The place Sally and Silent Storm entered a few hours later was a
California-type bungalow hidden among the trees. The windows were small
and high. “No chance for spying here,” Sally thought to herself.
They were met at the door by a tall, handsome lady who, Sally did not
need to be told, was Silent Storm’s sister. She appeared to take Sally
to her heart at once.
“Robert has often spoken of you,” she said in a friendly manner.
“Oh! Has he?” Sally was a little surprised. She had thought of herself
as just one more of those WAVES.
They sat down to a delightful dinner. Salad made from fruit just taken
from the trees, delicious crabmeat, fried sea bass, hot corn bread,
sweet potatoes and coffee, a great urnful—enough for three cups apiece.
Dinner over, Miss Storm took up some knitting that lay in a chair and
settled down by herself, because she knew her brother wished it, and she
had sensed that there was some serious business in the air.
“It’s not that my sister cannot be trusted,” Silent Storm half
apologized when he and Sally were seated in a small, secret den, quite
evidently all his own. “She is to be trusted completely. However, it is
a rule of war that a military secret is to be shared with no outsider,
and the thing you were about to tell me up there in the tower is
something of a military secret.”
“Not—not yet—but it might, be.” She hesitated. “It’s really C. K.
Kennedy’s secret. He confided it to me because he hoped he could trust
me.”
“And he can.”
“Yes, that’s right. He is a wonderful man. There is nothing I would not
do for him.”
“But such an invention should be of great service to our country.”
“He thought it might be. He wasn’t sure.”
“So he wanted it tried out? I see. Tell me only what you think he would
like to have me know.” Lighting his pipe, he settled back in his chair.
“I have very little curiosity left in me,” he went on. “I’ve seen too
much for that. I’m interested in only one thing, to see this war brought
to a successful end. I have many fine friends back there.” He swept the
west with his hand. “I shall never be able to go back to them, but I can
serve where I am.”
“Then you have already seen service.” Sally’s eyes lighted.
“Plenty of it, too much. I was at Pearl Harbor, a flier. And I was in
about all that came after in the next seven months. Then a smart Jap got
me in the back.”
“Oh!” she breathed.
“It wasn’t so much. I was out of the hospital in a month. But my spine
will never be the same, I was once a swimmer, something of a champion.
That’s all over, too. But it doesn’t matter. What really hurts is that I
can’t get back to help finish what my friends and I started over there.”
“And you don’t fly any more?” That seemed a terrible fate to Sally.
“Oh, yes,” he smiled. “I have a fast, little single-seater and sometimes
I haunt the sky, chasing seagulls and wild ducks.”
“A single-seater sounds a bit selfish.”
“It’s not, really. You see, I don’t trust myself too much. There’s
always the chance that—”
“Something might go wrong with you?”
“Yes. I’m not willing to take a chance with other people’s lives. But
you were going to tell me about that radio.” He changed the subject
abruptly.
“Yes, it’s the most remarkable invention!” Launching at once into her
theme, she talked for an hour. From time to time he interrupted to ask a
question. His pipe went out. Twice he tried to light it and failed. Then
he gave it up.
At last she spread a pile of papers covered with dots and dashes on the
table. These were the records of the “put-put” broadcast which she and
Danny had kept.
After that for a half hour their heads were bent over these records.
“This,” he said at last, after re-lighting his pipe, “promises to be
something of great importance.
“I wish you could stay with me on the airfield.” He added after a
moment, “Both you and Nancy are working in very well. You could relieve
me of much tiresome routine, but for your sake and for old C. K. I’ll do
all I can to get you on a ship. I do know that there is talk of giving
over the communications and radio work of one ship for a single trip to
a group of WAVES, just to see how it works out. I’ll look into that.”
“Oh, please do,” she begged eagerly.
“You should be devoting your entire time to this secret radio business
right now,” he said thoughtfully.
“But I’m a WAVE.”
“You could be given a leave of absence.”
“Not without a reason. It would be necessary to explain to the officials
about the radio. And that’s just what C. K. doesn’t want.”
“Why?”
“Well, you know the story about his other invention?”
“Yes, his radio detector. That was a disgrace. Some unscrupulous person
stole it.”
“And sold it to a foreign country. He doesn’t want that to happen
again.”
“Surely not. Well, you just keep working in your spare time. And after
that we shall see.”
And that was the way matters were left. But not for so very long.
The next afternoon was regular time out for Sally. The first person she
saw as she entered the lobby of her hotel was a big girl with a round
beaming face.
“Barbara, you stranger!” she exclaimed. “Where have you been hiding?”
“Haven’t been hiding, been working hard,” was the big girl’s reply.
“I’ve been rigging the parachutes for a ship. Danny’s ship. I saw him on
it.” Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“But, Barbara, they don’t use parachutes on a ship.”
“On this one they do. Shush!” Barbara held a finger to her lips. “Don’t
ask me another thing about it.”
Sally thought she understood.
They went out to lunch together. After that they spent three hours
shopping. When Sally returned, she found a notice for a phone call in
her box.
