"Arnold, H F - Night Wire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Arnold H F)

The Night Wire

by

H. F. Arnold

"New York, September 30 CP FLASH

"Ambassador Holliwell died here today. The end came
suddenly as the ambassador was alone in his study...."

There is something ungodly about these night wire jobs. You sit up here on
the top floor of a skyscraper and listen in to the whispers of a
civilization. New York, London, Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore -- they're your
next-door neighbors after the streetlights go dim and the world has gone to
sleep.

Alone in the quiet hours between two and four, the receiving operators doze
over their sounders and the news comes in. Fires and disasters and
suicides. Murders, crowds, catastrophes. Sometimes an earthquake with a
casualty list as long as your arm. The night wire man takes it down almost
in his sleep, picking it off on his typewriter with one finger.

Once in a long time you prick up your ears and listen. You've heard of some
one you knew in Singapore, Halifax or Paris, long ago. Maybe they've been
promoted, but more probably they've been murdered or drowned. Perhaps they
just decided to quit and took some bizarre way out. Made it interesting
enough to get in the news.

But that doesn't happen often. Most of the time you sit and doze and tap,
tap on your typewriter and wish you were home in bed.

Sometimes, though, queer things happen. One did the other night, and I
haven't got over it yet. I wish I could.

You see, I handle the night manager's desk in a western seaport town; what
the name is, doesn't matter.

There is, or rather was, only one night operator on my staff, a fellow
named John Morgan, about forty years of age, I should say, and a sober,
hard-working sort.

He was one of the best operators I ever knew, what is known as a "double"
man. That means he could handle two instruments at once and type the
stories on different typewriters at the same time. He was one of the three
men I ever knew who could do it consistently, hour after hour, and never
make a mistake.

Generally, we used only one wire at night, but sometimes, when it was late
and the news was coming fast, the Chicago and Denver stations would open a