CHAPTER XVII The Ten-Mile Glide
If Don Harlan was in all normal times, and under all natural conditions, a most excellent and trustworthy aerial navigator, as in fact all the other members of this crew knew from experience that he was, so also was he human, and, therefore, subject to human errors. Certainly in the present situation this was not to be unexpected, for he and the others not only had undergone a most extraordinary series of the most harrowing experiences, in rapid-fire succession, but in addition they were nerve-tired and physically fagged for the want of sleep.
They did not reach or even sight Ireland within the predicted six hours, but long before that time they did something which, in view of subsequent events and the demands they put upon the men for every ounce of their courage and ingenuity, proved to be a most excellent thing.
It was Jack's suggestion—or rather, his orders.
"Fred and Don," he had said, immediately after the sending of the wireless, to be relayed to the President, "it's plain sailing now and we won't need either one of you. Both of you curl up somewhere out of the way and take three hours sleep. At the end of that time we'll call you, you two can take charge for the next three hours while Andy and I snooze, and we'll all feel better and more capable for the rest."
None knew at that time how valuable that recuperation, brief as it was, would prove to be.
Under the circumstances and the program which called for an equal division between the four of them of the rest period, it hadn't taken Fred and Don more than two minutes to follow the advice. For three hours they lay like logs, stretched out side by side on the floor of the nacelle, snoring so lustily as to seem to be in competition with the steady throbbing of the engines.
True to promise, at the end of that time Jack awakened them, and, when they had recovered their dulled wits, they took charge while Jack and Andy almost instantly dropped into a heavy sleep.