Garry agreed with his decision to maintain a level course, flying into the wind.
The gas gauge showed that they had fuel to last several hours. From the other instruments it was evident that oil feed and pressure, and other necessary functions, were operating correctly.
If they could fly beyond the worst of the storm area, in the time their fuel reserve gave them, they might, by dint of careful cooperation, get down without serious disaster. Don looked back, pointed ahead.
Garry nodded.
Thus they flew on. Don knew that Garry, bent almost double, stretching his neck upward, was in a straining, difficult posture.
It would be a question of his muscular ability to hold himself against the torture that must come with the unnatural pose: aching muscles could in time compel him to relax, perhaps to let go of the cable.
“Good old Garry!” whispered Don to himself. “If it’s in human power to last, he will be the one to stick it out!”
It was torture, as Garry came to know before they ended that flight.
Ignorant of the drift of the wind, unaware of the real course, only able to guess at the flight direction by the position of the rising moon, Don surmised that they were flying in a somewhat Northerly course.
Ahead he saw, with thankful eyes, an edge of a cloud dispersing its fury in rain. There the flashes of celestial fire diminished in intensity.