As she lay there in her berth, still too tired and dreamy to do more
than think, all the events of the past few months seemed to pass in
review before her mind’s eye.
She saw herself a normal young lady in a normal, slightly humdrum world,
going her regular daily rounds, work at the shop during the day, dinner
with her father at night, and after that an easy chair and a book,
varied now and then by a party or a ride in the moonlight.
“Some life!” she whispered. Had it been? She did not really know. She
found herself longing for it now in a dreamy sort of way. But would she
be happy there now? She doubted that.
And then again she saw herself at the great airport, directing huge
bombers and other planes to their places on the field. With Silent Storm
as her guide, instructor, and friend, she had lived a happy life. The
work she had been doing had been important, very important. One false
move, one misdirected training bomber and a dozen fine young men from
Colorado, Vermont, Illinois—might have gone crashing to earth.
“Silent Storm,” she whispered. “A grand friend. Barbara, a good, staunch
pal. I am going back to them.” The speedy aircraft carrier seemed to
fairly leap along, carrying her home to America.
“Shall I stay there always?” she asked herself.
To this question she found no certain answer. Probably she would not be
the one to answer that question. This trip, made by a dozen WAVES, had
been an experiment. Had it been successful? Would it be repeated? She
could not tell.
She found herself hoping it might be, for the good of others as well as
herself. The Captain had told her that on this trip his men had been
happier, steadier, more contented than ever before.
“Ladies add a touch to every organization that can be had in no other
way.” That was his way of putting it.
On shore in the harbor city many fine American boys were located. She
had talked to some of them. One boy had said:
“You don’t know what it means to meet an honest-to-goodness American
girl over here.”
“Why not?” she asked herself now, almost fiercely. “If the boys can die
for their country, why not the girls as well? Thousands of good English
women died in the terrible bombings, but the others never faltered.”
Yes, she was sure that she wanted to stay with the ship, to sail the
sea, to do her bit, to fight and die if need be for her beloved land.
But would they let her? Only time could tell.
After listening in vain for any sound of enemy subs, she drew on slacks,
slippers, and a heavy bathrobe, and went out on the deck. As she passed
along toward the ladder leading to the flight deck above, she saw
gunners standing like wax statues by their guns.
“There won’t be any subs tonight,” she paused to whisper. “I have had my
radio on for half an hour. Not a sound.”
“Perhaps not,” was the low response. “But the Skipper isn’t taking any
chances.”
“Boy! We gave them subs plenty, comin’ over,” came from another statue.
“I’ll bet we got twenty of them.”
“Not that many, Old Kentuck,” said another statue. “But plenty. And they
say it’s on account of one of them WAVES having some queer sort of
radio. Great little dame, I’d say.”
“Sure brought us a lot of luck!” said the first shadow.
“They haven’t recognized me!” Sally thought, feeling all sort of good
inside. “And I won’t tell them. That would spoil it. I’ve always thought
it would be fun to be famous, if nobody ever found it out.” Wrapping her
robe a little more tightly about her, she climbed the ladder to the
flight deck where she could get a better view of the sea.
The view was worth the climb. Riding high, the moon had painted a path
of gold across the sea. They were heading into the wind. They cut across
long lines of low waves. All this made the boat seem to race like mad
over the sea.
“It won’t be long now,” she whispered. Then her heart sank. “Three
days,” the Old Man had said. “Three days and we’ll be near the spot
where Danny was last seen.”
“Oh, Danny Boy!” she sang softly. “Oh, Danny Boy!”
Something stirred. She turned about. Danny’s mother stood beside her.
“I—I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know you were there or I wouldn’t
have sung it.”
“It was lovely,” the white-haired woman’s voice was low. “Out here where
you can catch the full sweep of the sea, he seems very near tonight. I
wish you would sing it all.”
So again, softly, Sally began to sing: “Oh, Danny Boy.”
