He’d fly through the air with the greatest of ease,A daring young man on the flying trapeze.
He’d fly through the air with the greatest of ease,A daring young man on the flying trapeze.
“Where have I heard that before?” another boy groaned. For all that, they sang it with gusto.
“‘Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main,’” came next.
Then the boy from Kentucky started:
“‘The sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home—’”
His voice broke on the second line. Sally swallowed hard, but they sang it through to the end.
“Ioway! Ioway!” shouted the boy from the midwest. “That’s where the tall corn grows.”
They all laughed, but when the strains of “Swanee River” came rolling out, they were in a mellow mood once more.
When they arrived at the field they found a captive balloon straining at its ropes. Beneath it hung a platform and at the very center of the platform was a round hole.
“That,” said Sally, “is the famous hole in the sky.”
“On fields where paratroops are trained we have towers to jump from, but they cost a pile of money. A balloon works just as well,” a friendly lieutenant explained.
“Sure, even better,” wisecracked the boy from Kentucky. “Then if you don’t feel like dropping off, you can just cut the rope and go for a balloon ride.”
“I’m in favor of a balloon ride right now,” said his pal.
A latticework of ropes formed a wall about the platform. Over this they climbed. Then, slowly, majestically the balloon rose skyward.
Once more—“‘Sailing, sailing,’” rang out on the air.
“Old Kentucky Home” was a little too much this time. It expired in the middle of the second verse.
“Pack Up Your Troubles” went very well and the “Man on the Flying Trapeze” was as popular as ever.
One big fellow they called Samson sat hunched up in a corner, not singing and saying nothing.
“What’s the matter? Scared?” Sally asked.
“Thunder, no!” he exploded. “Sleepy, that’s all. What’s a little parachute jump? If you’d grown up on a cattle ranch with the big bulls chasin’ you and the lonesome coyotes callin’, you wouldn’t mind. I fell off a mountain once and no parachute stopped me, just a pine tree.”
“I’m scared,” Barbara whispered. Sally made no reply. Truth was, her stomach was pumping in a strange way. She saw the boy from Kentucky gulp twice. That didn’t help any.
“We’re about there,” the instructor announced. “If your stomachs don’t feel good, forget it. That’s the way mine feels right now, and I’ve jumped three hundred times.
“Now remember,” he added, “when you slide off, keep looking up. That way your chin doesn’t hook on the parachute straps.
“Now,” he said in a strong, clear voice, “we’re here. See that green light? That’s the signal. Don’t be nervous. Your parachutes have been properly rigged. I watched it done. Don’t forget, I’ll be right behind you.”
Before they went up, they had been given numbers. Barbara’s number was seven, Sally’s eight. That meant that, except for the instructor, they would be last. Sally did not know whether this was good or bad. For Barbara to go first would be terrible. But would watching the others disappear wear away her slender thread of courage? She could only hope that it would not.
“Action stations,” the instructor snapped. Number one, the big fellow raised on a cattle ranch, took his place, dangling his feet over the hole. With his arms hanging straight down, he looked up.
“Number one!” The big fellow vanished into the thin air below. “Number two!” One more vanished. Sally’s throat went dry. “Number three!” There they went. “Number four!” Oppressive silence followed. Sally gasped. Had something gone wrong? Then she remembered they were to go down by fours, with a space between each group. “Two fast sticks,” they called it. She felt quite like a stick just then.
Unconsciously, she began to count—one, two, three, four. She mopped her brow. She dared not look at Barbara. “Five, six, seven.” She had reached fifteen when the instructor took up the counting once more. “Number five.” One more man vanished.
“Get ready,” Sally whispered. On Barbara’s face was a look of do-or-die.
“Number six.” The last boy vanished.
“Now.” Barbara slid into her place. Her hands were at her sides, her chin high. When she heard “Number seven” she slid from sight.
In her eagerness to follow, Sally nearly went down without an order. As it was, she sank breathlessly down until, with startling suddenness, she felt a pull at her straps and knew her parachute had opened.
“Good old chute!” she murmured as she glanced up to catch its white gleam against the sky.
She looked for Barbara. Yes, there she was off to the left, floating down with the greatest of ease. This was Barbara’s big moment, perhaps the biggest moment of all her life.
“Good Old Chute!” Sally Murmured
“Good Old Chute!” Sally Murmured
“Good Old Chute!” Sally Murmured
But here was a voice coming up from below: “You’re coming down nicely, number seven,” it said. That would be Barbara.
“Number four, bend those knees. Don’t be trying to land stiff legged.” It was the voice again. An instructor was talking through a loudspeaker. His voice carried up to them perfectly.
“Number eight,” he called.
“Oh! He’s calling me!” Sally thought in sudden panic. “Number eight, you must turn round. Reach up, grab the strap.” Sally obeyed. She swung half about. “That’s it. Always land with the wind, not against it.
“Now, all of you, knees bent, feet together, relax, relax for a fall.”
