CHAPTER III

OVER THE PACIFIC

“We ought to make it from here in about fifteen hours actual flying time,” Bill said as they were getting ready for bed shortly before ten o’clock.

“Then if we leave here at five we should be there about eight,” Gordon said.

“But that gives us no leeway in case of trouble,” Rogers reminded them.

“And we want to be sure to get there while it is light if we possibly can,” Bill advised.

“Then I move that we pull out of here soon after three o’clock,” Gordon said. “Of course it’ll be dark then but it’ll get light before we get very far and we won’t mind it and we’ll all feel safer.”

“Second the motion,” Bill agreed.

“Third the motion,” Rogers added.

“Which makes it unanimous,” Gordon laughed. “Got your course laid out?” he asked turning to Bill.

“I will have it in about a minute,” Bill replied bending over the map he had been studying for the past few minutes.

“Don’t make any mistakes,” Gordon cautioned him. “If we miss that island we’re likely not to see any land for a long, long time.”

“And the water out there is mighty wet,” Rogers laughed. “By the way, I wonder if the Albatross will float.”

“Of course we’ve never tried it,” Bill told him, “But I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. Back of your seat there’s a pretty good-sized air space which we made water tight and you know she’s very light and we carry no fuel. Yes, I think I can say she’ll float.”

“I’m certain of it, but I sure hope she won’t have to demonstrate it,” Rogers smiled.

He called the office and asked that they be called at half past two. They had already made arrangements with the cook for plenty of food to be packed for them and they were assured that everything would be ready at whatever time they appointed.

“Then I reckon we’d better hit the hay for what sleep we can get which will be only about four hours,” Bill said as he finished charting his course.

Ten minutes later the lights were out and all was quiet.

“Gee, but twenty-one hundred miles seems like a good ways when it’s all over the water,” Gordon declared as he hopped to his seat at a quarter past three the following morning.

“In miles, yes, but in time it isn’t so far,” Bill told him as he started the elevator. “We’ll be there before you know it.”

“Oh, I’m not scared or anything like that,” Gordon hastened to assure him.

“I never thought you were,” Bill smiled.

Dawn was just breaking as they flew over San Francisco and out over The Golden Gate.

“Wish it was lighter so we could see more of it,” Bill said.

“We must plan it so that it will be when we come back, it’s well worth seeing,” Rogers told him.

“And now there’s nothing beneath us but drink,” Gordon sighed.

“And not very good drink at that,” Rogers laughed.

“But there’s plenty of it such as it is,” Bill declared.

“And then some,” Gordon added.

It was a beautiful morning and as the sun came up behind them and threw its rays out over the ocean it was an experience they never forgot. They were flying at an altitude of a little more than a thousand feet and the ocean stretched out beneath them like an immense mirror.

“No wonder they called it the Pacific if it’s always like this,” Gordon declared looking over the side of the cockpit.

“But it isn’t,” Rogers reminded him. “I’ve been on it a couple of times and once in particular it wasn’t so pacific let me tell you.”

“Didn’t you say you had never been where we’re going?” Gordon asked him.

“I never have, but I’ve been on the Pacific. It’s a fairly big pond, you know, and you can go some little distance without banging into those islands.”

“Guess you’re right at that,” Gordon laughed.

An hour later they ate breakfast and found that the cook had put them up a splendid lunch.

“Believe me, that baby knows his vegetables,” Gordon declared as he started on his third sandwich.

“Hope he’s as good on quantity as he is on quality,” Bill sighed.

“That a knock at me?” Gordon demanded.

“Don’t be so quick to put the shoe on,” Bill laughed. “Is that the ninth or tenth sandwich for you?”

“It’s only the third,” Gordon flung back. “How many have you had?”

“Why, er——”

“Don’t be bashful. How many?”

“Four, not counting this one,” Bill acknowledged.

“Then don’t talk to me about quantity. I’m only a piker compared with you.”

“I guess we’ve got enough,” Rogers told them. “I know something about eating myself and I ordered the eats you know. Anyhow if you find we’re going to run short you can throw me overboard.”

“Jonah act, eh?” Gordon laughed.

“Well, if I’m not greatly mistaken there’s the whale all ready for you,” Bill cried pointing ahead.

“Sure’s you’re born,” Gordon shouted.

“And it looks as if it were big enough to do his part all right,” Rogers added.

“Let’s see how near we can get to him,” Gordon suggested. “He’s right in our path and we won’t lose more than a few minutes at the most.”

The whale was, as near as they could judge, about two miles ahead of them when Bill slowed down the motor and, at the same time pulled the stick turning the nose of the plane downward.

“Look at that baby spout water,” Gordon cried.

“He’d make a peach of a fire engine,” Bill declared.

They were rapidly nearing the whale which seemed to be idly floating on the surface of the water and so far had apparently not seen them.

