NIGHT
At his swift touch, the plane reared upward and away from the danger
that was rolling and heaving directly beneath. Peering out of the window
at his left, Hal saw in the waters a procession of monsters. In the
dusky haze of the twilight, a great school of whales were disporting
themselves in hugely fantastic leaps and lunges. When a sixty-foot whale
would leap high in the air, then drop its tons of weight back down
against the waters, it seemed that creation shook to the concussion. At
the thunder of huge bodies smashing back through the waves in their
enormous fantasies of playfulness, Hal sent his ship rising higher into
the air. If one of those monster bodies even brushed his wing or rudder,
it would mean his plane crushed into helplessness, himself adrift upon
the ocean.
With the approach of darkness, Hal Dane's spirit seemed to reach its
zero hour of loneliness and weariness. Since the dawn of day he had
matched his strength in battle after battle with the varying phases of
the elements. He and his frail wind craft, mere contraption of cloth and
wood and some lengths of steel tubing, had come out victorious so
far--but there was still the night ahead of him.
He realized with a start that he had not tasted food for more than
twelve hours. Even now, he felt no hunger; the long strain of matching
human wits and power against the winds had taken away his appetite.
However, he required himself to eat a sandwich and drink some hot coffee
from his bottle. This would help him keep up his strength. He needed
that help for strength. The darkness he was entering was a worse monster
than those vast thrashing whale bodies he had just escaped.
Loneliness entered the lists against him also. As far as he could see
over all the great ocean stretches, there showed no tiny pin point of
light that could be a great transoceanic steamer cruising onward with
its vast burden of human lives. If anything happened to him out here in
the night, he was all alone, no vessel near to come to his assistance,
no help outside of himself. If he died, he died alone--a mere atom
dropped down in the ocean depths.
With an effort, Hal forced his mind away from morbid thoughts. He
concentrated on his maps and instruments. Already, he had come over two
thousand miles. With every whir of his motor he was ticking off more
miles. A great longing rose in him to ride the high air currents once
again, that would mean real speed. But he dared not risk his plane
another time in the icy grip of the stratosphere. He had wracked the
engine enough already. Another such battle with the ice sheath and with
over-speed might tear the motor bodily from the machine.
To add to the loneliness of the night, he now swept into a stratum of
fog. It hung in an enveloping mass about the ship, creeping into the
cockpit, clouding the instruments. As Hal rode high to avoid the fog, he
swept into an area of black clouds, snow clouds. At this altitude, he
found the air filled with hail. In a moment these heavy, dangerous ice
pellets were rattling angrily against the plane. Like a hunted creature,
Hal shot this way and that striving to dodge the zone of ice and sleet.
It was no use; the ice pall pursued him, sheeted his ship. Wing surfaces
were flung out of balance with additional weight, controls began to
clog. There was nothing to do for it save drop back down into the warm,
foggy layers of air just above the waves. As soon as he hit the warm
zone, ice began to melt, its heavy, retarding weight slid off. The speed
of the ship, which had lagged below eighty miles the hour, now began to
zoom back up well over the hundred mark.
His instruments would hold him to his course, and the noctovistor
installed on his plane would catch the red glow of any ship's light,
even through the fog, and warn him of its presence. But unlighted
derelict ships adrift on the sea, and floating ice peaks were dangers
that the red eye of the noctovistor could not record. His luck, alone,
could carry him past such of these that happened in his path.
Later in the night, a glow on his noctovistor told him that a ship lay
ahead. Hal sped sufficiently out of his course to avoid any danger of
collision. Out through the air, though, he began flinging radio
messages, and soon picked up a reply. From this ocean liner he got
confirmation of his exact location, and the time. Brief enough messages
they were, but Hal Dane blessed the wonderful science whose marvels had
put him in touch with other humans out here in the lonely stretches of
the great ocean. He zoomed on into the night with his heart cheered by
this brief contact.
He now winged his way out of fog and cloud into the white light of the
late rising moon. Now and then in this silver glow, mirages swam into
his view. Peaks, foothills, ravines and rivers were etched so boldly in
the sky that they seemed almost real. Fantastic hills and valleys would
crumble away, and others equally fantastic would rise to take their
place.
Then dawn began to break. Streaks of light crept up behind him out of
the western sky. Below him, land appeared, islands dotting the ocean in
a long crescent dipping northwest. Land--was it real, or merely another
mirage? He flew lower. It was, yes, it must be real. There were houses,
men like tiny dots, and a fleet of fishing craft that seemed mere toys,
was setting out to sea.
It was the far-flung land chain of the Aleutian Islands that he was
crossing. With a queer thrill in his heart, Hal Dane looked down over
the side of his ship. Below him was real earth. He could land here if he
wanted to, be in the midst of people. Right here he could end the long
loneliness--if he wanted to.
Resolutely, Hal kept his plane headed forward. According to his charts
he must turn slightly to the south now for the last south-western curve
on his crescent-shaped route.
The longest stretch of ocean flight was over now; he felt that he had
conquered the worst. In less than twenty-four hours he had come over
three thousand miles--nearly three thousand, five hundred, in fact. At
this rate he ought to sight the island kingdom of Japan in the afternoon
of this day.
But in his reckoning, Hal had not taken into account the treacherous
weather of the northern reaches of the Pacific. Instead of making good
speed on this last lap of his journey, he began to lose time, to drop
behind on his carefully worked out schedule.
From now on, he swept along in a continuous storm area. Gales seemed to
roar up from nowhere and burst about the plane. From his student weather
studies, that now seemed part of a long-gone past, Hal Dane had learned
much about the thunderheads and twisters of the atmosphere. He knew a
deal about gauging the breadth and diameter of certain type storms,
their speed of movement, the velocity of the winds within these storms.
Every shred of such knowledge that he had was put to severe test now. In
his plane, he was like some hunted wild animal fleeing before the storm
hounds, turning, twisting, riding now high, now low. Time and again he
was only able to avoid a crash by feeling his way around the edges of
the storms and dodging between them, never letting his plane become
completely swallowed up in the maw of the storm monster. Sometimes two
or three storms came together. A low-powered airplane would have been
lost for lack of force to make headway in such a case, but the mighty
Wind Bird courageously battled forward on these constantly changing air
currents.
Then the clouds shredded away, and the glow of the evening sun lit the
sky.
Hal Dane relaxed in his seat. He had fought a long fight, had lost all
reckoning of time, space, of ocean distances. He had flown far enough to
be near land--of that he was sure.
Soon he had confirmation of his hopes. His plane swooped into the midst
of a flock of sea gulls. These winged fishers of the air often flew
hundreds of miles from shore--but the sight of them usually meant that
shore was somewhere in the distance.
Right enough Hal was in his deductions. Soon after he had passed through
the gull fleet, he glimpsed tiny dots dipping on the waves below him. He
flew lower. It was as he had hoped, these dots were men out in their
fishing boats. Soon a shore line came into view.
When the Viking of the Sky swooped low over this land, however, the
thrill in his heart changed to dire foreboding. He had come far enough
to land in Japan--but this was not Japan, land of the flowery kingdom.
Those squat fishermen below wore primitive, furred garments. Instead of
pagodas and quaint paper-walled dwellings of the Japanese, here crouched
a squalid village of round-roofed mud huts.
Storms had sent him far out of his course. Instead of Japan, this was
Kamchatka that he floated above. Away to the south of him lay the Tokio
of his destination.
In the face of a terrible weariness that was creeping over him, Hal Dane
turned the nose of his craft to the south. He had already spent one
night out over the ocean, and now another night was darkening his sky.