One by one they tumbled on the ground, then jumped up laughing.
Sally made a quick count. Yes, all eight were up and moving. Then, having unfastened her parachute, she rushed over to Barbara to exclaim:
“Barbara! You were wonderful!”
Throwing her arms about her, Barbara burst into tears of joy.
When the shower had passed, she exclaimed, “Now I am going to be a parachute rigger always, for I know just how much it means!”
“Boy, oh, boy!” Sally exclaimed when at last she was alone with her instructor. “I hope I get a chance to make use of that experience. That certainly was something!”
“It’s been my experience,” he replied soberly, “that in this war, sooner or later, we find a place for every bit of practice we’ve ever had. Your time will come.”
Would it? Sally wondered a long, long wonder. She was still wondering when she got back to school. Secret radios, ships, airplanes, parachutes, all went round and round in her head. What was in store for her? In a day or two she would be whirled away to another school for further training.
“And after that, what?” she asked the elm that had once saved her from disaster. The elm whispered to the breeze, but she could not understand what the tree and the breezes were saying.
CHAPTER SEVENSILENT STORM
And then, like autumn leaves caught in a miniature whirlwind, they were sent spinning away in all directions. There was one happy evening hour when Sally, Nancy, Barbara, and Danny had lunch together in the Purple Cow, just off the campus. Theirs was the hail-and-farewell of good fellows well met, of soldiers who might never meet again. And yet, behind all their jokes and laughter was a feeling of friendship and devotion to one another that in all the years could never die.
“We’ll be seeing you,” they shouted next morning.
“Oh, sure! We’ll be together again, sooner than you think!”
“Good-by!”
“Good-by!”
Sally and Nancy were sent to the beautiful campus of a great mid-western university where they would learn much more about radio and communications. Barbara was shipped off to a big airport to receive her final training in the art of rigging parachutes. Danny remained behind, but not for long. The autumn winds would soon whisk him away to new fields of adventure and duty.
Both Sally and Nancy had dreamed of attending some truly great university. And, at last, here they were. But for how long? Just long enough to make you efficient in your chosen field, was the precise answer. “And always remember, your services are badly needed right now. Good communications and radio men are scarce. They are badly needed overseas.”
“But won’t we two be sent overseas?” Nancy asked of the major who gave them the information.
“That remains to be seen. However, one thing is certain, no WAVE will be sent overseas until she has perfected herself in her particular branch, and has served long enough at one of our bases here in America to prove that she will be a valuable addition to our Navy, either aboard ship or overseas.”
“Right here is where I forget this Gothic architecture, the shady walks, the cozy nooks that help to make this big school what it is,” Sally said, as a look of determination spread over her face. “I’m going to work and study day and night, for we are in the Navy now.”
“I’m right behind you,” Nancy agreed. “All the same, when this terrible scrap is over, I’m coming right back here and be a regular student as long as I please. And believe me, I’m going to have all the trimmings—class dances, proms, shady walks and all the rest.”
“Shake on that.” Sally held out her hand. That handshake was a solemn ceremony.
“And now to business.”
From that time on their heads were bent, for long hours, over study desks, radios, clattering keys.
Their day was not done when darkness fell, nor their week when Saturday rolled round. They did not, like Barbara, hide under the covers to study with a flashlight when night came. They rented bicycles for the entire period of their stay at the university. On many a night farmers saw strange lights winking and blinking from one hill to another in their pastures. Sally and Nancy were practicing the light-blinking code they had studied that day. Twice they were reported as spies, but nothing came of it for they never returned to the same pasture twice, and it would have been a fleet-footed farm boy who could have rounded them up in the dark.
Saturday afternoon, armed with dozens of multicolored flags, they returned to these same hills to practice flag signals. White and blue with a notch in the end stood for A, blue, white, red, white and blue in stripes was C, and so on and on to white with a red spot for one, blue with a white spot for two, and so on.
With good memories and a zeal for learning seldom witnessed by those gray stone walls, they went through the school in record time and were once more on the move.
“Now we’re really going to work,” Sally cried, enthusiastically.
“Yes, and at one of the biggest air bases on our long seacoast,” Nancy agreed.
“Florida and the sea. Um—” Sally breathed, “that’s worth working for.”
“It sure is!”
“There’s something else I’m going to work harder than ever for—” Sally spoke with conviction.
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to try to cut ‘Florida and the sea’ down to just the good, old ‘sea.’ All my life I’ve waited for that.”
“Oh, I don’t know. There are the enemy sub-packs. They’re really dangerous. The water’s awfully cold.”
“That’s just it.” Sally’s eyes shone. “There are the sub-packs—you haven’t forgotten our secret radios?”
“Almost,” Nancy admitted.
“I tried them twice back at the U, when you were gone,” Sally confided. “Nothing doing. Guess we were too far from the sea.”
“Florida will be better.”
