THE FLIGHT IS ON
TO the two men in the cockpit of the monoplane, the tense drama of hours
had been packed into those few seconds of the take-off.
As the Skipper very carefully opened the throttle, the engine took hold
and the plane gathered headway. The soggy condition of the field after
the rain seemed to hold them back. They could feel the wheels of the
undercarriage sinking deep into the sod and the mud. Jack was conscious
for a fleeting second of the lights of parked cars reflected in
numberless puddles along the course.
The roar of the engine increased. They rolled faster and faster. The
Skipper sat tense watching his instruments, with an occasional quick
glance ahead.
They were rolling still faster now, gathering speed, and from the corner
of his eye Jack saw the Skipper push the control stick forward to get
the tail off the ground. Striking uneven spots in the field, the big
plane rocked gently. Still it seemed to drag. But always their speed
increased over the ground.
They were half way down the field, with still not enough momentum to
lift their heavy load from the earth.
Three-quarters of the way down the field, and no tendency to spring away
from the rain-soaked ground!
Jack glanced quickly at the Skipper’s face to see if all was well.
The Skipper was looking straight ahead in a fascinated manner as the end
of the runway approached, and the shallow gulley that lay beyond. Too
late now to shut down the engine and make another try. The next second
would decide.
The Skipper pulled gently on the stick, the plane lifted ever so
slightly, cleared the ground, dropped back again for one last little
bounce—and then it was almost as if the intense concentration of those
two men helped to lift that tremendous load into the air and hold it
there.
They whizzed off the end of the runway and soared just above the shallow
gulley which had been the grave-yard of an earlier attempt.
Once in the air, the plane gained altitude very slowly. Just ahead was
the line of hangars, one of which had housed it for so many weeks. The
Skipper turned the plane slightly so that they might pass between the
hangars and a line of trees. The red obstacle light on top of the
highest hangar was methodically flashing its warning. They cleared it
safely by several feet and continued their climb.
By the time they had gone a mile farther, they had height enough to make
a gradual turn and head into the rising sun.
As they came back over the field, escort planes came alongside, and in
one of them a news-reel photographer was steadily grinding the crank of
his machine, getting a record of their start.
The sun rose from behind a heavy bank of clouds and touched them,
lighting up the orange wings till they seemed a blazing flame. The land
beneath still lay wrapt in a blue haze. To their right a larger bank of
threatening clouds was even then sprinkling its waters into the distant
ocean.
The escorting planes came closer, looking tiny and unsupported, their
whirling propellers perfectly visible against the blue-gray background.
By the time the “Dauntless” had reached the end of Long Island, all of
them had turned back save one, and there its pilot, with his hands high
in the air, sent them a last handshake and a wave, banked his machine
sharply and left them.
It was like the last wave from a ship’s pilot as he sends the vessel off
to sea alone.
By this time they had fifteen hundred feet altitude and were beginning
to breathe easier. Jack leaned over to the Skipper and said:
“We’re off! How does it feel?”
The Skipper smiled and replied:
“She handles pretty well, but it did seem ungodly tail-heavy at the
take-off. The sooner we can get those small cans in the rear compartment
emptied, the better I’ll like it. We’d better not try it yet, but as
soon as we use some fuel out of the main tank we’ll empty a few of those
spare cans and heave them overboard.”
Setting their course across Long Island Sound, they could see ahead the
dim line of the Connecticut shore, and Jack lowered their wireless
aerial and clicked his first message to Connors. It was short and to the
point.
“Everything going well. (signed) DAUNTLESS”
About seven o’clock they were over Cape Cod and could see many boats and
steamers crawling over a smooth sea.
Jack sent another message to Connors reporting all well, then clicked
off in code:
“Signing off to empty fuel from spare cans.”
The Skipper nodded as Jack explained that he would now attempt the
replenishing of the main tank. He carefully climbed from his seat next
the Skipper, and had only just started to squeeze up into the space
between the top wing and the tank when he stopped with a start. Peering
at him over the top of the tank was Kiwi, with a self-conscious smile on
his face.
The Skipper partly turned to see why Jack had dropped back into his
seat. Jack clutched the Skipper’s shoulder, leaned over and shouted:
“_Cripes!_ The Kiwi’s with us!”
For a few seconds none of the three moved. The Skipper was plainly
unbelieving. He thought that Jack must be dreaming. Coming out of his
trance, Jack motioned to Kiwi to come forward.
Kiwi wiggled his way over the tank, still wondering how he would be
received. He shyly put one hand forward and grasped Dad’s shoulder with
as hard a squeeze as he could muster.
