CHAPTER XVIII
TO THE RESCUE
"Since you are one of the Wiljohn men," said Huntley, "I'll turn youover to the Colonel for further directions. He's handling our aviationfleet with a master hand."
When Hal came face to face with his friend farther down the street ofthe City of Tents, he was shocked to see how broken and feeble ColonelWiljohn had become. In six days he had aged a score of years.
"Hal, Hal--we've needed you."
"I came as soon as I heard, sir."
"Might have known you would." Hal could feel the tremble of theColonel's arm as it lay across his shoulder. Then the tremble steadied,and the Colonel went on in a firm voice, "Well, we've work a-plenty foryou to do. I'll be showing you the ropes."
It was a marvelous organization that Hal Dane slipped into. He became acog in a huge, efficient machine.
Over night almost, this flood had come.
Over night, also, America organized to save the people in the floodpath.
When this appalling disaster broke, the American Red Cross movedswiftly. At Troja, Alabama, was set up a special Flood ReliefHeadquarters. Here quickly came the key men of the Red Cross staff fromall neighboring states. To work in liaison, there came also officers ofthe Army, Navy, Public Health Service, Coast Guard, Department ofAgriculture, Veterans' Bureau and the railroads which served the floodedarea. It was an effective relief force, equal to any war-timeorganization.
It was a war these men were fighting--a war against a treacherous,rolling, yellow flood.
From all over the Union came shipments of food, clothing, tents,medicine. There were garments to fit any size refugee, from an infant onup. There were specially prepared tin cases of food, all ready to bedropped down by airplane to hill-top refugees, or those marooned ondrifting houses, so as to keep life in their bodies till boats couldhaul them off to safety.
Hal was surprised to see in the midst of a supply train standing out inthe railroad yard, a long box car bearing in big letters this strikingsign: "Extra Airplane Parts. Rush to Three-River Flood District."
"The airplane is showing the world what it can do in times of trouble,"said Colonel Wiljohn, noticing Hal's excited gaze upon the portableaircraft shop on the side track. "Aviators are the eyes of the RescueProgram, boy; scout planes fly this blasted flood day and night,reporting refugees, their exact location, and the best way to reachthem. See, here come some results now." He motioned out towards thewater.
A square-nosed old river steamer was pushing in before her a bargeloaded with the pitiful, shabby furnishings of many a humble plantationtenant home. Over bundles of bedding, the dogs and children crawled;amid piles of rickety furniture, tin tubs and hastily gathered utensilsand tools, the family mules and cows were tethered. On the decks of thesteamer, itself, huddled half a hundred cold, wet, hungry refugees. Theboat was a weather-beaten old side-wheeler, clumsy and creaking. But tothose refugees, just snatched from the jaws of death, she probablyseemed the finest ship afloat.
Planes came in, other planes took off--an endless chain of scouts.
Hal was aching to be out on the work.
"Aviators have to be the ears as well as the eyes in this floodfighting," went on Colonel Wiljohn, "I'm expecting great things of eventhis dog plane you've brought down, but we've got to get radio equipmentinstalled on it before you take it out on the job. Radio is ourtime-saver. You can wireless a message in one-twentieth of the time itwould take you to zoom back and forth delivering reports by word ofmouth. There's an extra seaplane here, already radio-equipped. You cantake that out."
"Any kind will do," said Hal, "just let me get my hands on the stick andbe off."
"I'm changing one group of men to another section," went on ColonelWiljohn, "and the work I want you to do today is scout-flying in aten-mile radius over the flood country below the forks of the Pea Riverand the Choctawhatchee. You'll have to locate the forks by chart, thatsection's been under water a week. And Hal, search every creek thatleads in--I--I'm depending on you more than any of the others--tofind--" The Colonel turned away suddenly.
Hal felt a quick sting behind his eyelids. He choked till he couldhardly give his answer. Without having actually said so, the Colonel, heknew, was giving him the patrol of the district Jacky was lost in. Ifonly he could find Jacky!