“Much better, but the sea will be better still.”
“I suppose so,” Nancy replied dreamily. “But don’t forget, your enemy sub-pack may turn out to be friendly ships or planes.”
“I won’t forget. All the same, I want to know.”
“Wonder where Danny is.”
“And Barbara.”
“Oh! I forgot to tell you. I had a letter from Barbara this morning. Guess where she is now?”
“Where we’re going?”
“That’s just where she is. Won’t it be great if you can hop off from the sky with her again?” Nancy laughed.
“I wouldn’t mind. I’ll bet you an ice-cream soda I’ll have a chance to use that experience before the year is over.”
“Easy aces! You’re on. If I never win another bet, that’s one for me.”
Was Nancy too confident? In this world at war many strange things can happen, and many do.
Not so long after that, Sally found herself seated on the top of a high tower that overlooked a vast airfield. The skies were full of floating planes. The roar of powerful motors beat upon her eardrums. In her hand she held a score sheet, and, at the steady, carefully spoken words of a marine in a major’s uniform, she recorded hours, moments, numbers, and names.
On the officer’s head was a set of earphones. About his neck a chin-speaker was attached. From time to time, speaking always in that steady, even tone, he said:
“Come on down, six, four, three. Wind velocity, fifteen miles per hour, north-north-east.”
And again: “Circle once more, three-six-eight. Fast one coming in from the east.”
There were long periods of time when he said nothing, just stood there staring dreamily away toward the sea. But always he appeared to listen, as indeed he did, for listening to the radio voice of great four-motored bombers, inviting them to come in, advising them to wait, telling them when to take off, informing them regarding weather, was his duty. And on his ears, eyes and voice hung the life of many a fine young flier.
Red Storm, his fellow officers called him, some times “Silent Storm.” His real name was Robert Storm. Silent Storm was the name Sally liked best, although, of course, she never called him that, always Major Storm.
He seemed young for a major and certainly was handsome in a big, tall, red-headed way. He seldom spoke to her except to instruct her in her work. He was teaching her his own work, so she could take his place. Nancy too was learning the work, but at a different period.
As Major Storm stood there looking away during quiet times, she often wondered about that faraway look in his eyes. Then, too, there was the long scar across his right cheek and the look of utter weariness that came over his face at times when he slumped down in his chair.
“Major Storm,” she said one day, speaking with a sudden impulse that surprised her, “what does one do to make people want one as a friend?”
“You don’t make people want you as a friend,” was his quick reply. “They either wish to be your friend or they don’t, and that’s all there is to it.”
“Are—are you sure?” she asked a little startled.
“Absolutely.”
“Well, then, they might not care to have you as a friend but you might be able to do something that would make them wish to do something for you—you know, like—”
“Yes, I know what you mean. The answer to that is simple then. Take an interest in them first. Find out about their lives, their families, their problems. Have a sympathetic interest in them. If they’re human, they’ll do the same for you. That’s simple, isn’t it?”
“Very simple.”
Suddenly, he spoke in a different tone: “Come on in, Johnny.”
After sweeping the sky with his binoculars, he settled down in his chair.
“That radio boy on that big bomber is Johnny, one of my own boys. I taught him. He’s a fine boy. I suppose the war will get him sooner or later. It seems rather useless to care for them too much. They go away and—”
“You never see them again.”
“That’s right.”
“But, by the way,” his voice rose, “you have one very good friend, eminently worth while, I’d say.”
“I have several,” she smiled. She was happy, happier than she had been for days. She had really started Silent Storm talking. “But then,” she thought with a shy smile, “who ever heard of a really, truly silent storm, anyway?”
“This friend of yours,” he said quietly, “is also a very old friend of mine—old C. K., we used to call him.”
“You don’t mean C. K. Kennedy!” She stared in disbelief.
“That’s exactly who I do mean. He taught me most of what I know about radio. He’s one man in a million.”
“Oh! Then—” she exclaimed, “then we’re practically cousins!”
“Something like that,” he replied dryly.
Then, springing to his feet, he said: “Okay—come in, three-two-six.”
And that was all for then. Evening was coming on. Many big ships were coming in through the blue. Every moment was taken from then to the end of the shift. Yes, that was all for then, but it was enough to keep the girl dreaming in the golden twilight, under the palms when the day’s work was done. And those were strange dreams. Secret radios, ships, submarines, giant four-motored bombers, old C. K. and Silent Storm were all there in one glorious mixup of lights and shadows.
CHAPTER EIGHTDANGER IS MY DUTY
Since there were many WAVES stationed at this great air and marine base, they had taken over a very fine little hotel down by the sea.
“Nancy! This is gorgeous!” Sally had exclaimed on their arrival. “If it weren’t for the secret radio, I would be glad to stay here until the war is won.”
