and finally anchoring to solid ice in January 1911. The sledges, base equipment and supplies were unloaded—and the heaviest motor sledge broke through the ice, disappearing into the sea. The slow process of a pole attempt began, with camps established further and further south. The ponies did not do at all well and frostbite appeared very early on amongst the men.

  Conditions were awful, with constant blizzards pinning them in their tents. The ponies were all dead by the time they reached the last camp, after dragging the sledges up a 10,000-foot glacier. Scott picked Wilson, Evans, Oates and Bowers for the final slog to the Pole, with each man hauling 200 pounds on sledges.

  The smaller team of five battled through blizzards to reach the 89th parallel, the last before the Pole itself. It was shortly afterwards that they crossed the tracks of Amundsen and his dog teams. Scott and the others were touched by despair, but went on regardless, determined to reach the Pole.

  They finally stood at the southernmost point on earth on January 17, 1912. There they found a tent, with a piece of paper that bore the names of five men: Roald Amundsen, Olav Olavson Bjaaland, Sverre Hassel, Oscar Wisting and Hilmer Hanssen. The note was dated December 14, 1911. The disappointment weighed heavily on all of them—there have been few closer races in history with so much at stake.

  The return journey began well enough, but Evans had lost fingernails to the cold, Wilson had strained a tendon in his leg, Scott himself had a bruised shoulder and Oates had the beginnings of gangrene in his toes. In such extreme conditions of exhaustion, even small wounds refused to heal. They had all paid a terrible price to be second.

  Captain L.E.G. Oates

  Food began to run short and every supply dump they reached was a race against starvation and the cold. Oil too ran low and freezing to death was a real possibility. Evans collapsed on February 16, and never fully recovered. He struggled on the following day, but he could barely stand and died shortly afterward.

  Wilson too was growing weak, so Scott and Bowers made camp by themselves in temperatures of −43 °F.

  On March 16 or 17, Oates said he could not go on and wanted to be left in his sleeping bag. He knew he was slowing them down, and that their only slim chance may have been vanishing. The next morning, there was a blizzard blowing. Oates stood up in the tent and said, “I am just going outside and may be some time.”

  Scott wrote in his diary, “We knew that poor Oates was walking to his death, but though we tried to dissuade him, we knew it was the act of a brave man and an English gentleman.” Oates was not seen again and his body has never been found.

  By March 20, Scott knew he would lose his right foot to frostbite. They were only eleven miles from a camp, but a blizzard prevented them from moving on and staying still was a slow death for the three men remaining. They had run out of oil and had only two days of starvation rations left. They had run out of time and strength. Scott made the decision to try for the depot, but it was beyond them and they did not leave that last position. Scott’s final diary entry was, “It seems a pity, but I do not think that I can write more. R. Scott. For God’s sake look after our people.”

  With the diary ended, Sc
ott wrote letters to the families of those who had died, including a letter to his own wife, where he mentioned their only son.

  I had looked forward to helping you to bring him up, but it is a satisfaction to know that he will be safe with you . . . Make the boy interested in natural history if you can. It is better than games. They encourage it in some schools. I know you will keep him in the open air. Try to make him believe in a God, it is comforting . . . and guard him against indolence. Make him a strenuous man. I had to force myself into being strenuous, as you know—had always an inclination to be idle.

  He also wrote a letter to the public, knowing that his body would be found.

  We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of providence, determined still to do our best to the last . . . Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for.

  Scott knew that the expedition funds were crippled by debt and his last thoughts were the fear that their loved ones would be made destitute by what was still owed. In fact, enough donations came in when the story was known to pay all debts and create grants for the children and wives of those who had perished.

  The men were found frozen in their tent by the team surgeon, Atkinson, in November of that year. The diaries and letters were recovered, but a snow cairn was built over their last resting place ready for the day when the moving pack ice would ease them into the frozen sea. The search party looked for Oates without success, finally erecting a cross to him with the following inscription.