Again and again Bill repeated these telling evolutions. First one side, then the other was raked with fire from the plane. Then he would zoom the house itself in order to further confuse the besiegers.
On the plane’s eighth trip, Sanders’ forces broke. Flesh and blood could no longer stand this death-dealing hail of lead from a plane impossible to hit. Dragging their wounded with them, the routed gangsters dashed pell mell down to the shore. They piled into two motorboats beached in a cove and in less than no time, these two crafts were racing toward the mainland with everything wide open.
Bill let them go. Defense of the old man and the girl in the house on the hill was one thing: the shooting down of cowed men huddled in a couple of boats quite another. When he was convinced that the rout was a permanent fact, he landed the plane on the water, taxied into the same sandy cove from which the gunmen had departed, and beached her.
Deborah was waiting on the sand for them. Osceola was the first overboard and a moment later the two were clasped in each other’s arms.
Bill grinned at Ezra. “So far,” he said, “as you and I are concerned, well, we might be a couple of other rocks for all they mind!”
“That’s all right,” returned the older man as they went about making the plane secure. “They’re in love. We don’t exist for them just now. Don’t be so superior—you’ll be that way yourself some day!”
“Not me,” scoffed Bill.
“Oh, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I was like you before the right girl came along. I don’t suppose you’ve thought any more about the orders Sanders gave you?”
“You mean, not to interfere any more with his plans and to report to that guy in Stamford?”
“Yes. And this little adventure has torn the first part of that to pieces!”