Their first destination, of course, was Iceland. The flying boat was overcrowded, and Tom wished to place Captain Karofsen and his five men somewhere near their own homes before launching out for the longer flight for America across the North Atlantic.
Tom’s first anxiety, however, was to get the huge flying boat into the air and learn if she would respond properly to the controls. The motors raced all right when they were tried, and he believed that he knew now just how much compressed air to order pumped into the skin of the hull.
Yet he signaled Brannigan and stood at the controls when the time came for the jump-off with a feeling of anxiety. How would the boat act? If the whole party were marooned on this iceberg as Mr. Damon and Mr. Nestor and the five sailors had been, who would come to their rescue?
“Not a chance!” Ned answered to these queries.
“All ready, Bran?” called Tom into the tube.
“Aye, aye, boss!” exclaimed the mechanician.
The hull of the flying boat began to tremble. The ice field ahead of her was quite clear of rubble and there were no chasms. The propeller began to spin and the boat rolled forward.
Trembling, shaking like some huge fowl trying to take the air, the Winged Arrow started. She cocked her nose skyward and left the ice. Up, up she soared, on a long slant into the east. The motors throbbed rhythmically while the gale whistled through the stays.
Tom felt the pull of the controls and knew that the slight rocking of the boat betrayed a good balance. On a graceful curve she left the surface of the iceberg and leaped out over the tumbling, open sea.
There was a wide channel between this huge berg and the nearest field of ice. Flocks of Arctic sea birds rose whirring beneath the flying boat. On the edge of the ice they saw two solemn looking polar bears fishing for seals. Sea lions played on one shelving beach of ice.