CHAPTER V
STORM-TOSSED WINGS
Puffs of cool wind began to bend the tall grass while Don and Garrybent and pulled back at the dory's oars.
Rapidly the intensity of fitful flashes in the North increased, and thestorm 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 theymight rescue its pilot from the added menace of turbulent waters.
Already, while they were a quarter of a mile away, they saw that thetime 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 itmight be that we could get around to the mail crate quicker if therewas 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 itslight they made out what looked like fairly firm earth, running in aswiftly narrowing strip from the mainland, a promontory jutting in acurving line into the grass-covered waters. If only that jut of landextended far enough they thought it possible to reach the smashedairplane by a safer route than the dory could afford. Already it dippedand rolled, as they drove its nose on the wash of foam into the softbank between the grasses.
Holding tightly to a handful of the sturdy vegetation, Don began toprogress into the bow. From the windward side Garry dug his oar intosoft bottom, steadying their craft as well as he could.
The wind swept the stern around into the grass, but Don managed to geta 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 thedory, being careful to cling to the rope at the prow, lest his chum bedrifted beyond the patch of solid ground, separating them and leavingGarry to battle alone against the surge of wind and water.
"It's safe!" Don added. "I'll hold the painter, Garry. Come on. Becareful to leave the oars in the bottom or the grass might pull themout of the boat."
"I will!"
Garry picked up his first aid kit, stowed the oars, crawled forward andtumbled to a yielding sod which, nevertheless, did not break through.
Guiding themselves by the steadily increasing succession of lightninggleams, their voices drowned in the quickly following growls ofthunder, wondering about the Dragonfly, about Scott, probably aloft inthe Dart, Don and Garry went from the dory, tied to a root, along aperilous and unknown path.
Don, in the van, had to part clumps of tossing, cumbering grass to testthe solidity of footing before he went ahead; Garry, clutching his kitand steadying his partner when a foot would miss the sometimes narrowband of safe path, followed.
As a glare of vivid fire, followed almost instantly by a peal of angrythunder, revealed the upthrust wing of the smashed craft within a fewfeet, to one side, Don stopped.
It had been apparent to them for several yards, as they parted theclumps of grass, that the way went no further.
"Can you lift me up, make a 'back' for me, do you think?" Garry askedas he carefully put down the first aid kit on the path they had justtraversed.
Don, choosing his stand on what seemed to be the firmest spot--an oldspar or block of driftwood embedded in the mud--bent forward, his handsbraced on his knees. Lithely, with his gymnasium training to give himconfidence, Garry put his weight on the elevated perch of Don's backand leaped, forward, upward and outward, over the mud and water, as achain of fiery light split the clouds to the roar of thunder.
Don, in that vivid flare, saw the lithe figure seemingly poised betweensky and water, its outflung hands seeking for a grip on the leadingedge of the wing that was closest to them.
Leaping up as soon as the weight left his supporting back, Don sawthose hands strike their target--but the light died as it seemed to himthat Garry slipped. Peals of celestial cannon drowned a cry if therewas 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 orif 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 offuselage and flying wire, one hand clinging to the wire, was safe!
The moiled waters, reflecting the furious discharges of fire fromabove, were foaming across under the wind's whip, and Don saw that ifGarry did not find the object of his search quickly, it would be toolate. Already the salty spume lashed his face, the fabric of theairplane quivered and shook to the beat of waves, and sunk in the softmud, while wind under the wing failed to topple the whole craft ontothe end of the promontory only because its trucks lay in clinging mudand steadied the ship.
From across the end of the grassy bank Don saw the distant glow of twored flares, smoking and guttering in the wind.
Chick was signaling. Two red flares!--did that mean the air signal, foran 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 heavenlyfire, 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 offhis 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 ofthe wing as the whole ship toppled forward, and the change of angle,freeing its trucks from the mud, enabled the wind to get under thewings with telling effect.
As Don steadied Garry after his drop to the ground, the lightningshowed 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 momenton the supporting earth and then earth, craft and all tumbled and tornby the wind, slipped on into deeper mud beyond the solid earth leftjust 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 couldhave 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 forhim in the rapidly coming blackness, wind and rain.
As rapidly as they could, finally breaking into a run when they gotclear of the most dangerous and slippery end of the promontory, Don andGarry raced toward the beckoning flares.
Carrying the mail pouch, impeded by it as it caught on the restraininggrasses, Don followed Garry. Garry, his eyes straining, tried to detectthe figure of Chick by their guiding light, but he saw no figure!
As they came into the clear space near the boathouse, with windwhipping the first flecks of rain into their faces to add its coldwarning to the sting of salt spray torn from the growing crests ofwaves, Don and Garry paused, almost stunned.
The last ruddy glow of the flares, and the white fires almostconstantly leaping across the zenith, showed them two forms emergingfrom the door of the hovel, toward the planks that led across the marshto solid ground.
They were struggling. They were locked together. One was large, theother 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 fromthe smaller as they came to the boarding.
The lightning died out, leaving the sky a black, thunder-echoing void.The earth beneath wa
s cloaked in the pall. With blinded eyes Donstopped, fearing to crash into Garry just ahead of him.
They were too far away to see, in that masking blackness, what hadhappened.
The last light had shown the smaller figure reeling backward, on theedge of the planks, it seemed.
There was nothing to do! To run forward might mean being precipitatedinto the marshy channels.
They waited for the next flash.
With the perversity of storms, the lightning seemed exhausted for along, mind-torturing moment. When next it flared up, two anxious heartsseemed to drop like leaden weights from two tight throats where theyhad 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 whispermockingly 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 overthe marsh. They stared toward the grass, the water, the bare andunrevealing planks.
Chick was not visible. Neither was his adversary.
Beyond the end of the planks the grass began again. Don dropped themail pouch: Garry, his kit forgotten, deserted far behind them in theeel grass at the promontory end, ran across the planks. Into the hovelDon turned.
On the narrow, twisting path beyond the planks Garry searched, unableto see far because the grass stood so high.
In the hut, with wind roaring around it, Don strained his eyes to gainsome truth from the upset table, the overturned lantern, the evidencesof strife and of struggle that the lightning showed as its fire cameleaping 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--seeanything?"
"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 thepromontory. They turned, staring into the South, the light coming attheir 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 athis 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 getme 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 shredsoverhead. Its first fury was expended. From the North came thegathering furies of its second, and more terrible onslaught.
If Don could get that Dragonfly into the air and climb out of theturbulent area, he could get the pilot to some medical man; at the sametime he might carry on that mail!--and send searchers to find Chick.
Much depended on the safe delivery of the pouch Garry had recovered. Itwas the first of what might be a successful series of ship-to-shoremail flights, from vast ocean greyhounds, in swift airplanes. Itssuccessful delivery meant a great future for Don's uncle who hadstarted 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 andaloft, carrying pilot and mail, was his immediate concern.
Ably Garry aided him.
Before the fury of the storm broke again, their storm-tossed wings cutthe air, climbing swiftly through the darkness that seemed breathlesslywaiting, still ominous, waiting--while Don flew his best.
Then, from the North, the storm furies leaped.