“A phone call on my day off!” she exclaimed. “Maybe a date. How grand!”
It was Danny and a date as well. He was going for a spin in the air,
just a little advanced trainer cabin plane, four hundred and fifty horse
power. Would Sally like a look at the airfield, the palms, and the sea
from the air?
Sally most certainly would. And so it was a date.
“I suppose it’s no use hanging one of those things on you,” Danny said
with a grin as he strapped on his parachute. “You wouldn’t know what to
do about it, if something did go wrong.”
“Oh, wouldn’t I?” she challenged. “You forget that Barbara and I took
the shorter course and graduated with honors from the sky.”
“Say! That’s right, you did.” At that he produced a second parachute and
helped her strap it on.
“You aren’t planning to drop me in the big pond, are you?” she joked.
“Nothing like that. This is a land plane. Oh, we’ll take a turn or two
out over the sea but the plane’s been thoroughly worked over. Not a
chance of her going wrong.”
“Anyway, I’ll keep my fingers crossed.” She laughed as she climbed in.
When Danny had gone through the ritual of turning on the current, gas
and oil, warming up his motor and setting his wheels for the run, they
were off.
It was one of those cloudless Florida evenings when little fishing
boats, looking from the sky like toys, glide over the dark blue waters,
when a distant steamer sends off a slow, lazy drifting cloud of smoke
and all seems at peace.
They took a turn out over the ocean, then swung inland where little,
blue lakes dot the dark green of forests and the lighter green of farms.
“Nice place, Florida,” said Danny. “We’ve been missing something, should
have taken a vacation down here every year.”
“Oh! So you’re the son of a millionaire!” Sally laughed.
“Not quite. But if I worked hard all the year, guess I could make it.
What do you say we try it after the war is over?”
[Illustration: They Swung Out Over the Sea Again]
“Don’t mind if I do. But, Danny,” her voice hit a serious note, “did you
ever think that war is not all a dead loss? Think of the boys who would
have grown up to sell socks, or run a streetcar or mend shoes—”
“And never get twenty miles away from good old Chicago.”
“And now they’re seeing the world, Africa, India, China, South Sea
Islands. This country of ours will never be the same after the war.”
“It sure won’t.”
They swung out over the sea again. Beneath them a large ship, under full
steam, was gliding out to sea.
“Going out to make a secret meeting with other ships of a convoy,” Sally
said. “Wonder how soon I’ll be sailing with that ship, or some other.”
“Perhaps never,” Danny replied soberly. “They haven’t said they’d take
WAVES abroad yet. But I am about all set. Just a day or so more at the
most. They never tell us exactly.”
“Oh, Danny, no!”
“Oh, Sally, yes!” he echoed. “What’s the matter? Want me to stay a
landlubber all my life?”
She did not answer. A small plane, darling through the air like a bird,
had caught her eye.
“That’s your boss, Silent Storm,” Danny said. “When I learned he was
your boss, I sort of looked him up. The boys told me that was his plane.
No one else flies it.”
“He’s a fine man, Danny.”
“That’s what they all say. He was very badly shot up out there in the
Pacific. They didn’t expect him to live, but the nurses pulled him
through—”
“And now—”
“Now he might be sitting in the sun, living on a pension.”
“But who would want to in exciting times like these?”
“Not your Silent Storm. He works harder than the rest of them.”
“But, Danny! Look!” Her voice rose sharply. “Look at his plane!”
“Acting crazy all right. Seems to be out of control.”
“Danny! He said something strange once. He said he wouldn’t take other
people up because he wasn’t sure of himself. You don’t think—”
Danny was thinking, and thinking fast. Advancing the throttle, he sent
his plane speeding toward the spot in the sky where the small plane was
going through all the motions of a fighter shot out of the clouds.
“He’s really going down,” he muttered grimly. “And ours is a land plane,
worse luck.”
They remained at two thousand feet. Starting at that same level, the
other plane had gone into a slow spiral and was slowly drifting down.
“If he hits the water at that speed, he’s done,” Danny groaned. “Why in
the world doesn’t he bail out?”
“Perhaps he can’t. He—he may be unconscious.” Sally gripped her hands
until the nails cut deep into the flesh.
“There!” she exclaimed.
“He’s getting control. He’s leveling off.” Danny spoke slowly. “But
he’ll crash all the same. And his plane is a land plane. Let’s hope he’s
a good swimmer.”
“But he isn’t.” Sally’s words came quick and fast. “He used to be. The
Japs wrecked his back.”
“Tough luck!”
“There! He’s down. His plane is still intact.”
“It will sink all the same, in no time at all.”
“Danny!” Sally gripped his arm tight. “Just circle over that spot,
slowly.” She stood up.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going over the side. I’m a good swimmer, I can save him.”
“Here—take the controls. I’ll go.”
“I can’t fly a plane, never have.”
“Okay, good girl! Here’s luck to you. Here, take this.” He dragged a
rubber raft from beneath his feet.
Tucking the raft under her left arm and gripping the ripcord with her
right hand, Sally opened the cabin door, stood there for a few seconds,
and then she was gone.