“My, but he’s a whopper, and will you look at that mouth,” Gordon said as they drew nearer. “I’ll never doubt the story of Jonah again. That baby could swallow him and the boat besides.”

Bill had started the elevator and they were now almost directly over the whale and not more than fifty feet above the water. And still the whale paid not the slightest attention to them.

“Better not get any lower,” Rogers said as the plane hung almost motionless over the big animal of the deep. “He might take a notion to wag his tail at us.”

Just as he spoke the whale must have either seen or heard them for suddenly there was a mighty commotion in the water and high up in the air swung the tail sending a cloud of spray which sprinkled them liberally. Then he was gone leaving only a mighty swirling of the water below them.

“I’ll say your advice was good,” Bill said as he started the forward propeller. “If we’d been much lower he’d have caught us.”

“He was only playing,” Gordon declared. “Cunning little fellow, wasn’t he?”

“Maybe he was playing, but I’m afraid he’d make rather a rough playfellow,” Rogers laughed.

“How long would you say he was, about two hundred feet?” Gordon asked.

“Two hundred fiddle sticks,” Bill scoffed. “They never grow to more than about eighty feet. Isn’t that right?” he asked turning to Rogers.

“That’s about the limit, I believe,” he assured him.

“Well, that may be your experience,” Gordon told them, “But, take it from me, that baby was an exception. A hundred and fifty feet and I won’t take off an inch.”

“Too bad you couldn’t measure him,” Rogers said.

“Probably he would have if he’d had scales like an ordinary fish,” Bill jeered.

“Old stuff,” Gordon retorted. “If you can’t do better than that you’d better keep still and not try. Noah sprung that one when he was telling the King of Nineveh how big the whale was that swallowed him.”

“I suppose you heard him.”

“No, I didn’t hear him but I heard about it,” Gordon laughed.

By this time their speed had crept up to a hundred and fifty miles an hour again and they were all looking for more whales.

“But we’d better not stop again even if we do see one,” Bill declared. “We want to make the island before dark so we can see where to land and whales take time.”

“But we got our money’s worth that time,” Gordon declared.

The weather remained perfect and at noon they ate again until Rogers warned them that half their food was gone and they had better go a bit slow.

“And I had just got well warmed up,” Gordon sighed.

“Warmed up indeed,” Bill scoffed. “I’ve been watching you and you’ve eaten enough for three ordinary men right now.”

“You sure can tell ’em when you get started,” Gordon retorted.

“Do you boys fight like this all the time?” Rogers laughed.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Bill told him.

“Is Molokai the first land we’re going to see?” Gordon asked a couple hours later.

“If I haven’t made any mistake in my reckoning it will be,” Bill told him.

“And if you have we may not see land for a week, eh?”

“Something like that.”

“Then here’s hoping because I’m going to get mighty hungry before then,” Gordon declared.

“I’ll bet,” Bill laughed.

Six o’clock came and they ate once more leaving just enough for a meager breakfast. For the past hour Bill had been watching what looked like a low bank of clouds ahead of them, and as soon as the meal was over, he said:

“I don’t just like the looks of the weather ahead there.”

“I’ve been watching it,” Rogers told him. “Think it’s a storm?”

“Looks like something of the sort to me. What do you say, Gordon?”

“Looks to me more like a fog bank.”

“Which is about as bad.”

“Worse, if you ask me,” Gordon told him.

“We ought to be nearly there I’d say,” Rogers declared.

“Let’s see, we’ve been flying nearly fifteen hours at about a hundred and fifty miles an hour. How far is that?”

“Twenty-two hundred and fifty,” Gordon told him a moment later.

“Then we ought to be there. I figured it was twenty-two hundred miles from where we started. Wonder if I’ve gotten off the course.”

“If you have it’ll be the first time,” Gordon told him.

“And the worst time,” Bill added. “But I don’t believe I have. I’ve watched the compass mighty close.”

“We lost some time playing with the whale,” Gordon reminded him.

“Not more than fifteen or twenty minutes I’d say.”

“I’d make it half an hour at least,” Rogers gave as his opinion. “You slowed down quite a while before we got up to him and it took some time to get going full speed again.”

“Well, maybe it was half an hour,” Bill agreed, “But, even so, we ought to be sighting it any time now.”

“We probably will,” Gordon assured him.

But another half hour passed and still there was no sight of land, but it was now quite certain that they were running into a fog.

“No use trying to go over it because we couldn’t see through it,” Bill told them as the plane became enveloped in the light fog.

“Not so bad if it doesn’t get any worse,” Gordon said.

“But it’s going to,” Bill told him.

And he was right for in less than ten minutes it was so thick that they could hardly see a dozen feet ahead. Bill slowed down the motor until they were making just enough headway to maintain their altitude.

