It had been apparent to them for several yards, as they parted the clumps of grass, that the way went no further.
“Can you lift me up, make a ‘back’ for me, do you think?” Garry asked as he carefully put down the first aid kit on the path they had just traversed.
Don, choosing his stand on what seemed to be the firmest spot—an old spar or block of driftwood embedded in the mud—bent forward, his hands braced on his knees. Lithely, with his gymnasium training to give him confidence, Garry put his weight on the elevated perch of Don’s back and leaped, forward, upward and outward, over the mud and water, as a chain of fiery light split the clouds to the roar of thunder.
Don, in that vivid flare, saw the lithe figure seemingly poised between sky and water, its outflung hands seeking for a grip on the leading edge of the wing that was closest to them.
Leaping up as soon as the weight left his supporting back, Don saw those hands strike their target—but the light died as it seemed to him that Garry slipped. Peals of celestial cannon drowned a cry if there was any. With eyes still blinded by the fierceness of the last flash, Don could not make out whether Garry had been able to hold his grip or if he struggled in ooze and quagmire, sinking, helpless.
“Garry!” he shouted.
From the North came another blaze of blue-white light.
Don gave a relieved cry. Garry, one foot braced against the junction of fuselage and flying wire, one hand clinging to the wire, was safe!
The moiled waters, reflecting the furious discharges of fire from above, were foaming across under the wind’s whip, and Don saw that if Garry did not find the object of his search quickly, it would be too late. Already the salty spume lashed his face, the fabric of the airplane quivered and shook to the beat of waves, and sunk in the soft mud, while wind under the wing failed to topple the whole craft onto the end of the promontory only because its trucks lay in clinging mud and steadied the ship.
From across the end of the grassy bank Don saw the distant glow of two red flares, smoking and guttering in the wind.