“Itiswonderful,” Nancy replied thoughtfully. “Florida, the blue, blue sea, and these lovely quarters! It’s really hard to believe, but, you know, this isn’t the sort of thing I joined up for. I expected a truly hard life. The boys in the jungles of those South Sea islands and on the sandy deserts of Africa—they don’t have it easy, so why should we—?”
“That’s right,” was the quick response. “If all the people of America, especially those who have lived soft lives—oh, I don’t mean who don’t work—but those who have had all they want, always, always slept in a soft bed, and always gone for a long ride in the old bus on a Sunday afternoon, could really be dragged out of it all and have it good and tough for a while, wouldn’t it be grand?
“But then,” Sally added in a quieter voice, “we might as well make the best of all this beauty and comfort, for something tells me that it won’t last too long.”
After her first real talk with Major Storm, Sally returned to her hotel, ate her dinner, then, returning to her room, dragged out her secret radio.
She had barely started thumbing its dials, when a phone call announced a caller.
Hurrying down to the hotel lobby, she barely refrained from throwing herself into the arms of this guest.
“Danny!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
“Taking a little final training and waiting for a ship,” he whispered.
“What kind of ship, Danny?”
“Ah! Ah!” He held up a finger. “Loose talk may sink a ship.”
“Oh! I’m sorry. Then how about our radio? May we talk about that?”
“Not only may, but must. I’ve studied those records from their code messages. They’re really revealing. That’s why I came.”
“I just got out the radio, but Danny, you’re not allowed in my room.”
“Danny! What Are You Doing Here?”
“Danny! What Are You Doing Here?”
“Danny! What Are You Doing Here?”
“Of course not, but we’re both allowed in the radio experimental station, providing one of us has a friend there, which I have, so—”
“So what are we waiting for?”
“Sure! What?”
“I—I’ll be right back.” Sally was off for the radio.
“We’ll have such an aerial as you never dreamed of, over at the station,” he confided, once they were on their way. “We’ll bring those enemy subs up so close we can practically talk to them.”
“Danny,” she whispered, “do you really think they were enemy subs we were hearing?”
“Well,” he hesitated, “I’d hate to say I am sure of it, but I’ve studied that secret code so carefully that I am positive that it goes the way we thought it did.”
“But the language? Is it English or German?”
“Yes,” he replied thoughtfully, “that’s the real question. I got out my old German dictionary and gave it a really good workout. All I can say is that it’s a lot easier to make sense out of those code messages in German than it is in English.”
“Oh, Danny! You are wonderful!” She pressed his arm. “Just think what a glorious victory it will be if we succeed in listening to the message of those wolf-packs!”
“When no one else has done it? Boy, oh, boy!”
“What a triumph for old C. K.!”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Danny, you’ve never met him. That’s too bad.”
“But I’ve met you—in fact, once I actually caught you,” he laughed.
“Danny, today I talked with my boss, Major Storm, and he told me old C. K. taught him radio. He says C. K. is one man in a million. Isn’t that a great break?”
“I suppose so. But why?”
“Because if I want a chance to do something different, like going to sea so I can try out this radio, if I tell him it’s really for old C. K., Silent Storm will help me.”
“Silent Storm! What a name!” Danny laughed low.
“It’s not the name that counts, but the man, and I—I think he’s going to be fine.”
“Sure! Sure! I know he will,” Danny agreed. “And now, here’s the station.”
In a small room they set up the radio and, having attached it to the aerial connections, turned on the current. Almost at once, there came the “put-put-put-a-put” of a code message.
“Ah! Got ’em,” Danny breathed.
“And it’s so much louder, so much more distinct!” Sally was delighted. Danny scarcely heard for he was busy recording dots and dashes.
Soon Sally was at it, too, for by now she too could read code very well. From time to time, however, by turning that certain dial, she switched from one sender to another. She located six in all.
But, even as they continued to listen and record, there came a change. At first the messages were sent in a slow, methodical manner. But now they came in close together, excited, irregular and jerky. At the same time they appeared to draw closer to one another.
“Sally.” Danny dropped his pencil. “Once I watched a pack of wolves chase an old and disabled moose. Their barks and howls were just like this radio business we’re hearing. At first there was the regular yap, yap of the chase. But when they closed in they became greatly excited. Their barks, howling, and snarls came from excited minds and bloodthirsty throats. They were in for the kill.”
As Sally listened, she seemed to see six subs closing in on a ship carrying supplies of food, guns, or ammunition to our soldiers in Africa and at the end caught the excited “put-put-put” of their radios as they closed in for the kill.
“Perhaps tomorrow we will hear on the radio of another ship sunk off our shore,” she whispered hoarsely.
“Who knows?” was the sober reply. “Tonight they seem very close.”
“Danny, we must hurry!” She gripped his hand. “We must learn more. I must go to sea, somehow, I must. I am sure that will help most of all.”
“Perhaps you will go,” was his quiet reply.
The next afternoon, as she worked at her highly important, if slightly tiring, task of bringing in the big planes only to send them out again, Sally said:
“Major Storm, why is that faraway look on your face?”
