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“But—after all—what do we know about outside conditions?”
“Think of the risks! God only knows what they might have faced. Anything, from the violence of a mob to a volcanic blast blowing them out of the sky.”
Tony was in charge of the landing arrangements. At three A.M. he was sitting on the edge of the field with Eve. Hendron had left, after giving instructions that he was to be wakened if they arrived. They had little to say to each other. They sat with straining eyes and ears. Coffee and soup simm
ered on a camp-stove near the plane-shed against which they leaned their chairs. Dr. Dodson lay on a cot, ready in case the landing should result in accident.
At four, nothing had changed. It began to grow light. Since the passing of the Bronson Bodies, dawn had been minutes earlier than formerly.
Eve stood up stiffly and stretched. “Maybe I’d better leave. I have some work laid out for morning.”
But she had not walked more than ten steps when she halted.
“I thought I heard motors,” she said.
Tony nodded, unwilling to break the stillness. A dog barked in the camp. Far away toward the stockyards a rooster crowed. The first sun rays tipped the lowest clouds with gold.
Then the sound came unmistakably. For a full minute they heard the rise and fall of a churning motor—remote, soft, yet unmistakable.
“It’s coming!” Eve said. She rushed to Tony and held his shoulder.
He lifted his hand. The sound vanished, came back again—a waspish drone somewhere in the sky. Their eyes swept the heavens. Then they saw it simultaneously—a speck in the dawning atmosphere. The speck enlarged. It took the shape of a cross.
“Tony!” Eve breathed.
The ship was not flying well. It lurched and staggered in its course.
Tony rushed to the cot where Dodson slept. “They’re coming,” he said, shaking the Doctor. “And they may need you.”
The ship was nearer. Those who beheld it now appreciated not only the irregularity of its course, but the fact that it was flying slowly.
“They’ve only got two motors,” somebody said. The words were not shouted.
Scarcely breathing, they stood at the edge of the field. The pilot did not wiggle his wings or circle. In a shambling slip he dropped toward the ground, changing his course a little in order not to strike the ten-foot precipice which had bisected the field. The plane was a thousand yards from the ground. Five hundred.
“She’s going to crash!” some one yelled.
Tony, Dodson and Jack Taylor were already in a light truck. Fire-apparatus and stretchers were in the space behind them. The truck’s engine raced.
The plane touched the ground heavily, bounced, touched again, ran forward and slewed. It nosed over. The propeller on the forward engine bent.
Tony threw in the clutch of the car and shot toward it. As he approached, he realized that fire had not started. He leaped from the truck, and with the Doctor and Jack at his heels, he flung open the cabin door and looked into the canted chamber.
Everything that the comfortable cabin had once contained was gone. Two men lay on the floor at the forward end—Vanderbilt and James. Ransdell was unconscious over the instrument panel. Vanderbilt looked up at Tony. His face was paper-white; his shirt was blood-soaked. And yet there showed momentarily in the fading light in his eyes a spark of unquenchable, deathless, reckless and almost diabolical glee. His voice was quite distinct. He said: “In the words of the immortal Lindbergh, ‘Here we are.’” Then he fainted.
James was unconscious.
The truck came back toward the throng very slowly and carefully. In its bed, Dodson looked up from his three charges. He announced briefly as way was made for them: “They’ve been through hell. They’re shot, bruised, half-starved. But so far, I’ve found nothing surely fatal.” Then to Tony, who was still driving: “You can put on a little speed, Tony. I want to get these boys where I can treat them.”
Two or three hundred people waited outside the surgery door for an hour. Then a man appeared and said: “Announcements will be made about the condition of the flyers in the dining-hall at breakfast time.”
The waiting crowd moved away.
An hour later, with every member of the community who could leave his post assembled, Hendron stepped to the rostrum in the dining-hall.
“All three will live,” he said simply.
Cheering made it impossible for him to continue. He waited for silence. “James has a broken arm and concussion. Vanderbilt has been shot through the shoulder. Ransdell brought in the ship with a compound fracture of the left arm, and five machine-gun bullets in his right thigh. They undoubtedly have traveled for some time in that state. Ransdell’s feat is one of distinguished heroism.”
