STORM-TOSSED WINGS
Puffs of cool wind began to bend the tall grass while Don and Garry
bent and pulled back at the dory's oars.
Rapidly the intensity of fitful flashes in the North increased, and the
storm drew closer.
"Think we can make it?" gasped Garry.
"Hope so!" Don responded over his shoulder.
Ahead of them, but fully exposed to the blast of the coming tempest,
lightning flashes revealed the torn, broken shape of the mail 'plane.
If they could get there before the storm broke in its full fury they
might rescue its pilot from the added menace of turbulent waters.
Already, while they were a quarter of a mile away, they saw that the
time was all too short.
"Don!" called Garry, "I thought I saw a sort of path on the shore,
along the water, when the lightning came that last time."
"I thought this was all marshy, soft ground," commented Don, "but it
might be that we could get around to the mail crate quicker if there
was solid earth to run on. Let's try!"
They let the increasing wind drift them, aiding their efforts.
Bright and fierce, a flare of electric blue came across the sky. In its
light they made out what looked like fairly firm earth, running in a
swiftly narrowing strip from the mainland, a promontory jutting in a
curving line into the grass-covered waters. If only that jut of land
extended far enough they thought it possible to reach the smashed
airplane by a safer route than the dory could afford. Already it dipped
and rolled, as they drove its nose on the wash of foam into the soft
bank between the grasses.
Holding tightly to a handful of the sturdy vegetation, Don began to
progress into the bow. From the windward side Garry dug his oar into
soft bottom, steadying their craft as well as he could.
The wind swept the stern around into the grass, but Don managed to get
a leg over the bow, to test the firmness of the bank.
"I think it's solid enough to hold us," he cried, and got out of the
dory, being careful to cling to the rope at the prow, lest his chum be
drifted beyond the patch of solid ground, separating them and leaving
Garry to battle alone against the surge of wind and water.
"It's safe!" Don added. "I'll hold the painter, Garry. Come on. Be
careful to leave the oars in the bottom or the grass might pull them
out of the boat."
"I will!"
Garry picked up his first aid kit, stowed the oars, crawled forward and
tumbled to a yielding sod which, nevertheless, did not break through.
Guiding themselves by the steadily increasing succession of lightning
gleams, their voices drowned in the quickly following growls of
thunder, wondering about the Dragonfly, about Scott, probably aloft in
the Dart, Don and Garry went from the dory, tied to a root, along a
perilous and unknown path.
Don, in the van, had to part clumps of tossing, cumbering grass to test
the solidity of footing before he went ahead; Garry, clutching his kit
and steadying his partner when a foot would miss the sometimes narrow
band of safe path, followed.
As a glare of vivid fire, followed almost instantly by a peal of angry
thunder, revealed the upthrust wing of the smashed craft within a few
feet, to one side, Don stopped.
It had been apparent to them for several yards, as they parted the
clumps of grass, that the way went no further.
"Can you lift me up, make a 'back' for me, do you think?" Garry asked
as he carefully put down the first aid kit on the path they had just
traversed.
Don, choosing his stand on what seemed to be the firmest spot--an old
spar or block of driftwood embedded in the mud--bent forward, his hands
braced on his knees. Lithely, with his gymnasium training to give him
confidence, Garry put his weight on the elevated perch of Don's back
and leaped, forward, upward and outward, over the mud and water, as a
chain of fiery light split the clouds to the roar of thunder.
Don, in that vivid flare, saw the lithe figure seemingly poised between
sky and water, its outflung hands seeking for a grip on the leading
edge of the wing that was closest to them.
Leaping up as soon as the weight left his supporting back, Don saw
those hands strike their target--but the light died as it seemed to him
that Garry slipped. Peals of celestial cannon drowned a cry if there
was any. With eyes still blinded by the fierceness of the last flash,
Don could not make out whether Garry had been able to hold his grip or
if he struggled in ooze and quagmire, sinking, helpless.
"Garry!" he shouted.
From the North came another blaze of blue-white light.
Don gave a relieved cry. Garry, one foot braced against the junction of
fuselage and flying wire, one hand clinging to the wire, was safe!
The moiled waters, reflecting the furious discharges of fire from
above, were foaming across under the wind's whip, and Don saw that if
Garry did not find the object of his search quickly, it would be too
late. Already the salty spume lashed his face, the fabric of the
airplane quivered and shook to the beat of waves, and sunk in the soft
mud, while wind under the wing failed to topple the whole craft onto
the end of the promontory only because its trucks lay in clinging mud
and steadied the ship.
From across the end of the grassy bank Don saw the distant glow of two
red flares, smoking and guttering in the wind.
Chick was signaling. Two red flares!--did that mean the air signal, for
an airplane to land, the storm call "proceed no further!"
Or, Don wondered, was Chick himself in danger?
"I can't go!" he muttered. "Oh, Garry--hurry!"
Garry, revealed by a fresh, and even more vivid stream of heavenly
fire, was lifting something.
Don saw him wave, as if urging him to go away.
Then something heavy seemed to come against him, almost taking him off
his feet. Instinctively he clutched it, recovering his footing.
"The mail sack!" he gasped.
In the next vivid flash Garry came, hand over hand, along the edge of
the wing as the whole ship toppled forward, and the change of angle,
freeing its trucks from the mud, enabled the wind to get under the
wings with telling effect.
