“The water covers the entire river district,” he told them. “Some of the smaller towns near the Mississippi are completely submerged, and most of the people who lived in them are camped for the time being in emergency quarters on high ground—out of danger if the water doesn’t rise, or if disease doesn’t become too prevalent. Conditions are frightful. We can’t hope to do very much in getting these people out of the flooded area entirely, but we can take food and medical supplies forward and drop them wherever they are needed. I’ll want all four of your planes in the air constantly; I’ll have mechanics at your disposal so you can save your energy for flying. What we want is action—speed; you’ve no idea of what the people down there are going through.”
“What about landing-fields?” Nick asked.
“I’ll send you down to Monticello tomorrow. A small field is available there, and in a few days a new field at Pine Bluff should be finished—” A telephone at the Major’s elbow jangled restlessly, and he paused to answer it. He listened tensely, nodding his head and speaking a word of confirmation or denial occasionally, scratching down figures and jumbled words upon a pad of paper as the information was forthcoming. Presently he hung up the receiver and turned back to the Patrol pilots. His face was grave.
“Have any of you men had experience flying big ships—transports?” he asked. “Quick,” he added, when no one spoke for a moment. “Wentworth, can you fly an Army transport?”
Nick had had some experience with the large planes used by the Army in transporting passengers and supplies, but he was by no means an expert in handling one of them, especially under the operating conditions he knew he would encounter in bad weather and wet landing-fields. But the Major’s manner forewarned him of some emergency to be met, and he replied, “Yes, sir, Major. What’s up?”
“Train wreck. Piled up down near McLearson—trying to get through with supplies before the roadbed washed out. Hit a soft place in a fill and went into a ditch. Engine crew hurt badly, and a brakeman isn’t expected to pull through—engine fell on him when it went over—both legs crushed.”
“Where’s the plane I’m to take?” Nick asked.
“Wait,” said the Major. “There’s no place for you to land at McLearson. The nearest landing-field is at Plateau—twelve miles north of there. You’ll have to get a boat at Plateau and go after ’em. You land at Plateau and I’ll try to get word through that you’re on the way. I’ll have the ship fixed up with three stretchers and a place for a doctor.” He telephoned his orders to the crew-chief of the plane, then turned back to Nick. “If you can’t get down at Plateau, find a landing-field as near McLearson as you can, then go back to the wreck and drop a note telling them where you’re going to land. You’ve got only three hours of daylight left, so you’ll have to hurry. I can’t send a mechanic with you because they’ve got more work than they can do—rush stuff. I’ll put your other pilots to work.”
Nick found his plane—a single-motored Douglas—in the hangar, with mechanics just finishing the transformation of its cabin to an ambulance. He waited impatiently while these men pushed the huge plane out on the flying-field and warmed up its motor; then, after a final scrutiny of his map, he climbed up into the cockpit.
The flying-field was muddy to such an extreme that any kind of flying from it was hazardous. Ten days of ceaseless rain, falling in a slow drizzle that allowed the water on the ground to soak in, had transformed the sodded surface into a slushy expanse of blackish, soupy mud that was flung from the revolving wheels of the ship like spray from the bow of a racing speedboat. The Douglas was slow in starting to roll over the ground; it was slower yet in lifting itself, light as was its load, but finally it climbed awkwardly into the air. Nick turned quickly away from the field, making no effort to climb for altitude, and settled the ship upon a compass course that would take him directly to McLearson, seventy-five miles to the southeast.