Presently, one of the pilots standing by came up and made signs to Peter that he might go as a passenger. Although he had come out without any intention of "going up", Peter accepted the offer with alacrity.
"The blighter would think I had cold feet if I refused," he soliloquized, as he followed the pilot into the interior of the flying-boat, where he found five other Rioguayans already there—lads undergoing instruction. The two mechanics—one for each pair of motors—were not visible, their "stations" being in the alleyway between the engines and below the space ostensibly to be used for the storage of merchandise.
It was Peter's first time of "going up", and he had to confess that he did not find the experience very exhilarating. The enclosed fuselage practically eliminated all sensation of speed, and once the initial movement was over—somewhat like the starting of a lift—there was little beyond the noise of the motors to convey the suggestion of speed.
Going to one of the side scuttles, Peter looked earthwards. By this time the flying-boat had attained an altitude of between 2500 and 3000 feet. At that height the land looked flat and uninteresting as it apparently moved slowly below the ninety miles an hour aircraft. It was only by observing the shadow of the flying-boat upon the sun-dried plain that Peter could realize that he was being carried through the air at a rate that he had never previously attained.
Looking through the glass door between the main saloon and the pilot's office, Peter saw that the man had abandoned the joy-stick and was leaning back in his seat and rolling a cigarette.
"He's bored stiff," was the young Englishman's unspoken remark.
The pilots under instruction had also lost interest, but owing to a very different reason. It was their first flight, and already every one of them was in the throes of air-sickness.
It was evidently the intention of their instructor to prolong their agony, for the flying-boat was still climbing steadily and heading for the Sierra Colima, a range of jagged mountains forming the north-eastern frontier of the republic.
Here, there is to be found a perpetual turmoil of air currents, the torrid atmosphere of the plains rising on either side of the mountains and engaging in conflict with the cold blasts of air in the higher regions. Not only were there fierce, eddying winds to be met with, but highly dangerous air-pockets—veritable pitfalls taxing to the uttermost the resources of the pilot.
For a good twenty minutes the flying-boat tore madly over the tops of the jagged peaks. Lurching, side-slipping, flung almost vertically through a distance of two hundred feet, twisted like a withered leaf in an autumn gale, the machine provided a series of thrills to the now far from bored Peter. Gripping a metal rod, he divided his attention between the view below, the cool daring of the pilot, and his own efforts to prevent himself being hurled violently against the sides of the fuselage.