Bill Bolton-Flying Midshipman

"I can't keep her in the air any longer, Dad!"

Bill Bolton shot the words into the mouthpiece of his headphone and pushed the stick gently forward. The amphibian which he was driving nosed into a long gliding arc toward the angry whitecaps of the Bay of Florida, a thousand feet below.

"Too much wind?" called back Mr. Bolton from his seat in the rear cockpit.

With a sharp bank Bill saved the plane a side-slip as an unusually heavy gust caught her.

"Too much wind is right. Those black clouds to the southeast mean a hurricane or I'm a landlubber. We're soon going to be in for it good and plenty. It's already kicked up a heavy sea below. I should have landed sooner."

"If we crash, we'll have a long swim," was his father's sole comment.

Bill cut his gun and having brought the plane into the teeth of the wind which was increasing in violence momentarily, he shot a quick glance overside. Row after row of spume-capped combers met his eye and his face became grim with determination.

At an altitude of perhaps twenty-five feet he began to draw the stick slowly backward, breaking his glide. Careful not to stall her, with his eyes on the water just ahead he allowed the nose to come gradually up until the amphibian was in level flight. In such a wind this proved a most difficult evolution, for savage squalls lashed the plane until she acted like a wild colt on a leading rope; and a crash seemed imminent.

Struggling to keep the plane on an even keel, Bill continued to pull back his stick, raising the nose and depressing the tail. Then with a final pull he stalled her, the heel of the step made contact with the top of a whitecap and amid a cloud of spray the amphibian skimmed ahead on the water. Before her nose could play off, Bill had the sea anchor overside and a moment later the heavy boat was tugging on the line to the collapsible canvas bucket that kept her head into the wind.

Bill whipped off his headphone and goggles. Then he made the pilot's cockpit secure by cleating down a waterproof tarpaulin over the top, flush with the deck, and climbed into the rear cockpit which had seats for two passengers.

Vast clouds growing out of the southeast almost covered the heavens now, concealing the sun. And as it grew darker the wind's velocity steadily increased.

"She'll ride better with me aft," he explained to his father, "and the tarpaulin will shed water like a deck. If the fore cockpit shipped one of those big seas, we'd fill up and go down like a plummet."

"I admit that I'm not much of a seafaring man," said Mr. Bolton, "but why you keep the plane heading into those combers is beyond me! Why not run before the gale? Wouldn't we ride easier?"

"Possibly-but we can't get into position to do that now. I threw over the sea anchor to keep her as she is."

"Why did you do that?"

"Because if I hadn't, she'd have nosed round broadside to the waves and foundered with the weight of the water pouring down on her lower wing sections. If I tried to bring her before the wind now, she'd do exactly that as soon as her head played off."

In the white glare of a lightning flash which brightened the horizon for an instant, Mr. Bolton glimpsed his son, staring into the teeth of the storm.

"Then why didn't you land the plane with the wind instead of heading into it?" he queried in a perplexed tone.

"All landings must be made directly into the wind, Dad," Bill explained patiently. "A plane stalls when its speed through the air drops below a certain point. If there's no wind its speed over the surface will be the same as its speed through the air. But any wind at once affects its velocity over the surface, which will be the composition of the speed of the plane through the air with the speed of the air over the surface. You see, a plane which stalls at forty miles an hour will, when landing into a fifteen-mile wind, make contact at twenty-five miles an hour. The same plane headed down-wind would land at fifty-five miles an hour. And that difference of thirty miles an hour in landing speed might easily spell the difference between a good landing and a wrecked plane."

His father smiled in the darkness.

"You talk like a textbook, Bill. But you do seem to have learned something at Annapolis during the past year."

"Learned that in flight training, before I entered the Naval Academy," replied his son. He ducked his head as an unusually vicious wave swept over the forward decking, deluging the two in the cockpit with stinging spray. "This is going to be a wet vacation, by the looks of things."

"Who'd have thought we'd be in this fix when we left Key West at four this afternoon! Now we're stranded-somewhere in the Bay of Florida-and instead of dining cheerily with the Wilsons at Miami, and going on to that important business conference afterwards-"

"We're likely to make good bait for the sharks in this neighborhood!"

"I don't suppose there's anything we can do, son?"

"Not a thing-but grin and bear it until this wind blows itself out."

"And it will get worse before it gets better!"

"Sure! Cheer up, Dad-we'll weather it yet."

"Don't mind me, Bill. I'm-that is, I'm not feeling quite myself. Haven't since we came down, as a matter of fact. I've never been-seasick-before-" Mr. Bolton's voice sounded rather feeble.

"It's the motion, combined with the smell of gasoline, Dad. Every naval flyer knows that feeling, your son included, at this particular time. You'll feel better when you're empty."

"I certainly hope so," faltered Mr. Bolton.

"Just let your mind rest on a fatty piece of pork swimming in its own hot grease, for a starter," Bill suggested, grinning to himself.

"Mmmm-" Bill's father stood up suddenly and leaned far overside.

His son followed suit almost immediately.

Presently they returned to their places, weak and empty, but considerably more comfortable.

"I wonder why the thought of fat pork always gets one going," mused Bill, handing his father the water bottle.