“Why?” He gave her a sharp look. “Is it noticeable?”
“Very.”
“Thanks for telling me. I shall discipline my thoughts.”
“Is it so terribly bad to want to be in one place, when you are serving in another?” she asked.
“Rather bad,” was the slow reply. “We do not always give our best, that way.
“Do you want to be in some other place?” he asked abruptly.
“Not—not just now!” she stammered, taken aback. “But sometime, not too far away, I’d like to be transferred to a fighting ship.”
“Why? Ships are dangerous.”
“Danger is my duty.” She felt that she was quoting someone, but could not recall where she had heard those words before.
“Danger is my duty,” he repeated after her. “That’s rather good, but you haven’t answered my question. Danger can’t be an end, you know.”
“I have a secret,” was the odd reply.
“I’m told that most young ladies of your age have several secrets.”
“Not important ones. This one may be of great importance. It has to do with our mutual friend, C. K. Kennedy.”
“Oh! Then it is important!” he exclaimed. “Tell me about it—that is, if you are free to do so.”
“I’m sure he would tell you at least part of it if he were here. He has invented a new radio that operates on a secret wave length. I think the enemy sub-packs operate on that same band.”
“The enemy sub-packs!” he stared. “Wait, there’s a plane.
“Come in, six-three-nine.”
“Let’s not talk about this now,” he suggested. “It’s too vital. We might become absorbed in it and neglect our duty, commit a tragic blunder. Suppose you have dinner at my house tonight. It’s quite proper. My sister lives with me.”
“All—all right.” Sally found herself strangely excited.
“I’ll call for you at seven.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
The remainder of the afternoon was pure routine, but Sally’s mind wandered often to thoughts of that dinner date. “Much may come of that. Very, very much,” she told herself more than once.
CHAPTER NINESALLY STEPS OUT
The place Sally and Silent Storm entered a few hours later was a California-type bungalow hidden among the trees. The windows were small and high. “No chance for spying here,” Sally thought to herself.
They were met at the door by a tall, handsome lady who, Sally did not need to be told, was Silent Storm’s sister. She appeared to take Sally to her heart at once.
“Robert has often spoken of you,” she said in a friendly manner.
“Oh! Has he?” Sally was a little surprised. She had thought of herself as just one more of those WAVES.
They sat down to a delightful dinner. Salad made from fruit just taken from the trees, delicious crabmeat, fried sea bass, hot corn bread, sweet potatoes and coffee, a great urnful—enough for three cups apiece.
Dinner over, Miss Storm took up some knitting that lay in a chair and settled down by herself, because she knew her brother wished it, and she had sensed that there was some serious business in the air.
“It’s not that my sister cannot be trusted,” Silent Storm half apologized when he and Sally were seated in a small, secret den, quite evidently all his own. “She is to be trusted completely. However, it is a rule of war that a military secret is to be shared with no outsider, and the thing you were about to tell me up there in the tower is something of a military secret.”
“Not—not yet—but it might, be.” She hesitated. “It’s really C. K. Kennedy’s secret. He confided it to me because he hoped he could trust me.”
“And he can.”
“Yes, that’s right. He is a wonderful man. There is nothing I would not do for him.”
“But such an invention should be of great service to our country.”
“He thought it might be. He wasn’t sure.”
“So he wanted it tried out? I see. Tell me only what you think he would like to have me know.” Lighting his pipe, he settled back in his chair. “I have very little curiosity left in me,” he went on. “I’ve seen too much for that. I’m interested in only one thing, to see this war brought to a successful end. I have many fine friends back there.” He swept the west with his hand. “I shall never be able to go back to them, but I can serve where I am.”
“Then you have already seen service.” Sally’s eyes lighted.
“Plenty of it, too much. I was at Pearl Harbor, a flier. And I was in about all that came after in the next seven months. Then a smart Jap got me in the back.”
“Oh!” she breathed.
“It wasn’t so much. I was out of the hospital in a month. But my spine will never be the same, I was once a swimmer, something of a champion. That’s all over, too. But it doesn’t matter. What really hurts is that I can’t get back to help finish what my friends and I started over there.”
“And you don’t fly any more?” That seemed a terrible fate to Sally.
“Oh, yes,” he smiled. “I have a fast, little single-seater and sometimes I haunt the sky, chasing seagulls and wild ducks.”
“A single-seater sounds a bit selfish.”
“It’s not, really. You see, I don’t trust myself too much. There’s always the chance that—”
“Something might go wrong with you?”
“Yes. I’m not willing to take a chance with other people’s lives. But you were going to tell me about that radio.” He changed the subject abruptly.
“Yes, it’s the most remarkable invention!” Launching at once into her theme, she talked for an hour. From time to time he interrupted to ask a question. His pipe went out. Twice he tried to light it and failed. Then he gave it up.
