Here was one test of the born aviator. Presence of mind. Rankin did
not hold wildly on to everything within reach to save himself from
falling; his first instinct was to fling himself clear from the
entangling brace wires. Though he was under water and half
smothered, he kept in mind the most open way out, and within the
half minute he struggled out onto the limp wreckage of what had once
been a lower wing plane. Jim was already crawling up onto an upper
surface.
“Hell!” was his greeting. “Guess I’ll earn no more toward that three
thousand out of her. Come on up, the view is fine. This side isn’t
smashed up so terribly, and there’s air enough in the camber spaces
to keep her afloat for a long while yet.”
Rankin climbed up and joined him on his sagging raft, careful not to
put his foot through the fabric. The whale was gone utterly! So were
all the shark fins. At least, they could see none from their rocking
perch. The dominant thought that had impelled him for so long was
still uppermost in Rankin’s mind.
“Good stuff!” he kept muttering. “Great! Now’s her time to get away.
Why don’t she turn and make a blue streak?”
Their own plight remained in the background of his mind, to be taken
out and dealt with after other more important matters had been
settled.
But the United States Destroyer Woodruff was showing no desire to
get away. Instead, she rushed back and forth and up and down like a
questing terrier and every now and then she barked viciously as one
gun crew or another fired at anything which appeared to them to have
the remotest chance of being a shark’s fin.
For a full half hour she hunted, and then at slower speed she
steamed for the soggy, slowly sinking raft. With navy smartness a
boat hit the water long before the ship had lost her way, and in a
few more minutes the two fanatics, nearly normal now, stood on the
heaving deck which rolled thirty degrees each way and felt to them
as solid as a city sidewalk.
At the gangway a petty officer saluted them.
“Cap’n’s compliments, sir. Waiting for you in his cabin, sir.”
Rankin was surprised. He had looked for surprise from the other
side, but they seemed to have been expecting him.
Lieutenant Commander Evans stood in his holy of holies, the
captain’s cabin. Ensign Rankin was quite normal by this time. That
is to say, he did not know exactly what navy etiquette demanded for
the occasion. He drew himself up stiffly, dripping sea water all
over the carpet, and saluted.
“Report on board for duty, sir.”
His commander gasped at the amazing young man. For the first time in
all his navy experience he did not know himself exactly what such an
occasion demanded. For a few minutes he said nothing; then, with a
dry smile:
“H-m, yes; we heard all about you. Managed to pick up a wireless;
but I’m hanged if we ever expected to see you.” He broke into a grim
laugh. “Yes, we were surprised enough; but you must have looked like
the premeditated malice of the devil to those submersibles. It was
great work my boy, great. We’ll be sorry to lose you now.”
“Lose me?” wondered Rankin.
“Well,” Commander Evans spoke with slow deliberation. “I suppose
you’ll be reassigned to aviation after this. It’s not every day that
one saves a United States destroyer, you know.”
Rankin’s heart jumped and he felt his color rising; and since it is
not seemly for an aviator to display emotion he saluted hastily and
turned to go. The deliberate voice stopped him.
“Better put in a claim for that machine. Since she’s been in active
service I guess the navy’ll take her over.”
“Thank you, sir.” Again Rankin turned with his hand on the door-knob
lest his face should betray the double exultation in his soul.
Once again that exasperating recall.
“Oh, by the way; there was another wireless; private, for you; a
most insistent person.”
Rankin wheeled in a flash. There is a limit to emotional
suppression. His commanding officer was holding out a long envelope
to him. Rankin took it with a haste which amounted almost to a
rudeness and tore it open with fingers that trembled unmanfully. The
first thing he looked for was the signature--Eileen! It loomed as big
as a theater advertisement.
“Bully for both of you,” it read. “I know you’ll succeed.”
Rankin waved it wildly over his head and whooped like a hysterical
Indian. It was a shameful display of emotion for an aviator, and a
most improper action for an ensign in his commander’s private cabin.
But Lieutenant Commander Evans only smiled.
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the December 29, 1917
issue of The Argosy magazine.]