crew lost half of a finger. One of the oilers came down with a fever—a malarial fever, for Pete's sake, smack in the middle of an inland sea! Then something whipped up for mess by Auld Rory must have come from a tainted tin, for on the second morning half the crew turned green and started upchucking all over the place.

Oh, it was a sweet voyage! Bad luck seemed to have taken over the Grampus in a big way.

Somehow, my private luck held, except for the fact that our passenger, finally recovered from his initial fear, had turned into a human question box. From morning to night he pounded my ear with questions. What was this vessel upon which we traveled, he wanted to know, this wondrous vessel which rode at will on or below the waters?

It was a submarine, I told him.

A submarine? And what was a submarine?

The Grampus, I told him. The Grampus was a submarine. Now, go sit in the corner and croon lullabies, Pop!

Aie, what marvels! The grampus was a submarine. So be it! But what was a grampus?

I knew the answer to that one, too, having looked it up in an encyclopedia when I was assigned to the ship.

“A grampus,” I said, “is a type of dolphin, sometimes known as the ‘killer whale,’ because of its fighting habits and deadliness. Not a bad name for this crate, Pop. We've done a bit of killing already, and we'll do more, as soon as we get patched up for another crack at the Nazis.”

He said solemnly, “You make war upon the evil ones?”

“You can say that again,” I told him grimly. “They think they've got us licked, but we've just begun to fight. Our day is coming—and soon.”

He wanted to know what we fought with, then, and I got a chance to show him, because this quiz program went on during one of the blowtorch-and-hammer sessions, and the Old Man had decided to let the gun crew fire a few trial bursts while we were hove to, just to keep their hand in. With his permission, I took old Johnny topside to watch.

He stared, with sagging jaw, as they stripped the gun and loaded it. And when it fired, belching a gout of flame amidst a roar of thunder, he practically went out of his head. He cut for the rail, and if I hadn't clutched his tattered nightgown, he'd have been back in the drink again, only without a raft.

Anyhow, that quenched his curiosity. He was glad to get back to his own quarters and stay there. Which gave me an opportunity to work some more on my incomprehensibly mute receiver.

I was going over my circuits for the 'teenth time when the skipper wandered in and stood there watching quietly. At last he said, “No luck, eh, Sparks?”

“Skipper,” I said flatly, “there's no luck aboard this ship any more. Here or elsewhere.”

“I know what you mean, Jake,” he nodded. “It's almost as if we were hoodooed, isn't it? Jinxed?”