At last she spread a pile of papers covered with dots and dashes on the table. These were the records of the “put-put” broadcast which she and Danny had kept.
After that for a half hour their heads were bent over these records.
“This,” he said at last, after re-lighting his pipe, “promises to be something of great importance.
“I wish you could stay with me on the airfield.” He added after a moment, “Both you and Nancy are working in very well. You could relieve me of much tiresome routine, but for your sake and for old C. K. I’ll do all I can to get you on a ship. I do know that there is talk of giving over the communications and radio work of one ship for a single trip to a group of WAVES, just to see how it works out. I’ll look into that.”
“Oh, please do,” she begged eagerly.
“You should be devoting your entire time to this secret radio business right now,” he said thoughtfully.
“But I’m a WAVE.”
“You could be given a leave of absence.”
“Not without a reason. It would be necessary to explain to the officials about the radio. And that’s just what C. K. doesn’t want.”
“Why?”
“Well, you know the story about his other invention?”
“Yes, his radio detector. That was a disgrace. Some unscrupulous person stole it.”
“And sold it to a foreign country. He doesn’t want that to happen again.”
“Surely not. Well, you just keep working in your spare time. And after that we shall see.”
And that was the way matters were left. But not for so very long.
The next afternoon was regular time out for Sally. The first person she saw as she entered the lobby of her hotel was a big girl with a round beaming face.
“Barbara, you stranger!” she exclaimed. “Where have you been hiding?”
“Haven’t been hiding, been working hard,” was the big girl’s reply. “I’ve been rigging the parachutes for a ship. Danny’s ship. I saw him on it.” Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“But, Barbara, they don’t use parachutes on a ship.”
“On this one they do. Shush!” Barbara held a finger to her lips. “Don’t ask me another thing about it.”
Sally thought she understood.
They went out to lunch together. After that they spent three hours shopping. When Sally returned, she found a notice for a phone call in her box.
“A phone call on my day off!” she exclaimed. “Maybe a date. How grand!”
It was Danny and a date as well. He was going for a spin in the air, just a little advanced trainer cabin plane, four hundred and fifty horse power. Would Sally like a look at the airfield, the palms, and the sea from the air?
Sally most certainly would. And so it was a date.
“I suppose it’s no use hanging one of those things on you,” Danny said with a grin as he strapped on his parachute. “You wouldn’t know what to do about it, if something did go wrong.”
“Oh, wouldn’t I?” she challenged. “You forget that Barbara and I took the shorter course and graduated with honors from the sky.”
“Say! That’s right, you did.” At that he produced a second parachute and helped her strap it on.
“You aren’t planning to drop me in the big pond, are you?” she joked.
“Nothing like that. This is a land plane. Oh, we’ll take a turn or two out over the sea but the plane’s been thoroughly worked over. Not a chance of her going wrong.”
“Anyway, I’ll keep my fingers crossed.” She laughed as she climbed in.
When Danny had gone through the ritual of turning on the current, gas and oil, warming up his motor and setting his wheels for the run, they were off.
It was one of those cloudless Florida evenings when little fishing boats, looking from the sky like toys, glide over the dark blue waters, when a distant steamer sends off a slow, lazy drifting cloud of smoke and all seems at peace.
They took a turn out over the ocean, then swung inland where little, blue lakes dot the dark green of forests and the lighter green of farms.
“Nice place, Florida,” said Danny. “We’ve been missing something, should have taken a vacation down here every year.”
“Oh! So you’re the son of a millionaire!” Sally laughed.
“Not quite. But if I worked hard all the year, guess I could make it. What do you say we try it after the war is over?”
They Swung Out Over the Sea Again
They Swung Out Over the Sea Again
They Swung Out Over the Sea Again
“Don’t mind if I do. But, Danny,” her voice hit a serious note, “did you ever think that war is not all a dead loss? Think of the boys who would have grown up to sell socks, or run a streetcar or mend shoes—”
“And never get twenty miles away from good old Chicago.”
“And now they’re seeing the world, Africa, India, China, South Sea Islands. This country of ours will never be the same after the war.”
“It sure won’t.”
They swung out over the sea again. Beneath them a large ship, under full steam, was gliding out to sea.
“Going out to make a secret meeting with other ships of a convoy,” Sally said. “Wonder how soon I’ll be sailing with that ship, or some other.”
“Perhaps never,” Danny replied soberly. “They haven’t said they’d take WAVES abroad yet. But I am about all set. Just a day or so more at the most. They never tell us exactly.”
“Oh, Danny, no!”
“Oh, Sally, yes!” he echoed. “What’s the matter? Want me to stay a landlubber all my life?”
She did not answer. A small plane, darling through the air like a bird, had caught her eye.
“That’s your boss, Silent Storm,” Danny said. “When I learned he was your boss, I sort of looked him up. The boys told me that was his plane. No one else flies it.”
“He’s a fine man, Danny.”
