Napoleon stepped through into the pilot's cockpit. He was staggered by what he saw. Another shell had ripped away part of the windshield. Rain and wind was slashing through the broken hole. The co-pilot was slumped over his controls, unconscious. Blood was streaming down the pilot's face.
He turned his agonized eyes on Solo.
"I c-an't keep her up! Help me!"
With Illya's help, Napoleon pulled the unconscious co-pilot out of the way and slipped into the seat himself. Acting on the choked instructions of the man in the other seat, Solo helped him fight to keep the plane under control.
"Right rudder! R-right rudder!" the pilot cried.
Solo jammed the right rudder control down with all his strength. The plane was lurching with the renewed fury of the wind. The rain was increasing in violence. An occasional ball of hail banged like a cannon ball on the skin of the plane.
"The typhoon is overtaking us!" the ship's weather observer, Major Frank Patterson, came forward to tell them.
"T-here's not a chance with the ship crippled like this!" the injured pilot gasped.
"We can't ditch in the ocean!" the weather observer said quickly. "Those waves will pile up as much as a hundred feet high before the storm subsides. No human being could live in such a sea, no matter what kind of life vest he wore!"
"We'll never keep aloft," the pilot said, gritting his teeth against the pain from his cut head. "One engine is out now. Another is running rough. I don't expect it to hold out much longer. We have no directional aids. I don't know where in hell we are. Without a radio we haven't any chance of getting back to Hawaii."
"Look," the observer said, desperation in his voice. "This section of the Pacific is dotted with atolls. Can't we find one to crash land on?"
"Our navigator is dead," the pilot said wearily. "I don't know where we are. I don't know where any islands are."
One of the enlisted scanners stuck his head in the cockpit.
"Major!" he said, shouting to making himself heard above the howl of the wind ripping through the broken section of the windshield. "I checked the radio equipment like you told me. There isn't a chance of patching it up enough to get any reception."
"What do we do?" the major said.
"Pray, if you still know how," the pilot said.
His head drooped with weariness. Rain splashing through the cracked plexiglass, ran down his face. The plane side-slipped dangerously as his feet slipped on the foot controls. He caught himself in time.
Slowly through the combined supreme efforts of himself and Napoleon Solo, they got the plane flying half way level again.
All of them knew the pilot couldn't hold out much longer. He had already done more than any person should be called upon to do.
It would only be a matter of a short time before he would collapse completely.
Illya Kuryakin offered to take his place.
"You can sit between us and tell us what to do."
The pilot shook his head. "What good will it do? I think I can hold out longer than the plane will."
"Do you think we could make it to some atoll island if we could get a fix on our position?" Napoleon asked. They could converse a little better since Major Patterson rigged up a canvas barrier that partially cut out the driving rain slamming into the cockpit.
"Maybe," the pilot said. "That's all I can say—maybe. In this kind of a storm, nothing is certain. We're being carried farther into it. We don't have sufficient power left in our crippled engines to fight our way out!"
Napoleon turned and shouted back over his shoulder to Kuryakin, "Illya! Can you raise New York on the pen-communicator?"
"I don't even know if the thing works," Kuryakin said. "I haven't tried it since we got it back from the police when they searched Taro. But I'll try."
He pulled out the tiny world-wide communication set. A twist of the cap extended the six inch aerial. He quickly spoke his identifying call letters and added, "Kuryakin calling Mr. Waverly. Emergency! Over!"
He repeated the call several times. Then he paused. Vicious bolts of lightning were ripping through the black boiling clouds. He waited until the worse of the display was over. Solo looked back at him anxiously as Illya tried again.
"Kuryakin calling Mr. Waverly! This is an emergency! Over!"
"—ryakin. This is Wav—"
That is all they got. Illya looked at Napoleon.
"Repeat!—Keep—repeatin—"
"He means keep repeating your message over and over," Solo said quickly. "The atmospherics are so bad it keeps killing part of the reception. But if you keep repeating it, they'll be able to assemble a complete message from the fragments!"
"Here goes!" Illya said. "I hope it does some good!"
The tone of his voice implied that he didn't have much hope.
ACT IX: THE CRASH
Slowly, desperately, Illya Kuryakin kept repeating a brief message. It took about five minutes before Waverly's broken transmission indicated that the U.N.C.L.E. chief understood their situation. He told them to keep transmitting while the great U.N.C.L.E. locator transmitters located in strategic places around the world tried to zero in on the pen-communicator transmission and get a fix on their position.
Three minutes later Waverly reported: "We will have you in forty-five minutes."
"We must land! We must land! We must land!" Illya kept repeating the message for a full minute. "Give us the coordinates for the nearest atoll! Give us—"
This interchange went on for what seemed forever to the anxious men in the plane. Finally there was a slight break in the rain static. They heard Waverly so clearly he seemed to be in the cockpit with them.
"The Alofa Atoll, a group off the beaten track but governed out of the British Gilbert Islands, is about twenty-five miles from your present location, as nearly as we can determine. The storm is interferring with our reception on the locator beams as well as on the radio. If you take a heading of—"
"All our directional equipment is out, sir," Illya interrupted to say. "We don't even have a working pocket compass. All we know is that we are circling."
There was a silence on the radio. "I think we've lost them," Illya said. "And only twenty-five miles away! It might as well be twenty-five million if we don't know which way to head!"
Then the pen-communicator speaker boomed out again. "Waverly here. Can you read me?"
"You are coming in loud and clear, sir," Illya said.
"I can barely hear you," Waverly said. "I will talk fast before my own transmission fails. Our directional beams can no longer pinpoint you exactly. It is impossible for us to give you directions."
"Well, that's it!" the pilot said wearily.
"But there is a bare possibility," Waverly went on. "We have direct lines open to New York Weather Central and Weather Central in Hawaii. Weather planes with long range radar were dispatched over two hours ago. They have the storm in their scopes, but cannot pick you up. In any event, they know the speed and location of the storm exactly. It has stopped pulsing and is picking up fury. It is moving directly toward Alofa Atoll. Are you reading me?"
"Clearly, sir," Illya said quickly.
"Then here is what the aviation and weather experts suggest," Waverly said. "They say it is your only chance."