Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Nicholson
Thirty wpm, whilst a good clip, could result in requests for repeats that made the whole business more protracted than if you sent at a more sedate 25 wpm. For some coast stations in Red Sea a speed of 20wpm was more suited, and the same would be best if the other ship was manned by a newish chap. I would soon become fed up to be on the receiving end of some speed fanatic's ego.
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From "The Nymph and the Lamp" by Thomas Raddall - well worth reading
Skane regarded his bony hands and long fingers with the wisps of
black hair on their backs. "I can rip it off at thirty, if that's what you
mean. But it's only swank to do that when twenty-five or less will
handle the traffic. Matt used to say there ought to be a printed motto in
every station working ship traffic
—Twenty's Plenty. When you're young like Sargent you feel the urge
to tear it off as fast as you can, and you get a kick out of it when some
poor fumbling Sparks aboard a tramp has to ask for a repeat. Gives
you a superior feeling; and you repeat at a painful fifteen or twenty,
just to show the chap—and anybody else who may be listening—what
a patient wonder you are. It's a game called 'roasting' that every
operator knows.
"I remember when the first German liner appeared in these waters
after the war. We had a young chap here like Sargent, just out of the
navy and full of hot steam and ginger. We had a few messages for the
German and our boy had a fine time roasting the ears off the
German's junior op. The chap kept asking for repeats, and finally our
wonder boy cracked off 'Get another op.' That's the ultimate insult in
this business, you understand. Well, the German fetched his chief,
who turned out to be an old hand at the game. He copied our
messages all right and then announced he had some stuff for
retransmission to New York. His apparatus was one of those
Telefunken outfits that warble like a canary, and he had something like
two hundred messages, nearly all In German.
He screwed down his key to the least possible working gap and he
zipped those messages at our hero in bunches of ten, going a blue
streak, Clinnett —the wonder boy—was sweating blood inside five
minutes. He couldn't use the station typewriter because the signals
weren't loud enough, so it was pencil and pad, with a duplicate to be
made for every message, a carbon sheet to be whipped into place for
each new message, and the completed messages to be torn off and
marked with the time of receipt—and all that with the German sailing
straight on at about thirty words a minute. I know, because I was here
in the room and so was Matt, and we plugged in to hear the German's
side of the game. The air was quiet. You could sense dozens of other
chaps, ship and shore, listening in—because everyone knew what was
up.
"At the end of the fourth or fifth group Clinnett bad to ask for a repeat
—a signature here, a word or two there. At the end of the seventh he
was asking for whole phrases. You could fairly see the German
grinning. And then it came, a curt little service message in perfect
English, addressed to the O-in-C, Marina, demanding 'Please use
capable operator.' There was dead silence in the phones for a
moment, and then you could hear ships up and down the coast piping
'Hi-hi-hi' — the signal for a laugh. And the laugh was on us, on Marina,
you see. Matt was furious, with Clinnett as much as the Hun."
"What happened?" Isabel asked.
"Matt took over the watch himself, tapping out 'OIC here' in his slow
way and telling the Hun to go on with his messages in groups of ten.
By that time everyone on the coast had stopped to listen, for they all
knew Carney's fist—and they knew what was coming next. A lot of
smart ship ops have been fooled by that fist of Matt's. They think
they've got a slow chum at the other end of the line and they screw
down their keys and try to roast him. Well, Matt's been in this game so
long that the code's his native language—he thinks in dots and
dashes. And nothing bothers him—interference, static, speed—
nothing. He can read the stuff by instinct, and faster than any human
hand could send it. Everyone on the coast knew that, but the German
didn't and away he went like greased lightning with his next ten
messages.
"At the end of them Matt gave him 'R' for the lot, and added 'Send
faster.' The German zipped off another group; and again Matt said
'Send faster.' The Hun was good, mind you; he was sending as fast as
any man could go. But he couldn't keep up that pace His wrist was
getting tired When he tried to cram on a bit more speed it was fatal He
began to make mistakes falling all over himself, going back and
repeating Another group, and Matt cracked off, in that same slow fist,
mind you. 'Send much faster. Have other traffic to clear.' There was a
pause, and the German came on again, going at a terrific rate. But
when he got to the third or fourth message in the group he stumbled
badly, went back and repeated, zipped on for a bit, and stumbled
again.
"At the end of the group it was rather pitiful—like watching a good
penman ruin his fist by trying to write too fast. And of course there was
nothing the German could do or say about the speed—he was dealing
with a shore station. and a shore station in its own official range is
practically the Almighty; its word is law. By the time he got to his
twelfth group the Hun was stumbling and fumbling, making a stuttering
mess of it; and then Matt put an end to it, tapping out in his calm way,
slow and merciless like the cold wrath of God, 'Use recognized code or
get someone who can.'
"You should have heard the chorus in the phones—every op in the
area snickering out 'Hi-hi-hi.' Even Clinnett laughed, standing there
beside Matt with a pair of phones plugged in. And then in the silence
before the German's junior op came on again. sending at Matt's own
rate, a bit over twenty, no more, Matt got out of the chair and motioned
Clinnett towards the pencil and the message pads. 'Take over,' he
said. 'And after this don't act the damned fool at my key.' Can't you
hear him saving that?"