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The propeller continued to turn slowly under the impetus of the starter; the engine remained dead and still. Then there was a sharp retort — almost like a pistol shot-and a burst of smoke came out of the exhaust. In four seconds there was another, then several. Ferguson cut off the starter, but after a few more erratic bursts, the engine came to a halt.

“Again!” he shouted to the ground crew. In response, Holcomb drew a circle in the air with his right hand. Ferguson reengaged the starter, counted six passes of a propeller blade through the copilot’s window, and then turned on the ignition once again.

He was answered almost at once by a staccato burst of sound. There were sharp gaps, but the propeller began to spin far faster. With his hand holding the throttle from underneath, which he had found to be the only feasible position, he nursed fuel to the struggling power plant, giving it more when it needed it, cutting back at once when it threatened to flood. He was more used to turbine engines, but he understood this one and he had put in long hours of work helping to clean every component and put it all back together in correct sequence.

The roughness peaked and then fell away; through the open window there came the almost steady beat of the 1,200-horsepower power plant that was spinning its propeller into a silver disc. Ferguson felt the airframe vibrate and knew that life had returned to it. He mind-vaulted back to the bitterly cold morning when he had first explored the flight deck of The Passionate Penguin and had found the controls as cold and rigid as stone monuments in the dead of winter.

Now they moved.

He heard the cheer outside, but it meant little to him. It was the engine that he heard as it settled down into smoothness. He let it run for five minutes before he tried the propeller pitch control. The blades responded — he could feel it. By gradual stages he tested the propeller all of the way up to full feather and back; as far as he could tell, everything was perfect. He ran the engine in for a full hour at slow speed; during that time almost everyone at Thule came by to have a look. A number of vehicles came down from J Site and one from the incredibly isolated P Mountain station. Several times more Ferguson cycled the propeller and each time it responded — apparently flawlessly.

Corbin came up and took over the copilot’s seat. In response Ferguson relinquished the run-in test to his partner. Corbin had a good deal of time on small piston-engined aircraft and held a civilian flight instructor’s rating. Also, he had worked like a beaver on the engine rebuilding.

After an hour and a half, Corbin shut down the engine and secured the proper controls. When he came off the flight deck there was a grin on his face that ran almost from ear to ear.

In the NCO Club that evening, Tom Collins called a meeting to which ten key invitees responded. Ferguson was there of course, and his whole crew; some of Det. 4 sat in, along with Collins, the indispensable Sergeant Feinberg, and a powerful Dane named Karsten Thorlund, who was the acknowledged head of the civilians engaged in the rebuilding project.

When the drinks had been served and everything was ready, Collins took the floor. “Gentlemen,” he began, “from the very start of this thing, we’ve been going on the very sound premise that we were going to restore the Penguin to all of her former glory, just as she was.”

“Amen,” Sergeant Stovers said over his beer.

“Now,” Tom went on, “I want to propose an exception — if we can do it. You all know how much we’re indebted to the Canadians up at Alert for overhauling the electronics for us. But there’s a big problem; the frequencies have all changed and so has the whole system of radio navigation. Everything that the Penguin has is low frequency; she can tune in all of the range legs, but there aren’t any more left.”

He waited for some response to that, but everyone else chose to remain quiet. He was right and they all knew it; a new electronic age had been born since the bomber had been abandoned on the ice cap.

Tom continued. “We’re going to fly her, of course, and when the story gets out about what’s been done here, I suspect that the Penguin is going to be one of the most famous planes in the world. She’s going to have to go to a lot of different places and make personal appearances; you guys all remember the Navy’s Truculent Turtle and how much mileage they got out of her.”

“Definitely,” Sergeant Feinberg said.

“So baby is going to have to have some modern electronics; without them she won’t be able to communicate.”

“Looking at it that way,” Ferguson said, thinking aloud, “she’s going to need, at the very least, dual OMNI, TACAN with DME, in all probability single sideband since she’s long-legged with more than a four-thousand-mile range, and at least one transponder: she’s got to be able to squawk.”

“All of which adds up to about thirty grand even without the VORTAC,” Corbin declared. “And none of that gear is surplus.”

“First,” Thorlund interjected in a rich baritone, “we have to decide if we want to install modern electronics or not.”

There was some discussion in response, but even the die-hard traditionalists had to concede that a four-engined aircraft equipped with radios that no one could hear and that were unable to receive any current communications would be hopelessly handicapped. “She’d never be able to file IFR,” Collins summed up, “and that’s grossly beneath her dignity, if nothing else.”

“We have to do it,” Corbin said. “I’ve been thinking the same thing, but I didn’t want to rock the boat.”

“How about the radios we have?” Stovers asked.

Ferguson answered him. “Anything she can use she keeps. Otherwise…”

“Has anybody got any ideas?” Holcomb asked.

In the thick silence that followed not even Sergeant Perry Feinberg was able to come up with a suggestion. He was, however, thinking. “Since she’s out of the Air Force inventory,” he said, “we can’t draw the gear in the usual way.”

“Isn’t there a crashed airplane somewhere between here and Alert?” Tiny Heneveld of Det. 4 asked.

“Yes,” Corbin answered. “I’ve heard about it. But that stuff has been through an honest-to-gosh crash and it won’t be worth an empty pea pod. You can throw it into the chop suey, and that’s all.”

“Not quite,” Mike Turner said.

“Expound,” Perry Feinberg invited.

“Simple: when you’ve got a piece of radio gear that doesn’t work, you turn it in to be fixed. If they can’t fix it, they issue you a new one.”

Chief Master Sergeant Feinberg sat stock still while a dawning light crossed his broad face, then he turned slowly and looked at the young helicopter pilot with new respect and possibly a certain amount of awe. “Do you realize what you have just done?” he asked. “You have forever settled a question that has confronted the Air Force since its inception. You have, at this sacred moment, proven for all time the indisputable worth and value of second lieutenants. It is a monumental event-and to think that I am present here to witness it!”

“How will we get the sets?” Corbin asked.

“Difficult, but possible,” Feinberg answered. “If all else fails, I have Eskimo friends and they, in turn, have dog teams. Something will be worked out.”

On the first day that the sun remained above the horizon long enough to give adequate daylight at midnight, the number two engine was successfully tested. With two power plants available, Ferguson made a ground phone call to the tower and then, armed with the necessary permission, he taxied the Penguin to the end of the runway and ran up. When he was satisfied, he turned as if for takeoff, started down the 10,000-foot strip and ran for over a mile at fifty knots with the tail lifted into flying position. It was the most exciting ride he had ever had; only by the exercise of great willpower did he keep himself from pushing the throttles all the way forward to see if she would come off the ground. She was empty of any payload and while she was shy some 2,400 horsepower, she was also relieved of some 5,000 pounds of engine weight. Probably she would have been able to do it, but the time was not yet.