Moran shivered as he dressed. A norther had been brewing for twenty-four hours, and now the wind was strong and chill. The Libertys were roaring on the line like gargantuan hounds on trail, and dark clouds were scudding across the graying sky. The helmeted flyers were like hooded demons of the night as they got into the cockpits and the ships left the ground in single file, gathering above the field at a thousand feet and hurtling eastward in V-formation like a flock of geese.
Naturally, they’d leave him behind, if anybody, Moran reflected bitterly. Dumpy Scarth had raved because he couldn’t go. Moran tried to scotch the ugly knowledge which was in the back of his head. He was not glad that he hadn’t been called on to take off in the dank darkness, and fly formation down the border. He was not afraid of De Havilands—
But he knew he was.
The dark, cold day dragged to a close. Three times he went out on patrol, alone, fighting the rising wind every mile of the way and returning to the field a nervous wreck. Some times the ship was thrown about like a leaf, and the tight-lipped, pale Moran lived eternities above the mesquite which seemed reaching upward to drag him down to destruction. The landings were nightmares, in that wind, but he got down safely each time.
He and Dumpy did not speak to each other. When one landed, the other took off. There was no word from the other ships until seven o’clock, as the quick darkness was falling. They had rounded up their prey, but reports of the ground men were that it probably had been false alarm. A bunch of Mexican vaqueros, riding north after some cattle. The ships would stay at Brownsville rather than fight the gale and the darkness combined.
Dumpy returned from his last patrol us the call came in.
“Want the first watch tonight, or the last?” he inquired briefly.
“Either one,” Moran told him sullenly.
He was ready to drop. The strain of the day had nearly broken him.
“Then I’ll hit the hay. Wake me at twelve,” Dumpy told him tersely. Then, characteristically, “Congratulations on the miracle.”