Mr. Bolton slaked his thirst and handed it back, whereupon Bill took a couple of long pulls.

"Feel better, Dad?"

"Yes, thanks." He paused a moment, then continued in his normal tone. "The plane doesn't seem to be pitching so wildly-"

"No, the wind is increasing steadily, and flattening out the water."

"Isn't there something we can do now?"

"Yes. It's getting pretty wet in here. Give me a hand with this tarpaulin, please."

"What are you going to do?"

"Batten down the cockpit cover."

"But, my boy!" Mr. Bolton's voice showed a trace of nervousness for the first time. "If we put the cover on the cockpit, we'll be drowned like rats in a trap if the plane goes down. I confess I'm not keen on the idea."

"If the plane founders, we'll drown anyway," was his son's business-like reply. "No swimmer could live more than a minute in water like this. We're in a tight fix, Dad, and our only chance is to ride out the gale. This plane will sink like a stone, once the real hurricane hits us, unless she is pretty near watertight overall. Let's get busy before the wind makes the job impossible."

"I guess you're skipper," Mr. Bolton replied, and he hastened to comply with Bill's request.

It was difficult work fastening on the waterproof cover from the inside, but at last it was accomplished, and Bill flashed on his electric torch. With some trouble, because of the violent pitching and rolling of their little ship, he took down the two passenger seats which were collapsible, and stowed them in the luggage hold aft. It now became possible for father and son to sit upright on the flooring.

"We're as snug as a couple of bugs in a rug, now," breezed Bill with satisfaction as he made the last seat secure.

"More like nailing down the lid of our coffin," observed his father. "I hope I'm not afraid to meet my Maker, but I'd much prefer doing so in the open. However, I am certainly proud of the way you're handling things, my boy. From now on, I'll stop grumbling. When you reach my age, you'll find that an upset stomach paints everything else black."

With startling suddenness, the howl of the wind stilled, and the two in the cockpit could hear plainly the splash of the waves against the hull. This eerie silence lasted for perhaps a minute, to be superseded by a dull roar that grew stronger and louder every split second.

"Hold fast! Here she comes!" shouted Bill. With his back against one wall and his feet against the other, he braced his body for the shock of the wind.

In a crescendo of thunderous warning the hurricane struck them. Down and still further down went the nose of the plane beneath the smashing wind.

Would she never come up? Would the anchor line hold? Bill wondered frantically. Then he caught his father's twisted smile, and answered it with another. Dad was a real sport-true, he was a business man, and more at home in a swivel-chair behind a desk than in a pounding seaplane in a gale. But the old man was right there when it came to real pluck. That smile, with beads of perspiration standing out on his forehead proved it. Bill tingled with pride and satisfaction.

It was different, of course, with himself. He was a midshipman and a flyer, and it was his business to take risks. This was about the tightest fix he had been in so far, he thought. Never had he heard anything like the fearsome, shrieking roar of this wind.

Ah! The plane's head was rising! He could feel it. Soon the sea would get up again. Would they be able to ride out the storm?

Mr. Bolton fished a notebook and pencil out of his pocket, and after writing a few words, passed them to Bill.

"Have you a map of these waters?" he had written.

Bill shook his head. "It's in the forward cockpit," he wrote. "We were about twenty-five miles south of Oyster Keys when we landed. The mainland is a few miles north of them. Uninhabited mangrove swamps, I think."

He passed back the notebook and pencil. And after glancing at what he had written, Mr. Bolton scribbled a few more words and handed Bill the book again.

"How about Oyster Keys?" read his son.

The wind was making less commotion now, so Bill tried using his voice.

"Low-lying islets," he shouted. "I don't think anybody lives there. Even head on to the storm as we are, the plane is drifting toward the keys-sure to be."

"That's good," shouted back his father. "Maybe we'll make one of them by morning."

"I hope not!" was Bill's reply. "Not in the sea that will be running by then. We'd smash up sure in the breakers."

Mr. Bolton made no answer to this announcement and Bill spoke again. "We may need this flashlight again before morning, Dad. The batteries are small. They won't last forever. Sorry, but I'm afraid we'll have to sit it out in the dark."

Mr. Bolton nodded. "Goodnight--and good luck, son."

Bill snapped off the light. For what seemed a long time he sat there in darkness so black that with a hand held close to his eyes, he was unable to see the faintest outline of it. The strain and excitement were beginning to make themselves felt. Bill began to realize that he was tired. He curled up into a more comfortable position and rested his head on his arms. Five minutes later he was sound asleep.

He was awakened from dreamless slumber as his head struck something hard and unyielding. His hand sought the electric torch in his pocket and drew it forth. By its light he saw his father sleeping on the flooring close to him. A glance at his wristwatch showed that it was five o'clock, and therefore daylight. He wound the watch, and without waking his father, undid a corner of the cockpit cover.

The wind had fallen to a fraction of its former strength. A grey, cloudswept sky met his gaze, and below it, towering waves which seemed bent on burying the small craft beneath tumbling torrents of angry water. The plane was probably leaking a bit, but that was to be expected after the beating she had been taking all night long, and was still taking. Staunch little bus!

Then he turned his head and involuntarily caught his breath. Dead aft and not a quarter of a mile away lay a long line of pounding breakers!