When the Flyer shot over Woburn all knew that it was but twenty miles further to Ipswich where the real flight over the sea was to begin. Ned had not yet appeared. At exactly forty minutes and twenty seconds after three o’clock the Flyer passed over the main wharf of Ipswich at an elevation of 2,800 feet. Beautiful summer homes stretched along the bay on each side of the town. In the rear lay the bare granite hills and the derricks of great quarries.
Breathless with excitement, Buck once more took station on the gallery. He could distinctly hear the puffing of little derrick engines and the business like “tamp—tamp” of quarry drillers. A strange feeling came over him. It seemed to him, as was natural to a reporter, that some ceremony should attend the moment. But, above him, Captain Ned lay quietly in his state room. Alan stood at his wheel stolid and silent. At the desk, not even rising to take a look at what was below, Roy bent low over his work. In the engine room, Bob Russell, as if unconcerned, sat at his gauges and signal board.
As the little city fled backward Buck saw a squat stone-boat making its way up the crooked bay. At the same moment, on a distant stretch of white beach, he made out a group of bathers. Would he and his friends ever come to home and harbor again? Would they ever again come back to a world of pleasure and safety? In these minutes the Flyer was five miles at sea.
“Two lighthouses on the starboard beam,” he heard Alan exclaim suddenly.
“Plum Light eight miles abeam and Thatcher’s Island Light off Cape Ann,” called back the observer, checking the time.
“Three, forty-three o’clock exactly,” went on Alan with precision.
“Three-forty-three o’clock,” repeated Roy. “And the course is north, sixty-five and one-half degrees east.”
“East, north, east by compass!” replied Alan.
“East, north, east it is,” repeated Roy. “Make it so.”
And in this wise, with the blue sea beneath them at last and a shore line fast fading in the west, the real voyage of the Ocean Flyer began.