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The code-books are bound in thick lead covers. They are kept in a steel box, and altogether they weigh I do not know, I never lifted them but some say they weigh 150, some say 200 pounds. After the 343 was torpedoed, an ensign grabbed up the code-book chest, tossed it onto his shoulder, and waltzed out of the ward-room passage and onto deck with it.
The system permits, moreover, of the easy arrangement of indecipherable private codes, because by adding or subtracting a certain number from each group of figures, other characters than those telegraphed can be indicated. I need hardly add that the system of wood blocks is not in practical use, for the numbers and their characters are now printed in code-books.
As the message reached the president it read: "Consinor westcote tag company tag sis in it oisin phenix phin sulfur uin armordale." The president reached for his pile of various code-books and looked up the strange words. He found "phoenix" in one codebook with its meaning given as "extremely ill, death imminent."
It was a moment in a lifetime, and he knew it. Which is not always the case, for great moments often appear great only when we look back at them. He had not his code-books with him. He dared not carry them in the streets of St. Petersburg, where arrest might meet him at any corner by mistake or on erroneous suspicion. His head was stored with a thousand things to be remembered.
There were radios flying about, but they were code messages and the radio man could not decode them because the first thing the steamer captain had done that morning when it looked as though the U-boat was going to make them take to the boats was to heave the code-books overboard. In the morning they would know. Morning came, but with it not a ship in sight.
Thus the flags representing A and E, hoisted together, may be found on reference to the code-book to mean, "Weigh anchor." Each navy has its own secret code, which is carefully guarded lest it be discovered by a possible enemy. Naval code-books are bound with metal covers so that they may be thrown overboard in case a ship is forced to surrender.
One poor fellow was killed a wonder there were not more and all hands were sorry for him; but tragedy and comedy so often bunk together, and men who adventure are more apt to dwell on the humorous than the tragic side of things. There was that about the code-books. The instructions to all ships are to get rid of the code-books if there is ever any likelihood of the enemy capturing the ship.
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