“I’d give my eye teeth,” said the skeptic, “to be out where there’s something doing—looking for enemy subs to bomb. Good Lord, all we do here is to go out to find some blighter who can’t keep his engine running and has flopped on the water, and tell him ‘cheerio’ while he waits for the motor-boat to come and salvage him. Why can’t they teach these bums to fly, before sending them out here with brand-new planes, anyway?”
“If they did that, you’d have even less to occupy you than you have now,” said the older man. “As for hunting subs, I’ll bet you’d find that a damn sight more monotonous than this. Here you at least find the blighter you’re looking for.”
The conversation was suddenly interrupted by the signal, “Action Stations.” The pilots ran to their planes, and the older officer ran to his station in the pilot-house where he found the commanding officer studying the eastern sky with his binoculars.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“A big seaplane coming this way,” answered the commanding officer. “She looks like an American plane, but we’re not expecting any from there, and we’ve had no radio from Punta Delgada or Fayal that would indicate any plane was coming. So I called out the gun crew to be ready in case of trouble. Give a recognition signal—she’s near enough now to see it.”
The signal was flashed out—a series of brilliant colored lights—and instantly the answering signal was seen to flash from the approaching seaplane, already visible to the naked eye.
“She’s American, all right,” said the skipper, “but what’s she doing coming here now? I thought they needed all their planes right there. And why haven’t we had any word of her coming?”
The roar of the four big engines was already audible, and soon the great plane with her wing-spread of a hundred feet, swung round to leeward of the hangar, swooped down, hovered low over the waves, and settled gracefully on the smooth surface of the water between the sheltering arms of the giant scow.
The great seaplane was warped into the landing stage, and down from the hull clambered her pilot followed by Barton, Evans, and the prisoner, Long.
“Where’s the Captain?” asked Barton of the seaman who helped him on to the landing stage.