Agent 024

DISTRESS SIGNAL

"Okay.", Agent Gulati said handing me the flashlight as the class collected behind me. "You are in the middle of the Pacific and you've lost all communication. You are stranded, your ship is damaged and you're out of supplies. Your only way out alive is to send a signal to friendly territories and tell them your exact situation and what you want. You get one shot at this. If they arrive with less resources than needed, you'll be saying goodbye to half your crew. But hey no pressure.", he smiled.

If only the lives of half my crew weren't in danger, I'd find it funny.

"Remember the message has to be short. You haven't got the whole day, the ship is sinking as we speak.", Agent Gulati was having a field day today.

I nodded and clutched the light tighter. I was going to save my crew.

I needed to tell the receiving end that we needed immediate evacuation. I had to tell them we were a friendly ship to speed up evacuations. 

"India ship sink help now.", I whispered deciding the message I wanted to convey.

I made two quick flashes to spell out I which is represented by two dots. I left a gap of about 3 dits - the required spacing between two letters and then spelled out n by a longer duration of flashlight for a dash a spacing of 3 dits and then a shorter one for a dot.

I finally spelled out now and I breathed a sigh. My hands were sweating and my breathing was rugged. As I finished the crew I was trying to save switched on the light and yawned. I shook my head in disappointment. I had saved your life. A round of applause maybe?

"You guys noted down?", Agent Gulati asked and the class nodded.

"Okay, I want you to say out loud what you made of Cadet Tisha's distress signal."

The class read out their notes and Srinivas spoke - Inroa space scop space helf space ino.

Other responses followed on the same line but none of them spelled out correctly what I had tried to convey.

"Do any of them resemble what you wanted to say?"

"Not even remotely.", I said shaking my head.

"Why do you think this happened?", he asked me and then posed the question to the class.

The class looked at each other not quite sure what had went wrong. I was pretty sure about the representation of each character and that couldn't be a problem. 

"Irrfan?", Agent Gulati called out.

Irrfan sighed and and sat upfront as he looked at me and said - The spacing was the problem. If you don't make a space of exactly 3 dits between letters the receiving end will not be able to identify the letters correctly. You obviously wanted to say - India ship sink help now.", he said and the entire class looked at him in awe. 

"But if your signal is confusing, the receiving side might not put much thought into it and even ignore it altogether. Besides mentioning your country might be a risk - any enemy ship around could attack you. Without the country, you're just a lost sailor and while the host country will be bound to help you by the international maritime laws, the enemy ship won't care. Besides-", he continued.

"That would be enough Irrfan, thank you.", Agent Gulati said. Irrfan shrugged and leaned back on the chair.

"So, Tisha you message was quite good. You may take your seat now. Now class remember as we just saw the message should avoid articles and prepositions - just mention the keywords. It's a signal not a letter. And as Irrfan mentioned, you need to be careful about what you're saying in your message, divulge information very carefully. A cry for help when received by the wrong end could become a beacon for attack.", Agent Gulati said and we all nodded.

"Okay, so who'd like to go next?", Agent Gulati said and everyone's hand shot up. All except irrfan of course. The guy wanted nothing else than to get out of the class.

"Niharika and then Ajoy.", Agent Gulati said and the lights turned off again.

The class was fun as we came up with the most absurd messages and laughed at what we had formed of the distress signals. We realized why needed this theoretical learning. Without this class, these agent would just be sending out gibberish that won't receive a response. While technology could fail you anytime, old school remained your faithful last resort.

We all stepped out of the class, excited at what we had learnt. 

"This felt just like Professor Lupin's first defense against the dark arts class.", Priya said and I smiled widely.

"Potterheads for life.", I exclaimed.

"Oh shit.", I said as I realized I had left my notebook in the class.

"I'll meet you at the mess.", I called out to my friends as I ran back to the class.

"I thought I had to avoid making it obvious.", I heard Irrfan's voice inside the class.

I stepped closer.

"Yes, that and appear interested. Not like you wanted to jump out of the window at the first chance you got.", Agent Gulati replied calmly.

"That wasn't part of the deal. Besides, Morse code seriously?. You really think I'm going to be bothered with that shit.", Irrfan said his volume rising.

I stepped inside the classroom. I didn't want to overhear this exchange or rather I didn't want to get caught overhearing this. This conversation screamed confidential.

"Hi, I'm just back to get my notebook. I'll be gone in a minute.", I said looking at no one in general.

There was dead silence as I went to my seat picked up my notebook from the desk and walked out. They're faced looked calm and angry at the same time and I literally ran once I was out of the classroom.

"Take care of this.", I heard Agent Gulati say and Irrfan grunted.

I went to the mess, kept my bag on the chair and sat with the team. As I was heading out to the hostel, I saw Irrfan coming towards me and I nodded with a neutral expression.

"Tisha.", he said, stopping me, "Let's talk."