A few moments later, Hal had become one of the many aviators whoseplanes circled over the heaving waste of flood waters. At low altituderoared these scout planes. Keen-eyed as hawks, the flying men soughtcontinually for groups marooned on ridges or housetops. In answer totheir radio messages flung into the ether, the rescue steamers churnedfar and wide across the yellow tide, hauling bargeloads of silent,stupefied people snatched from their perilous retreats. As the work wenton, most of the hill-top islands were cleared of their refugees, but outof creeks and bayous, shackly old buildings swept from theirfoundations, and burdened with pitiable human freight, continued todrift down with the flood current. Scout planes flew low over thesefloating derelicts. It would be haggard faces at a window, or a scream;or, sometimes it would be a quavery old voice singing a hymn that toldrescuers that here was human freight drifting down to death.
At the beginning of the flood, each drifting house was, mayhap, searcheda dozen times by various boat crews--no crew knowing that already othershad been there before them. Time was lost that could have been put toother needs. To avoid this, it was finally agreed that when a house wasonce searched a red flag, made of calico salvaged from a half-submergeddry goods store, should be nailed to its gable.
Hal saw some pitiful sights during his day's work. Up Jardin Bayou hefound five negroes on the roof of a tottering barn, the building readyto collapse and float off. When Hal dropped them bread from theemergency box in his cockpit, they hardly had strength to hold it andeat it. They had been without food for days, and were so weak that whenthe rescue boat came they had to be lifted off into it.
Some of the refugees that Hal radioed word back about were thefour-footed kind. All through the flooded district, hundreds of mulesand cattle were marooned on ridges and mounds. These hungry ones sooncleaned their tiny islands of every vestige of grass, moss and twigs.After that, they looked starvation in the face. Hal saw one hungry oldhorse, marooned on a bare little mound, who had the courage to plungeinto the roaring flood, swim a hundred yards to a leafy tree that liftedits head above the yellow torrent, eat what waving green he could fromit, then go struggling back to his mound. Such a courageous one deservedto be rescued. A radio message brought a barge to gather him up with aherd of other animals stranded on a ridge farther up.
Midday came and passed. The hours wore on into the afternoon. The nightof flying across half a continent, combined with the strain of the workhe was at now, began to tell on Hal's strength. His head was whirlingand his aching muscles were in rebellion against the will that drovethem on.
Then in an instant, a glimpse of a something lodged in the branches of adrifting tree spurred him on to fresh endeavors, cleared his brain offatigue clouds. Hal was miles from headquarters, skimming above asection which had been cleared of refugees earlier in the day. And nowinto his line of vision there came drifting a tree, now and againsubmerging to the pull of the currents, and bearing caught in itsbranches a tiny figure.
Mechanically, his fingers tapped out location and a call for help. ThenHal began to maneuver his seaplane for a landing in these troubledwaters. Assistance he knew would come quickly, but perhaps not quickenough in this case. If the plunging tree raft with its lone littlepassenger was swept into the eddies just beyond it would be the end.
Hal brought his plane to water as close to the forest derelict as hedared. He stood, braced himself strongly, and hurled a coil of rope. Ithissed through the air and fell over the leafy drift. At the first throwhe caught only some twigs that the rope knotted about and he had to jerkit free. The next cast, however, fell over the body of the child, and byexpert jockeying was finally tightened abo
ut the shoulders. A momentlater Hal had drawn the slight burden to the edge of the seaplane andgotten it aboard. Like a great bird the aircraft zoomed up and sped backtowards camp.
As Hal landed and came up from the improvised wharf bearing the child inhis arms, it was pitiful to watch hope blaze in Colonel Wiljohn'seyes--then as quickly die, for the child was not Jacky Wiljohn.
But he was someone's darling. At the end of a long line of refugeeswaiting before the open-air kitchen for their tin pannikins to be filledwith the steaming food, stood a haggard woman who seemed to have nointerest in food or anything else. With a sudden scream, this one dartedout of line, crying, "Renee! Renee! My lost child!" as she gathered thelittle boy into her arms.
