Argosy: The Short Story Magazine — page 86: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

86 DAVID BEATY case of emergencies to the large Atlantic liners and merchantmen. As to size, they were not far short of the Santa Lucinda herself. Kelston dived down low over them and headed Easy Zebra towards the stricken ship. Four times he circled them, diving down each time to give them their heading. They plunged forward slowly in the direction he gave them. The minutes slipped by. In an hour’s time, it would be night. Already the grey light of the storm was turning darker. Hawkins. was fidgeting. “‘ Very short of fuel, sir,” he said unhappily. They still had, after ai’, to land at Santa Anna. Kelston appeared-to take no notice. He went over the tugs again, and then, pulling out, he headed the aircraft up towards the north. He looked at his watch. Then, reluctantly, he said, “‘ We’ have to go now.” The tugs were still about 4 miles away from the ship. Bound to find her, he reassured himself. And yet, in this visibility and with darkness coming on, she must be easy enough to miss, more than half hidden by the mountainous waves. As he moved off, taking a last look at the steamer, he felt that his job was only half done. He knew that when they found her, the tugs would have a devil’s game trying to get her in tow, unless the sea abated. He kept on saying to himself, as Easy Zebra flew under the cloud towards San Miguel, they’ll be able, anyway, to get the men off her. Just a couple of miles ahead, they suddenly saw a brown cliff, emerging from the cloud and stretching down to the sea. Then a couple of tiny houses. Kelston turned to the left, parallel with the coast, and followed it round at a height of 800 feet. ‘* Not an orthodox method for approaching an airfield in bad weather,’ Kelston said to the First Officer. ‘* But in the circum- stances .. . the only damn thing we can do.” Shaughnessy contacted the Tower on Channel B of the Very High Frequency voice radio. ‘‘ Cloud base over the field goo feet,” they told him. ‘“‘ Wind north-easterly, 50 knots, gusting 60. Landing Runway one-three-zero magnetic.”’ Kelston screwed up his face when he heard it. There would be a heavy cross-wind component on the runway. But he said nothing. Easy Zebra gradually followed the coastline round to the north shore. ‘The radio compass still pointed at Santa Anna range station, now edging round to the right. Kelston saw the large tump of Rabo de Peixe hill to the left of the runway, its head buried in cloud. He called for the before-landing checks to be made. As the First Officer droned out the sixteen items, Kelston went through his part of the drills automatically. ** Field approach and landing-checks complete, sir,’’ Shaughnessy reported. 5 Kelston had lined up Easy Zebra pointing in the direction of the hill, on the runway heading of one-three-zero. It was still pelting comiclooks.comn)