Scarcely had he accomplished this and paddled a short distance, when the plane put its nose into the water, stood there quivering, then disappeared from sight.
“Good old plane,” he murmured, as a strange feeling of loneliness swept over him. “You did your full duty. You sank a sub and probably saved a ship. Now, in Davy Jones’s Locker, you can rest in peace.
“Looks as if I’d get some rest, too,” he thought as, a short time later, he settled back against the soft, rounded side of his raft.
“A good, long rest,” he added as a cool damp mist, touched his cheek and the chill, gray fog came drifting in.
When he first hit the water the boom, bang and rat-tat-tat of battle were still in the air. After that had come comparative silence, disturbed only by the low roar of planes returning to their ship.
“A fine bunch of fellows,” he thought, as a lump rose in his throat. “Finest ever. Here’s hoping they all land safely.”
A faint hope remained that one of those planes would get away to search for him. When the fog came in he knew that hope was at an end.
He found the silence, broken only by the lap-lap of little waves, oppressive.
“Going to be lonesome,” he thought as he started to examine the gadgets that came with the rubber raft. There was a fish line and some artificial bait.
“I’ll try them all out,” he chuckled. “If I catch a whopper with one of the lures, I’ll send the manufacturer a picture of it with a story. He’ll like it for his catalogue.