It was far into the afternoon when Hal paused at the kitchen grounds fora hasty lunch, his first bite since the morning soup. He began torealize how weary he was, for his hand was trembling as he picked up thebig mug of steaming coffee.
Radio kept even a rescue camp in touch with world news. As Hal revivedhis drooping spirits with a good, thick hot beef sandwich, he heard mendiscussing word that had just come in concerning the two flyers, Langand Munger, who had crossed the continent in their planes, preparatoryto undertaking the great Pacific non-stop flight. On all sides, argumentwaxed hot over this coming event. Wasn't there enough land-flying tokeep men busy without all this running into needless danger trying tofly over the frozen poles and the oceans? And yet, so ran the other sideof the argument, think of the future of aviation, the real service thesepioneer flights were doing, the huge money prizes, the glory!
After the meal, the flyers that had been out on flood patrol weresnatching a little rest.
A dreadful restlessness urged Hal Dane back into his scout plane. A newsavage energy drove him with the feeling that he must work till hedropped. He must be too tired to think. Thoughts were dangerous. Thenews that already at Oakland airport, across the bay from San Francisco,planes were lining up to compete in the Pacific race, stirred himterribly, shook the iron control that he had fought to preserve.
As soon as weather conditions permitted, a dozen planes would be off onthe great flight--and his plane would not be among them!
The time for the splendid Onheim Safety Device Contest was looming evennearer. Just a few days to that date now.
Prizes could come and prizes could go, but under the strain of combingthe torrent-washed land for the lost Jacky Wiljohn, neither Hal nor theColonel could have time for thoughts of contests. At least, Hal wouldnot let his thoughts dwell on the great chance he'd have to miss. Rightnow was a time of testing out a character, if not of testing out a shipfor a prize.
Grimly, Hal forced the tremble out of his hands on the controls, andturned the nose of his plane out over the rolling ochre-colored waste offlood waters.
He had come perhaps ten miles from Troja when, out of the wide, floodingmouth of a tributary creek, he saw a roof top come drifting into themain rush of the torrent. Hal flew low, noting it expectantly--any driftfrom the creek bottoms might contain those he sought. His sharp eyessoon showed him, though, that this derelict had already been searched.The strip of weather-stained red calico nailed to the gable told himthat much. But while he still hovered near with engine muffled to itssoftest, his ear seemed to catch a scream--a woman's scream from withinthe drifting house.
The flapping bit of red calico signaled, "No occupant--searchers havebeen here."
That one long-drawn wail still echoing in Hal's brain, though, must meanthat some victim of the flood was housed within. There was the chancethat a refugee from floating logs, or a tree top, had but lately managedto crawl aboard the half-submerged dwelling.
Hal noted well the location and the type of house this drifter was, butinstead of radioing for help, he shot back to Troja in his plane. At thecamp, he sought out Colonel Wiljohn and told him of the case. All he hadto go on was the fact that this old dwelling had drifted in from thecreek bottoms, and that the sound of a woman's scream had seemed to comefrom it. Frail grounds for hoping that here might be Jacky Wiljohn'smother and the boy himself. But Colonel Wiljohn squared back hisshoulders; he became all fire and energy in his preparations. A launchwas got ready, blankets, hot soup in thermos bottles, axes to break anybarriers, ropes.
In short order the boat shot out across the waters, leaving a froth ofyellow foam in its wake.
When the drifting, two-story dwelling was sighted, the pilot cut inclose and maneuvered until he got his craft alongside one of thewindows.
Hal was the first man to scramble from the boat to the window ledge thatwas now just a few inches above the roaring yellow torrent. As he flunga leg over the sill and slid down into the room, a scream, like thatfirst he had heard, greeted him--only terrifically loud, a wild demoniacscream, followed by a coughing, snarling roar.
As Hal focused the electric torch on the corner whence came the sound,the beam blazed upon the wide-set eyes, the tense, crouched body of agreat panther.