Never Cry Wolf Read Online Free PDF

information went awry, it was invariably the fault of the fellow in the field.
    Under the circumstances there was only one thing I could do. Despite the discouraging reaction I had had to my first radiogram to Ottawa, I had no alternative but to seek new orders once again.
    Briskly I went to work uncovering the portable radio and setting it up on top of a pile of boxes. I had not previously had time to examine this instrument, and on opening the Instruction Manual I was a little taken aback to find that the model with which I had been supplied was intended for the use of forest rangers and could not normally be expected to work over ranges of more than twenty miles. Nevertheless I connected the batteries, rigged the aerial, turned knobs and pressed buttons according to instructions—and went on the air.
    For some reason known only to the Department of Transport, which licenses such mobile transmitters as mine, my call sign was “Daisy Mae.” For the next hour Daisy Mae cried plaintively into the darkling subarctic skies, but without raising a whisper of a reply. I was almost ready to accept the pessimistic statement in the manual and give up the attempt as hopeless when I caught the faint echo of a human voice above the whistle and rustle of static in the earphones. Hastily I tuned the set until I could make out a gabble of words which it took me some time to identify as Spanish.
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    Since I realize that what I must now recount may strain the credulity of some of my readers; and since I have no technical knowledge whatsoever about radio, I can do no more than put forward an explanation given to me later by an expert, together with the assurance that no mere biologist could possibly have invented the sequence of events which followed. The technical explanation embraces a mysterious phenomenon known as “wave skip,” whereby, because of a combination of atmosphericconditions, it is sometimes possible (particularly in the north) for very low-powered transmitters to span considerable distances. My set outdid itself. The station I raised belonged to an amateur operator in Peru.
    His English was easily as imperfect as my Spanish, so that it was some time before we began to get through to each other, and even then he seemed convinced I was calling from somewhere near Tierra del Fuego. I was beginning to feel exceedingly frustrated before the Peruvian finally agreed to take down the substance of my message to my Chief, and forward it by commercial means to Ottawa. Recalling recent admonitions I kept this message to the ten-word minimum, which was probably just as well, for those ten words, inadequately understood in Peru, and no doubt thoroughly corrupted by double translation, were sufficient to cause something of a crisis—as I was to learn many months later.
    Perhaps because of its South American origin the message was delivered, not to my own department, but to the Department of External Affairs. External could make nothing of it, except that it seemed to have come from Tierra del Fuego and it appeared to be in code. Hurried inquiries embracing the Ministry of Defense failed to identify the code, or to revealthe presence of any known Canadian agent in the Cape Horn region.
    It was only through fortuitous circumstances that the mystery was ever resolved. Some weeks later one of the secretaries at External who was in the habit of lunching with a senior man in my department told him the story, and, in the telling, casually mentioned that the inscrutable message was signed VARLEY MONFAT .
    With commendable and rather surprising acumen, the senior man had identified me as the probable originator of the message; but this only led to the posing of a new and even more disturbing mystery, since no one could be found who would admit to having authorized me to go to Tierra del Fuego in the first place. The upshot was that a series of urgent messages were dispatched to me through the Canadian Consul in Chile,