The Rosy’s four big engines deepened their song of power as she rushed down the runway. She was a living, throbbing organism, but her personality was yet to be learned. Newly fledged from Boeing’s great hatchery of warbirds, she had still to get acquainted with her crew, and they with her.
Barry Blake sat alert in his co-pilot’s seat, checking the instruments, as the runway dropped away below him. At the skipper’s nod, he touched the lever that retracted the landing gear. He heard the wheels wind up with a smooth mechanical whine, and noted the time it took in seconds. Again he moved the lever, letting the wheels down and raising them back in place. He tested the action of the flaps, the engines’ response to their throttles, the revolutions-per-minute of the props. In everything the Rosy O’Grady behaved as sweetly as any lady with such a name should do.
At Salt Lake City there was a short stop; then on they flew to San Antonio. Again Barry glimpsed the familiar countryside over which he and Chick Enders and Hap Newton had flown. The perfect green pattern of Randolph Field, with three or four flights of planes swinging over it, brought a homesick pang.
“We’ll never forget that scene, Mister,” the voice of Captain O’Grady broke into Barry’s thoughts. “I graduated from Randolph ten years ago, but it’s just like yesterday when I look back.”
“Those were the happiest weeks of my life,” Barry replied with a choke in his voice. “I know it now, though at the time it seemed a tough grind.”
Captain O’Grady turned one of his warm Irish grins on the young co-pilot.
“The real, tough grind,” he said, “will come when we reach our South Pacific base, I reckon. Barring accidents, the life of a fortress is about five or six months on the battlefront. Before it’s over we’ll all feel like graybeards, kid.”
The Rosy made one more stop at Tampa, Florida, where her engines were thoroughly checked and her tanks filled. Ahead of her stretched the long hop to Trinidad, off the northern coast of South America. If anything should go wrong, there were island bases in the Caribbean Sea where an emergency landing might be made. But in aviation, an ounce of prevention is worth many pounds of cure.
That evening in Tampa the crew had their last big restaurant meal for months to come. The following afternoon they took off despite storm warnings. There was no long last look at their native land. A few moments after the Rosy’s wheels had left the runway she was climbing through a heavy overcast of clouds.
As they roared over the southeastern tip of Cuba the weather cleared. Below them the Windward Passage lay, deep blue in the sunlight. Ahead rose the rugged mountain tops of Haiti.