“That’s what they all say. He was very badly shot up out there in the Pacific. They didn’t expect him to live, but the nurses pulled him through—”
“And now—”
“Now he might be sitting in the sun, living on a pension.”
“But who would want to in exciting times like these?”
“Not your Silent Storm. He works harder than the rest of them.”
“But, Danny! Look!” Her voice rose sharply. “Look at his plane!”
“Acting crazy all right. Seems to be out of control.”
“Danny! He said something strange once. He said he wouldn’t take other people up because he wasn’t sure of himself. You don’t think—”
Danny was thinking, and thinking fast. Advancing the throttle, he sent his plane speeding toward the spot in the sky where the small plane was going through all the motions of a fighter shot out of the clouds.
“He’s really going down,” he muttered grimly. “And ours is a land plane, worse luck.”
They remained at two thousand feet. Starting at that same level, the other plane had gone into a slow spiral and was slowly drifting down.
“If he hits the water at that speed, he’s done,” Danny groaned. “Why in the world doesn’t he bail out?”
“Perhaps he can’t. He—he may be unconscious.” Sally gripped her hands until the nails cut deep into the flesh.
“There!” she exclaimed.
“He’s getting control. He’s leveling off.” Danny spoke slowly. “But he’ll crash all the same. And his plane is a land plane. Let’s hope he’s a good swimmer.”
“But he isn’t.” Sally’s words came quick and fast. “He used to be. The Japs wrecked his back.”
“Tough luck!”
“There! He’s down. His plane is still intact.”
“It will sink all the same, in no time at all.”
“Danny!” Sally gripped his arm tight. “Just circle over that spot, slowly.” She stood up.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going over the side. I’m a good swimmer, I can save him.”
“Here—take the controls. I’ll go.”
“I can’t fly a plane, never have.”
“Okay, good girl! Here’s luck to you. Here, take this.” He dragged a rubber raft from beneath his feet.
Tucking the raft under her left arm and gripping the ripcord with her right hand, Sally opened the cabin door, stood there for a few seconds, and then she was gone.
CHAPTER TENSALLY SAVES A LIFE
Fifty seconds is not a lot of time but Sally had taken her chute training seriously. In just that many seconds she did several things. She pulled her ripcord, waited breathless, then felt the pull of the opening chute.
Finding that she was facing the wind, she turned herself about. Looking down, she judged that she would hit the water only fifty yards or so from Major Storm’s rapidly vanishing plane. Catching the raft by its edges she held it before her and waited. Ten seconds later, as the lapping waves reached for her, she did a sort of swan dive and landed flat with the raft beneath her.
“Four-point landing.” She laughed in spite of the seriousness of the situation, freeing herself from her parachute harness.
Rearing up on her elbows, she looked for the plane.
“Gone!” she cried in dismay.
Just then she saw a hand go up. Silent Storm was doing his best.
Throwing herself flat on the raft and using her hands for paddles, she threw all her strength into an effort to reach him.
Even so, weakened by his efforts and the pain his back gave him, he had gone down once before she reached him.
A brief struggle followed, and then he lay on the raft and stared up at the sky.
“You—you shouldn’t have done it.” He talked with difficulty. “I’m really not worth it. Shouldn’t have gone up. But flying somehow gets into your blood.”
“I know,” she replied quietly. “It’s all right. I wouldn’t have missed this for anything. Somehow I thought that parachuting was a good thing to know. Now I’m sure of it. You’ll be fine when you get your breath. Danny will send out a motorboat.”
They were both wet to the skin. That didn’t matter too much. There was a warm land breeze from the shore. Stripping off their sodden jackets, they allowed their thin cotton shirts to bag and flutter in the breeze.
“I’ve often dreamed of being on the sea in one of these rubber rafts,” he mused. “Men have lived in them for weeks.”
“It wouldn’t be bad if the weather were always like this.” She leaned back in lazy comfort.
“It’s rather rough on me, this experience,” he said at last.
“It’s too bad you lost your plane.”
“Oh! It’s not that. I could buy another. Thing is, I’ve really proved to myself that I’m no good for flying. I went out cold right up in the air. I came out of it in time to save myself, but not my ship. Even so, if it hadn’t been for you I’d have drowned.”
“You’re too important to be taking such needless chances.” There was a note of kindness in her voice.
“Yes. I suppose you’re right, but I have so wanted to be back there in the islands with my friends, fighting it out with those unspeakable Japs. I kept sort of kidding myself along, but now—”
“Now you know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”
“Ah! So you’re a preacher?” He laughed good-naturedly. “Well, I don’t mind. What’s the rest of the sermon?”
“You’ll have to make new friends where you are. You’ve made some already. I am one of them, ‘one of the least of these.’”
“Far from that. One of the greatest. I prize your friendship.”
“Thanks.”
“But you have asked to be sent away, on a ship.”
“I’ll come back, I hope.”
