“Sure thing.” The fog was considerably more thick than when the plane had dived into it, and as far as Austin could see, there wasn’t a break in any direction. He switched on the lights by the control board, but the tiny cabin was bright enough he decided.
“Can you spare a knee?”
“One.” Jim moved his leg and Bob spread a napkin, balanced a wooden plate on it, and proceeded to fill it with bread, butter, pickles, cold roast beef, and a bottle of milk. “Go easy,” Jim ordered, so the milk was given a safer place on the floor. Although it was early by their watches and also the clock in front of them, they gauged their actions entirely on their stomachs, and attacked the food with keen appetites. When they had eaten all they could, Bob repacked the hamper, then slid his chair forward and prepared to take a nap.
“Better put a coat over you,” Jim suggested. He pulled out his own jacket and threw it over his Flying Buddy.
“I say, Jim. Wonder if we hadn’t better stick by the plane all night?”
“You mean keep on watch?”
“Yes. We’d be in a dandy fix if we found it with the propeller gone in the morning.”
“Let’s see what sort of place we can park it in,” Jim suggested. He had been wondering uneasily about the town in which they expected to spend the night, and he felt reasonably sure there would be no airdrome, or a garage sufficiently large to admit the plane. On thinking it over, he decided that the island was probably thinly settled, and in that case there must be some sort of barn or open shed. After that, Bob settled back comfortably, his mouth dropped open, and if the engine had not been roaring so melodiously, the boy’s snores would have been audible.
“He sure can go to sleep without much trouble,” Jim grinned, but he knew that Bob had been so excited the night before that he had slept little, and he had been up two hours earlier than anyone on the K-A that morning. The time passed quickly, and at last the young pilot managed to get above the fog and see the great sun, which was almost setting. He drove along the top of the ceiling for a while, then dived through, and a few miles ahead he made out the dim edge of an island.
“That’s Jamaica. It must be,” he told himself. Then he picked up the tube to speak to his father in the back. “How goes it?”