“Say, we got— This is Brownington Steamship Company. We got a ship in trouble. She just let loose an SOS. The Eureka relayed it to us. She’s making for her but she’ll take six hours. What’s the weather like out there?”

“Can you give me the position?”

“Not exactly—the Eureka didn’t give it. But we’ll get it.”

“What ship is it?”

“Byzantion.”

“Don’t bother then. We have her position when she reported two hours ago. She must have been all right then. Just a minute—”

But the man on the other end was almost wailing: “For God’s sake, hurry. It’s mostly a local crew; they got wives and families. The Register has an extra getting ready now.”

Turning toward the map the Chief bumped into the J. M., dividers and slide-rule in hand.

“I’ll have the gradient wind calculated in about—”

“Put that damn thing away!” snapped the Chief. “No, figure it. But get out of my road!”

The Byzantion was a slow ship, and once disabled would not move at all. He could figure her still being just about where she was before. But the storm had been tearing down toward her at a rate which would be around forty miles an hour. So the ship would be that much nearer the front. He looked at the close-spaced isobars. The ship’s barometer, if anyone bothered to look, would be down around 997 by now; the wind might have risen a full point, maybe more.

“Hello—when she reported, the Byzantion had a nine-point wind—about, well, say fifty miles an hour. Now look here—don’t tell all this to the reporters or to the families either. But you better know. It’s going to get worse. In an hour it’ll be blowing a whole gale, sixty miles an hour anyway. Then for another hour it’ll be worst of all—gusts running over seventy. After that it’ll fall off, but there’ll be lots of wind for twelve hours, and a heavy sea after that. The storm out there is plenty big.”

“Thank you—” the voice still had a wailing tone. “There isn’t anything you can do about it?”

The Chief did not smile, for he recognized the appeal of despair.

“Not a thing. I’m sorry.” And then Whitey was holding out another telephone to him. It was the Register.

For the next hour the Chief spent most of his time trying to tone down the language of editors. “No, it’s not a typhoon. . . . No, it can’t be called a hurricane.” Since it could do no good, he dodged a public statement as to whether the storm was growing worse.