Dad realized then that Kiwi’s presence was an actual fact. Here was a
stowaway, another life that must be reckoned with in this adventure. He
would have preferred not having this additional responsibility. There
had been enough details to think about. But there was nothing that could
be done, and his plans must be adjusted to cover this new situation.
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Kiwi could only say in a shy voice, “I can help, Dad. And I didn’t want
you to go without me.”
Jack slipped back into his seat, put on his earphones, and sent out
Connors’ call letter. As soon as he got an answer, he clicked off a
message that the Kiwi was aboard, a stowaway, and that he would be put
on the usual bread and water diet of all stowaways and made to work.
The Skipper then said to Jack, “Here’s your helper for the gas.”
And to Kiwi he said, “Well, boy, you’re in for a long ride this time.”
Kiwi went to work with a will—unlashed the cans, unscrewed the tops, and
passed them over to Jack who, standing on his seat, poured the fuel into
the main tank. They disposed of five of them. As Jack opened the sliding
panel of glass beside him, a terrific stream of air blew into the
cockpit, and he hurled each can in turn as far out and down as he could,
so that they would not be carried back into the tail. Kiwi looked out of
his little side-window to see them tumbling into space, turning over and
over, the light glinting on them as they fell.
Beneath them the wind must have been freshening, for there were signs of
whitecaps on the level floor of the ocean. Dimly to the left could be
seen the shore line.
Shortly after eleven o’clock, Jack picked up signals from the _S. S.
Mauretania_. She was notifying the shore stations that she believed she
had sighted the “Dauntless” a short time before.
A little later they were passing over land, which Jack said was the
shore line of Nova Scotia.
Kiwi commenced to feel hungry, and busied himself peeling one of Old
Bill’s oranges, most of which he passed over to Dad and Jack.
Jack took over the controls and flew the plane a couple of hours while
the Skipper stretched himself and carried on a halting conversation with
Kiwi.
He learned how, when he had sent him to find Bert, Kiwi had made a
hesitating search, had circled back to the plane, and, without being
seen, had climbed into his place in the rear compartment.
Dad tried to look stern, but Kiwi could feel that already he had been
forgiven.
The plane hummed along, and they felt almost as though they were on a
picnic.
About twelve-thirty they passed Halifax, and Jack wirelessed that all
was well.
Soon they passed over some broken clouds and found the air very bumpy.
They were picked up and carried sometimes fifty feet before being
dropped. Jack had his latest weather map tacked to a small board in
front of him, and he remarked that they might expect this sort of
weather, or worse, before they reached Newfoundland.
They noticed a slight haze coming up before them, and for the next hour
they ran through intermittent showers.
Giving the Skipper his course to fly, after a careful checking with his
drift indicator, Jack called to Kiwi and they began the transfer of five
more cans of fuel to the big tank.
With the air as bumpy as it was now, this was no light task. Once, when
the plane gave a sudden lurch and reared upward with one of the bumps,
Kiwi lost his balance and tumbled over on the floor of his compartment;
and before he could pick himself up and rescue the can some of the
precious fluid had been lost. After that he was more careful, and braced
himself securely against the sudden lurching of their ship.
They were twice as long making the transfer this time, but it was
finally accomplished, and Jack heaved the empty cans overboard. This
time Kiwi was unable to follow them on their downward flight. Often they
disappeared from view within a split second of being hurled out.
The broken clouds were making the Skipper’s job of piloting much more
difficult. Trying to keep the plane on an even keel and follow their set
course took all his attention.
Intermittent showers beat down upon them, and big raindrops were carried
back along the under side of the wings in small, hurried rivulets. To
Kiwi in the back, with his nose pressed against the window pane, it
seemed like summer downpours that he had witnessed from their little
cabin back home.
He had become accustomed by now to the smooth roar of the motor, and was
not so conscious of the strain on his eardrums. Through holes in the
clouds he could occasionally see the ocean tossing black and green far
beneath them.
Jack wanted to make sure of getting a last bearing on land before they
swung off to the open Atlantic, and asked the Skipper if he could not
drop a little lower under the clouds so that Newfoundland would be
plainly seen.
Even under the clouds, which were only about eight hundred feet above
the water, the visibility was very poor. A thick mist was shutting in on
them. They flew on, trusting to their instruments, and once, later in
the afternoon, the clouds parted for a few moments and gave them just a
glimpse of land nearly dead ahead—not long enough, however, for them to
identify it positively. They hoped for another such break in the clouds
to help them with the navigation.
