Because the airplane fell on its side, the side he smashed was under him, the flooring was at his side, acting as the sidewall.
He knew that if the lower of rudder cables in the ship’s present position was broken he could get it there; if the upper one was severed its end would have dropped down, perhaps caught on a longeron or on a longitudinal fuselage brace; he might be able to catch hold of it.
It took but a second to thrust his hand through the cabin wall, to grip the edge of a floor plate, to rip it from its temporary fastenings which were not completed until the tests made it sure that no further adjustments under the flooring would be necessary.
Thus disclosed, he could see the under framework of that part of the fuselage.
Braced so that his body would not crash down through a window, he looked, and grappled for the cable end. His fingers touched cable!
For all the exigency of their desperate situation he tugged very gently and was glad. That cable was fast! It might lead to the elevators, the ailerons. Anyway it was not the right strand.
Again he felt under the edge of what was in the ship’s position, the plate above the one ripped away. His fingers touched a loose strand.
“We’re all right!” he panted, grasping the plate and tugging it partly free so that his arm could go further in and secure in his gripping fingers the loose cable end.
In the brief time that this had taken, Lang had obeyed the call for gas to be fed to the engine. Idling, it roared into its power pulsations.
There was an instant of fear in Bob’s mind.