Twice during that day Nancy had thought she heard the drone of a distant plane. If any had passed they had been hidden by fleecy clouds.
In mid-morning the following day they were becalmed again under a cloudless sky. By crouching in the bottom of the boat during the hottest hours they could shade their heads under the boat seat, making the heat slightly more endurable.
Nancy was lying there almost in a coma, when there came the sound of a plane, clear and not too far away. For a moment she did not stir, believing it the sound she had imagined a score of times before. Then suddenly Mabel called out, “Nancy it is a plane! I can see it!”
“Coming this way,” Hilda added.
“Hoist the sail! They can see us easier with the sail up!” cried Mabel, her last reserve of strength pouring out into action.
The three of them tugged at the sail a moment, then Mabel stopped to bend over her musette bag. “I’m going to try flashing a mirror at them!” she explained. She opened her compact, containing a mirror almost as large as her palm. “I’ve heard of people catching the sun’s rays in a mirror and attracting planes that way.”
They had discussed this as one device for getting the attention of fliers in the early days of their shipwreck. Nancy and Hilda got the limp sail up, while Mabel set the mirror to catch the sun’s rays and reflect them toward the approaching plane. Then they realized that the silver speck was not coming straight over, but would pass well to the south.
“Oh, dear God, make it come on!” prayed Mabel.
Both the other nurses were praying, too, in a frenzy of hope and despair. Mabel tried the mirror trick she had practiced several times. Three long flashes from the sun-touched mirror, then three short, then three longs—SOS. Again and again she repeated the signal, but the plane kept steadily on its course.
Nancy felt she couldn’t endure to see it go entirely out of sight. Moaning she pressed her face into the slack sail, and leaned against their mast, certain this was their last hope.