The bumpiness of the air was increasing. Jack caught a wireless call
from some station in Canada, but the message was so badly garbled by the
static that they could not be sure of its location. The call of some
ship could be faintly heard, but it also was too confused to be of any
use to them.
Between five-thirty and six they ran into an area of clear weather,
which lasted long enough for them to place definitely the land ahead as
Cape Race. It was just what they needed, and confirmed Jack’s navigation
figures. Using it as their last point of land, Jack changed their course
slightly and the real ocean voyage began.
They were not sure they had been sighted at this point, but rather hoped
so, and that the world would know they were well on their way. Below
them the sea looked angry and was flecked with white.
In his mind’s eye, Kiwi had pictured this breaking away from land, and
had thought that he would be able to look far to the eastward across the
Atlantic and feel its immensity. He was not so fortunate, for directly
ahead and seeming to bear down upon them were ragged gray clouds, and
rolling along the surface of the water a thick gray fog.
The plane was still being tossed about by the confused wind, and now
that they had their last bearing determined, it was the Skipper’s idea
to try and climb over these clouds. They were soon amongst them.
Darkness seemed to shut in almost at once, and the Skipper switched on
the running lights on the instrument board. Jack was watching his
instruments closely, checking their drift.
Kiwi, having no light in his compartment, crept up on the tank and lay
there watching the progress of their plane through these dense clouds.
The hand on their altimeter slowly turned ... three thousand feet ...
four thousand ... and if anything the clouds seemed thicker. The fog
condensed on the windows of their cockpit and was carried backwards in
wisps of water. Five thousand ... six thousand ... still as dark as
ever. The wing-tips could scarcely be seen.
At times the plane would plunge and rear, and Kiwi had to brace himself
to stay in position.
By the time they had reached nine thousand feet the darkness seemed a
little less dense. At ten thousand they came out into comparative
twilight. But even here they could not see the stars for there were
other light masses of clouds above them.
A long time passed, with only the drone of the motor to be heard, and
with nothing to be seen except piled up clouds in every direction. Kiwi
must have dozed, for he awoke feeling stiff and cold, how much later he
did not know. It took him a few seconds to realize where he was. Then he
saw Dad still at the stick and Jack bending over his wireless key, tiny
blue sparks showing that he was sending a message. Kiwi was just able to
follow the code which told him that Jack was asking some ship if his
signals were loud. The clock on the instrument board said half past two.
The ship replied, and Jack wrote the message out on a little pad beside
his instrument and showed it to the Skipper:
“Signals very loud. You must be near. Can you see our lights? Some fog
on the surface.”
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Another hour passed. The same ship sent word that the signals were
getting fainter. But another ship broke in, gave its position and the
ship’s operator, and then sent:
“Your signals strong enough to knock our heads off. What is your height?
You must be just over us. We will send up rockets. Tell us if they are
seen.”
All three watched on every side, but nothing except a tumbled mass of
clouds met their gaze. The air up here was getting colder. Kiwi
shivered. The Skipper, looking back, noticed him, and it crossed his
mind that in the excitement he had forgotten to open the heater which
ran from the exhaust pipe on the engine. It was the work of a moment to
throw the lever over, and almost at once they felt the warm air come up
into the cockpit.
Jack took over the controls for a little time, and the Skipper and Kiwi
transferred the last of the extra fuel to the big tank and disposed of
the empty cans.
The Skipper made a hurried check of their fuel supply in both the wing
tanks and the main one, and appeared to be well content with the way it
was holding out.
Kiwi was taking small cat-naps on the top of the tank and beginning to
wonder if it were not time to eat again. It was still dark and there was
nothing to be seen—no moon, no stars, just a gray pall on every side.
He awoke from a longer one of these naps to find it much lighter and the
lights on the instrument board looking very yellow in the daylight. Jack
was just saying, “I think I’ve picked up the government radio station at
Malin Head, Ireland.”
While Jack was trying to pick up their message, the Skipper leaned
forward to switch off the instrument-board lights, and as he did so he
glanced out the window along the wing on Jack’s side and made an
alarming discovery.
The fuel pipe line from the wing tank ran along the outside surface of
the wing for a short distance, and then curved down to the fuselage,
where it came through to the main tank and the carburetor. In the curved
part was a flexible joint which had evidently vibrated loose, for
streaking out behind was a flow of their precious fuel. There was no way
of knowing how long this had been going on.
The Skipper had a terrible sinking sensation as he realized what the
consequences of this tiny leak might be. Perhaps gallons had even now
been lost and the seriousness of it appalled him. They would need every
drop they had to reach India, and already enough might have escaped to
ruin their chances of even making Europe.
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