As Don steadied Garry after his drop to the ground, the lightning
showed the menace of the toppling airplane.
Backward they leaped, Don with the heavy sack of precious mail.
Just missing them, the wing came down, the fuselage rested for a moment
on the supporting earth and then earth, craft and all tumbled and torn
by the wind, slipped on into deeper mud beyond the solid earth left
just a foot beyond Garry's toes.
"Let's get back!" gasped Garry, shaken.
"But the pilot?----" began Don.
"He wasn't there!"
Don realized, as they turned to retrace the Way, that the pilot could
have had time, scant but sufficient, to leap clear in a back-pack
'chute and that it would be impossible for them to comb the marsh for
him in the rapidly coming blackness, wind and rain.
As rapidly as they could, finally breaking into a run when they got
clear of the most dangerous and slippery end of the promontory, Don and
Garry raced toward the beckoning flares.
Carrying the mail pouch, impeded by it as it caught on the restraining
grasses, Don followed Garry. Garry, his eyes straining, tried to detect
the figure of Chick by their guiding light, but he saw no figure!
As they came into the clear space near the boathouse, with wind
whipping the first flecks of rain into their faces to add its cold
warning to the sting of salt spray torn from the growing crests of
waves, Don and Garry paused, almost stunned.
The last ruddy glow of the flares, and the white fires almost
constantly leaping across the zenith, showed them two forms emerging
from the door of the hovel, toward the planks that led across the marsh
to solid ground.
They were struggling. They were locked together. One was large, the
other small and slight.
"Chick!" yelled Don, putting speed to his flying feet.
The flares died. In a glare of light the larger figure broke free from
the smaller as they came to the boarding.
The lightning died out, leaving the sky a black, thunder-echoing void.
The earth beneath was cloaked in the pall. With blinded eyes Don
stopped, fearing to crash into Garry just ahead of him.
They were too far away to see, in that masking blackness, what had
happened.
The last light had shown the smaller figure reeling backward, on the
edge of the planks, it seemed.
There was nothing to do! To run forward might mean being precipitated
into the marshy channels.
They waited for the next flash.
With the perversity of storms, the lightning seemed exhausted for a
long, mind-torturing moment. When next it flared up, two anxious hearts
seemed to drop like leaden weights from two tight throats where they
had striven to constrict the breath.
Bare and silent lay the narrow footway across the marsh.
Dark and sinister the water moiled in the channels beneath it.
Thick and brooding, the heavy grass bent and seemed to whisper
mockingly in the wind.
"Garry!--where did Chick go?"
"Don--I don't know! I can't see!"
They ran forward while the light lasted.
The next flashes gave them light to get to the edge of the footway over
the marsh. They stared toward the grass, the water, the bare and
unrevealing planks.
Chick was not visible. Neither was his adversary.
Beyond the end of the planks the grass began again. Don dropped the
mail pouch: Garry, his kit forgotten, deserted far behind them in the
eel grass at the promontory end, ran across the planks. Into the hovel
Don turned.
On the narrow, twisting path beyond the planks Garry searched, unable
to see far because the grass stood so high.
In the hut, with wind roaring around it, Don strained his eyes to gain
some truth from the upset table, the overturned lantern, the evidences
of strife and of struggle that the lightning showed as its fire came
leaping again through the doorway.
Quickly Garry retraced his steps to be met on the planking by Don.
"There has been a fight!" cried Don. "Did you find anybody--see
anything?"
"No!" answered Don, "but--listen!"
As the thunder reverberated and echoed, followed by a deep silence,
pounding feet came along the path they had recently used, from the
promontory. They turned, staring into the South, the light coming at
their backs from the sky fires.
A man in a pilot's helmet and jacket, corduroy trousers and high boots,
running in a staggering, uneven course, with an arm swinging limp at
his side, hailed them.
"Help!----"
The figure stopped, wavering, and crumpled on the earth.
Swiftly Don and Garry ran to the man who lay prone on the sod.
"Oh!" he moaned, and then, recovering slightly, he gasped, "can you get
me to--doctor?--hurt--inside!"
"It's the mail 'plane pilot!" cried Don.
He saw his duty, and there was scant time in which to do it.
The first winged cohorts of the storm clouds had broken to shreds
overhead. Its first fury was expended. From the North came the
gathering furies of its second, and more terrible onslaught.
If Don could get that Dragonfly into the air and climb out of the
turbulent area, he could get the pilot to some medical man; at the same
time he might carry on that mail!--and send searchers to find Chick.
Much depended on the safe delivery of the pouch Garry had recovered. It
was the first of what might be a successful series of ship-to-shore
mail flights, from vast ocean greyhounds, in swift airplanes. Its
successful delivery meant a great future for Don's uncle who had
started the idea with the inception of his new airport.
"Yes!" Don cried, bidding Garry help him to lift the pilot to his feet.
To get that tethered airplane, the Dragonfly, started, warmed up and
aloft, carrying pilot and mail, was his immediate concern.
Ably Garry aided him.
Before the fury of the storm broke again, their storm-tossed wings cut
the air, climbing swiftly through the darkness that seemed breathlessly
waiting, still ominous, waiting--while Don flew his best.
Then, from the North, the storm furies leaped.