“He is in God’s hands tonight, and God’s hands are good hands,” said the
mother. “No matter whether Danny comes back or not, I want to stay with
Danny’s ship—at least until the ship goes down to be with Danny.”
For some time after that they stood there in silence, looking away at
the sea and at the path of gold that seemed to lead to Danny.
From that night on, to Sally, every throb of the great ship’s engines
seemed to be the beating of a mighty heart, a throbbing that each hour
brought them nearer to a spot where they might have a tryst with life or
death.
On the second night, as she stood alone on the upper deck, now watching
the dark waters swirl by, and now lifting her face to the sky where a
million stars shone, she was joined by the Skipper.
“Captain,” she said after a few moments of talk, “where’s your lady
yeoman? I haven’t seen her since we left port. Is she ill?”
“No-oo,” he rumbled. “Miss Stone isn’t with us anymore. I traded her to
an admiral for a young man and two very fine old French etchings. I like
the etchings. They just hang on the wall and don’t say a thing.” He
laughed in a dry sort of way.
“But Miss Stone must have been a good yeoman. She gave up a very fine
position to join the WAVES,” Sally suggested.
“Yes, that’s true, she did. But in this man’s war, in fact any war, it’s
not the wonderful things you have done in the past; it’s what you can do
now that counts.
“‘Not to the strong is the battle,’” he quoted. “‘Not to the swift is
the race, but to the true and the faithful.’
“The faithful, always the faithful, Sally,” he repeated. “Most of the
girls we took on trial have been very fine. You, Sally, and your pal,
Nancy, may stay on my ship as long as she flies the Stars and Stripes
and sails the seas. I’ll even offer you the honor of going over her side
with me when the subs get her and she prepares to sink beneath the
waves.”
“They’ll never get her,” Sally declared stoutly, “but, Captain, I wish
to thank you from deep in my heart. Those are the finest words I’ve ever
heard spoken.”
“They were spoken from the heart, Sally.”
For a time after that they were silent, then Sally spoke in a deep
voice:
“Captain, do you really think we’ll find Danny?”
“Only time will tell. We have taken account of wind and tide, done
everything we could. When we think we have located the approximate spot,
we’ll heave to and send out a full complement of planes to search for
him.”
“But the storm?” she whispered hoarsely. “It seems impossible.”
“From reports I have received, I am led to believe that the storm may
not have passed over Danny’s part of the ocean. It was a tropical storm,
violent in intensity, but narrow in scope.”
“Oh!” she breathed. “If that is only true. If it is—”
“It won’t be long now, Sally. Tonight we’ll say a prayer for Danny.”
“Let’s do,” she whispered.
“Captain,” she spoke again, “when the planes go out on the search, may
Danny’s pal, Fred, fly a two-seater and may I ride in the second seat?”
“Yes, Sally, you just tell Fred I said he must take you for luck.”
A few moments later she was back in her quarters, saying her prayer for
Danny.
The hour came at last when, on a wide open sea, the big ship came to a
halt, turned half about to give the planes the advantage of the wind,
then stood by while, one by one, they roared away.
“This is the beginning of the end,” Sally thought as she strapped on her
parachute. Would it be a sad or a happy ending? She dared not hazard a
guess. She did not dare to hope.
Their plane was slower in its upward climb than any that had gone
before.
“Our plane seems tired,” she said to Fred.
“That’s because I’m carrying an extra gas tank lashed to the fuselage,”
he explained. “We may not find Danny, but we’ll be the last ones back
from the search.”
After sailing aloft, they began to circle, while with powerful
binoculars Sally searched the sea for some sign, a speck of white, a
dark, drifting object, just anything that spoke of life.
As the moments passed, their circle grew ever wider. Slowly, the big
ship faded into the distance.
From time to time, with eager eyes, Sally lifted her glasses to scan the
sky and count the planes slowly soaring there. She hoped against hope
that one of these might show some sign of an all important discovery,
but still they circled on.
At last she saw them, one by one, start winging their way back toward
the carrier.
