“Only one pontoon busted,” Scoot told himself. “The other’s holding us up—that and the wing tanks that are almost empty.”
Then he saw his broken arm again. He had to stop that flow of blood. He wriggled forward a little on the sloping pontoon so that he could wrap his legs around the brace leading from it to the plane’s fuselage. Then he used his good left arm to rip off most of one side of his shirt. Holding one end of the strip in his teeth, he wound the cloth around the bad arm above the break, making it as tight as he could. It slipped a little as he tied it, but it was fairly tight. The flow of blood did not stop, but it was greatly reduced.
“Don’t know how much longer I can keep my strength,” he said to himself. “Better make myself fast somehow.”
He Tied Himself to the Strut
Slowly he struggled out of his trousers, after taking the waterproof pouch with the convoy information and putting it in his money belt. Next he tied himself to the strut with the legs of his trousers. Then he sat, looking eastward in the direction from which Kamongo must come.
“I’m not quite as far as I ought to be,” he thought, feeling consciousness leaving him. “They’ll probably go right under me.”
It was there that March found him. He had brought Kamongo to the surface a short distance before the spot agreed upon for the meeting. But there had been no sign of Scoot. Keeping steadily ahead on course, March had ordered all men to stay below at their stations except for himself and the controlman on the bridge. They were riding the vents, with main ballast tanks open, and air vents at the top closed. The water rushed in to fill part of the tanks, but not all of them, because of the air trapped inside. That still allowed Kamongo enough buoyancy to keep on the surface, but not at full speed. All that was needed for a dive was the opening of the air vents at the top of the ballast tanks. That might save twenty seconds in the diving operations and twenty seconds might make all the difference in the world.
March had looked frantically over the sea when they reached the designated spot. Still no sign of Scoot. And no report from the radio.
“Something happened!” he muttered to himself. “Something happened!”