White Fire
CHAPTER IX A PLANE IN A TYPHOON
When they struck the typhoon Johnny had the courage to hope that Pantmight bring them out of it in safety. This, however, seemed scarcelybelievable. The cabin, a moment before stuffy as a clothes closet, wasnow as breezy as a mosquito-bar tent in a stiff wind. She was battenedtight, too. The mad whirl of the plane made Johnny dizzy and sick. Hisears were full of strange sounds. The creak and groan of planes, staysand guys, that seemed about to snap, was mingled with the thunder of theengines. Above all this, like the voice of some mad siren's spirit filledwith hatred and revenge, rang out the shrill scream of the wind. Johnny'seyes were blinded by strange weird lights--red, yellow and purple--flashupon flash.
"Must be in the midst of the gigantic smithy where lightning bolts areforged," he grumbled, as he closed his eyes tight and took one more madwhirl that it seemed must be the craft's last.
But at that, the seemingly last moment, the whirling gale took a strangeturn. The plane hung motionless in mid-air. By good fortune she stoodright side up. Her planes were as yet unimpaired.
She was a staunch craft. Not a stick, nor wire, nor screw but had beentested and doubly inspected before they went into her. Her twotwelve-cylinder engines, lying one beside the other above the fuselage,were bound and braced from every side. Johnny thought of all this as theylay there suspended in space.
It was a lull; he understood that well enough. A strange lull it was,too, as if the storm had taken their frail craft into its gigantic fist,as an ape holds a fledgling bird in his horny claw before crashing itagainst the trunk of a tree.
Johnny's lips were pressed to the speaking-tube. "We're in for it!" heshrilled to his pal.
"Yes?" came back from Pant.
"How you standing it?"
Pant retorted with a grim chuckle:
"Not so bad. Pretty wet out here."
"What--what'll we do?"
"Going to climb. Top to this thing somewhere, maybe. Nobody knows,though. It's a typhoon. Always wanted to see what a plane'd do in atyphoon."
"You'll see, but never tell, maybe."
"Maybe."
"Look out--here she comes again! It's--"
"Yes, it's--" Pant's voice seemed blown back into him by the terrificgust of wind. The next instant, a darkness such as he had never seen; atumult such as he had never heard; a torrent of rain such as he had neverwitnessed; a wild whirling such as he had never experienced, drove allpower of thought from his befuddled brain, leaving him again ahalf-animate, over-large punching-bag, swinging in the narrow center ofthe cabin.
Even in this dizzy state of half-consciousness he thought of Pant. Whentold that he might not escape disaster, he had not said, "I have escapedbefore." He might have said it, for there had been other adventures; anight in a forest in India, with a mad black leopard's eyes gleaming athim out of the darkness; an hour in a dungeon-dark cave, with murderoussavages about him. There had been other adventures, too, and he hadescaped; yet he did not say, "I will again." That was the kind of fellowhe was. Confident of his ability, interested in all of life, thrilled byeach new experience, he stood ready to face each one as it came and dobattle valiantly, leaving the results to a power greater, a mind wiser,than his own.
At this moment when Johnny was thinking these thoughts, Pant was beingdragged forward half out of his soggy, water-soaked harness, then slammedback into his seat, to be deluged to the drowning by a downpour that wasnot rain, he thought, but more like a sky-suspended tank of fresh water.He found himself surprised that the plane held up against it; that it didnot sink at once into the sea. His leather coat hung like a weight ofsteel upon his shoulders; his eyes, his ears, his mouth were filled withwater. It chilled, benumbed, depressed him.
The plane was traveling with the gale; whether in a circle or straightahead, he could not tell. The engine was shut off. Would it start againat his bidding? That he did not know. If not, their situation washopeless. The time would come when the storm would drop them, as it dropsa bird it has harried and beaten to its death. Then, with no power, theywould sink helpless into the sea. And such a sea as it must be! He hadnot seen it since the storm began. He could imagine it, though. Black,angry water tossed into foam. Billows, mountain high. What alanding-place for a seaplane! One resounding crash that echoed above thedemon laughter of the waves, then all would be over!
"She must start! She must," he muttered. Half-unconsciously he put hishand to the lever, then quickly drew it away.
"No, not now, not now," he muttered. "The dust! The dust! If only it isstill dry!"
Then, for a moment, his mind dwelt upon the wind. It was strange aboutthat wind. It did not come in gusts, but flowed straight on like a streamof water. In the utter darkness, flooded by torrents of rain, carriedsteadily forward by that constant flow of wind, he was overcome by anillusion. He fancied himself passing beneath the surface of the sea. Onlythe touching of his tongue to his lips, to satisfy his mind that this wasnot salt water that beat in from every side, could dispel the illusion.
The whole thing was so terrific, so altogether beyond comprehension, thatit shunted off the powers that drove his brain to action. It wasaltogether unbelievable.
As Johnny Thompson's mind cleared itself of the effects of the airship'smad whirl, it began puzzling over certain questions: What was to be theend of this? Why where they there?
The truth was, Johnny did not know why they were there. They had comeupon this long and perilous air journey over the sea at the request of astranger. No, perhaps they had not been as mad as that. The man hadbrought with him a letter of introduction from their employer. Yet, whyshould he not have told them more of his intentions? How could thisjourney benefit tens of thousands of children? They were in imminentdanger of being destroyed by the storm. He felt that it would help ifonly he knew the reason why.