“Their gas is about gone,” said Fred.
“Will they refuel and come back?” Sally asked. There was a choke in her
voice and an ache in her heart.
“I don’t know,” was the solemn reply. “That’s up to the big chief.”
“Danny’s out here somewhere,” she insisted. “He just must be.” Still
they circled on.
Suddenly Sally cried: “Look! Fred! Way off there to the left! There’s a
bright gleam on the water!”
“A sun spot,” was the quiet response. “We often see them on the water.
You don’t think Danny would set fire to his raft, do you?”
“No, but Fred!” She gripped his arm in her excitement. “I read about it
in a magazine.”
“Read what?”
“About some chemical. I can’t remember the name. When you pour it on the
water it throws back the light of the sun, makes the water shine.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Oh! Yes, Fred! It’s true! At first the chemical didn’t work so well. It
disappeared too soon, but they mixed it with other chemicals, then it
lasted for a long time. They were going to put small bottles of it on
the rubber rafts. It just must be true!” She pounded him on the back.
“We’ll soon know.” He headed the plane toward that gleaming spot.
For a time the light gleamed brightly, then it began to fade.
“Oh, it can’t fail us!” Sally whispered. “It just can’t! It’s our last
chance.”
And it did not fail them, for, as Sally watched through her binoculars,
a dark spot appeared at the center of the fading light.
“It’s Danny!” she cried. “It just has to be!”
And it was. The small bottle of chemicals was not a dream but a blessed
reality. Danny had discovered it and had used it at just the right time.
As they circled low, he stood up and waved excitedly.
Fred got off a message to the boat. They promised to send a fast power
boat to the spot at once. After that there was nothing left to do but
circle over the spot and wait.
As Sally’s eye caught the gray spot that was the rescue boat, a sudden
impulse seized her.
“Fred, I’m going to jump,” she said.
“What? Take to the parachute? Why? We’ve got plenty of gas for getting
back to the ship.”
“All the same I’m going to jump. I want to be with Danny when the boat
arrives. Nothing will happen to me. I’ve done it before.” Sally pulled
off her shoes.
“All right,” he agreed. “But wait until the boat is almost here.”
Impatiently Sally waited. At last she said, “Now! Here I go!”
Over the side she went. She pulled the ripcord. The parachute opened,
then she went drifting down. Her aim had been good. She hit the water
not a hundred yards from Danny’s raft.
After releasing herself from her parachute she went into the Australian
crawl and soon was there at the raft’s side.
Danny would have welcomed anyone after his long days on the sea, but to
have Sally drop from the sky seemed too good to be true. Danny’s pet sea
parrot, however, was not so friendly. He had become very fond of Danny,
particularly fond of his dried fish. He didn’t propose to have anyone
come between him and Danny, so, with his vice-like beak, he had taken a
firm grip on one of Sally’s pink toes.
By the time Danny had settled the quarrel between Sally and his pet, the
boat was at their side.
“Danny, are you all right?” his mother cried from the boat.
“Oh, sure! Fit as a fiddle, and I have lots more brain cells. I’ve been
living on fish.” He laughed gaily.
When the raft, the pet sea parrot, all Danny’s dried fish and, of
course, Danny and Sally, had been taken aboard, the boat headed for the
carrier.
“Danny,” Sally asked, “how did you ever ride out that storm?”
[Illustration: She Hit the Water Near Danny’s Raft]
“That? Why that was easy,” was his smiling reply. “You see, I didn’t
really get the worst of it, just the aftermath, big rolling waves, high
as a church, just rolling and rolling. I went to the top of one, slid
down its side, then started up another. Talk about your roller coaster.
Say! That’s tame!”
Needless to say, both Sally and Danny ate at the Captain’s table that
night. When Danny had told of his glorious fishing expedition, when
Sally had added the story of the rescue, and the sea parrot had screamed
his approval, the applause that followed made the bulkheads ring.