“Only thing to do is to ride it out,” he declared.

“Good thing there’s no wind,” Gordon ventured.

“But if there was a good wind it would probably blow the fog away,” Rogers told him.

“That’s so, too,” Gordon agreed. “Perhaps I’d better whistle for one.”

Another half hour passed with no change in the conditions.

“I’m afraid we’ll go past it,” Bill told them.

“What’s the matter with starting the elevator and standing still till the fog clears if it ever does?” Gordon suggested.

“Just what I was thinking of doing,” Bill said, and a few minutes later they were practically motionless.

“Keep your eye on the needle,” Bill ordered. “We don’t want to get any lower.”

It took considerable moving of the switch to hold the plane stationary but for more than an hour their altitude did not vary more than a hundred feet. Of course they were unable to tell how fast they were drifting but there was only the slightest of breezes and they knew it could not be much. It certainly was a peculiar sensation to be suspended there betwixt sky and water and before long it began to get on their nerves.

“If something doesn’t happen before long I know one who’s going loco,” Gordon declared.

“It isn’t very pleasant,” Bill told him, “but I can’t see that we’re in any particular danger.”

“It isn’t that,” Gordon insisted. “It’s, it’s——well, I don’t know what it is but it is all right.”

“I feel somewhat that way myself,” Rogers acknowledged.

“And I guess I’d better make it unanimous,” Bill laughed, but there was not much mirth in the sound.

“How about going straight up and seeing if we can’t get out of this stuff?” Gordon asked.

“Wouldn’t do a bit of good if we did,” Bill told him.

“I know it but it would be doing something.”

“All right, just as you say,” and Bill pushed over the switch.

They had been floating at an altitude of about eight hundred feet and the needle slowly turned until it registered four thousand and the fog was as thick as ever. And now it was getting dark.

“Think we’d better go any higher?” Bill asked.

“We don’t seem to be getting anywhere and that’s a fact,” Gordon told him. “Guess we better go down again. Somehow I don’t feel safe up so high.”

So Bill pulled the switch back and they began to sink. At an altitude of a thousand feet he brought the plane to a stop and said:

“Well, we seem to be about where we were before we went up.”

“Every place looks the same,” Gordon growled.

“Listen.”

It was Rogers who gave the command and for a moment they strained their ears.

“It’s the surf sure’s you’re born,” Gordon finally declared.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about it,” Bill agreed. “Which way do you make it?”

“Straight ahead, I’d say,” Rogers replied.

“Sure it is,” Gordon agreed.

“Think we’d better try landing?” Bill again asked.

“Sure, why not?” Gordon answered.

At the word Bill started the forward propeller at the same time slowing down the elevator.

“Tell me when you think we’re right over it,” he ordered.

“I’d say, now,” Rogers told him a few minutes later.

“Same here,” Gordon agreed.

They were now up only three hundred feet and the sound of the surf as it broke on the shore was plainly audible but they could not see a thing.

“Keep your eyes open,” Bill cried as he stopped the forward propeller.

“Pile of good it’ll do,” Gordon grumbled.

“I’m going to let her down as slowly as I can and you must let me know if we’re going to hit anything,” Bill insisted. “If we land in a tree it’ll be all day with the plane. Watch now and yell if you see anything.”

“I’ll yell all right,” Gordon promised him.

Slowly the plane settled down until they were only fifty feet above the land and then Gordon shouted:

“I see trees right under us.”

Instantly Bill speeded up the elevator and the plane rose to a hundred feet.

“No need of going up so high,” Gordon told him.

“Well, I wanted to play it safe.”

He started the forward propeller again but shut it off in a couple of minutes.

“Now we’ll try it again,” he told them.

But once more when they were nearly down they found that trees were in their way and they were forced to try again.

“I’m afraid we’re over a good sized forest,” Bill said.

“How about going back and trying to land near the shore?” Rogers suggested. “Usually there’s a fairly wide stretch of beach between the water and the forest. At least there is on most of the islands I’ve seen.”

“I guess it’s the best plan,” Bill agreed as he started the forward propeller again and turned the wheel as far as he could.

“If it was just dark we could see well enough with a flash light,” Gordon declared, “but it’s almost as much use as a yellow eyed bean in this fog.”

“How about it?” Bill demanded a moment later.

“Shut it off, I think we’ve gone far enough,” Gordon told him.

“Look sharp now.”

“Sharp is right.”

A moment later the plane landed as light as a feather, as Rogers declared, and with a sigh of great relief, they jumped from their seats to the hard sand.

“Well, we’re here,” Gordon cried.

“We’re here all right but I wish someone would tell me where here is,” Bill returned. “Of course we’re on an island but I’d give something to know the name of it.”

“Well, we’re not going to know before morning and that’s that,” Gordon told him.