The Argosy, Vol. 90 No. 1 — page 33: what you’re looking at

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

THE FLYING CHANCE. the high-running waves. He could make out the short stumpy signaling masts, the torpedo tubes, the quick, rapid-firing guns, and— Suddenly there was more smoke! Not from the low, raking funnels, but from the starboard quarters! Then a sharp puff! And then another! And then a spitting stream! At the same instant came Jim’s voice, vibrant and tense; and Rankin could feel through the micrometer that even that passionless man was excited at last. —~ “They’ve got her, by God!” Rankin gripped the wheel and leaned forward as though he could by sheer mus- cular effort impart a yet greater speed to the hurtling machine. Then again the wire-drawn voice: “¢ Jack, it’s God’s luck! Under my—un- der your seat there’s another kind of pack- age. Been doing some hand-bomb practise on a raft, and there’s two or three left! Was going out again to-morrow. Can you reach? Can you steer her?” Rankin’s heart leaped with a wild exhil- aration of sudden battle. ‘ Steer her with my feet,” he hissed back, and he groped below the seat. “To the right!” came a yell which jarred his ear-drums. Rankin peered over the edge of the fuse- lage. At first he saw nothing but surging whitecaps; and then, cutting through them at a long slant from one gray patch of water to another, he discerned a thin streak which left ripples behind it like the fin of a shark. Without any definite idea of what he was to do he swooped down for it like a giant fish hawk. Then he saw that all round it there kept rising an erratic shower of foun- tains of high-flung spray which repeated themselves half a mile farther on, and then repeated again, and again at lessening in- tervals. But the phenomenon conveyed nothing to him, and he continued to rush on into the danger zone and noticed only that the ship had turned almost like a rabbit and was charging down on the same object at the same time. “To the left!” came another ear-split- ting yell. 27 Rankin snatched a hurried glance from the shark to look over his shoulder. There, within three hundred yards of him a long gray whale was emerging. There, was something he could see, something he could aim at. Instantly he banked over so that one wide wing-tip skimmed the wave crests, and hurled himself at it. Almost before he had regained his equilibrium he was above. His arm flashed over the side and heaved a conical black object clear of the wing, and then he was over. There was a giant splash, and: ‘Missed her!” yelled Jim, hopping in his seat to face backward. Rankin spat a terrible oath through his grim set teeth and wheeled over again on a sixty degree slant. As he came round he could see that the whale was hurriedly sub- merging again. The next second he snatched another black shape from its rest- ing place between his knees and flung it out, well forward. It passed from his view immediately. He saw Jim’s arms go up with an exult- ant yell; and the same instant a terrific blast of hot air from behind him kicked the tail of the machine up with a resistless sud- denness which drove its nose down at a steep angle for the water. At that height there was no possibility of regaining con- trol. In a second there was a tearing, foaming smash, and Rankin was hurled for- ward onto the wheel with the force of his own suddenly arrested momentum! VI. HERE was one test of the born aviator. Presence of mind. Rankin did not hold wildly on to everything within reach to save himself from falling; his first instinct was to fling himself clear from the entang- ling brace wires. Though he was under water and half smothered, he kept in mind the most open way out, and within the half minute he struggled out onto the limp wreckage of what had once been a lower wing plane. Jim was already crawling up onto an upper surface. “* Hell!” was his greeting. ‘“ Guess I'll ear no more toward that three thousand out of her. Come on up, the view is fine. This side isn’t smashed up so terribly, and oO Comiclboo S CO