There came another whirl. He caught his breath and tried to thinkclearly. It was a monstrous experience; he could not think of it in anyother way.
"Can't last long--wonder we haven't hit the water before this. Must havebeen mighty high up."
To his surprise and great relief, the plane again righted herself. Thistime, half on her side, she lay upon the air like a crippled bird poisingfor its death plunge.
His lips were at the tube.
"What you going to do?" he shouted above the roar of the wind.
"Going--to--get--out--of--here," came back.
"Can--you?"
"Can--try. Look--out. Start--engine. May--take--tailspin.Can't--be--worse,--though."
The next instant there came the thunder of the powerful motor.
"Thank God! Dust's dry," Pant muttered as he tried to straighten up histilted car.
When he heard the thunder of the motors, Pant could scarcely have beenmore thankful about anything. True, there were not another such pair ofengines in the world, but there had been a strain put upon every bolt,rod, feed-pipe and screw such as had been endured by no other engines. Ifthere had been a single break, then all was lost.
When they did respond to his touch, he at once tilted his right plane insuch a manner as to square her up. The wind was blowing steadily, and, hethought, less violently, though this was hard to concede, since it seemedto him that a more madly violent gale than even now was blowing would behard to imagine.
The plane righted herself gracefully. Truly, this was a marvelous bit ofmachinery, made by master builders. She had been designed fordependability rather than speed, yet she presented a rather rakishappearance, her upper planes jutting out over the lower ones by a fullfive feet. Her fuselage was built like the body of a wasp, in two parts.In the forward part was the driver's seat, fully exposed to the open air.In the rear portion was a closed cabin fitted with two seats. These seatsin fair weather might be made to collapse in such a manner as to form abed. Thus it was possible for one aviator to rest while the other was atthe wheel.
But the distinctive part of the whole equipment was the en
gines. If Panthad felt any misgivings about the type of engine their plane was fittedwith, the next few minutes made him doubly thankful that they were justwhat they were.
Hardly had they begun a mad rush straight away with the wind, the nose ofthe plane tilted twenty-five degrees upward, than there began to playabout him vivid sparks of fire.
"Picking up lightning," he muttered.
Like lights twinkling on the deck of a steamer the sparks leaped fromplane to plane. They flashed down the guy-wires and braces, leaped to themotors. Setting her firing irregularly for a second, they raced for thetail, only to flash back to the wheel and give Pant's arm such a suddentwist that for the second he was paralyzed.
The next moment his lips were at the tube.
"Mighty bad," he shouted. "Dangerous--I--I--say."
"Better--stop--her," came back from Johnny.
Pant's hand was at the lever. The engine went still, but just at thatinstant a tremendous flash leaped up from the large tank at the rear ofthe fuselage.
Pant leaped high, then sank back with a shudder.
"Man! Man!" he gasped. "If that had been gasoline in that tank! If ithad!"
His brow wrinkled. "I only hope it didn't rip her wide open. Anyway, weclimbed some. Can afford to glide."
They were surrounded by a succession of vivid flashes of lightning. Theplane was tipped to a rakish angle. Through a storm-washed window Johnnysaw what lay below. The ocean, vast, mysterious, dark and terrible,appeared as a limitless open-hearth steel furnace filled with gleamingmolten metal.
In the very midst of this was what appeared at first to be a mere splotchon the surface, but which in time resolved itself into the form of asteamship.
He gasped as he made out its form, "To think," he muttered, "that anyship could live in this!"
Yet, as he thought of it, he knew that they had in years past. He hadread authentic accounts of ships riding out such a storm.
Even as he watched he saw the water smooth out into what he knew to bethe surface of a gigantic wave; saw, amid the flashes, the ship leapforward to meet it; saw her prow rest on air; saw her plunge; saw herburied beneath an avalanche of sea.
He shut his eyes, expecting never again to see that ship; yet, when heopened them, she was still there battling with the elements.
"Bravo! Bravo!" he exclaimed involuntarily.
The next instant the plane tipped back into position, the engines roared,he felt her turn and knew that Pant had set her head-on against thestorm.
He listened to the roar of the engines and thrilled at the battle as hefelt the shock of the storm.
Suddenly, as the sheet-lightning flashed, he saw a dark object pass hiswindow, then another.
"The parachutes!" he exclaimed in consternation. He put his lips to thetube: "Storm--tore--the--parachutes--away."
"I--know," came back from Pant. "No--good--now,--anyway. Can't--land."
Then at the very thought, Johnny laughed. On a calm sea the parachutesmight save them; in such a storm, never.
"Saw--a--ship--down--there. See--her?" he asked a moment later.
"Yes."
"Think--that's--the--ship--we're--racing?"
"Might--be."
"If--it--is--we--win."
"If--we--live--through,--yes."
There was silence. But again there came a sound from the tube. This timeit was not Pant, but the stranger who rode behind Johnny. Johnny started;he had quite forgotten him.
"What--what is it?" he stammered.
"Thought--I--ought--to--tell--you." The voice was low and subdued, like aparson reading the funeral service at a grave.
"Tell--me--what?" Johnny asked, bewildered.
"About--the--wreck. Why--we--are--going--"
But at that instant there came a blinding flash, a deafening roar, andthe plane seemed to leap into midair, like a rowboat hit by a fifty-poundprojectile.