“Oh, yes.” His voice rose. “I meant to tell you. It’s more than half arranged already. There’s a new type of fighting ship going out with a convoy in a day or two. She’s a small airplane carrier built specially for convoy duty.
“But,” he hastened to add, “you’ll not whisper a word of this.”
“Of course not.”
To herself she thought: “That must be Danny’s ship. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I were to sail on his ship!”
This hope was lost for the time, at least, for Storm went on: “This is the ship’s maiden voyage. She will carry a crew, all men. But if all goes well on the following trip it is planned to use some women nurses and a number of WAVES for secretarial work, storekeepers, radio and communications.”
“A testing trip?”
“Exactly. I have already put in a word for you. I hated that for I wanted both Nancy and yourself on my own force. But there’s that secret radio.”
“Yes, there’s the radio,” she agreed with enthusiasm. “We’ll work it out together. I have two sets. I’ve already written C. K. asking permission to leave one with you in case I am sent across. That way, we can try it out.”
“It’s good of you to suggest it, but don’t hope for too much. There is a lot of radio silence when you’re on convoy duty. It’s necessary, you know.”
“That’s just it,” she exclaimed. “If we get in a really tight place and don’t dare use the regular radio we can switch to our secret radio. You could stand by with your set at regular hours, couldn’t you?”
“Certainly.”
“Then it’s all arranged. Don’t you see, if you and I can work out this secret radio, if it turns out to be a really big thing, it will make up for the other things you want to do and can’t!”
“You’re wonderful!” he exclaimed. “We’ll do things together!”
“Look!” she exclaimed. “Here’s a small flashlight attached to the boat, yes, and a fish line with artificial bait attached!”
“We’re all set for a long sail,” he laughed. “At least the flashlight will come in handy for signaling our rescuers. It’s getting dark.”
Sally tried the flashlight. It worked. The line and tackle too was tried and with rather startling results.
After unwinding the line Sally propped herself up on her knees, then gave the bright nickel spinner a fling well out over the dusky blue waters. She drew it in, slowly at first, then faster and faster.
“Ah!” he murmured. “I see you are a fisherman.”
“Not an expert,” was her modest comment, “My father loves to fish. I go with him to the lakes sometimes. We cast for pike and bass and sometimes a big land-locked salmon.”
“Then there’s a battle.”
“A wonderful battle. I love it!”
She gave the spinner one more fling, this time far out from the boat. Scarcely had she begun speeding up her pull, when suddenly she all but pitched head foremost into the sea.
“Hey!” he exclaimed, seizing her by the waist and pulling her back. “Not so fast!”
“He—help!” she exclaimed. “I’ve got something big!”
Reaching around her he grasped the line and together they pulled.
“Now!” he breathed. “I’ll pull and you roll in the line. Now!”
He heaved away and she rolled line. The fish came, sometimes slowly, sometimes faster. A quarter of the line was in, half, two thirds, and then—
“Oh! Give him line!” she exclaimed. “He’ll have us both in the water.”
They gave him line, then started pulling in. Three times this was repeated. At last, apparently worn-out, the fish came all the way in.
“Give us a light,” Storm said, as the fish came close to the boat. “Let’s see what we have.” She switched on the small flashlight. “Ah! A small tuna! A beauty!” he breathed. “We must have him.”
“A small one!” she exclaimed.
“Perhaps twenty pounds.”
“How big is a big one?”
“Five hundred pounds is a nice size. We—”
“Watch out!” His words rang out sharply.
She dodged back. There had been a sudden white flash in the water. Then the line gave a great yank.
“A shark! A bad one!” he exclaimed again. “He got our fish—”
“No, the fish is still there. Pull him in quick!”
The fish came flapping into the boat.
“All here but the tail,” was his comment. “Baked tuna is not half bad. We’ll have a feast.”
For a time after that they sat watching the waters.
The shark did not return. The night really settled down. The city’s lights painted a many-colored picture against the wall of darkness beyond, and all was still.
Out of that stillness came the chug-chug of a motorboat.
“They’re coming for us,” she said huskily. She did not know whether to be glad or sorry.
“It’s nice to have been with you,” he said when, an hour later, he let her out of a taxi at her hotel door. “Thanks for saving my life and all that.”
“It’s been fun,” she said. “It really has. Think I’ll resign from the WAVES and join the life guards.”
“Oh, yes!” he exclaimed, with one foot on the running board. “Don’t forget we have one more dinner date. Our tuna catch must be honored. Shall we say tomorrow evening?”
“That will be fine.”
“Then it’s a date.”
“If I hear from C. K. and have his permission,” she added, “I’ll bring over the secret radio.”
“Good! You can give me a few lessons regarding its operation.”
“And we’ll have a listen-in at the sub wolf-packs.”
“If that’s what it is. And here’s hoping.”
“Here’s hoping!”
“Good night!”
“Good night!” His taxi rolled away.
“It’s a strange world,” she thought as she walked up the marble steps.